The Hero's Journey
Your main character has started on the path. Page one, we meet them and grow attached. We cheer them on. We want them to succeed But their success has to cost them.
Did you hero/character(s) grow between "Once upon a time" and "the end"?
One simple way to check is to break down your character's growth into three sections of your WIP.
- The Separation - facing a life challenge
- The Initiation - the process of evolving through the challenge
- The Return - the "new" character. The changed, hopefully for the better, character who now has valuable lessons to bring with her to ease the next time she faces a hero's journey. And that is the circle of life.
In tarot it's called the wheel. Ever turning. Ever confronting and hopefully evolving for the better.
However, your character's backstory might just be a previous journey through this cycle where their evolution is to their detriment. Their return leaves them strong in a way that is not for the best. For example, they might have learned that love is not for them, and they have to stand strong on their own.
If your character is confronting a learned/earned "return event." It's going to take a pretty intense plot arc to move them out of the rut and on to their happily ever after.
Though, we all know, happily ever after is the great myth for most folks. So the happily for now.
If you can get through that much, you have a valuable character arc.
Joseph Campbell - A Hero's Journey, has seventeen stages.
But I'm going to list the stages that are presented in the hero cycle according to Christopher Vogler in his book The Writer's Journey.
Christopher Vogler
In the above clip, you can hear Vogler talk about the monlyth and I've listed them below as a quick cheat sheet.
- The ordinary world
- Call to adventure
- Refusal of the call
- Meeting the mentor
- Crossing the threshold
- Test allies and enemies
- Approach the innermost cave
- Ordeal
- Reward - seizing the sword
- Road back
- Resurrection challenged, transformed, redeemed
- Return with elixir
If you get stuck in your plotting arc, or just feel that something is off, it might be a good idea to check in with this list and see where your character fell off the monomyth story trail. Remember, all characters, like all of us, are each on their own journey.
And since I'm writing this article in April 2020 in the time of the Corona, here's an application of the hero's journey:
(found on Facebook Mythic Systems)
Best writing wishes!
Fiona
