The Hero's Journey - Return With the Elixir

I know, I’ve really been dragging my feet writing these last few Hero’s Journey entries, and this one was no exception. It’s bad for me, being a blogger and taking forever to write up some really meaty material that has meant a lot to me in the process of writing and rewriting my novel. Maybe I’ll do a follow-up post to this part of my blog where I dish on all the mushy stuff I want to say about The Hero’s Journey, or even a bit about the archetypes found in the course of the Journey, but right now it’s time to delve into this one final stage of the grand epic. That’s right, it’s time to Return With the Elixir!

The Return stage is essential to resolving a story, because everyone has to go somewhere once all is said and done, and more often than not it’s a return to the Ordinary World. Harry Potter returns to 4 Privet Drive to live with the dreadful Dursley family, and Percy Jackson returns to his loving mother and another school year. This brings the story full circle and offers an excellent opportunity to illustrate just how your Hero has changed and grown on his Journey. Showing how people react to your protagonist in this moment as a contrast to how they reacted to him at the start of the story will do more to convince your reader that there was character development than if you simply state in the narrative that he’s different. Remember, the key is to show, not to tell.

If your Hero was sent out to find something or someone, this is where he returns triumphant with that object or person of note to transform the Ordinary World into something better than it was before. However, this isn’t always the case. Sometimes the Hero doesn’t return to the Ordinary World. Sometimes, for whatever reason, he stays in the Special World. (Can anyone say sequel? How about series?) In this case, the narrative, not the character, returns to the Ordinary World to illustrate how the absence of the Hero is felt by those he left behind. If there is a sequel to this story, the Special World then becomes the Ordinary World and vice versa, shifting the status quo of your narrative dramatically.

Let’s wrap up Rob’s story using this stage of the Hero’s Journey. His Return With the Elixir takes the shape of his novel, the Elixir he’s been seeking for the longest time. With that monumental accomplishment in hand, he returns to his life feeling more empowered than ever. He knows he has what it takes to write a novel-length work, and he knows he can see it through to the end. That confidence and self esteem bleeds through in his demeanor. No longer is he blindly stumbling through life dreaming about what could have been or might be. He’s been there, he’s done it, and he returns to the people who know him revitalized. He seems more energetic and vibrant, his excitement about writing infectious to those around him. He rejoins his friends at the gaming table, but his creative energy is no longer bound solely to that arena. Now his thoughts turn toward the next great adventure: Editing his first draft for publication.

And that, my loyal followers, completes our exploration of the Hero’s Journey! As a reminder, this is by no means a complete analysis of the Journey. I’ve hit the highlights here, but there are many books that delve into these sections in greater detail than I’d care to inflict upon you in the pages of my blog. If you’re inclined to learn more, however, I’d suggest reading the original material by Joseph Campbell in The Hero with a Thousand Faces or, if you’d prefer something more modern and not as dry, Christopher Vogler’s The Writer’s Journey. And, as always, if you have questions or comments about any stage of the Hero’s Journey, please leave them in the comments section below!

One more thing: Always remember that the Hero’s Journey is never really over. The ending of one story is but the beginning of the next.

Until next time, safe Journey!

The Hero's Journey - The Ordinary World

Medieval Europe. Modern-day suburbia. Outer space. No matter where your story takes place, it needs to start by establishing your main character and the world he occupies. (And while I’m going with the masculine here, “hero” applies to female protagonists, too.) The Ordinary World, then, is the status quo of your story, the world that your main character is comfortable in.

If we look at creating a story like erecting a building, this is the foundation that everything else will be built upon, so it needs to be solid. A flimsy and careless take on the Ordinary World will make for a story that seems good at first glance, but on closer inspection shows its flaws. To make that structure as sturdy as possible, your Ordinary World needs to be strong and compelling. After all, Harry Potter didn’t start out in Hogwarts right at Chapter One. He grew up in a non-magical house with very normal (if overly cruel) caretakers, which grounded us in realism from the start so that the magic he discovers later on is made that much more impressive.

