Four Months, Three Weeks

It’s been months since my last post here, and the reasons it’s been so long include that my job requires ridiculous amounts of hours, and that I’ve started a new writing project that is so enjoyable I’ve been spending every second of free time I have working on it.  Anyway, I’m back, and I’m back with news and a new series of posts:

First, the news:  Four months and three weeks from now, my husband and I will have stuffed all our worldly possessions into the back of my 2007 bright blue Ford Focus (amicably nicknamed The Smurfmobile) and we will be pulling out of our driveway in Northern Virginia to travel from there to Seattle, Washington.  It will take about a week, and will begin with a side trip to North Carolina and South Carolina to visit family and friends.  It hopefully also will include stops in Texas, Missouri, and Montana, to visit additional family and friends, but much of that depends on cost, time, and who’s available when.

Now, what makes this trip especially monumental for me is that I have lived in the same town for almost twenty years.  I did spend four of those years in Fredericksburg at the University of Mary Washington, and that was a great experience, but it was still the southern end of Northern Virginia.  Everyone I’ve ever known, everyone I grew up with, is here.  All but the first six years of my life were spent here.  My entire life experience is limited to this one, tiny corner of the world, right here.

It’s time to move.

But I don’t want you to think I’m doing this lightly.  Leaving a place you love is hard.  It’s no small task to pick up this many roots and go, but I do not want to spend my entire life in one small part of the world.  Not when there is so much world out there.

We could, in theory, ship some of our stuff, sell the rest, and fly out to Seattle, but then we’d miss out on actually seeing the United States of America, up close and personal.  I want to know what my country looks like, so we’re going to take our time and do this trip in a way that allows us to see it, up close and personal; we’re going to drive.

That’s the news.  The new blog series is this:  Weekly updates and thoughtful (hopefully also thought-provoking) essays about the trip.  From potential routes to the list of what to pack to the process of getting rid of as much stuff as we can bear to part with, all of it’s going on this blog.  Maybe someday I’ll make it into a book, too.  You never know.

So, keep checking back.  Once a week, every week, I promise an update on the adventure that is my life.

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 #3, Post 3 of 5, Stories Are Alive

Stories as Characters

Have you ever been in the middle of writing a story when all of a sudden the plot and the characters start veering off in a direction you didn’t expect?  Were you ever reading a story and gotten angry with the author for taking it in a certain direction when you felt like the characters would never have done or said such things?

This was my favorite chapter in The Writer’s Journey Mythic Structure for Writers by Chris Vogler.  In a nutshell, the suggestion is that the story itself (meaning the plotlines, the forces, and the characters all taken together as a whole) is a character.  The story itself has needs and wants and development and growth.

Living Relationships

This was the point where I had an epiphany moment about the audience’s relationship with the story:  my readers’ relationship with my story is going to be very different from their relationship with me.  They will have different expectations of the story than they will have of me.  You see, they will expect the story to be a fantastically well-told story, but they will expect me to create it.

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

The Writer’s Journey, Series #3, Post 2 of 5, Catharsis

What is Catharsis?

Generally speaking, Catharsis can be defined as “purging the emotions.”  This means taking a journey of some kind (perhaps by watching a movie or reading a book) that touches on every emotion in range, takes us to the pit of despair, and raises us back out again.

Why Catharsis?

People sometimes feel the need for a “good cry”.  We watch a sad movie, or listen to sad music, cry, and then we feel better about life in general.  Why?  Well, this is a Catharsis.  It is a purging of the emotions.  If you hold all your emotions bottled up constantly, eventually you explode.  Participating in the occasional Catharsis is a way to clean out the extra emotions so that we don’t explode.

The Role of Catharsis in Tragedy and Comedy

In Ancient Greece, they usually showed several plays at a time.  First, two to three tragedies, then a comedy to finish.  The idea was that it took more than one tragic story to get to the bottom of the Catharsis, but only one comedy to bring you back up to the top.  The Hero’s Journey that I’ve been discussing in these blog posts is designed to complete the full loop in the course of one story.

Looking at the example of Megamind that I used in last week’s post, there is a point where Titan has taken over and Megamind has given up.  Titan kidnaps Roxanne in order to lure Megamind to his final destruction, and Megamind tries to save her only to end up falling to his death from an impossible height.  These would be the lowest points in the story.  From here, we move out of the depths and back up to the lighter end of Catharsis.

Want to know more about Catharsis?

Check out Chris Vogler‘s Book, The Writer’s Journey Mythic Structure for Writers

Coming Soon – The Writer’s Journey, Series #3, Post 3 of 5, Stories Are Alive

The Writer’s Journey, Series #3, Post 1 of 5, Polarity

What is Polarity?

