Dan Harmon is the enigmatic creator of such hit series as Community, Rick and Morty, and Harmonquest. He's a podcaster, writer, and all-around neurotic visionary.
For decades Harmon has channeled his frantic mind into work that manages to be carefully crafted and utterly unique. He's also a self-described student of storytelling. For many years before he found mainstream success, he blogged about storytelling and offered advice to his contemporaries. His description of a character's journey in any story - film, novel, television, and campfire alike - has exploded in popularity.
It is nothing new. It is an elegant rewording of basic story structure that has been talked about for centuries. That doesn't make it meaningless. Just as stories evolve over time to reach new audiences, so does the breakdown of what makes a story moving. That analysis must keep pace with the speed of our stories.
Considering that 96% of Americans have a podcast and nobody can stop bingeing to save their own life... presented in all it's adolescent glory... a poor retelling of Dan Harmon's "A Hero's Journey"... which is already a reworking of Campbell's "A Hero with a Thousand Faces"... with only a few drum rolls more... for the reading pleasure of my nonexistent fans... who want quick, digestible articles... that don't linger or pause... so without further ado...
The Hero's Journey: Paraphrased to Perfection Plus Alec's Thoughts That Should Be Disregarded, Probably.
Harmon begins his explanation with a basic map: a circle divided into 8 equal segments. You know, a pie. At each interval along this delicious 'clock' is a step in the protagonist's journey. The first!
1. You
The character. The lonesome cowboy, maybe. This is a lens through with the viewer will experience the story. This is (usually) a person who is about to be thrust into crisis. No story ever allows its protagonist peace of mind. If not in the very first moments, then catastrophe will befall our character sooner rather than later.
Characters aren't meant to be real people. Even in a biography, never believe that you're meeting the man himself. Characters are tools used to reflect the tensions that come with living on Earth. They look and sound real but they are little more than mirrors. They are funhouse reflections of ourselves, twisted and prodded to give the viewer insight into the realities our character will never know. They must:
2. Need
want something! The character must be proactive, making a clear choice based on a desire. Something is wrong in this character's life (remember that 'crisis' from mere seconds ago?) and nothing will change without action.
The character must connect with their desire before choosing to:
3. Go
dive into the journey. In order for the story to truly begin, the character must start walking down the long road. If Link collects his sword then goes back to take a nap, the Legend of Zelda doesn't happen! The character must make their first plunge into the great unknown.
There must be stakes! Danger! Whether physical or mental, this must not be an easy climb. This is a new world that the protagonist must enter - a world that pulls at the very nature of the character as they:
4. Search
hunt in a new world. After taking the leap out of crisis and into adventure our protagonist must struggle. Indiana Jones wouldn't make for much of a franchise if Indy always found the treasure, no problem at all. There must be series of trials and tribulations as our character inches closer to the desire that brought him there in the first place. As they crawl deeper into a world of intrigue and confusion, eventually they will:
5. Find
discover what they were searching for. This may be literal - the gold nugget that they so desperately searched for - or it may be figurate: a fatal discovery, a change of heart, a newfound friend.
This, most importantly, is where our character begins to climb back up the circle of the story. They have been tried and tested. Now, they have fallen to the deepest trenches and will begin their journey home (whatever the hell that means). They must:
6. Take
use the lessons learned from their struggle and turn to their ultimate challenge. This new foe is the greatest of all, but it may hardly be the reason our hero began their journey in the first place. With a sword between their teeth, this is when our character ascends to the mountaintop as a new man. Scarred and tired, they:
7. Return
come back to the world they left having become a new person. In the darkness of their adventure, they learned how to grow. The tension reflected in the character has been explored: Thesis/Antithesis/Synthesis isn't just a high school English guideline... it's another name for the 3 Act Structure.
Now, they must defeat that ultimate baddie. It will ultimately be because of their:
8. Change
personal growth that they will succeed. They will become, as Harmon says, "The Master of Both Worlds," having survived their adventure in a dark world and returned home to the light as a savior. They will be heroic, sometimes. Defeated, occasionally. They will never be the same as they began.
