Welcome (back) to Flash Week! Today is Day 3. If you missed Day 1 and Day 2, go back and do those, and come back with a favorite core idea and some thoughts about what might be in your story. If you have been following along, make sure you have your thoughts from Day 2 handy for today’s writing exercise. We’re completing a first draft of a story in just ten minutes a day, so time is tight.

We’re using Dan Harmon’s story circles framework to build our final outlines today. The story circle is a classic structure: a protagonist descends into the unknown and returns, changed. More specifically, the eight points are: You, Need, Go, Search, Find, Take, Return, Change.

Here’s today’s exercise:

The outline points for a story circle are: You, Need, Go, Search, Find, Take, Return, Change. A protagonist recognizes something they want, goes into the unknown to find it, gets it and pays the price, and returns having changed.

Copy / paste (or manually hand-copy) this template for the eight points of the circle:

1. You (establish a comfortable protagonist):
2. Need (they want something):
3. Go (they enter an unfamiliar situation):
4. Search (they adapt to it):
5. Find (they get what they were looking for):
6. Take (and pay a heavy and unexpected price):
7. Return (they go back to familiarity):
8. Change (they have changed from their adventure):

Write one complete thought for each point of the circle. In a flash piece, especially, a single narrative scene may plow through multiple points — but each point should still be individually covered.

Finish a complete set before you allow yourself to experiment or change your mind about the story. But if you have time AND you have one set COMPLETED … then you may play with a second, third, or fourth alternative.

Got it? Great! Save it. That’s your outline, congratulations! I’ll see you tomorrow for Day 4, when we’ll buckle down and start writing that prose.