And that’s the trick – making the Ordinary World real and believable, so that the extraordinary and unbelievable circumstances that follow will have a greater impact. This is true even if your story is set in the distant past or far off future. Even if you’ve created a majestic new world with a setting beyond belief, there needs to be every effort to connect your audience to the tale, to connect them with the story so that your extraordinary circumstances later on will have a greater impact. Dan Brown’s Robert Langdon books establish his ordinary world right from the start – he’s a professor who works for a university, his days spent researching and giving lectures. It’s a pretty normal – Ordinary – life, which gives contrast to the remarkable scenario he is inevitably drawn into. Look at all of your favorite stories, and you’ll find that each one sets up The Ordinary World in its own way.

To illustrate this example, let’s follow the Hero’s Journey of a young man named Rob. His Ordinary World is a routine of work and play, work and play. He gets by in life by working a boring retail job with an overbearing manager that pays him a little better than minimum wage, and that paycheck funds his gaming hobby. After work, Rob gets together with his friends and they play roleplaying games, escaping from the woes of the day into whatever fantasy world they’ve created in their imagination. He has big dreams of being a writer, and even though the short stories he writes for his gaming group are well-received, he doesn’t think he has what it takes to do what he really wants to do – write a novel.

It’s a believable Ordinary World. It could be anyone’s life, maybe even the life that someone you know is living right now. That plausibility connects the reader to the narrative, grounds it in a reality that will be the yard stick that the rest of the story will be measured by. It also establishes the hopes and fears of the main character, setting up the journey ahead.

Once you’ve established the rules of The Ordinary World, it’s time to start breaking them. I’ll discuss The Call To Adventure in my next entry!

The Hero's Journey - Road Map

No, this isn’t the uber-post. For those who want to keep track of where the Hero’s Journey will take us over the next dozen entries, I thought I’d post a quick road map both for my own reference and to stimulate thought until I do make my next big entry. Don’t worry, it’s coming!

For simplicity of storytelling, I’ll use Mr. Vogler’s outline as it hits the essential plot points and seems more adaptable to modern stories:

THE HERO’S JOURNEY

1 – The Ordinary World
2 – The Call to Adventure
3 – Refusal of the Call
4 – Meeting the Mentor
5 – Crossing the Threshold
6 – Tests, Allies and Enemies
7 – Approach
8 – The Ordeal
9 – The Reward
10 – The Road Back
11 – The Resurrection
12 – Return With the Elixir

Part One - The Ordinary World coming soon!

The Hero's Journey

I’ve made mention a few times of the Hero’s Journey and its impact on the format of my story, but I haven’t really elaborated on what it is and how it shapes my narrative. I think it’s time to change that.

At its core, nearly every story ever told follows some variation of the Hero’s Journey, dating all the way back to ancient cultures and their mythology. From the original epics all the way up to modern movies, the Hero’s Journey is exactly that – the path a protagonist takes through the narrative and the events that happen along that road. The Hero’s Journey was originally mapped out by the esteemed Joseph Campbell, and The Writer’s Journey updates those concepts for the entertainment industry. If you want a comprehensive look at the Hero’s Journey, you can pick up the aforementioned book or Mr. Campbell’s Hero with a Thousand Faces. In this and future posts, I’ll be hitting the highlights, particularly as they apply to my writing.

First of all, the Hero’s Journey is a catch-all title that encompasses both genders. While the concept of the boy going out on an adventure to become a man is a time-honored staple of this model, the “Hero” part of the Hero’s Journey refers just as easily to women as it does men. In point of fact, one of the three individual Hero’s Journeys that stretch through my trilogy focuses on a female protagonist. One could even say her journey is the catalyst that sets the other two journeys into motion…

Secondly, the Hero’s Journey doesn’t always refer to an actual physical journey. While it often takes the form of a road trip or some other method of travelling to experience the danger and excitement that awaits us outside our front door, this isn’t always the case. A spiritual or emotional journey, one that takes place within as opposed to without, can also fall under this category. This version of the Hero’s Journey may not take the audience to exotic locales, but it may take them through a path of self-discovery as they follow the protagonist through a crisis of faith or a new relationship.

