Quests and Dan Harmon's Story Circle
- Bardia Rostampour
- Oct 4, 2022
- 6 min read
Introduction
When you start to search and read more to structure your story, whether it is for structuring the story of your screenplay, novel, video game, or even a fetch quest in an RPG game, you probably encounter a structure name Story Circle invented by Dan Harmon (Rick and Morty's creator).
Why Story Circle?
Almost every structuring tool is based on the Three Act structure, but if you feel that it is too vague, you can use other structuring tools ... like this one ... the Story Circle.
This structure has many strengths, such as its flexibility in structuring every part of your story and keeping your story moving forward not to lose your audience. You can use this pattern to structure the scenes, acts, and of course, the whole story.
I highly recommend you watch this video about structuring the Dark Knight movie with Dan Harmon's Stroy Circle to have a better understanding of what I will tell you in advance.
Now you watched the video, I am going to explain why I use this tool and why I recommend you to use it, especially for writing and designing quests in games.
Quests and Story Circle
Now, we are on the main topic of this article. How does this structure relate to the writing and designing quests?
As a better explanation and a practical example, I will describe the main designing and writing decisions for the quest I have made a few months ago. First, let's look at the overview of the story:
A lieutenant who has managed to infiltrate the army wants to carry out missions and reach higher positions by staying under cover of the army so that when he gains power, he can attack the
government of the ruling ideologue.
If you need to read more about the quest, please click here.
In almost every game I make or every story I write, I try to enforce my creation on a unique, emotional, or lived personal experience pillar. Or, as John Truby -the writer of Anatomy of Story- called it as designing principle. This quest was not an exception. I love the Necessary Evil concept, using the enemy's weapon against them. Another pillar I used to write this quest was to force two opposing men to face each other with different archetypes, personalities, motivations, and different strategies to talk. These were the first sparks of creating this quest.
Character Motivations
Levi Miller (The Protagonist)
Want: He wants to save his homeland's people by infiltrating the army to gain power.
Need: He needs to open his old wound by talking and finding his step-father to forgive himself.
Weakness: The most challenging weakness for him is that he wants to run away from his past and doesn't like talking about it.
Chris Palmer (The Antagonist - Levi's Step-father)
Want: Attacking the factory and killing them all is what he wants at any price, even his people's lives.
Need: He needs to be supportive and his people's savior, as he was in these past years.
Weakness: After the chemical attack on the graveyard, he only sees red and wants revenge regardless of whether others will survive.
The Old Structure: (One Quest Story)
COMFORT ZONE: Levi Miller is our protagonist, an infiltration sergeant, waiting for a proper time to rise against the governmental forces.
WANT SOMETHING: He has an order to go to the graveyard and kill the people affected by the chemical bomb. He doesn't want to rebel now since he wants to stay undercover to get powerful.
UNFAMILIAR SITUATION: After Chris -his step-father- asks him to go and kill the factory's staff and top governmental ranks, he enters an unfamiliar situation.
ADAPTATION: After Levi accepts Chris's suggestion by throwing the bomb toward the soldiers, they adapt to the new situation and prepare for a fight.
GET THE WANT: They penetrate the factory by using the transformed monster soldiers and defeat the guards. But they just find a scientist (Hans) who has invented the bombs.
HEAVY PRICE: To gain a bit chance of saving others, he kills Chris to fulfill Chris's need, protecting his people.
FAMILIAR SITUATION: By returning to the graveyard, they are back to a familiar situation.
HAVING CHANGED: With the death of Chris, Levi fails to save everyone, but Chris's need is now his also want, Becoming a leader and a survivor.
Let's Get Practical and Expand the Old Quest
Before diving in and writing the second story's quest, let's rewrite the story. We can write a two-quest storyline or a ten quest long storyline. Both are doable, but I prefer the latter to make it more accurate.
COMFORT ZONE: Levi is the protagonist.
WANT SOMETHING: He wants to stay under cover of the army to become powerful and help his people at the right time.
UNFAMILIAR SITUATION: He is given a mission to go to the place where he grew up and kill the people who survived a biological bomb test.
