The Writer’s Journey, Series #3, Post 5 of 5, The Hero’s Journey as Life’s Journey

Mundane Errand, Epic Adventure

In the final chapter of The Writer’s Journey, Vogler tells a true story out of his own life about life and death and how following a certain path led him to safety.  I won’t attempt to retell that story here, because I think is perfectly told in his book.  I am going to spoil the quote he used:

“In the midst of life’s journey I found myself in a dark wood, for the right path was lost.”

That’s right.  This quote is from the Inferno, by Dante, and I can’t think of a better quote for this chapter.  You see, the thing about good stories is that they come out of real life, and the Hero’s Journey model can be applied to your daily life.  For example, if you wanted to bake a cake, here is how the Hero’s Journey might play out:

1. Ordinary World/Normal Day at Home
2. Call to Adventure/See a cake commercial, have a craving for a cake
3. Refusal of the Call/I’ve never baked a cake and I have no idea where to start or how to do it, maybe I shouldn’t try
4. Meeting with the Mentor/Happen to notice a cookbook and take a look at a cake recipe, only to discover that it doesn’t look so hard after all
5. Crossing the First Threshold/Leave the house to go to the store to buy the ingredients
6. Tests, Allies, Enemies/driving through stoplights and traffic, arriving at the grocery store, collecting ingredients
7. Approach to the Inmost Cave/heading toward the check out line
8. Ordeal/getting through the check out line
9. Reward/having bought the ingredients
10. The Road Back/driving home, through stoplights and traffic
11. Resurrection/making the cake
12. Return with the Elixir/I now get to eat my cake!

Of course, there are half a dozen other ways that you could play with this analogy, but I’m sure you get my point.  If you’re ever stuck for ideas try looking at your own biography.  I mean, if a cake isn’t exciting enough for you, try replacing the word “cake” with “magic spell” or “clone” or “top-secret government device”.  Let your imagination go from there.

This Concludes my Series of Blog Posts directly on The Writer’s Journey Mythic Structure for Writers by Chris Vogler.  For further information about these topics, please read the book.  My next post, however, will involve The Writer’s Journey as it will be a writing exercise I’ve come up with based on The Writer’s Journey.

The Writer’s Journey, Series #3, Post 4 of 5, The Writer’s Journey

The Role of Storytellers

If “Stories Are Alive” is my favorite chapter, this chapter, “The Writer’s Journey,” is the second most important to me.  My first most important chapter is the one I’ll be discussing in my next post, which will also be the last post in this series on The Writer’s Journey, Mythic Structure for Writers by Chris Vogler.

Storytellers as Shamans

Chris Vogler spends about a page’s worth of words talking about how Writers are like Shamans.  In his words, “we writers share in the godlike power of the shamans.  We not only travel to other worlds but create them out of space and time.”

In my words, I would put it like this:  Storytellers all have a certain kind of gift that is one part lying, one part art, and one part crazy.  In order to tell a good story, we have to lie well enough that the audience will suspend their knowledge of reality for the duration of the story.  It also takes a certain skill to weave the pieces of a story together by manipulating language, which is an art form.  Finally, we must be just crazy enough to listen to the “voices” of our subconscious, to make up an ending to the weird dream we had last night, or to create an imaginary life for a random stranger we happen to see in a bookstore.

Coming Soon:  The Writer’s Journey, Series #3, Post 5 of 5, The Hero’s Journey as Life’s Journey

The Writer’s Journey Series #2, Post 2 of 5, The End of the Beginning

Act 1, part 2

These are the next steps of the Hero’s Journey that occur in Act 1, according to Chris Vogler in The Writer’s Journey Mythic Structure for Writers.  Although I am presenting these in the order that Chris Vogler suggests, I also want to make sure you are aware of the disclaimer Chris Vogler attaches to his suggested order:  These scenes represent forces and plot points, and can appear in any order the writer sees fit.  This particular order seems to be the most basic and chronologically sound.

Refusal of the Call

This happens about halfway through Act 1, based on the diagrams in Chris Vogler’s The Writer’s Journey, Mythic Structure for Writers.  It is the moment where the Hero hesitates before leaving the Ordinary World and plunging into the adventure.  On the other hand, this could also be a moment where a Hero is held back against his/her will.  I just watched the Miyazaki movie Ponyo recently, and there is a point near the beginning where the mermaid character, Ponyo, wants to go live with the humans and her father captures her and traps her underwater to keep her from going out of the Ordinary World (under water) and into the adventure.  Ponyo, of course, escapes, and leaps headlong into her Hero’s Journey.  For another example, in the book The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan, Percy Jackson fights for his life against a monster out of Greek Mythology but can’t quite believe that what’s happening is really happening.

