Episode 99: The Hero's Journey

This week, Fable and the Verbivore follow up our Star Wars two-part episodes with a look at the Hero’s Journey and the impact it has on past and present story structure.

George Lucas has said several times in interviews that without having read Joseph Campbell’s book A Hero with a Thousand Faces (basically a meta analysis of myths across the globe) he’d still be writing Star Wars. We can relate to the feeling that finding a structure that works for your given story can be like finding the missing piece to a puzzle.

Throughout our conversation, we dig into the contributions of Joseph Cambell, Christopher Vogler, and Blake Snyder’s to the Hero’s Journey story structure and how it has impacted many areas of storytelling from writing fiction, crafting TV series arcs, and screenwriting movie scripts. As part of this, we also explore some of the downside of having so many stories use similar general structures.

We also loosely contrast the more predominate Hero’s or Heroic Journey structure with the less widely used Heroine’s Journey story form(s) - with the intention that we’ll revisit this more rare story structure alternative in a future episode.

We hope you enjoy this episode. Keep reading, writing, and putting your voice out there!

Into the woods,

Fable & The Verbivore

Notes:

Here’s a good description on Hero’s Journey from Reedsy:

• Hero's Journey 101 - https://blog.reedsy.com/guide/story-structure/heros-journey/

The Verbivore consulted many resources while prepping for this episode, including the following:

• The Heroine Journey Project - https://heroinejourneys.com/

• Joseph Campbell Is the Hidden Link Between ‘2001,’ ‘Star Wars,’ and ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ - https://www.indiewire.com/2018/03/joseph-campbell-heros-journey-2001-star-wars-1201937470/

• Excepts from Myth and the Movies, Stuart Voytilla - https://www.tlu.ee/~rajaleid/montaazh/Hero%27s%20Journey%20Arch.pdf

• The Monomyth (The Hero’s Journey) - https://libguides.gvsu.edu/c.php?g=948085&p=6857311

• How to Use The Hero's Journey to Structure a Novel - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jQDdq8HREc&list=PLK-VmT9palrSWI2wozhAIbKymCqf7l5mn&index=2

• Star Wars and Myth - https://www.starwars.com/news/mythic-discovery-within-the-inner-reaches-of-outer-space-joseph-campbell-meets-george-lucas-part-i

• Why Screenwriters Should Embrace The Heroine's Journey - https://screencraft.org/2017/06/18/how-screenwriters-can-embrace-the-heroines-journey/

• This is why the hero’s journey is outdated as a creative tool for writers - https://medium.com/swlh/the-heros-journey-is-outdated-as-a-creative-tool-for-writers-d88461f3ed5f

The Verbivore read a short paragraph that describes the gist of the Hero’s Journey. Here it is:

• “Hero receives a quest (usually by some higher being) and leaves the comfort of his home to venture out into the wide world. The hero encounters a mentor and a ragtag band of companions on the way and, through a series of tests, becomes stronger. He succeeds in his goal and returns to the mundane world to share his wisdom and power.”

• Website: Pages Below the Vaulted Sky - https://pagesbelowvaultedsky.wordpress.com/2018/04/24/the-heroines-journey-in-fantasy-books/

Books Mentioned:

• The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell

• The Writer's Journey by Christopher Vogler

• Save The Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting You'll Ever Need by Blake Snyder

• The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

• The Heroine's Journey: Woman's Quest for Wholeness by Maureen Murdock

• Women Who Run with the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype by Clarissa Pinkola Estés

• 45 Master Characters: Mythic Models for Creating Original Characters, Revised Edition by Victoria Lynn Schmidt

• Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

Movies Mentioned:

• Star Wars: A New Hope – Directed by George Lucas

• Mulan (Animated) - Directed by Barry Cook and Tony Bancroft

• Beauty and the Beast (Animated) - Directed by Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise

• Alien - Directed Ridley Scott

• The Terminator - Directed by James Cameron

• Terminator 2: Judgement Day - Directed by James Cameron

• Terminator: Dark Fate - Directed by Tim Miller

• Wonder Woman - Directed by Patty Jenkins

• Captain Marvel - Directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck

Music from: https://filmmusic.io
’Friendly day’ by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)
Licence: CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)