Adventure!

Ask yourself about where you are in your journey. You can think about this in relation to your whole life, or on a smaller scale, and consider the adventure as a small part of it. Have you set an ambitious goal to make the swim team? Are you taking the first steps in learning the drums with the intention of joining a band? Have you been inspired to learn to draw by that comic book you love? Think of these as your adventures, and consider the three goals; yes, those apply to you as well. Everything you try, every difficult task, has an external goal (how you measure success), an internal one (how the attempt changes you), and a principle that’s connected to it.

Even if the circumstances are different, the principles are the same. The ideals of trust and honor apply to your life just as it does to Anna and Elsa’s. Even if your brother or sister doesn’t possess magical powers, overcoming our differences and fears for love of family is among the most important things we have to do. Courage, selflessness, compassion; these ideals are just as important to you, me, and everybody as they are to the heroes we read about. It’s just as important for you to act according to principle as it is for them. Determine what is good and do what’s right, and not just what’s self-serving, and you’ll be following in the footsteps of the greatest heroes in story.

It’s also important to consider others in your life, and not only their role in your life, but also your role in theirs. Ask yourself:

• Do you have three goals? Think of long-term and short-term goals, and what they mean to you.
• What roles are other people fulfilling in your life? Is there a mentor? That would probably be a parent or a teacher. Who are your greatest allies? If you have enemies, how can you turn that around? Can they be friends instead?
• How can you be a better ally to your friends? Think of the journey others are on, and what you mean to them.
• Is there someone who is acting as a threshold guardian in your life? Are you blocking someone else on their journey?
• Do you think that you might be blocking yourself on your journey? Are there feelings and thoughts inside of you that could be getting in the way of achieving your goals?

Problems with the Hero’s Journey

The Hero’s Journey is a model not only for understanding stories, but for understanding our own lives. We can read a book or watch a movie and think about how the conflicts on the page or on screen might relate to things we confront ourselves.

But as we discussed, noticing differences is just as important and finding similarities. Stories are a series of events engineered to create conflict for our entertainment, but they are not real life. Follow your path and address conflict in your life, but don’t go looking for it.

Also, stories are often structured in such a way to ensure that the hero has no help and must act alone. This is great in a story context, where we get to see the hero look deep within himself and find the courage he needs to survive.

But in the real world, there are a number of resources so we don’t have to act alone. Students can rely on their parents or teachers for help when they’re faced with an emergency. We adults don’t feel that we have to handle things ourselves when, say, our house is on fire; we just call 911. A society exists to ensure the well- being of everyone; you are not on your own.

Beyond the Hero’s Journey

Campbell’s explanation of the Hero’s Journey covers the myths and legends of cultures all over the world. His work analyzes old stories and uses them to explain commonalities between all people. Many writers use his ideas as inspiration for the story they want to tell, and that’s fine, but a whole generation of books about writing have emerged that treat Campbell’s ideas as a formula, and they imply that any deviation from it is sacrilege.

This is, in a word, nonsense. Campbell never said that the model is how all stories must be told in the present. The so-called experts who promote such approaches have resulted in books and movies that are predictable and stale.

The Hero’s Journey is the form that connects the stories of cultures in far-flung places, separated by time and distance; it is the first tale told by everyone. It’s the foundation for all the stories that followed. Musicians start by learning major and minor scales; visual artists start by learning to draw primitive forms such as cubes and spheres. Those who read and write stories start by learning the fundamentals of narrative. Writers since then have changed things, mixing things up to create new structures, but the building blocks of story are all contained in the Journey – conflict, opposition, and sacrifice. Once you understand those, you can understand stories in any form.

As you grow and discover new books and movies, you’ll find yourself enjoying stories that deviate from the model, or abandon it altogether. Don’t concern yourself with that; as long as we care about what happens next, it’s a good story.

Some of the first variations to the form happened when writers would subvert some element of the Journey:

• In the stories we discussed, the Hero is expected to win in the end, emerging victorious and living happily ever after. A tragedy is a story designed with a different purpose: to set us up for a sad ending. Tragedies exist to express how precious life is by showing us the pain of loss. A great tragedy is as beautiful as any story can be. The GOAT (Greatest of All Time) and undisputed champion of tragedies is William Shakespeare, with masterpieces such as Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, King Lear, and Othello.
• Some stories set us up to follow a bad guy, or at least someone who’s certainly no hero. These are antiheroes – characters who possess few or none of the admirable traits of the hero, but the writer tells us the story from his perspective. We find ourselves pulling for him in spite of our values. Rooting for the antihero can be a lot of fun; it’s not real life, no one is really getting hurt. It’s a thrill to put on the bad guy’s clothes and enjoy the other side of the story for once. Shakespeare has his share of antiheroes in plays like Macbeth and Richard III. In modern times, The Godfather movies and the TV show Breaking Bad encourage us to follow someone in their rapid descent to evil. In video games, have you ever played the bad guy in games such as Grand Theft Auto? Then you understand the appeal of the antihero.

Use what you’ve learned to understand the stories you read and movies you watch; don’t use the Journey to make rigid expectations of what a story should be. Let writers and artists do their job and amaze you.

The Storyteller’s Journey

Have you thought about writing your own stories? If you love stories, then read a lot; that’s the first step, one that each of your favorite writers and filmmakers have taken.

