The Hero's Journey: A Pre-Nano Handout

[mizzy]

So, I taught Creative Writing for two years, and apart from my list of HANDY HANDY WRITING TIPS (which I say are tips but are really basically fundamental writing things), there was one handout I used almost exclusively. In honour of impending Nanowrimo, I'm just going to copy and paste the whole thing here.

It's basically a summation of Christopher Vogler's Hero's Journey - the part where he talks about structure, not characters. I always advise people to buy their own copy (US link here), if only to cement in their own head that they're Doing It Right when it comes to character creation and polarity of characters - but it's nice to have an almost checklist to follow when you're roughing out a structure, and these 12 steps are the ones you can plot every Hollywood film to.

EVERY Hollywood film.

And yes, writing rules don't work for everyone, but if this checklist can help you (as it helps me) then it was worth copypasta-ing it for you. <3

Each bullet point means either "DO YOU HAVE", "ONE OF THESE IS A GOOD IDEA" or "DO YOU KNOW THE ANSWER TO THIS QUESTION".



The Hero’s Journey
 

1. The Ordinary World
2. The Call to Adventure
3. Refusal of the Call
4. Meeting of the Mentor
5. Crossing the First Threshold
6. Tests, Allies, Enemies
7. Approach to the Inmost Cave
8. The Ordeal
9. Reward (Seizing the Sword)
10. The Road Back
11. Resurrection
12. Return with the Elixir

 
 
1. The Ordinary World
 

• Strong title
• Good opening image
• Hook the readers with the opening line
• Set the ordinary world so we know what a contrast the special world is going to be
• Foreshadowing – we know the end, so let’s hint at it.
• Raise the dramatic question.
• Set the hero’s inner and outer problems.
• How does the hero make their entrance?
• Introduce the hero!
• How do we identify with the hero?
• What is the hero missing?
• Does the hero have a tragic flaw? Are they wounded?
• What’s at stake? Make the stake BIG. Life or death.
• Backstory and exposition – are we comfortable with the hero’s past?
• What are the themes of the story?

 
2. The Call to Adventure
 

• An event that brings our hero from the stagnant point they were at before, that forces them to change.

 
3. Refusal of the Call
 

• Heroes are often reluctant. What makes your hero reluctant?
• Are they avoiding the call?
• Are they making weak excuses?
• Do they continually refuse a call (often an emotional one) which would lead to a tragic demise?
• Do they have a conflicting call?
• Does refusing the call save their life? (i.e. devil offering a deal)
• Is the refusal a subtle moment or a big event?
• The refusal of the call is the prime moment to let the audience know the danger, know the fear the hero is feeling.

 
4. Meeting with the Mentor
 

• The mentor is an emotional relationship, one generation passing on knowledge to another.
• Be aware of the archetype’s clichés.
• Audiences don’t mind being misled about a mentor – think about toying with the clichés and raising the audience’s expectations that this is a traditional mentor before misleading them.
• Mentors can be evil, or not live up to the hero’s expectations.
• Mentors embody the idea that everyone has a lesson to learn in life.
• They can pop up just a few times during the story to still be effective (i.e. Glinda in Wizard of Oz) or can even drive the story (Goodbye, Mr Chips.)

 
5. Crossing the First Threshold
 

• An act of the will in which the hero commits wholeheartedly to the adventure.
• The “turning point” that brings the hero fully into their journey.
• This is the point in the story we acknowledge the first threshold guardian – sometimes it can be just acknowledging their existence.
• We should physically show the threshold has been crossed – the point of no return.
• This is where the story begins in earnest.

 
6. Tests, Allies and Enemies
 

• Now we enter into the ‘Special World’.  When you enter the Special World, everything changes, everything feels different – everything is more dangerous and the price of mistakes is higher.
• The Tests at the beginning of Act Two should be difficult, but not with the same life or death quality of later events.
• Consider having the Mentor continue their training into this step.
• The Special World is usually dominated by a villain or Shadow who is careful to surround his world with traps, barricades and checkpoints – easy for the hero to fall into. It’s how the hero deals with these that is part of the Testing.
• As the hero enters the Special World they will spend time figuring out who to trust and who to fear – this is a Test too (is the hero a good judge of character?)
• The hero makes allies during this step – and maybe a sidekick (comical ones provide humour.)
• With a romantic plotline, the Test step is an occasion for a shared experience that begins to build the relationship.
• This step is the time when a team may be formed, and the team’s strengths and weaknesses are tested.
• Bitter enemies can be made during this stage.
• We meet the hero’s rival at this point in the story – they are usually not out to kill the hero, but to best them in competition.
• The new rules of the Special World should be set out in this part of the story. We see the strength of the hero by how quickly he adapts to them.
• We encounter the ‘watering hole’ of the story – the community setting is a natural place to observe and get information.  A place like a bar lets us observe characters under pressure, or to relax after a stressful test.  Consider making it a microcosm of the whole arena.

