As promised, here are the steps to the Hero's Journey.
1. Ordinary World, 2. Call to Adventure, 3. Refusal of the Call, 4. Meeting the Mentor, 5. Crossing the first threshold.
6. Tests, allies, and enemies, 7. Approach to the inmost cave, 8. The ordeal, 9. The reward.
10. The road back, 11. The resurrection, 12. Return with the elixir.
“Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:
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The following is an imperfect transcript of this episode. I complete transcript can be found on the show’s webpage.
[00:00:00] Last week we covered the three act structure, or at least we finished covering the three act structure of how to structure a novel of how to structure a story. Just the different pattern. Generally speaking on how to do that. And this week, we are going to delve into something far more specific as we cover the hero's journey today on writing in the tiny.
[00:00:27] Hello. Hello. Hello. And welcome back to the show. Welcome to writing in the tiny house. I am your host Devin Davis, and I am the guy in a tiny house who is here to show you all of the ways that you can get that work of fiction out of your mind and into a word processor or whatever, despite how busy you may think that you are.
[00:01:12] Up until this point, we have been speaking very generally this year about the three act structure of most stories. Just the introduction, the rising action and the conclusion and delving into what each of those parts is. As we've gone through this whole, this whole little lesson series, I guess. Today, we are going to go into the hero's journey, which is kind of a map on how to do that.
[00:01:40] At adventure novel. It lays out all of the important steps and the important beats. So the important events, the important things that happen in the story that is typical of most adventure stories. And it's interesting to see how all of it plays into the bigger picture, the hero's journey.
[00:02:03] Was first, I guess, distilled out of the studies of a person named Joseph Campbell who lived from 1904 to 1987. He was a big a student of mythology. And he found in all of these very classic, very, very old stories that each of them followed a pattern. And in his studies, he put together that pattern called the hero's journey and his version of it has.
[00:02:31] Teen steps that fall into three acts. It's a lot, 17 steps is a lot. Later much later, a person named Christopher Vogler Vogel. I don't know how to say his last name, but he worked as a screenwriter for Disney and likely for other people or other companies, he developed a different, or at least a more modern model of the hero's journey that he published back in 2007.
[00:03:00] I appreciate looking at this, but just because it is more modern. It applies even more perfectly to the more current works of fiction that we see coming out. And. It has 12 parts instead of 17. And so today on writing in the tiny house, we are going to cover those 12 parts.
[00:03:20] So these 12 parts are unique to Christopher Vogler, Vogler. But they have a lot in common with the original person who came up with the hero's journey, Joseph Campbell. So this Chris Vogler the screenwriter he wrote a book about the hero's journey.
[00:03:36] There's a full on book about it, and it covers each of these points in more detail than we're going to cover in a 15 minute episodes. Here on the podcast. And I need to give a full confession that I have not read this book. That doesn't mean that you don't have to, or that you shouldn't. There are a lot of references and a lot of really good material on how to structure and properly execute a work of fiction.
[00:04:02] And diving into the hero's journey is not something that I have done. Also my works of fiction. Don't 100% reflect the hero's journey. And so I have chosen to focus on some other things, but we're covering it today on writing in the tiny house, just because. You will see as we go through these different points that these points are everywhere in fiction, especially if the story revolves around calling a hero.
[00:04:34] From somewhere the anointing of a hero and having them leave their home to go on this adventure and then come back with a solution. There are a lot of stories that cover that there are a lot of stories that have that as the main premise and the overall, you know, arching theme of either the trilogy or just the book or the many books.
[00:04:59] And so we're going to go over that and you will find. As we go through these points that a lot of them will apply to your work in progress as well. Even if you are not writing an adventure novel these things fall into place, and many of them don't necessarily have to go in this order, but you will find that these little collections of points.
[00:05:25] Very much need to go into either act one or all of them into act two or all of them into act three, just because of the formula of this story the formula of this structure, this is all very general stuff. And the cool thing about general stuff is it can apply in many delicious ways to many different things.
[00:05:48] Diving right in this entire thing is based in three acts. And I covered what those three acts are already. So let's see how they all just kind of intermingle and what the 12 parts of this structure of writing fiction called the hero's journey is actually all about. act one. Is called the departure.
[00:06:14] This is where we see the ordinary world, or we see the world as it is. it can be the fact that this is an ordinary day to day world or with something like hunger games. We see the dystopia, we see the problem and how a problem has become. The ordinary world, we see Katniss and we see her going through the day-to-day things and we see that it's.
[00:06:41] Not okay. It's not good, but that is her reality. That is her day today. a picture of the ordinary world is the first step. Next, there is a call to adventure or a call to do something, a call to change. So this can be. Harry receiving a letter from Hogwarts. This can be Frodo getting the ring of power.