Meeting with the Mentor

This is where the story inserts a force (either as a character or some other motivating force) that compels the Hero to respond to the Call to Adventure after the refusal.  At this point, the Hero is given what he/she needs to overcome the Refusal of the Call.  In Ponyo, this would be the moment where Ponyo escapes from the bubble where her father put her, and gets into her father’s potions, which allow her to escape completely from the ocean.  Her meeting with her father (Mentor) gave her what she needed to leave the Ordinary World (Ocean) and go to the Special World (Land).  In The Lightning Thief, this is when Mr. Brunner gives Percy a pen that turns into a sword he can use to fight off monsters.

Crossing the First Threshold

This is the end of Act 1 and the “point of no return”.  This is the point after Meeting with the Mentor, when the Hero finally enters the Special World and cannot go back to the Ordinary World.  In Ponyo, this would be when Ponyo runs through the ocean and creates a tsunami in order to get to the land and find Sosuke, the human boy she’s fallen in love with.  In The Lightning Thief, this event is almost the same thing as Refusal of the Call, and Meeting with the Mentor, because it happens in two places:  one, when Ms. Dodds becomes a Kindly One at the Art Museum and Mr. Brunner (Mentor) gives Percy the magic pen that turns into a sword; second, when Percy fights a Minotaur and loses his mother just before escaping into camp half blood.  In both cases, there is a sense that Percy is being forced out of the Ordinary World and into the Special World (while at the same time he is realizing that his teacher is more than he seems, and his other options are being taken away so that he will be forced to continue his adventure).

The Order of Events

Sometimes certain steps in the Hero’s Journey can appear to happen at the same time (as with The Lightning Thief, where Percy experiences Meeting with the Mentor and Refusal of the Call at the same time as Crossing the First Threshold).  Is there anything wrong with this?  Absolutely not!  The Lightning Thief is a fantastic story as it is, and so is Ponyo.  The thing about these steps in the Hero’s Journey is that they are almost like characters themselves.  They have their own personality and flavor, and they can be tweaked and combined, just like the archetypes can be.  As to which steps in the Hero’s Adventure are most essential, I’ll point you toward Chris Vogler’s Blog, where he has a post title “Hero’s Journey Short Form” which discusses the most essential steps in the Hero’s Journey.

Coming Soon:  The Writer’s Journey Series #2, Post 3 of 5, The Plot Thickens

The Writer’s Journey, Series #1, Archetypes – Main Characters

As promised, here is the first installment of my series on The Writer’s Journey by Christopher Vogler and all the various insights he presents, along with my thoughts and ideas about stories and writing.  If I were ambitious enough to give each chapter of the book its own blog post (which one could legitimately do), I would be doing 26 posts in this series, and it would take 6 months to complete.  I have decided against such a vast commitment of time and will be combining chapters here and there for a total of 13 posts (to be written over the course of about 3 months rather than 6) divided into 3 series:  Archetypes, The Hero’s Journey, and Essentials for the Journey.

Archetypes – Main Characters

(series 1 of 3, post 1 of 3)

Today’s installment is the first of three in the Archetypes series:  Main Characters.  These are the main forces that will be present in any story.  They do not necessarily have to be represented as individual characters, though 9 times out of 10 they do appear as characters.  This, I think, is because of the strength of these forces.  These are the forces that create the plot.  Without these Archetypes, there is no tension and thus no real plot.  I am making the argument here (and I think most storytellers will agree) that plot requires tension.  If there is no tension there is no plot.  There may be a string of events plodding along one after the other and they may together create a timeline that someone could call a story, but I don’t expect it will be a very interesting story.

