Dan Harmon's Lessons on Storytelling (or "Please Geek Out With Me, Friends!")

[Yawa]

I know some of us actually fancy ourselves writers (some of you more successfully than me, probably), and I've been on a Dan Harmon kick so I thought I'd share this.

This first video from Just Write is especially #relevant to our little writing community, since it's about his storytelling in Harmonquest:

D&D and other games like it are ultimately power fantasies. You enter the game, overcome obstacles, and get stronger along the way. If that's all that happens it can be an incredibly fun and rewarding experience... for the player. But that doesn't necessarily mean it'll be fun for the audience. Harmon's decisions, on the other hand, deliberately make his character weaker. He has an internal flaw to fight against, and that gives the story much more dramatic meat to work with later on.

And his lessons Story Structure, seen here: https://channel101.fandom.com/wiki/Stor ... Basic_Shit

Here we go, down and dirty:

. A character is in a zone of comfort,
. But they want something.
. They enter an unfamiliar situation,
. Adapt to it,
. Get what they wanted,
. Pay a heavy price for it,
. Then return to their familiar situation,
. Having changed.

You know all this instinctively. You are a storyteller. You were born that way.
--- Dan Harmon

Now I wanna know: how many of you guys plan out character arcs? Do you have a formula you follow? Do you geek out about Joseph Campbell and writer's craft books, too? Do you deliberately make your characters weaker, morally, psychologically, physically, or otherwise? Please share!

[Xedanis]

Short answer: abso-bloody-lutely, to all of the above.

Slightly longer answer:

I think that in order to stay interested in a game like this, you need arcs and at least some form of forward planning. God knows playing the same dullard pirate bar fixture drove me berserk quite quickly; in fact it still does. Whenever Xedanis finds himself in a doldrum, I'll throw something terrible at him.

Why?

Variety. Change. Challenge. Intrigue. Anyone who's seen my writing will attest that all these things are not only necessary to keep the character fresh but also, they're a requirement to keep me interested in the first place.

When I decided to bring the pirate back, I knew he needed a story, a reason if you will; something underlining his return that i could fall back on and explore. This has happened a few times. When he was buried, it was the Hell arc; after that, the Reforged arc; nowadays it's ... Well other things. I don't want to spoil it.

Point is, no one wants to play short-form barflies forever. Things get incredibly boring that way. How dull would Xed's journal be if it was just daily entries of "went to the pub. Drank rum and coke. Played piano. Grew tails and got rid of them. Drank more rum."

Nope. BORING.

That's why whenever people come to me saying they have an idea for an epic story but they're worried about consequences or public opinion I will happily tell them, "to Hell with what public opinion thinks. Do the thing.".

I personally have a subconscious penchant for putting the pirate into George R R Martin levels of trouble, getting him out of it with Michael Bay levels of explosions and 80s-90s-Stallone levels of fighting and slow motion running through storms of fire etc. And yes, some of those arcs have steadily mounted up to making the pirate's power set broken beyond all reasonable ken.

BUT.

He's interesting. He has a story to tell.

Imho, that's what matters. :3

Thanks for letting me weigh in on this. I'm going to go figure out something else ludicrous for the rum-soaked backstreet boy to overcome.

[Alex Ayres]

I don't think infallible characters are fun to write. Alex is very fucked up mentally (as many characters who have interacted with him on more than just Ab have witnessed) and has attachment issues with anyone he tries to get close to.

But that goes into the planning stage. I do plan, but I also plan for the story to not go as planned.

For example when I was writing the MDG Inc. arc for Alex, my plan was for the end of that arc to be when Alex died. Some sort of self sacrifice to kill this organization that was hell bent on killing supernatural beings to save the city (and a lot of the people) he loved. But as I wrote it I realized that he doesn't die yet. And actually, they've had his number this whole time.

So the path I follow when writing him and other characters isn't a rigid one. I have an idea of where it's going, but I'm mostly discovering the story along with the character.


This is a cool thought exercise. Never really examined my RP-writing style until now.