ADAPTATION: After meeting Chris, who abandoned her, he decides to help him in his last moments of life. In this way, by taking over the factory, Chris's wish was partially fulfilled, but when he wanted to kill Hans (one of the factory scientists), Levi had to kill him, and they ran away together.
GET THE WANT: They reach the safe laboratory known by Levi.
HEAVY PRICE: But the government was one step ahead and had attacked there. All the laboratory employees were killed, and some were kidnapped.
FAMILIAR SITUATION: Levi fails to provide a safe place for Hans. Thus, he fails to return to a familiar situation.
HAVING CHANGED: Levi realizes he shouldn't underestimate the government and needs to find a safer place for Hans as soon as possible.
Now we know the structure of the story. At this moment, we can split this into two quests:
Quest #1: Story Circle
COMFORT ZONE: Levi is the protagonist.
WANT SOMETHING: He wants to stay under cover of the army to become powerful and help his people at the right time.
UNFAMILIAR SITUATION: He is given a mission to go to the place where he grew up and kill the people who survived a biological bomb test.
ADAPTATION: Going there and meeting the godfather who abandoned him, he decides to help him and be his help in the last moments of his life. For this reason, they attack the bomb factory.
GET THE WANT: They were able to gain control of the factory and trap one of the scientists working on the bomb. But Chris gets in Levi's way. He wants to kill all the government forces.
HEAVY PRICE: Finally, Levi is forced to choose and decides to kill Chris to save the scientist, to buy all his people a chance to survive. With this attack, he pays a heavy price and puts himself in the crosshairs of the government forces. All his efforts in all these years are lost.
FAMILIAR SITUATION: Despite killing Chris and the death of many of his people, he was able to buy a slight chance to save his people. But he still failed to save his people.
HAVING CHANGED: With the attack on the factory and the defeat they suffered, he decided that as an army lieutenant, he should not discuss similar cases and should make a decision himself.
Quest #2: Story Circle
COMFORT ZONE: Levi is the protagonist.
WANT SOMETHING: Now that he is no longer in the army, he wants to save his people by protecting the scientist (Hans) by making the antidote.
UNFAMILIAR SITUATION: With the attack on the Black Graveyard, he enters an unusual situation. He does not know how he wants to become powerful or gather strength.
ADAPTATION: After several attacks on them on the way, he gets used to his unfamiliar situation by saving the scientist.
GET THE WANT: Finally, they successfully reach a laboratory outside the city to stay away from the government.
HEAVY PRICE: But government soldiers entered the laboratory and killed all the employees.
FAMILIAR SITUATION: Levi fails to provide a safe place for Hans.
HAVING CHANGED: Levi realizes that he shouldn't underestimate the government and must find a safer place for Hans as soon as possible.
If you are new to writing ...
I have some recommendations that are worth mentioning:
Don't force yourself to use a specific structure. However, using them properly would help you to write your story better.
I prefer to write a beat sheet of my story and then
You can go back and forth between your beat sheet and the structure tool you use to enhance your plot and structure.
I don't remember which one of the Film Courage videos was that, but the instructor mentioned that be emotional about plotting out your story. It is perfect to be emotional and go with your instinct, but be careful. Writers use structures because they do not want to get the audience mad by jumping between random scenes.
If somewhere in your story, you lost your character motivations (the second plot point), it should be best to step aside and think about your story and your protagonist's motivation.
Aron Surkin (award winner screenwriter) in his MasterClass said that you just need intention and obstacle to write your screenplay. I entirely agree with him, but it did not work for me since I needed more light in my way to move forward.
To Study and Read More
More about Dan Harmon's Story Circle
Recommended Resources I Studied about Structuring
Final Notes
One of the worst things you clearly do not want to see in your story is to lose the cause-and-effect chain in your events. Structuring patterns like this and others help you to build your story on a firm foundation. After practicing and writing your stories, you will structure your stories with the help of your instinct.
It is clear that this structure will not be a miracle and wrap up your story just by using it, but this will help you brainstorm and keep your story together.
I would love to read about your experience and answer your questions. So, if you have anything to add, do me a favor and post it.
Thank you for your time.
Comments