Hero/Protagonist

The first of these main characters is, obviously, the Hero.  Christopher Vogler makes the distinction that the Hero figure represents Freud’s Ego, which is the conscious self.  As such, this character begins as part of the normal whole, and through the Journey separates from the normal whole to become a separate individual, distinct from the normal whole.  Vogler goes on to say that the basic premise of the Hero’s Journey is the search for self identity and a sense of “wholeness”.  This is usually the character who changes the most in the story, or who has the most to lose, or both.  This character will be complex, face death, make some kind of sacrifice (possibly in relation to facing death), and will be flawed.  Vogler also discusses various kinds of Heroes from willing to unwilling, loner to group, and more.  Exactly which type of Hero you use will depend on your story’s needs, and your personal preferences.

The Hero is also usually the character your readers will relate to the most, which is why the Hero is the one with the biggest identity crisis or identity challenge.  The best example I can think of for this is in the recent movie Rango, where the lizard doesn’t even know his own name until he ends up in this small wild west town where he has to pretend to have a reputation to avoid misfortune.  He invents his entire past in just a few minutes and creates an identity that he will be challenged to live up to later in the story.  We all feel out of place at least some of the time (if not most of the time) and rarely do we feel that we truly belong somewhere.  We are painfully aware of our quirks and oddities and we struggle to find a group of people to call friends who are like-minded and who possibly even have similar oddities to ourselves.  This is why this character is most often the protagonist.  You want your protagonist to be the one your readers can relate to best, so that the entire story will remain interesting to your readers.

Shadow/Antagonist

This is the force opposite to the Hero, and Vogler immediately pegs it as an initially internal force, represented psychologically by the things we repress inside ourselves, “the dark secrets we can’t admit, even to ourselves”.  These are things like guilt, envy, feelings of lack, feelings of loss, severe trauma, etc.  Usually, these things are represented in an external villain or antagonist of some kind who opposes the Hero outright.  This opposition becomes the main source of tension in the story.  Vogler also makes the point that the Shadow doesn’t have to be evil, rather it’s more like the Shadow is working on his/her own quest or Journey and it just so happens that our Hero is in direct opposition to the Shadow’s goals.  Only one of the two can achieve victory, for there is no way to reconcile their opposing desires.

In Rango, to continue the example I started using above, there are two such shadows.  The external Shadow is the mayor, who is buying up all the land with plans to build a modern city that will make him a huge profit, but the internal Shadow is Rango’s own doubts about himself, his lack of belief in himself and his own certainty that he has no identity.  It’s not until after he overcomes those internal Shadows and discovers his identity that he has the ability to overcome the external Shadow and foil the mayor’s plans.

Mentor/Guide

The Hero cannot become what he/she needs to be without the Mentor.  Vogler calls the Mentor the psychological Self, which is the part of us that is our best, wisest, purest, etc.  This is usually a character, but could also manifest as a book, the Hero’s conscience, or other non-character forces.  The primary function of the Mentor is to prepare the Hero for the inevitable confrontation with the Shadow.  This will include giving the Hero gifts, protection, and lessons.

This may have something to do with me being a teacher, but I find Mentor characters the most fun to write and do different things with.  They can be willing or unwilling, good or evil, Shadows in disguise, or gods in disguise, and an infinite number of other possibilities.  The Mentor colors and shapes the Hero’s understanding the world beyond that normal place where the Hero began and shows the Hero how to face the Shadow – if that Mentor turns out to be corrupt, what will the Hero do then?  In Rango, there are two Mentor figures that spring readily to mind.  One is the Armadillo that tries to cross the highway and the other is the Spirit of the West that the lizard meets while on his quest to find his identity.  Each one only appears briefly, gives the advice that’s needed, and then moves on.  Of course, you could also have a Mentor who stays with the Hero too long and works with the Hero too much, and explore how that would help and hinder the Hero in different ways.

What do you think?

What are some of your favorite stories and who or what takes on these roles in those stories?  Can you think of any stories that lack a Hero, Shadow, or Mentor?  Leave a comment with your thoughts!

Coming Soon:  Archetypes – Secondary Characters, series 1 of 3, post 2 of 3

NaNoEDMo!

Since I have a hefty-sized manuscript already, I have decided to participate in a self-imposed “NaNoEdMo” while all my writing friends do their frenzy of writing.  I worked it out this afternoon that if I edited three chapters a week, I could be finished with this round of edits by the end of the month.  I rebroke all the remaining chapters and came out with a total of 36 for the whole manuscript.

At the end of the day, I have finished editing two and a half chapters and managed to write in enough extra material for one more chapter in the manuscript, so now I have a total of 37, which means I need to edit one and a half chapters tomorrow instead of just half of one in order to keep to my goal.  Ugh.

