The Hero's Journey - Heather Dyer

Most - if not all - contemporary stories are modelled around Joseph Campbell's classic 'Hero's Journey', which he says represents ‘the pattern that lies behind every story ever told’. It’s a pattern that maps both outer journeys and inner, spiritual journeys.

Joseph Campbell created this mythic pathway by travelling the world collecting myths from primitive cultures. He discovered that all myths had certain sequences of actions, or stages, in common.

 

Typically, The Hero’s Journey follows the protagonist’s progress as he/she crosses the threshold from the known world into the unknown. The protagonist then faces various challenges and meets archetypal characters who perform specific roles. Typically, the hero confronts a dragon or the equivalent, and either dies or appears to die in order to be resurrected. He/she may then receive a gift, which they take back to the known world to benefit humanity.

Personally, I wouldn't advocate crafting your story according to a formula like this - but it's fascinating how (even without intending it) when a story 'works' it does seem to follow this pattern.

 

It can be helpful, therefore, to superimpose this pattern onto our stories at the first draft stage and ask ourselves the following questions:

1. Have we established our protagonist in the 'ordinary world' before we turn their lives upside down and make them venture out into the 'unknown'?
2. Does our protagonist need to meet a mentor - or gain wisdom from some other external source - in order to help them on their journey of transformation?
3. What is the 'dragon' that our protagonist has to face? Is it something or someone outside themselves? Or might the dragon be their own internal 'demons'?
4. Does our protagonist face their dragon and reach a point of 'death and rebirth' - which could mean that they have to face their worst fears, relinquish their strongest beliefs or greatest dreams - and change and evolve as a result?
5. What is the 'gift' that they get? Is it knowledge, courage or something more concrete?
6. Does their new insight or situation then allow them to overcome an old problem, or help somebody else?  

Finally, can you relate The Hero's Journey to your story? Or even to stories in your own life? Or is it possible to create a story that doesn't follow this pattern at all - but still works?

Heather Dyer's latest book is The Flying Bedroom.

www.heatherdyer.co.uk

 

 

 

 

Wanted: No Change by Tracy Alexander

Penny Dolan’s post Wanted: One Technical Geek made me think of how the departure of my three teenagers over the next few years will affect my writing. I have a technical director in the shape of my husband, so there’ll be no service interruption on that front, but many other problems may arise.

Being current

I use words that label me as a teenager from the 70s and 80s.

Fab. Cool. Get off with. Pictures. Snakebite. Purdey. Bimbo. Sloane.

With no idea what bands, series, gameware and social media are ‘happening’, I lazily slot in One Direction and Gameboy, knowing that my hopelessly yesterday attempts will be crossed out, sometimes with a sarcastic comment, and Que Sera by Justice Crew and Xbox One popped in.

Plotting

Meal times are essential for solving problems with my plot, or lack of. I outline the issue and let the four heads around the table come up with the answer, for which I take credit. How well this works seems to be directly proportional to the number of brains involved. A decline is inevitable.

Writing for older audiences

My first four books were for ages 7-11. Uncannily, I had exactly that age range in my family. My two news books are YA. Uncannily, I have exactly that age range in my family. Does that mean my future will see me attempting an adult novel?

School visits

I take a dustbin of props on my school visits. Most of the props do not belong to me. I will lose my light-up skull, my night-vision goggles, the tardis and everyone’s favourite, Dangles the Monkey. I expect I will be allowed to keep the lime green fairy wings and the Harry Potterglasses.

Excuses

I cannot write full-time, and sometimes hardly at all, because I have all sorts of important jobs to do with the kids, like watching The Great British Bake-Off together, going to Costa for hot chocolate, and making banana muffins. When I do not have anyone to do these things with or for, will I have to spend more time in my study?

Structure

The school day provides a fixed hour to get up, a chunk of time when I have the house to myself, and a reason to cook a meal sometime around six. I am grateful for the routine because left to my own devices I can imagine lolling around in my pyjamas until late in the day and then writing in the dead of night, still wearing boots.

Company

If I’ve spent a good few hours in the study, I am desperate to talk to someone. This usually means I go to the local shops and talk to strangers. With less people to talk to in the house, the shopping trips and liaisons with strangers will increase.  This seems dangerous.

Encouragement

I moan about writing. When I moan, rather than telling me to shut up, my children say encouraging things.

Enough of the negatives.

In order to not end this post dreading what’s to come, I can see that all of the problems have potential upsides.

I may find writing in boots at three in the morning produces wonderful results.

I may, through my idle chats with fellow shoppers, find a friend, or a story . . .

I will, almost certainly, find new excuses like ice-skating, or trying out recipes from The Great British Bake-Off – that would certainly kill a few hours.

I may, take the plunge, and abandon my dustbin, because I have been doing the same thing for five years now and it’s probably time for a change. I can entertain without a tardis!

I won’t write for adults, because I don’t want to. And anyway, as Anna Wilson pointed out in her post Childish Things? "Booksellers now estimate that almost half of young adult books are being read by people who are over the age of 18,” so I’m there already.

There must be other people I know who might enjoy plotting in return for a meal.

And being current, well, there’s a novel set in the twenties that has been hovering . . .

There we are – I feel better now. Off to watch X Factor – with a child, obviously.

The W-Plot - Heather Dyer

I’ve always been an awful plotter. I write intuitively, going down dozens of blind alleys before (sometimes) finding my way out into the sun. I’ll admit, though, that once written, my stories do all follow the generally accepted 3-Act story structure.

But I never found looking at the 3-Act structure helpful while I was writing. That is, until I came across Mary Caroll Moore’s ‘W-plot’ structure.

 

Mary has written 13 books – most of them non-fiction – and, interestingly, the W-plot structure applies to both fiction and non-fiction. I’m using it myself now with books of both types. Mary has also published her own book called Your Book Starts Here: Create, Craft, and Sell Your First Novel, Memoir, or Nonfiction Book, available in print and on Kindle:

http://howtoplanwriteanddevelopabook.blogspot.co.uk/

Mary has also made a YouTube video about her W-plot here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMhLvMJ_r0Y

Mary’s W-plot structure is ingenious because it shows how the action in a story ascends or descends at different times. I interpret this as being the way a character is swept down by events on the descending leg of the W – then moves upwards with new purpose on the ascending stroke.

The W-plot structure also nicely illustrates how characters change their minds as a result of things that happen to them, and consequently change the trajectory of the plot. The two major ‘turning points’ are represented by the two bottom points of the W. These turning points occur in the 3-Act plot structure as well. However, it was never clear to me (due to the linear way that the 3-Act structure is usually presented) that the turning points are not so much a turning point in the action of the story but a turning point in the character’s own motivation. In other words, your characters can change their minds. 

Surprisingly – after five books – this came as a revelation to me. I knew that my characters needed to change and develop over the course of the story, but I had always been so concerned about knowing who my characters were and keeping them ‘in character’ that I had not given them enough freedom to do a complete about-turn and take the plot off in a new direction.

So, although I still write my first drafts intuitively (as, indeed, Mary Caroll Moore still advocates), I keep in mind the W-plot structure and ask myself what it would take to make a character change their mind at a turning point – and how it would affect things if they did.

Heather Dyer
www.heatherdyer.co.uk