Polarity is a certain type of tension that comes from having two opposing forces constantly pulling or pushing each other throughout the story.  The Movie Megamind is a perfect example of the ways in which polarity can be used to bring tension to a story.

At first, we have Metro Man, who is polarized as a “good guy,” and Megamind, who is polarized as a “bad guy”.  Then Megamind is suddenly successful in overthrowing Metro Man and the polarity is thrown completely off-balance as the bad guy gains control of Metro City.  At first, it’s all fun and games, but then Megamind gets bored and decides to create a new good guy to re-establish the balanced polarized tension.  However, Titan, the hero Megamind creates, turns out to be more of a bad guy than Megamind.  He defeats Megamind and takes over the city.  Now the polarity is overbalanced in one direction.  When Megamind decides to come back and challenge Titan to heroically save the city, Megamind shifts his polarity from “bad” to “good” and restores the polarized balance.

The Rules of Polarity

1. Opposites Attract – Megamind and Metro Man attract each other’s attention in their battles for control of Metro City
2. Polarized Conflict Attracts the Audience – The audience is drawn in by the conflict between Megamind and Metro Man
3. Polarity Creates Suspense – The audience is in suspense because of the tension in the conflict
4. Polarity Can Reverse Itself – Megamind goes from “bad guy” to “good guy”
5. Reversals of Fortune – Megamind goes from the one who is constantly losing to the one who always wins

Polarity and Balance

The single most important thing about polarity is that it stays balanced.  If one character in the pair begins moving toward the other side, the rest of the characters, or the scenery, or the plot, or the story itself must somehow balance out the other side of the polarity in order to maintain polarized tension.

This does not have to apply to “good” and “bad”.  It could also apply to “selfless” and “selfish” or “physical” and “mental” or “emotionally receptive” and “emotionally distant”.  Any pair of opposing character traits can be used to create polarized tension.  They can be applied to characters or plot devices or to the world where the story takes place.

How to Use Polarity

Polarity will inevitably appear anywhere there is tension.  You can insert extra polarity if you want, or you can use the polarity that appears naturally in your characters and your story to help make the story more tense, create more suspense, and draw your audience in deeper.

Want to know more about Polarity?

Check out Chris Vogler‘s Book, The Writer’s Journey Mythic Structure for Writers

Coming Soon – The Writer’s Journey, Series #3, Post 2 of 5, Catharsis

The Writer’s Journey Series #2, Post 5 of 5, Act 3, the Climax

 Act 3, The Climax

And so the Hero’s Journey comes to an end – but not before some final trials and challenges, just to be absolutely sure that the Hero truly has earned the Reward/Elixir he or she received after overcoming The Ordeal.  These are the last few steps of the Hero’s Journey as discussed in Christopher Vogler’s book, The Writer’s Journey Mythic Structure for Writers.

The Road Back

This is the opportunity for car chases, escaping bad guys, stealing the Reward back and forth, and any other last-minute setbacks that could hold the Hero back from making it home with the Reward.  In the movie How to Train Your Dragon, this would be when Stoic stops the match between Hiccup and the Monstrous Nightmare and makes the dragon go crazy and try to kill Hiccup.  Toothless then comes in and tries to save Hiccup, and Hiccup’s secret is out, but Stoic doesn’t understand it.

The Resurrection

The Hero has already offered up everything he or she had to give during The Ordeal, but the Road Back presented a final challenge or two and now the Hero must find enough strength for one more win.  This is the Resurrection.  It’s an opportunity for cleansing rituals or symbolic cleansing.  It’s also an opportunity for choices to be made.  Now that the Hero has discovered what is truly buried deep within his or her heart (after going through The Ordeal and the Road Back), the Hero is best able to make a decision about how to resolve the last remaining issues or problems.

In How to Train Your Dragon, The Resurrection is when Hiccup teaches the other Viking Teens how to ride their own dragons, sharing the knowledge he’s gained.

Return with the Elixir

Finally, the Journey comes to an end.  All subplots are resolved, rewards and punishments are handed out, perfection is achieved (or one step closer to it), changes are acknowledged, etc.  In the movie How to Train Your Dragon, this is when Hiccup and Toothless save the Vikings and kill the big monster dragon.  The Elixir that Hiccup brings to his father is the fact that they can work with dragons instead of always fighting against dragons.

Coming Soon:  The Writer’s Journey Series #3, Other Tips and Tricks from The Wrtier’s Journey

The Writer’s Journey Series #2, Post 4 of 5, Act 2, the Crisis

Act 2, The Crisis

These are the events that take place in the second half of Act 2.  After the Reward, we will enter Act 3, which will be covered all in one blog post.

