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Mythic Story Structure
Stages of the Journey:
Ordinary World: The opening of any
story must hook the reader or viewer, set the tone of the story, suggest
where it's going, and get across a mass of information without slowing the
pace.
The Call to Adventure: The Ordinary
World of most heroes is static, but unstable. The seeds of change and
growth are planted, and it takes only a little new energy to germinate
them.
Refusal of the Call: This hesitation
at the threshold signals the audience that the adventure is a
danger-filled, high stakes gamble.
Meeting with the Mentor: Hero gains
the supplies, knowledge, and confidence needed to overcome fear and
commence the adventure.
Crossing the First Threshold:
Irrevocable leap of faith into the Special World in response to a
galvanizing event.
Tests, Allies, Enemies: Trials,
tempering, orientation, preparation.
Supreme Ordeal: Defeat of the
nemesis, transformation by conquering personal weakness, and initial
victory.
Reward: Acquisition of the thing most
needed or desired.
The Road Back: Retaliation or pursuit
by vanquished nemesis.
Resurrection: Soul-searching and
demonstration of the ability to use newfound insights and skills to strike
the final blow against a villain similarly tempered by battle.
Return with the Elixir: Denouement
with unexpected twists.
The Ordinary World: The opening of
any story must hook the reader or viewer, set the tone of the story,
suggest where it's going, and get across a mass of information without
slowing the pace. Heroes may have no obvious missing piece, flaw, or
wound. They may merely be restless, uneasy, and out of sync with their
environment or culture. They may have been getting by, trying to adjust to
unhealthy conditions by using various coping mechanisms or crutches such
as emotional or chemical dependencies. They may have deluded themselves
that everything is all right. But sooner or later, some now force enters
the story to make it clear they can no longer mark time. That new energy
is the Call to Adventure.
The Call to Adventure: The Ordinary
World of most heroes is a static but unstable condition. The seeds of
change and growth are planted, and it takes only a little new energy to
germinate them. That new energy in countless ways in myths and fairy
tales, is what Joseph Campbell termed the Call to Adventure. The Call to
Adventure may come in the form of a message or a messenger, may simply be
a stirring within the hero, a messenger from the unconscious, bearing news
that it's time for change, or the hero may just get fed up with things as
they are. A string of accidents or coincidences may be the message that
calls a hero to adventure, the mysterious force of synchronicity, or
simple temptation, an invitation or challenge to face the unknown
delivered by a Herald, or Mentor serving as Herald. Initially, heroes
often have trouble distinguishing whether a Enemy or an Ally lies behind
the Herald's mask, or the hero is unaware there is anything wrong with
their Ordinary World, in a state of denial, using an arsenal of crutches,
addictions and defense mechanisms. These supports are kicked away,
announcing that the world of the hero is unstable and must be put back
into healthy balance by action, by taking risks, by undertaking the
adventure. The Call to Adventure may also be dire warnings of doom for
tragic heroes.
Reluctant heroes have to be called
repeatedly as they try to avoid responsibility. More willing heroes answer
to inner calls and need no external urging. These gung-ho heroes are rare,
and most heroes must be prodded, cajoled, wheedled, tempted, or shanghaied
into adventure. Most heroes put up a good fight and entertain us by their
efforts to escape the Call to Adventure. These struggles are the work of
the reluctant hero or as Campbell called it, the Refusal of the Call.
Refusal of the Call: The problem of
the hero now becomes how to respond to the Call to Adventure. Put yourself
in the hero's shoes and you can see that it's a difficult passage. You're
being asked to say yes to a great unknown, to an adventure that will be
exciting but also dangerous and even life-threatening. It wouldn't be a
real adventure otherwise. You stand at a threshold of fear, and an
understandable reaction would be to hesitate or even refuse the Call, at
least temporarily. This halt on the road before he journey has really
started serves an important dramatic function of signaling he audience
that the adventure is risky. It's not a frivolous undertaking but a
danger-filled, high stakes gamble in which the hero might lose fortune or
life.
The pause to weigh the consequences makes
the commitment to the adventure a real choice in which the hero, after
this period of hesitation or refusal, is willing to stake her life against
the possibility of winning the goal. It also forces the hero to examine
the quest carefully and perhaps redefine its objectives.
Refusal of the Call is usually a negative
moment in the hero's progress, a dangerous moment in which the adventure
might go astray or never get off the ground at all. However, there are
some special cases in which refusing the Call is a wise and positive move
on the part of the hero. When the Call is a temptation to evil or a
summons to disaster, the hero is smart to say no. It's not unusual for a
Mentor to change masks and perform the function of a Threshold Guardian.