There’s a whole library of books written by great writers and critics about stories in all forms: novels, plays, screenplays, and comic books. I’m certain that a whole critical structure around narrative in video games will emerge at some point. But most stories can really be boiled down to a few questions, and before you immerse yourself in that library, start just by taking a few steps:

• Make a cool concept with a conflict at the center of it.
• Build your world and determine what the rules of living there are.
• Think of who lives in the world you made, and give them a problem to solve.
• Listen to the characters. Think of what they want to do, not what you need them to do.
• Remember, the journey is a guide, not a formula. Feel free to mix up all of the elements of the journey in any way you like; the important thing is that the journey is exciting for the reader.

There’s much more to it, of course. Writing is a lifelong pursuit; these are just the first steps. If you decide to follow this path, you’ll learn a lot more later from great writers, both by reading their stories and by listening to their advice. Look in the recommended reading for some of the better books on writing stories, but to start, you must first do this: dream.

Recommended Reading

If you enjoyed learning about The Hero’s Journey, here are some other books that might interest you.

The Hero’s Journey

The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell (New World Library, ISBN: 1577315936)

This is the mother of them all, the book that introduced the idea of The Hero’s Journey. Note that he didn’t invent these ideas; they already were part of the structure of the stories from cultures all over the world; Campbell was just among the first to engage in critical analysis of ancient mythology and make connections between those stories. He also uses his conclusions to connect mythology to theories by the psychologist Carl Jung, but you don’t need to understand that to enjoy the stories. Keep in mind that this book is a collection of his academic papers, and as such, is full of writing that is very dry and dense. For something more readable, see the next entry.

The Power of Myth, Joseph Campbell in Conversation with Bill Moyers (Anchor Books, ISBN: 0385418868)

This book is a much more accessible introduction to Campbell’s ideas than Hero with a Thousand Faces. It’s an edited transcript of a six-part public television documentary (which you can also watch on YouTube). Campbell explains and expounds on his ideas using stories old and new, as well as historical events and the news of the day. Moyers is a perceptive interviewer and a great conversationalist. You could read the book or simply watch the videos on YouTube here.

The Hero with an African Face, by Clyde W. Ford (Bantam, ISBN: 0553378686)

This book is an enjoyable application of Campbellian ideas to stories from Africa. Ford is knowledgeable, perceptive, and a good storyteller in his own right.

Mythology

Here are some of my favorite collections and translations of myths and legends from cultures all over the world. A good translation can really make the stories come alive (and is a necessity unless can read Ancient Greek or Yoruba).

• African Myths and Legends, J.K. Jackson, editor (Flame Tree Collection, ISBN: 1839648880)
• The Annotated Arabian Nights: Tales from 1001 Nights, translated by Yasmin Seale, edited by Paulo Lemos Horta (Liveright, ISBN: 1631493639)
• Beowulf: A New Verse Translation by Seamus Heaney (Farrar, Straus and Giroux ISBN: 9780374111199)
• Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman (W.W. Norton & Company, ISBN: 039360909X)
• The Odyssey, by Homer, translated by Robert Fitzgerald (FSG Adult, ISBN: 0374525749)
• Sir Gawain and the Green Knight by Simon Armitage (W.W. Norton & Company, ISBN: 0393334155)
• Women Who Run with the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ph.D (Ballantine Books, ISBN: 0345409876)

Writing

The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White (ISBN: 979-8848365924)

If you want to write well, the first book you’ll need is a good dictionary; this is the second. The Elements of Style is simply a masterpiece of clarity and concision, and as such, teaches you how to express yourself clearly with a minimum of fuss.

The Writer’s Journey by Christopher Vogler (Michael Wiese Productions, ISBN: 1615933158)

Though it was written specifically for screenwriters, The Writer’s Journey is also a very simple and clear introduction to Campbell’s ideas using the movies of the time as a reference.

Steering the Craft by Ursula LeGuin (Harper Perennial, ISBN: 0544611616) 

Aspiring novelists would be well-served by picking up a copy of Steering the Craft, a great introduction to developing elegant English tailored for narrative. LeGuin is a legendary science-fiction author, so she has a perfect understanding of the obstacles you’ll face if your tastes run to genre fiction. It’s specifically a workbook, so you won’t get any benefit from it unless you actually complete the exercises contained within. It’s a great book to work on as part of a group; giving and receiving constructive criticism is a fundamental part of improving as a writer.

On Writing by Stephen King (Scribner, ISBN: 1982159375)

A combination of autobiography and writing book, King’s primary instincts as a storyteller transform a book about writing into a book on how King learned to write well, and as a result, the lessons are more enjoyable and easier to digest.

Into the Woods by John Yorke (Harry N. Abrams, ISBN: 1468310941)

Yorke dives into the different elements of story and how they fit together to make something that keeps readers turning the pages and viewers glued to their screens. While the book addresses many elements of story, you’ll find that its greatest contribution to your development as a writer may be a good understanding of plot, which is the sequence of events within a story.

Elmore Leonard’s Ten Rules of Writing (William Morrow, ISBN: 9780061451461)

The great writer of crime and western fiction compiled a list of rules he followed to create readable prose and make himself invisible so that the reader would be able to concentrate on the story. One of the cardinal rules of great storytelling is ‘show, don’t tell’. Don’t tell your reader that someone is bad, show them doing something bad. Though this was published as a book, Leonard initially wrote these rules for The New York Times Book Review, and you can find his initial piece online for free. 

Those are a few of my suggestions; I envy those of you who get to read these wonderful books for the first time. I wish you all the best of luck on your future adventures.