The Story Circle
Eight steps around a circle.
Wanting something takes a character out of familiar territory. The Story Circle follows their pursuit, the cost of getting what they want, and the change visible when they return. Its eight steps offer a compact view of a character’s complete movement through an experience.
How it works
Wanting something takes a character out of familiar territory. The Story Circle follows their pursuit, the cost of getting what they want, and the change visible when they return. Its eight steps offer a compact view of a character’s complete movement through an experience.
The eight steps are You, Need, Go, Search, Find, Take, Return, Change. Start with a character in a familiar situation. A want takes them into unfamiliar territory, where they adapt and reach for what they came for. Getting it carries a cost. Returning reveals how the experience has changed them.
For example, an apprentice wants recognition and joins an expedition. She wins the prize, but doing so costs a friendship. When she returns, choosing to share the credit makes her change visible. Ask what your character wants, what pursuing it costs, and what they do differently afterward.
The circle connects pursuit with transformation. Its equal segments make the pattern easy to draw; they do not require each step to occupy one eighth of a story. The timeline here is an illustrative reference.
The framework, part by part
Positions are illustrative comparison references, not universal timing rules.
- You (0%–12.5%, Ordinary world): Your character, at rest in a familiar place.
- Need (12.5%–25%, Inciting incident): A want takes hold.
- Go (25%–37.5%, Commitment): Into the unknown.
- Search (37.5%–50%, New world): Adapting to new rules.
- Find (50%–62.5%, Midpoint): Getting what they came for.
- Take (62.5%–75%, Lowest point): The price comes due.
- Return (75%–87.5%, Final push): Back to the familiar.
- Change (87.5%–100%, New normal): Changed by the trip.
Use it for
TV episodes, short films and any story that needs a full arc in a small space.
Watch for
Subplots and ensemble characters each need their own circle.
See how your story works.
Explore 30 approaches to story structure through short films and illustrated guides. Bring an idea or a draft, build your outline, and compare how different frameworks organize its events.
Free to use. No account needed to write. Save a backup to keep your work.
A short film on every structure
Each of the 30 structures has a 90-second animation that draws its shape beat by beat, and a page with every beat, how its parts work, questions to try, and when it can help. Start with one you’ve heard of.
All 30 structures on one timeline
Each row is one structure. The story runs left to right, from the first page (0%) to the last (100%). Bars are beats that last a while; diamonds are single moments. Drag the red line to any point, and the list below shows the nearby beats in each structure.
- Bar: a beat that lasts a while
- Diamond: a beat at one moment
- Red line: the point you’re reading
- A blank stretch: that structure names no beat there
- Act II-A and II-B are the two halves of Act Two, split at the midpoint.
Rows 1 to 13 follow Robert Carlson’s Ultimate Story Structure Chart (2015). Rows 14 to 21 are the structures readers of that thread asked him to add, and rows 22 to 30 are nine more we added. Positions combine source conventions and editorial estimates. Use them to compare approaches; they are not universal timing rules.
† Credited on Carlson’s chart. We found no primary source; the tree line is also credited to George Abbott and George M. Cohan.
Outline your story in any structure
Choose a framework and give its prompts a few sentences. Compare suggested placements in other frameworks to find a useful question or a different way to develop an event.
Pick a structure you know
Not sure? Try one of these, or any of the 30.
Write a sentence for each beat
A beat is one turn in the story, like the Catalyst that knocks your hero’s life off course. Each beat comes with a question to help you answer it.
Compare another framework
The comparison suggests where your notes could fit. Review each match. You decide which prompts matter to your story.
We wrote The Wonderful Wizard of Oz as a Save the Cat! outline. These excerpts from our outline of Baum’s 1900 novel show how suggested placements change between frameworks. Unmapped prompts describe this partial outline, not a flaw in Oz. Pick any structure you know and try it with your own story.
Sketch your story’s ups and downs
Kurt Vonnegut drew stories as a line that rises when things go well for the main character and falls when they go badly. Draw yours from left to right and we’ll name the classic shape it’s closest to.
Take it to the page
The free 91-page guide has the full chart, a chapter on each structure, printable worksheets and beat calculators for films, episodes and novels.