A Shortcut on the Hero’s Journey

Dan Harmon was in a quandary. The Comedian turned TV comedy writer was frustrated with trying to turn the cumbersome Hero’s Journey (HJ—See previous post) into a useable plot to write a 30-minute sitcom. There were too many moving parts to fit into such a short script. So, he took a shortcut, and invented the Story Circle: a trimmed down version of the Hero’s Journey shrunk to fit the time constraints of TV. Instead of the 14 or so steps in the HJ, his template only consists of only eight steps. He placed these on a circle to match the HJ and it worked. The Story Circle is a versatile, easy to understand plot structure that can fit just about any story. What’s more, it can be used in conjunction with any of the other structures we have spoken about.  Here is a graphic representation of the Story circle.

The circle is further divided int four ‘halves”. The top half signifying familiar territory and the bottom half indicating the unknown. The circle is also divided vertically, with the right half signifying stasis, and the left half indicating a change in the hero.

Notice that instead of “He” or “She”, he uses a more personalized “You.”

 The first slice of the pie consists of “You,” or if you prefer “You are.” This is the “ordinary world” we are familiar with from Campbell’s theory.

The next slice is “You Want.” The Hero wants something that he feels will make his lie complete or at least improve it a lot. This may relate to the “Call to adventure” of the HJ, but here the “call” is something internal, vs a wizard or a droid.

Next comes “You go”, which relates to the “Crossing the Threshold” in the old order. The hero goes in search of his desired goal, but something else happens, as well: He moves from his familiar surrounding into unknown territory as he moves to the bottom half of the circle.

Next comes “You adapt.” Here the hero adapts to his new surroundings, but his mental state hasn’t yet changed. He is still his old self.

Next comes “You find.” The hero finds what he is searching for. (note that this takes place at the midpoint of the story and not the end.) But also he begins to change.  Part of his old self doesn’t seem to fit that well anymore. This is signified by crossing from the right to the left half of the circle. Note he is still in the bottom half, as well, still in unfamiliar territory.

The next step according to Harmon is “You take.” Our hero has won his prize, but pays a heavy price for it, this corresponds roughly to “Seizing the Sword” in the HJ. The price may be physical or mental or both.

Step Seven is called “You return”, similar to the HJ’s “Road back.” The hero returns home. Note that he crosses from the bottom to the top half of the circle, indicating his return to familiar territory.

The final step in the circle is “You Change.” Similar to “Return with the Elixir in the HJ, the Hero returns home a changed person. Notice that he is back in the top half of the circle, in familiar territory, but remains in the left half, signifying permanent change.

The Story Circle is pretty versatile and can be applied to many stories. Let’s apply it to a popular tale. As I said in previous posts, I like to apply these structures to old stories to show how versatile they are. For the Story Circle, I will use The Epic of Gilgamesh one of the oldest written stories known to man. It predates the bible by around two thousand years. Various versions of it have been found in ancient ruins of several empires, including Babylon and Assyria, written on clay tablets in cuneiform. Being an epic, there are various subplots and side trips, but we will concern ourselves with the main plotline with just a couple of detours.

(You Are): Gilgamesh is a great king in the city of Uruk but he is unhappy and bored. (Though no historical record of Gilgamesh’s life has ever been found, Uruk was a real city with massive walls, and the folklore of the town says they were built by him.)He is brutal to his people. The gods decide he needs a friend, so they take a beast of the woods known as Enkidu and turn him into a man-like figure (the way they do this involves a prostitute, but we won’t go into that).

Gilgamesh is walking down the road and meets Enkidu and they immediately begin to fight. They fight for a long time, and it ends in a draw (some versions have Gilgamesh winning).  As often happens, the two enemies become best buds. They go off on adventures basically terrorizing the neighborhood and pissing off the gods. When they kill the gods’ prized bull, the gods have had enough and decide to kill Enkidu in revenge.

Gilgamesh takes his friends death hard and morns over him. He begins to wish he could not die but could be immortal (You need).

Gilgamesh sets off to find a man called Utnapishtim, who is said to be immortal, hoping Utnapishtim can grant him eternal life, or at least tell him how to get it. (You Go).

Gilgamesh has many adventures on his journey, eventually ending up in a bar where the bartender tells him to forget about immortality and learn to enjoy life. (You adapt).

Gilgamesh finds Utnapishtim below the twin peaks (You find)

Utnapishtim tells him how he got eternal life. This is one of the earliest known flood stories. He says the gods thought the humans were too noisy, so they decided to wipe them out with a flood, but Utnapishtim built an ark and took his wife and all the seeds of the earth with him and survived the flood. The gods were flabbergasted and didn’t know what to do with him, so they made him immortal. (Side note: The instructions in the epic are so precise that in 2017an actual ark was built according to these 3,500 year-old directions. It floated. Probably scared the shit out of IKEA.)

Utnapishtim sets up a challenge: If Gilgamesh can stay awake for seven days, he can have immortality. He immediately goes to sleep and sleeps for seven days, losing his chance at immortality. But Utnapishtim tells him of a plant growing at the bottom of the sea, that, while not granting him immortality, will make him young again and erase his fear of death. Gilgamesh dives down and retrieves the plant but, not trusting Utnapishtim, decides to take it home. (It was not unusual at that time to have a slave taste one’s food to make sure it wasn’t poisoned).

So, Gilgamesh heads home, but on the way a snake steals the plant and eats it, shedding its skin and becoming young again. (You take: pay a heavy price).

(You Return): Gilgamesh returns to Uruk empty handed.

(You Change): Gilgamesh no longer fears death because he knows that life will go on after him. There will be other kings and other cities.  He begins to admire his city and the industriousness of its people. He is a changed man.

While the Story Circle works great for many stories, the fact that it was designed for a comedy means it always has a happy ending. How can we apply The Story Circle to tragedies? We will tackle that in the next installment when we look at an adaptation of the Story Circle known as the Tragic Plot Embryo.

Play around with it. Practice writing a story outline by writing one or two sentences for each step in the story circle or outline a favorite story using the circle.