Some Mentors guide the hero deeper into the adventure; others block the
hero's path on an adventure society might not approve of-- an illicit,
unwise, or dangerous path. Such a Mentor/Threshold Guardian becomes a
powerful hero embodiment of society or culture, warning not to go outside
the accepted bounds. Heroes inevitably violate limits set by Mentors or
Threshold Guardians, symbol of human curiosity, the powerful drive to know
all the hidden things, all the secrets.
A hero hesitates at the threshold to
experience the fear, to let the audience know the formidability of the
challenges ahead. But eventually fear is overcome or set aside, often with
the help of wise, protective forces or magical gifts, representing the
energy of the next stage, Meeting with the Mentor.
Meeting with the Mentor: Sometimes
it's not a bad idea to refuse a Call until you've had time to prepare for
the "zone unknown" that lies ahead. In mythology and folklore that
preparation might be done with the help of the wise, protective figure of
the Mentor, whose many services to the hero include protecting, guiding,
teaching, testing, training, and providing magical gifts. Meeting with the
Mentor is the stage of the Hero's journey in which the hero gains the
supplies, knowledge, and confidence needed to overcome fear and commence
the adventure. Even if there is no actual character performing the many
functions of the Mentor archetype, heroes almost always make contact with
some source of wisdom before committing to the adventure. Audiences seem
to enjoy relationships in which the wisdom and experience of one
generation is passed on to the next. Everyone has had a relationship with
a Mentor or role model. The audience is extremely familiar with the Mentor
archetype. To combat clichés and keep your writing fresh and surprising,
defy the archetypes. Stand them on their heads, turn them inside out. Be
aware of the archetype's existence, and the audience's familiarity with
it.
Writers should bear in mind that they are
Mentors of a kind to their readers, shamans who travel to other worlds and
bring back stories to heal their people. Like Mentors, they teach with
their stories ad give of their experience, passion, observation, and
enthusiasm. Writers, like shamans and Mentors, provide metaphors by which
people guide their lives- a most valuable gift and a grave responsibility
for the writer.
It's often the energy of the Mentor
archetype that gets a hero past fear and sends her to the brink of
adventure, at the next stage of the Hero's Journey, the First Threshold.
Crossing the First Threshold: The
call has been heard, doubts and fears have been expressed and allayed, and
all due preparations have been made. Crossing the First Threshold is an
act of the will in which the hero commits whole-heartedly to the
adventure. Heroes typically don't just accept the advice and gifts of
their Mentors and then charge into the adventure. Often their final
commitment is brought about through some external force which changes the
course or intensity of the story. A villain may kill, harm, threaten, or
kidnap someone close to the hero, sweeping aside all hesitation. Rough
weather may force the sailing of a ship. The hero may run out of options,
or discover that a difficult choice must be made. heroes come to decision
points where their very sours are at sake, where they must decide, "Do I
go on living my life as I always have, or will I risk everything in the
effort to grow and change?
As you approach the threshold you're likely
to encounter beings who try to block your way, Threshold Guardians. The
task for heroes at this point is often to figure out some way around or
through these guardians. Sometimes this step merely signifies we have
reached the border of the two worlds. We must take the leap of faith into
the unknown or else the adventure will never really begin. The Crossing
takes a certain kind of courage from the hero, a leap of faith. Like
jumping out of an airplane, the act is irrevocable. There is no turning
back now. The leap is made on faith, the trust that somehow we'll land
safely. The leap of faith may turn into a crisis of faith as romantic
illusions about the Special World are shattered by first contact with it.
The passage may be exhausting, frustrating, disorienting.
Tests, Allies, Enemies: Now the hero
fully enters the mysterious, exciting Special World which Joseph Campbell
called "a dream landscape of curiously fluid, ambiguous forms, where he
must survive a succession of trials." The most important function of this
period of adjustment to the Special World is testing, to prepare the hero
for greater ordeals ahead using a series of trials and challenges. many
Mentors accompany their heroes this far into the adventure, coaching them
for the big rounds ahead. This world is usually dominated by a villain or
Shadow who is careful to surround his world with traps, barricades and
checkpoints. It's common for heroes to fall into traps here or trip the
Shadow's security alarms. Another function of this stage is the making of
Allies or Enemies. The new rules of the Special World must be learned
quickly by the hero and the audience. The phase of Tests, Allies and
Enemies in stories is useful for "getting to know you" scenes where the
characters get acquainted with each other and the audience learns more
about them. This stage also allows the hero to accumulate power and
information in preparation for the next stage, Approach to the Inmost
Cave.
Approach to the Inmost Cave: Heroes,
having made the adjustment to the Special World, now go on to seek its
heart. They pass into an intermediate region between the border and the
very center of the Hero's Journey. On the way they find another mysterious
zone with its own Threshold Guardians, agendas, and tests. This is the
Approach to the Inmost Cave, where soon they will encounter supreme wonder
and terror. Heroes at this point are like mountaineers who have raised
themselves to a base camp by he labors of Testing, and are about to make
the final assault on the highest peak.