What’s making me really nervous is the fact that my manuscript is now well over 90,000 words, and if I keep adding chapters here and there, it’s going to be up to 100,000 pretty quick, and this is supposed to be young adult.  So I’m hitting my threshold of length, and I’m scared that I’m going to have to go back through and cut like 100-400 words from each chapter.  Granted, having to cut that much will make each chapter that much stronger, and it’s probably a really good exercise to do anyway just to make it that much more awesome, but it means another round of edits before I can send it to the agent who asked for it.

And I refuse to settle for sending her something that’s good.  I’m not sending it until it’s knock-your-socks-off awesome.  Every word will demand that she read more.  The plot will blow her mind.  The characters will fly off the page and drag her into their reality.

I will get as damn close to these goals as I can before I send this thing off into the world of agents.

The Edge of the World

Some day I’m going to write something about the edge of the world.  Actually, I’ll probably write several somethings about the edge of the world.  It’s such a philosophically ripe concept.  I mean, you can think of it as an ending, but by definition an ending implies that there was a beginning at some point, somewhere along the way, and if you look at it from another point of view, all endings beg new beginnings.  And that brings up the question:  what kind of a beginning starts at the end of the world?

What I’m seeing in my mind, is basically a cliff edge, but at the top there’s grass and trees and animals and people, of course, but down in the bottom it’s all fog and mist and no one can see what’s below for miles and miles.  It’s like an ocean of fog, and they call it the edge of the world.  Well, the story idea I’ve got in mind starts with the main character jumping off the edge of the world.  Not sure why she jumps yet.  I’m torn between having it be forced, like she’s running away from something, and having it be a choice, like she wants to see what’s out there.  Another idea would be starting with having her attempt to kill herself, but I’m nervous about writing that kind of thing, because it’s very intense in a lot of ways and I want to be able to do that subject the justice and seriousness it deserves.

So, anyway, that’s the idea so far.  Not sure if it’ll ever turn into anything, but I needed a topic to blog about this week, and this was all I had.  Hopefully it was worth your time. 

Review: The Sorcerer’s Apprentice

I often gauge how good a movie was by how it makes me think after watching it.  A good movie will make me want to write after watching it, either because it’s inspired me with an idea for a story, or because I’m so excited I want to write some fanfiction.  The Sorcerer’s Apprentice went one step beyond that:  it inspired me with a philosophical idea that I will now share with you:

It is easy to move a person’s mind – all you need is a riddle.  It’s harder to move a person’s heart, but even that looks easy when compared with the task of moving a person’s soul.

I won’t say anything more about the movie.  It was GOOD.  It was worth spending money on.  You should go watch it now.

Sleepless Rambling About Impossible Wishes

So I couldn’t sleep and I had this story idea flitting around in my head and decided to write it out and get it out of my head and figured that might help me sleep.  The characters are based on people I know in real life and in the story, one character does something for another that is absolutely wonderful and needed but could never happen in the real world.  It made me sad.  I’ve never wanted so badly to do something for someone that was so impossible.  I thought about making it impossible in the story as well, but my thing about writing is that I have to live in and live with the real world, while  I can create whatever kind of world I want in the stories I write and I can make whatever I want real there – so why ever do things the same way they are in reality when I don’t have to?  Of course, with that kind of attitude, you can cheapen a story easily by not forcing a character to go through something they don’t want to go through but need to and giving them what they want but don’t need instead.  Right now this particular story is just a pair of scenes and a handful of back story notes, but I want to see it happen in real life instead of just on paper in a fantasy adventure story.

And that’s why I want to write books that are eventually published worldwide.  If I can capture that impossible wish, wrap it up, and present it to the world as a story, someone somewhere will read that and get inspired by it and maybe that someone will have the right talent and skill and training to make that impossible wish into something possible.

There is so much power in the written word:  to make people think, to make people dream, to make people hate someone, love something, or believe in things they can’t see.  Through the written word, others have changed the world.  Of course, it also depends on how the world interprets what you write, and there’s no way to control that.  But there is something to be said for trying.  And if I never try or if I ever stop trying, I’ll never know what impossible wishes someone could have made possible because of something I never wrote.

Someday all the things we once thought were entirely impossible will be things we take for granted as part of a daily routine.