The Hero’s Journey, or How to Drive Yourself Nuts with Formulas
Apr 17th, 2006 by Sandra
I’m a fan of Joseph Campbell. Anyone who can observe broadly, think deeply, and frame conceptually has my regard. Never heard of him? He’s the comparative mythology guru who realized that all mythic stories have twelve basic elements — Ordinary World, Call to Adventure, Refusal of the Call, etc.
Then along comes a student of Campbell’s called Christopher Vogler, who extrapolates out for writers this very journey. Every serious novelist has likely at least read Vogler’s The Writer’s Journey, and more than one workshop has been taught on using the twelve elements in your own story. Vogler took things a step further by including breakdowns of blockbuster movies like Star Wars (epic quest in sci-fi form) and even Pulp Fiction.
So I was having a conversation with the critique partners the other day and the wonderfully talented fantasy writer was talking about reworking her plot for the fortieth time to get the twelve elements into it, and I snapped.
“What the hell are you bothering with that for? The whole point of Campbell’s research is that we can’t help but write in the form of the hero’s journey! It’s hardwired in our freakin’ brains!”
You’d have to know this lovely woman to understand she doesn’t give up without a fight, especially if winning the argument means she gets to put herself and her current work in progress through the wringer. So we discussed, slightly heatedly, perhaps, the entire issue of Campbell’s and Vogler’s formula and how it applied or didn’t to what we do.
I don’t know if she was convinced, but I was: The first draft of the plot should just flow onto the page without our trying to force it; afterward, we can go back and apply the twelve elements as we recognize them already emerging in our work. Sure, use the elements to strengthen the work, but only after the essential story is on the page.
Writing is hard enough work without trying to jump through all these hoops. Trust the story, as one of my writing teachers once told me. It already knows what it wants to be before we ever start writing it.
I love your take on Campbell and Vogler! You write wonderfully complex stories with intricate plots - it is so encouraging to learn that you don’t spend tons of energy making sure you are following the ’story map’. I’ve wasted more hours that I want to think about trying to plot doing exactly that. Recently, I gave myself permission to JUST WRITE THE STORY and suddenly, I’m enjoying my writing again! Thanks for this validation!