As heroes near the gates of a citadel deep
within the Special World, they may take time to make plans, do
reconnaissance on the enemy, reorganize or thin out the group, fortify and
arm themselves. They face a serious of obstacles and challenges that will
bond them as a group, and prepare them for the life-and-death struggle yet
to come. Heroes may have disheartening setbacks at this stage while
approaching the supreme goal. Such reversals of fortune are called
dramatic complications. Though they may seem to tear us apart, they are
only a further test of our willingness to proceed. They also allow us to
put ourselves back together in a more effective form for traveling in this
unfamiliar terrain.
Another function of the Approach stage is to
up the stakes and rededicate the team to its mission. The audience may
need to be reminded of the "ticking clock" or the "time bomb" of the
story. The urgency and life-and-death quality of the issue need to be
underscored.
Approach stage is also a time to reorganize
a group: to promote some members, sort out living, dead, and wounded,
assign special missions, and so on. Archetypal masks may need to be
changed as characters are made to perform new functions.
The sense that the heroes must face some
things without the help of protective spirits is reminiscent of many
mythic tales of trips to the underworld. Human heroes often have to go it
alone on a mission from the gods. They must travel to the land of the dead
where the gods themselves are afraid to walk. There are some places where
our Mentors can't go and we are on our own.
Heroes can expect the villain's headquarters
to be defended with animal-like ferocity. At some point it may be
necessary to use force to break through the final veil to the Inmost Cave.
The hero's own resistance and fear may have to be overcome by a violent
act of will. No mater how heroes try to escape their fate, sooner or later
the exits are closed off and the life-and-death issue must be faced.
The Approach encompasses all the final
preparations for the Supreme Ordeal. It often brings heroes to a
stronghold of the opposition, a defended center where every lesson and
Ally of the journey so far comes into play. New perceptions are put to the
test, and the final obstacles to reaching the heart are overcome, so that
the Supreme Ordeal may begin.
The Supreme Ordeal: Here the fortunes
of the hero hit bottom in a direct confrontation with his greatest fear.
The simple secret of the Supreme Ordeal is this: Heroes must die so that
they can be reborn. The dramatic movement that audiences enjoy more than
any other is death and rebirth. In some way in every story, heroes face
death. Most of the time, they magically survive this death and are
literally or symbolically reborn to reap the consequence of having cheated
death. They have passed the main test of being a hero. Heroes don't just
visit death and come home. They return changed, transformed. No one can go
through an experience at the edge of death without being changed in some
way.
The Supreme Ordeal is a major nerve ganglion
of the story. Many threads of the hero's history lead in, and many threads
of possibility and change lead out the other side. It should not be
confused with the climax of the Hero's Journey. The Ordeal is usually the
central event of the story. Let's call it the crisis to differentiate it
from the climax.
A crisis is an event that separates the two
halves of the story. After crossing this zone, which is often the
borderland of death, the hero is literally or metaphorically reborn and
nothing will ever be the same. The reality of a death-and-rebirth crisis
may depend upon point of view. A witness is often an important part of
this stage, someone standing nearby who sees the hero appear to die,
momentarily mourns the death, and is elated when the hero is revived.
The Supreme Ordeal in myths signifies the
death of the ego. The hero is now fully part of the cosmos, dead to the
old, limited vision of things and reborn into a new consciousness of
connections. The old boundaries of the Self have been transcended or
annihilated. In some sense the hero has become a god with the divine
ability to soar above the normal limits of death and see the broader view
of the connectedness of all things. The Greeks called this a moment of
apotheosis, a step up from enthusiasm where you merely have the god in
you. In a state of apotheosis you are the god. Tasting death lets you sit
in God's chair for awhile.
Reward: With the crisis of the Supreme
Ordeal passed, heroes now experience the consequences of surviving death.
When hunters have survived death and brought down their game, it's natural
to want to celebrate. Energy has been exhausted in the struggle, and needs
to be replenished. These scenes serve important functions for the
audience. They allow us to catch our breath after an exciting battle or
ordeal. The characters might recap the story so far, giving us a chance to
review the story and get a glimpse of how they perceive it.
The aftermath of a Supreme Ordeal may be an
opportunity for a love scene. Heroes don't really become heroes until the
crisis; until then they are just trainees. They don't really deserve to be
loved until they have shown their willingness to sacrifice. At this point
a true hero has earned a love scene, or a "sacred marriage" of some kind.
Heroes may find that surviving death grants
new powers or better perceptions-- death's ability to sharpen the
perception of life.