[00:07:07] It can be a vast, many different things. It can be a vision, it can be a dream. It can be simply the challenge of this is a problem and I want to fix it. So just the invitation to step up and make things different. The third thing is the refusal of the call. if you look at all of these stories, I've mentioned Harry Potter, I've mentioned the Lord of the rings.
[00:07:33] I've mentioned hunger games. There comes a moment very early in the story in almost all of them where the hero of the story doesn't want to be the hero. And that can actually be a running theme throughout the story and throughout the book itself. But. There comes a time just in this structure where the hero refuses, the call, where for whatever reason they're not going to do it, it can be for pride.
[00:07:59] It can be for self doubt. It can be because they feel there is someone more qualified. And then there is me. The mentor. So who are the most popular mentors in fiction? In fantasy, at least we have Gandalf and we have Dumbledore. However, there are other mentors, sometimes the characters can play the role of a mentor and another role.
[00:08:26] And so if we look at the lion, the witch and the wardrobe by CS Lewis Mr. Toughness is in a way a mentor. He is the guy who first introduces the world of Narnia to the reader and to the main characters. Also as LAN is a mentor. And there is the white witch, the ice queen of Narnia because one of the children falls under her protection. As a way to groom him. There is an amount of tutoring or amount of mentoring of introducing him to the world of introducing him to things and conditioning him to, to be a specific thing.
[00:09:12] So sometimes the mentor can come across as many different things, but generally the mentor is the person who. teaches the hero about the journey, teaches the hero about the world. If they are stepping out into a new world, teaches them about the magic and sometimes provides them gifts.
[00:09:34] So if you have read the broken earth trilogy by NK Jemisin, which is one of my favorites in the whole wide world. The character alabaster is the main, character's mentor. And he does just that he teaches her magic and he teaches her how to find her own type of magic. It's an, it's an amazing thing.
[00:09:54] The next step in act one is crossing the first threshold. So it is that decision to go out on your journey. It is. Stepping out of Hobbiton and going onto the road to go onto your adventure and to go off into this strange new world. So that is what wraps up. Act two, there are more points act two is called the initiation.
[00:10:21] So the first thing is you get your tests, your allies, and your enemies on all of these adventure novels. I have read and I have read a lot of them. There are a lot of characters to be met along the way that do not come in. Act one, you meet them in a Tavern, you meet them at a store or on the road or something, or you get jumped by bandits and then these people come swinging in from the trees and save you and to become your ally.
[00:10:54] Or your enemy or whatever. And these tests are all of these challenges that come along the way. That happens a lot in act two. That's kind of the big part of act two, which is a huge act anyway, but at the end of act two the point is number seven is to approach the inmost cave.
[00:11:16] So if you think back on like the classic. Mythology and stuff. It seems like a final test was always in like this cave or at the top of a mountain, just that final place to go and to reach out and to get there. And there were a lot of problems along the way, but here we are, and it is the end boss of a video game.
[00:11:41] And they're in the inmost cave. The main character faces an ordeal, which is often a crowning test or sometimes defeating the big end boss. So it can be defeating a bad guy. It can be defeating. A really big henchman of the bad guy as a way to prove worth. It can be a lot of different things like that.
[00:12:11] And then they are given a reward. So either it is a magical item, maybe sometimes It is a way to defeat the scourge that has plagued the land, or it is, you know, the magical spell that can cure whatever illness has befallen your sister, different things like that.
[00:12:32] And then enact three. It is the return. It is going back to their hometown. The first step is the road back or to the ultimate destination. This means that on the way back, sometimes they go to And even higher place or a more special place to learn and receive more counsel and this is called the resurrection.
[00:12:58] So resurrection is point number 11 on this list of 12. So this is where in classic mythology, the hero is killed and then reborn and is presented as new and pure So it's a form of rebirth or a coming back to life or in the event of Harry Potter, he actually did die and then did come back to life.
[00:13:23] That is the ultimate resurrection of that entire story. And then they go back to their city returning with the elixir. So the elixir is whatever key ingredient. That is required to get rid of the problem. So sometimes returning with the elixir is winning the prize money. Sometimes it's coming back with the spell or a way to eradicate whatever, you know, strange, magical diseases across the land or maybe it's just a potion to heal a loved one or whatever. There are a lot of different applications to that, but that in a nutshell is the hero's journey. And as you saw, it follows that three act structure. So I will include these 12 points in the show notes, and we will see you next time when we discuss some of the archetypes or some of the character types.
[00:14:25] If you want to use more common language that also come into the hero's journey next time on writing in the tiny house.
[00:14:33]
[00:14:33] And that is it for today. Just a reminder that "Brigitte,"Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor is available on Amazon as an ebook and on Audible and Apple Books as an audio book. And I provide advanced reader copies of these short stories as I release them to my patrons. So become a patron today by visiting patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse to support both my writing and this podcast. And lastly, be sure to follow me on social media. My Instagram is @authordevindavis and my Twitter handle is@authordevind. Thank you so much for spending some time with me today and have fun writing. We will see you next time.
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