Dan Harmon's Story Circle: A Tool for Crafting Compelling Narratives

Imagine you are an aspiring writer trying to pen down your first novel. You have vivid characters and an intriguing setting, but the story itself seems lackluster and flat. This is when you need a powerful storytelling tool to elevate your work, like the Dan Harmon's Story Circle.

Dan Harmon, the brain behind popular TV shows like "Community" and "Rick and Morty," created a simple, 8-step model for structuring narratives, known as the Story Circle. The Circle is designed to ensure all essential elements of engaging storytelling are incorporated into a story.

Breaking Down the Story Circle

1. The Comfort Zone: The protagonist is in a familiar situation.
2. The Call to Adventure: Something occurs that disrupts their daily routine.
3. Reluctance, Then Acceptance: Initially resisting, the protagonist eventually enters this new situation.
4. The Road of Trials: Encountering challenges and gaining key insights or skills.
5. The Goal, or Achievement: The protagonist achieves what they set out to do, but it’s seldom what they expected.
6. The Return, or Consequence: Having changed, they begin to face the results of their adventure.
7. Dealing with Change, the New Normal: They integrate their new experience into their life.
8. Arriving Back to the Familiar Situation: The protagonist returns to their normal life, but they’ve changed.

Applying the Story Circle

For instance, consider a story about a talented young swimmer afraid of participating in competitions.

1. Her Comfort Zone is just swimming alone in her local pool.
2. But the Call to Adventure arrives when her coach insists she compete in an upcoming tournament.
3. She Resists, but eventually Accepts due to her parents' encouragement and her coach's faith.
4. The Trial comes as intense training sessions, unfamiliar pools, and the pressure of competition.
5. She Achieves her Goal by winning the competition, but she realizes victory isn't as glorious as she imagined.
6. The Consequence of her decision to compete is the expectation to continue competing and the stress that comes with it.
7. She Deals with Change by deciding to use swimming as a platform to inspire young girls.
8. She Returns back to her normal routine of swimming, but now as a confident competitor and not just a solitary swimmer.

Why the Story Circle Works

Dan Harmon's Story Circle brings the transformative journey of a character full circle, generating emotional investment from the audience. It drills down to the purpose of storytelling: to depict change. Applying this tool can help create compelling narratives that resonate with audiences, facilitating the success of your story.