Dan Harmon's story circle

The story circle is an eight-step model of a story as a round trip: a character leaves what they know, gets what they were after, pays for it, and comes home changed. It was devised by the screenwriter Dan Harmon, best known for creating the sitcom Community and co-creating Rick and Morty, as a pared-down version of Joseph Campbell's hero's journey that he could apply to anything from a feature film to a single TV episode. What makes it distinct is the circle itself: the end returns to the beginning, and the story's meaning lies in the difference between who left and who came back.

The steps

Picture a circle with a line across its middle. The top half is the familiar world, the bottom half the unfamiliar one. The first four steps go down into the unknown; the last four climb back out.

The steps sit opposite each other in pairs, and the pairs are what give the circle its shape:

• You and Find face each other across the circle. What the character finds should answer who they were at the start.
• Need and Take are a want and its cost. The more they wanted it, the more it should hurt to pay.
• Go and Return are the two crossings, out and back. Each should feel like a threshold, not just a change of scene.
• Search and Change are the two kinds of growth: forced adaptation in the unknown, then the settled change that shows once they're home.

The most important moment is Find, at the bottom of the circle. It sits at the halfway point, and it's often a twist: the character gets exactly what they asked for and discovers it isn't what they needed, or finds something better they weren't looking for. Take then makes sure nothing comes free.

Where it shines

The story circle suits science fiction, character-driven stories and short pieces. It's at its best when:

• The change is the point. If your story is about someone becoming different, the circle keeps that in view from first page to last.
• The story is small. Eight steps are few enough to fit a short story, a novella or a single episode without padding.
• You're writing episodes or a series. Each book, part or even chapter can be its own circle inside a larger one.
• You need a quick check. Eight words (you, need, go, search, find, take, return, change) are easy to hold in your head while drafting.

Where it struggles

• The middle is broad. Search covers a lot of ground. In a full-length novel it needs its own shape, or it becomes a list of episodes.
• Antagonists are implicit. The circle cares about what the character goes through, not who opposes them. If your story depends on a strong villain, a structure with named pressure points, such as seven-point, may help more.
• Not every story comes home. Tragedies and stories that end somewhere new can still use the circle, but Return and Change have to be read loosely: home can be a state of mind.

Tips for using it

• Make the Need specific. "She wants to be happy" won't drive a story. "She wants her brother to forgive her" will.
• Make Go a real crossing. The unfamiliar situation should have different rules, so the character's old habits stop working.
• Let Find surprise. If the character gets exactly what they wanted with no twist, the second half has little to do.
• Make Take personal. The price should cost them something they care about: a relationship, a belief, a part of who they were.
• Show the change, don't announce it. Bring them back to a situation from the opening and let them act differently in it.
• Nest circles. For a novel, give each half, or each act of a subplot, its own smaller circle.

A worked example

Oren is a mapmaker's son in a hill town who has never been beyond the valley.

1. You: he copies other people's maps and is proud of never making a mistake.
2. Need: he wants to make a map of his own, one that will carry his name.
3. Go: he joins a salt caravan heading into the uncharted desert.
4. Search: his careful methods fail in shifting dunes; he learns to read stars and listen to the guides.
5. Find: he charts a route to a hidden spring, the map he dreamed of.
6. Take: a sandstorm costs the caravan its leader, and the guides ask him to keep the spring secret to protect it.
7. Return: he goes home with a map he can never show anyone.
8. Change: he stops copying maps and starts training apprentices to walk the land themselves.

The pairs line up: the proud copyist (You) finds something greater than his name (Find), and the map he wanted (Need) is exactly what he has to give up (Take).

Compared with the hero's journey

The circle grew out of the same ground as the hero's journey and follows the same route out and back. The hero's journey names twelve stages and the figures met along them, such as the mentor; the circle keeps only the movement and the change. Use the hero's journey for a sprawling quest, the circle when you want the bare shape. See Choosing a story structure for the others.

The story circle in Mythforge

Start a manuscript from Story Circle and Mythforge sets out the eight steps as chapters, grouped into the circle's two halves. See Story structures for the steps.

• A word target of 70,000 words and 16 chapters to begin with.
• Two acts, The descent and The return, each in its own colour, so the chapter list and the planner show where the character turns for home. See Acts.
• Every chapter has its step's synopsis and a word target that's its share of the whole: the long middle steps, Go, Search, Find and Take, get more words than You or Change.
• Change the word target and chapter count before creating. There's always at least one chapter per step; extra chapters split the longest steps into parts, such as Search, part 2.
• Everything stays editable afterwards. Check that the paired steps answer each other on the planner, and follow the change itself with How to write a character arc.