 
  7. Approach to the Inmost Cave
 

• It is the zone of approach – there is a goal, now let’s work towards it.
• The approach is the time for courtship rituals.
• This is the time where the hero prepares for their ordeal.
• Time of obstacles, illusions (anything that seems to be real that might put our hero off the track, might seduce them away from their goal), and threshold guardians.
• This may be the time to introduce a ‘secondary’ special world – a special area within the special new world (i.e. emerald city in Wizard of Oz.)
• This is the time for the hero to prepare, but it is also the time for the hero to be warned.
• The more thresholds, the better.
• At this point, thresholds are passed with the knowledge gained up to this point. However, a threshold in this section should be passed with an emotional appeal.
• An impossible test – some large goal should be set at this point which seems insurmountable, our hero has to fight to answer his dramatic question. 
• Shamanic territory – as the hero progresses, they should know they are in shaman’s territory, a place between life and death.
• This is the point where we should have disheartening setbacks.
• You need to set up the stakes and underscore the urgency in this step.
• The approach is the time for reorganisation. Things might have gotten messed up and this is the time for the hero to regroup and figure out his path.  Some of this path must tread where the mentor cannot go.
• The ‘inmost cave’, the ‘reward’, all must have heavy defences.
• This step may be the last stage for humour from step 8 onwards, things get serious.
• Understand your enemies – the hero must try now and get into their enemy’s mind to succeed.  Sometimes an enemy’s attack can be used in this step for the hero to learn how the enemy’s mind works.
• This is the stage where a hero could put on a disguise to get close to the Inmost Cave of the opponent.
• The Breakthrough – this should be a physical representation of the hero’s inner struggles and fear.  A violent act of will should represent this emotional breakthrough.
• No Exit – by the end of this stage, your hero and any allies should be absolutely and completely trapped like rats. No matter how a hero can try and escape their fate, at some point all exits have to be closed off and heroes have to face life-and-death.  Now is the time for the Supreme Ordeal…

8. The Ordeal
 

• The simple secret of the Ordeal is this: Heroes must die so they can be reborn.  The most dramatic moment that audiences enjoy is that of death and rebirth. At some point in every story, a hero must face death or something like it – their deepest fear, deep failure, the end of a relationship, the death of an old personality.
• For the majority of stories, the hero survives this death and is literally/symbolically reborn to reap the consequences of having cheated death. They have passed the main test of being a hero.
• Change – heroes change as a result of their ordeal. 
• The ordeal is a crisis, not a climax – a crisis is “the point in a story or drama at which the hostile forces are in the tensest state of opposition.” Sometimes things have to get worse before they can get better.
• Sometimes this crisis takes place in the middle – other times it can take place at the end of Act II which gives it more time to build up.
• Witness to sacrifice – a witness should see the hero appear to die and be reborn. This gives the audience a chance to grieve with the witness, it gives the audience a taste of death – and then, the survival of the hero gives us a taste of joy.
• The Ordeal is the point where the hero experiences danger/death.  It should give space to the biggest depression of the story, to give space for the biggest rise.
• Other ways for the hero to experience death closely – he can witness death (usually that of a mentor), he can cause death.
• The hero can come against a villain/Shadow in this step, but the main villain should escape for the Act III climax confrontation.  Remember villains are always the hero of their own story.
• This is the point in most epic myths that the hero cheats death.
• The Ordeal can also be an emotional crisis – it should be the deepest darkest point of the story, the death of a relationship or the separation from a loved one. This is when the biggest emotional betrayals occur.
• The Ordeal in myth signifies the death of the ego.
• It’s the point the hero faces their greatest fear.
• The Ordeal should highlight the hero risking individual life for the sake of the larger collective life – thus winning the right to be called ‘hero’.

 
9. Reward
 

• Now the hero can experience the consequences of surviving death – however fleeting the reward might be.
• The aftermath of a Supreme Ordeal usually leads to celebration, campfire scenes, and love scenes. A certain amount of humour/romance tends to happen in this section as a result of facing death in the previous step.
• This section can also be called Seizing the Sword – if the hero is after something, they get it now.  The reward can be love, or new perception (seeing through a deception), clairvoyance, self-realization, an epiphany, or on the flipside, their reward might be a distortion of their own abilities.

 
10. The Road Back
 

• The Road Back is when the hero starts to contemplate their return home from the Special World, usually with the resolve to implement the things they’ve learned in the Special World to their Ordinary World.
• This step is when the hero rededicates themselves to their aim – it is the point where they are reminded of their end goal.
• This is the end of Act II into the beginning of Act III, and like crossing the First Threshold, it can herald a change in the aim of the story.
• Retaliation – this is the step when the villains not fully defeated in the Ordeal start to rise back. Expendable Friends come in very handy during this step!
• Chase scenes – sometimes the Special World is only left because the hero has to run from it to survive.
• If not a chase scene, then a setback is required.  Either will acknowledge the hero’s resolve to finish and provide motivation to succeed.