And finally, the Hero’s Journey isn’t just a structure for popular fiction. As Chris Vogler mentions in his book, writers – indeed, all people – go through their own personal Hero’s Journey in their lives. There’s a reason these types of stories resonate so well with audiences, and that’s because we can see a reflection of that adventure playing out day by day. Most of us can recognize the everyday version of those classic story figures – the mentor who taught us everything we know, the gatekeeper keeping us from progressing to the next stage of our journey, the allies who have aided us along the way – and can relate to the dramatized scenarios that much more because of it. Because of this, I’ll be illustrating each stage of the Hero’s Journey through the next few posts by drawing upon (highly fictionalized*) examples in my own life.

Put on your boots and strap yourselves in, we’re about to go on a Hero’s Journey!

* All names and some details will be changed to protect the innocent… and not so innocent.

Let There Be Structure!

Now that I had my audience in mind, I was ready to go forth and reshape my story to fit the Young Adult Fiction mold.

This was no easy task, I’ll have you know. I wrote the first draft of my story with only a few characters in mind and an attitude of “Let’s see how they react when I throw this curveball at them” toward writing the tale. It made for fun storytelling, but my retooling of the narrative thus far had only reinforced the fact that I really didn’t have a solid framework to build my story upon. It was a beautiful example of stream of consciousness writing, but that’s all it was. Fixing this, of course, would have to be the first order of business.

Fortunately, I didn’t have to find this new structure all by myself.

Through Barbara, I was able to contact her own writing coach, the very gracious Claudette Sutherland. She read the mess that was my story at that point and helped me figure out what audience I was aiming for. Armed with that information, she put me in touch with someone who could better help me organize my story for a younger crowd, the talented and prolific Michael Scott. The two of us sat down with my modest story and proceeded to break it down to build it up bigger and better than ever.

This sounds like fun, but let me tell you, when you’ve poured so much time and energy into creating something, even the most constructive criticism feels like someone just ripped your puppy apart. The bottom dropped out of my stomach and it took all my effort not to sound defensive at every question directed at why I chose to do what I did with my little manuscript. Even then, I’m sure I looked just like I did when a bully in elementary school tore the arms off of my favorite Star Wars action figure. (Han Solo, for the record.)

All was not lost, however. To the contrary, Mr. Scott freed me from the crutches I’d used in my story so I could walk the road I wanted to travel with my story, a road that would be far more compelling to my readers than the trite journey it had been previously. While I had tossed around the idea of my story as modern-day mythology, he helped me truly focus on what sort of scope I was aiming for. I wasn’t writing for television, or even for a movie, where the size of the story is limited by time and budget constraints. This was a book about gods and mythology as they would be applied to the modern world, and it deserved the same grand scope as the earliest myths of gods and men. (Hm… “Of Gods and Men.” Future book title? I’ll keep that one in reserve.)

To this end, I was instructed to reread one of my favorite books, The Writer’s Journey by Christopher Vogler, and really take a look at the mythic structure and how it can be applied to modern stories. I reviewed the outline of the Hero’s Journey and measured my story by it, changing huge swaths of my narrative to give it the proper feel. The end result, once I’m done writing it, will be an epic in nearly every aspect of the word – and for a hint of what you can expect in my trilogy, check the definition posted in the entry before this one.

I also went back and replotted the original story according to the Hero’s Journey, giving it some actual, honest-to-goodness structure by writing a chapter by chapter summary of the book, then proceeded to do the same with the newly envisioned Book Two and Book Three. It’s still a work in progress as some characters become more prominent and thus necessitate a retooling of the outline to compensate for their new role in the story, but there is now a definitive beginning, middle and end to the whole thing. And while you can enjoy the Hero’s Journey as it is in Book One, the entire trilogy acts as one massive Hero’s Journey for the main characters. Heck, there’s even a Dark Hero’s Journey in place for the antagonist…

There’s more to be said for changing my mess of a draft into a functioning outline for a young adult trilogy, but that’s a story for another time. At least now you’re all mostly caught up with where I am in the process of writing my grand narrative. Stay tuned, I’m just getting started!