Facing death has life-changing consequences
which heroes experience by Seizing the Sword, but after experiencing their
Reward fully, heroes must turn back to the quest. There are more ordeals
ahead, and it's time to pack up and face them, on the next stage of the
Hero's Journey, the Road Back.
The Road Back: In psychological terms
this stage represents the resolve of the hero to return to the Ordinary
World and implement the lessons learned in the Special World. This can be
far from easy. The hero has reason to fear that the wisdom and magic of
the Ordeal may evaporate in the harsh light of common day. The Road Back
marks a time when heroes rededicate themselves to the adventure. A plateau
of comfort has been reached and heroes must be pried off that plateau,
either by their own inner resolve or by an external force.
The Road Back is a turning point, another
threshold crossing. Like the First Threshold, it may cause a change in the
aim of the story. A story about achieving some goal becomes a story of
escape; a focus on physical danger shifts to emotional risks. The
propellant that boosts the story out of he depths of the Special World may
be a new development or piece of information that drastically redirects
the story. The rocket fuel may be fear of retaliation or pursuit. Heroes
often learn that villains or Shadows who are not completely defeated in
the crisis can rise up, stronger than before. The psychological meaning of
such counterattacks is that neuroses, flaws, habits, desires, or
addictions we have challenged may retreat for a time, but can rebound in a
last-ditch defense or a desperate attack before being vanquished forever.
The Resurrection: Now comes one of
the trickiest and most challenging passages for the hero and the writer.
For a story to feel complete, the audience needs to experience an
additional moment of death and rebirth; similar to the Supreme Ordeal, but
subtly different. This is the climax, not the crisis; the last and most
dangerous meeting with death. Heroes have to undergo a final purging and
purification before reentering the Ordinary World. Once more they must
change. The trick for writers is to show the change in their characters,
in behavior or appearance, rather than by just talking about it. Writers
mist find ways to demonstrate that their heroes have been through a
Resurrection. The danger is usually on the broadest scale of the entire
story. The threat is not just to the hero, but to the whole world. In
other words, the stakes are at their highest. Stories may need more than
one climax, or a series of rolling climaxes. Individual subplots may
require separate climaxes.
A climax should provide the feeling of
catharsis, a purifying emotional release, or an emotional breakthrough. In
psychoanalysis, catharsis is a technique of relieving anxiety or
depression by bringing unconscious material to the surface. The same is
true, in a away, of storytelling. The climax you are trying to trigger in
your hero and audience is the moment when they are the most conscious,
when they have reached the highest point on a ladder of awareness. You are
trying to raise the consciousness of both the hero and the participating
audience. A catharsis can bring about a sudden expansion of awareness, a
peak experience of higher consciousness.
Resurrection is the hero's final exam, her
chance to show what she has learned. Heroes are totally purged by final
sacrifice or deeper experience of the mysteries of life and death. Some
don't make it past this dangerous point, but those who survive go on to
close the circle of the Hero's Journey when they Return with the Elixir.
Return with the Elixir: Having
survived all the ordeals, having lived through death, heroes return to
their starting place, go home, or continue the journey. But they always
proceed with a sense that they are commencing a new life, one that will be
forever different because of the road just traveled. If they are true
heroes, they Return with the Elixir from the Special World; brining
something to share with others, or something with the power to heal a
wounded land.
Another name for the Return is denouement, a
French word meaning "untying" or "unknotting". (noue means knot.) A story
is like a weaving in which the lives of the characters are interwoven into
a coherent design. The plot lines are knotted together to create conflict
and tension, and usually it's desirable to release the tension and resolve
the conflicts by untying these knots. We also speak of "tying up the loose
ends" of a story in a denouement. Whether tying up or untying, these
phrases point to the idea that a story is a weaving and that it must be
finished properly or it will seem tangled or ragged. That's why it's
important in the Return to deal with subplots and all the issues and
questions you've raised in the story. It's all right for a Return to raise
new questions-- in fact that may be highly desirable- but all the old
questions should be addressed or at least restated. Usually writers strive
to create a feeling of closing the circle on all these storylines and
themes.
A Return can fall flat if everything is
resolved too neatly or just as expected. A good Return should untie the
plot threads but with a certain amount of surprise. It should be done with
a little taste of the unexpected, a sudden revelation.
It's easy to blow it in the Return. Many
stories fall apart in the final moments. The Return is too abrupt,
prolonged, unfocussed, unsurprising, or unsatisfying. The mood or chain of
thought the author has created just evaporates and the whole effort is
wasted. Another pitfall is that writers fail to bring all the elements
together at the Return. It's common for writers to leave subplot threads
dangling. The final function of Return is to conclude the story
decisively. The story should end with the emotional equivalent of a
punctuation mark.
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