The Ordeal (Midpoint/Death/Rebirth)

The Ordeal, as far as I understand it from reading Chris Vogler’s The Writer’s Journey, Mythic Structure for Writers, is meant to be the midpoint of the energy of the story.  This does not necessarily mean page 150 out of 300 or minute 60 out of 120.  It means that this is the point where everything has been risked, everything has been sacrificed, and there is nothing left to give.  It could be at the end of the book or the beginning of the movie.  Vergil’s Aeneid begins with Aeneas and his ships being tossed around in a storm that was created by the gods, who are constantly fighting over Aeneas’ future and whether or not he gets to live happily ever after.

Reward

This is where The Ordeal pays off, and the Hero receives whatever it was he or she was seeking.  Sometimes this is an object, sometimes this is knowledge or understanding, and sometimes this is a change of the internal self.  Sometimes this is something the Hero must steal or win by trickery.  Sometimes it is a gift given to the Hero after overcoming The Ordeal.

In The Aeneid, the Reward after the Ordeal of being tossed around in the storm is the safety of the shore where they dock and meeting of Queen Dido, who takes in Aeneas and his men and gives them a place to stay for as long as they need.

Crisis, not Climax

The thing that stands out to me the most about this part of the story is that it is not meant to be The Climax.  It’s simply The Crisis.  This means that the tension can still mount higher and there can still be a last-ditch effort made by the Shadow to stop the Hero and turn the happy ending into a tragedy.  There is another story arch that I’m used to thinking about that was analyzed by Gustav Freytag and goes like this:  Introduction, Rising Action, Climax, Falling Action, Resolution.  That’s the story arch that I was taught in High School English classes, and I think it works for a lot of stories, but I also think that having a Crisis in the middle and the Climax at the end will keep readers more interested for a longer period of time, because the tension will continue to grow up to the last pages of the book, or the last minutes of the movie.

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

The Writer’s Journey Series #2, Post 3 of 5, Act 2, the Montage

Act 2, the Montage

I am calling this part “The Montage” because that’s exactly what it feels like.  It’s the opening of Act 2, the First Threshold has been crossed, the Hero does not have the option of turning back, and the Shadow must be faced.  Before that can happen, the Hero must undergo some various challenges or training exercises.  Sometimes this happens in a Montage, like in Kung Fu Panda, when Po and Shi Fu go up to the mountains and train.  Of course, this doesn’t have to be a montage.  In the Labyrinth, Sarah goes through all kinds of trials before she makes it to the Goblin City.

Tests/Allies/Enemies

These are the events that show the Hero who her friends are and who her enemies are.  This is where people switch sides once or twice, or even three times.  The journey gets more and more difficult and the Hero must find a way to keep up or risk falling behind.  This is not the place for a “crisis of faith”, though.  This is the place to sow some seeds for a “crisis of faith” to happen later on, but this is not the place for the Hero’s full break down.

In Kung Fu Panda, the Tests/Allies/Enemies phase is where Po and Shi Fu do their training session while the Furious Five go looking for Tai Long.  While Po is tested by Master Shi Fu, the Furious Five are tested by Tai Long.  In The Labyrinth, this is where Hoggle struggles with whether or not he is going to do the right thing or the thing Jareth wants him to do, and where Sarah loses Ludo and wanders through the forest with the Fireys, from which Hoggle saves her, then in the Bog of Eternal Stench, where she finds Ludo again and they meet Sir Didymus.  The last scenes that I would include in the Tests/Allies/Enemies category are the ballroom scene where Sarah dances with Jareth, and the Junk People scene where Sarah realizes that what’s really important to her is her baby brother and compared to that her material possessions are not so important after all.

Approach to the Inmost Cave

This is one option for the Her’s “crisis of faith” if that’s something you’d like to include in your story.  These are the final moments right before The Ordeal, when the Hero must face the Shadow head on.  The stakes are raised, the Hero is questioned, doubts fly left right and sideways.  Tensions mount.  At the end of this scene, there is no turning back to the trials phase.  The Hero enters an even deeper Special World and must face the Shadow on her own.  This is also the point where the Hero must challenge herself in the deepest way possible and confront herself on the deepest level.

In Kung Fu Panda, this scene is hard for me to peg.  I would say that it’s the part where Po realizes what the gold scroll really means and then turns around to go challenge Tai Long.  The interesting thing about this, is the fact that Po gets the Reward or “Elixir” before going through The Ordeal (I’ll talk about these in more detail in the next blog post).  It works beautifully for this story that these things happen out of the “suggested order” because this is the order that works for this story.  In the Labyrinth, the Approach to the Inmost Cave is where Sarah and her friends are fighting their way through the Goblin City and eventually make it all the way up to the castle at the center of the Labyrinth.

As always, if you would like to read more about the Hero’s Journey, please check out Chris Vogler‘s book:  The Writer’s Journey Mythic Structure for Writers.

Coming Soon:  The Writer’s Journey Series #2, Post 4 of 5, Act 2, The Climax

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