The Hero’s Journey

John Campbell was an American writer and a professor of literature who worked in comparative mythology and comparative religion. His work covers many aspects of the human experience. Campbell's best-known work is his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949), in which he discusses his theory of the journey of the archetypal hero shared by world mythologies, termed the monomyth.

Christopher Vogler is a Hollywood development executive, screenwriter, author and educator, best known for working with Disney and his screenwriting guide, The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure For Writers, from 2007.  Vogler was inspired by the writings of mythologist Joseph Campbell. Vogler used Campbell's work to create a 7-page company memo for Hollywood screenwriters, A Practical Guide to The Hero with a Thousand Faces,[5] which Vogler later developed into The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure for Storytellers and Screenwriters in 1992, and then The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure For Writers (ISBN 978-1-932907-36-0). Vogler has since spun off his techniques into worldwide masterclasses.  His work focuses on the theory that most stories can be boiled down to a series of narrative structures and character archetypes.

Understanding both the archtypes of our characters and the stages of their journey gives our stories a basis in the reader’s mind that should echo the myths and allegories they already understand.  This creates empathy for our characters which makes our readers keep turning the page and seeking the next adventure in our tales.

Ideation & Iteration

Any story concept is going to iterate between the journey and the characters.  I usually start with a character idea.  I don’t worry about archtypes or details, but try to understand where the character is near the beginning of the story.  You may choose to start with the event that will launch the character’s tale.  Either way is fine, so long as you recognize that you will bounce between the stages of the journey and the character development aspects within their archetype as you plot out your story.

You could just as easily think about what the character will develop into, and then work backwards through all of the changes they must endure to achieve that ending state.  What story would be written if Frank Herbert had decided he wanted to explore the journey a character would possibly take to become a god over a galactic empire?  How would Dunehave been differnt from starting with an event that forced a well trained royal son to adapt to on a hostile planet?  If you read much of the history of how he actually wrote Dune, you realize that it was a series of ongoing ideas and iterations that finally gave us a novel so many readers have loved.

I remind myself of this need to iterate and explore ideas as I write, especially when I’m feeling my characters have allowed me to write them into a corner.

The Journey 

I usually start with an idea of a character, and then figure out their journey.  If you are like me, you have a ton of stories that started with an intersting idea of character, but rapidly fell by the wayside becasue you did not know where they were actually going.  This is where I find the structure of the hero’s journey to be so helpful.  I don’t necessarily follow the path in a linear fashion, but I do respect the structure to help me answer questions that should be important to the reader and to the character.  Where are they starting from? This is refered to as Act One, and covers the departure of the main character from the world they know well and into the unknown.  Act Two then covers the actions or confrontation the character must face and overcome.  This may be physical or mental, or emotional, but this needs to be at the heart of the tale.  Act Three brings the climax and resolution of the story and subplots.  Under Campbell's and Vogler’s structures, this breaks into the following:

The Archetypes

As I iterate and ideate, my character archtypes usually come into play.  The archtypes help me think about how my character should act or react to a situation.  Once the character’s voice is firmly in my ear, I use the archtypes to ensure they remain consistent.  Perosnally, I don’t think any character that is a pure archetype is that interesting, but I do believe a main set of characteristics and consistent applicaion of thoes helps drive the story and narrative forward.  A hero - explorer will consistently act differently than a hero - jester.  Additionally, a Sage - hero will probably behave much differrently than a Rebel - caregiver.  

I tend to stick the what wikipedia calls the Neo-Jungian concepts for Archtypes.  The have the 12 different Jungian archetypes organized into three overarching categories, based on a fundamental driving force.   The three driving forces (Ego types, Soul Types, and Self Types), help me easily consider motivations and behaviours for a character.  For example, if a character is a Creator, I can balance their actions from their strengths (creativity, drive, etc.) and their weaknesses or flaws (egotism, having to be right, etc.).  When they interact with another character or are presented with a situation, I look at these motivations, strengths, and weaknesses to decide what and how they will act.

Plot

From a character archetype and the stages of the journey, I can now iterate through the actions needed to drive the story forward.  If I am in act one, establishing the current world, what do I need to show the reader to help them understand how the character fits in the world, what may be motivating the character, and what actions can happen to give them their “call to adventure”?  If I’ve just gotten to the climax of the tale, I can look at the character’s archtype and decide how they are likely to react to the climatic conflict and what they will likely desire as a reward.  

These concrete starting points allow me to keep the characters true to themselves and continue to make forward progress on telling the tale.

I also use the same structure on a smaller scale within a chapter for long-form fiction.  In “A New Past”, my main character is a Creator (soul type) and a Caregiver (ego type).  This causes his emotions and desires to come into internal conflict in book one, and drove hime to extremes in book three before reaching the climax of his efforts.