 
11. The Resurrection
 

• This is the climax, the last and most dangerous meeting with death. The hero has to undergo a final purging and purification before being allowed back to the Ordinary World.
• The trick for writers is to show the change that has taken place in their characters rather than just telling us that it has happened!
• The function of the Resurrection is to cleanse heroes of the smell of death, and yet help them retain the lessons of the Ordeal.
• The Resurrection is the Final Exam of the story – heroes must be tested ne last time to see if they have retained the lessons of the Ordeal.  It’s the time we learn whether the hero was sincere about changing – will they fail?
• The stakes now should be at their highest – it isn’t about the hero’s life being in danger any more, but to the whole world.
• The hero must be the one to act during this step. The hero has to be active, no being saved by an ally.
• This is the time of the showdown/shootout.
• This is the time for a hero to make the most difficult choice – if the old personality of the hero would have let him run away, this time he will stand and face the trial.
• Climax – you can have one big climax (explosions), a quiet climax (an emotional understanding, a moment of supreme clarity) or rolling climaxes (a bomb, then a car crash, then a shootout, etc.)
• A well-written climax causes a hero’s mind, body and spirit to climax at the same time.
• Catharsis – a moment of emotional breakthrough – this is what the best climax must provide. Catharsis works bet through physical expressions of emotion – laughing, crying.
• Last chance – this is the hero’s last chance to change.
• This can be the time for a misstep, a false claimant (forcing the hero to prove they are the real hero).
• Proof can be required at this stage, the item that proves the fantasy was real.
• This step often calls for a sacrifice from the hero. Something must be lost for the good of the group. It can be sacrificing a part of their personality, or their life.
• This is the step where the hero shows us everything that he has learned.
• The higher dramatic purpose of the Resurrection is to show us that the hero has really changed.  Some writers make this obvious only in appearance – it must be seen in their dress, behaviour, attitude and actions too.

 
12. Return with the Elixir
 

• This is when the hero returns home, or continues their journey, but they proceed with the sense that they are commencing a life that will be forever different because of the road just travelled.
• This is when you tie up all the loose ends.
• Consider bookending the story – bring your hero back full circle to where they began, or make some visual reference to the beginning.
• The return is your last chance to satisfy or provoke your audience.
• The Return can be the chance to make a surprise – a sudden revelation that can colour the whole story before it.
• A specialised job of the Return is to hand out final rewards and punishments. This is when the good guys get promotions, the bad guys go to jail.  The reward for the hero should be proportionate to the sacrifice they have offered.  Unless your theme is life isn’t fair, in which case, go bananas.
• The Elixir is the final stage, the final gift from the hero that is brought back from the Special World – it can be magical, an elixir of love, the world being changed. It can be a new responsibility for the hero, a tragic event to learn from, or the fact that the hero is sadder but wiser after their Ordeal.
• There must be a penalty if the hero fails to return with the Elixir – this is that the hero, or someone else, is doomed to repeat the same Ordeals until the lesson is learned or the Elixir is brought home to share.

 
Pitfalls of the Return:

• Unresolved subplots! Don’t leave threads dangling. A rule of thumb is to have at least three ‘beats’ distributed through the story, ideally one in each act.  Every subplot should be acknowledged or resolved in the Return. Each character should get some benefit from the Elixir.
• Too many endings! Have one ending, stick with it.
• Abrupt ending – leave a little emotional space for farewell.
• Focus – you started with a dramatic question. Have you answered it??
• Punctuation – conclude the story decisively.

 
 
 A checklist to see how your protagonist's (hero's) character arc should match up to the hero's journey.
 
Character Arc                                                           Hero’s Journey
 

1. Limited awareness of a problem                     Ordinary World
2. Increased awareness                                       Call to Adventure
3. Reluctance to change                                      Refusal
4. Overcoming reluctance                                   Meeting with the Mentor
5. Committing to change                                                Crossing the Threshold
6. Experimenting with first change                     Tests, Allies, Enemies
7. Preparing for big change                                 Approach to Inmost Cave
8. Attempting big change                                   Ordeal
9. Consequences of the attempt                          Reward (seizing the sword)    (AKA improvements and setbacks)

     10. Rededication to change                                   The Road Back
     11. Final attempt at big change                              Resurrection
     12. Final mastery of the problem                           Return with the Elixir
 
 
 
Helpful Points
 

• The needs of the story dictate its structure – the 12 steps are just a guideline, nothing more. As long as you are resonating with human emotion, you can break all the rules you want.
• Write out the 12 steps and use them as an outline to map your story. Fill in the events you know are going to happen and fill in the bits in-between.
• Don’t be afraid to shift steps of the journey if you need to.