Mythical journeys often involve a quest, but the
journey is fundamentally the natural course of our own lives. Mythic
journeys are generally bigger stories than we will tell in our diary, but
the information will be both familiar and useful. Stories are artificial,
but they speak volumes about reality, if we'd but peek behind the
concepts.
Stories often begin with the Protagonist, lets say a
Heroine, living her life in the Ordinary World. A standard needs to be
shown from which the course of the story will deviate. Those values need
to be defended at all cost. Perhaps they need to be defeated at all cost.
The victory to be achieved is often invested in a jewel, a sword, a
marriage, a win in an important contest, but all good stories speak from
levels of the psyche deeper than the superficial action. They speak of
values to be obtained, used to good end, and defended, and of liabilities
to be overcome.
From the vantage point of the Ordinary World, the
Heroine will receive a Call to Adventure, the first hint of something gone
amiss in her life, or in her world. The Call to Adventure will be
delivered by a Herald, but she will resist. The Refusal of the Call
reveals the true scope of the threat and sacrifice being asked of her. She
will fear the possible cost of the battle to come.
The Heroine seldom acts upon her own counsel. This is
where the Mentor enters the picture, the voice of the higher self or an
Ally providing information about the nature of the danger and its
relationship to the Heroine.
Facing the Threshold Guardian, she faces her first
test. In old mythical tales, she couldn't cross the bridge without
defeating a gnome or solving a riddle. In more modern stories, she isn't
worthy of engaging the Villain without proving her initial worth to leave
her Ordinary World behind and enter the Special World where the conflict
will take place.
She barely qualifies to enter, forewarning of the
difficulties lying ahead. Perhaps she is helped at the last minute by a
newcomer who will become her Companion, Ally, or Sidekick.
What the Heroine is seeking is The Approach to the
Inmost Cave. What she is trying to accomplish, or attain, is well-hidden
and well-guarded. Just getting to the cave is a challenge, and along the
way, she will encounter Enemies, and perhaps duel the Contagonist standing
in her way. The Contagonist may not be associated with the Villain. It may
be, instead, an aspect of her own life to be defeated before she can hope
to gain what she strives for, or defeat the Villain. The Villain, human or
metaphoric, will be her last and greatest challenge.
On her Approach to the Inmost Cave, she encounters
tests of her knowledge and strength and she gathers her resources. The
reader gains a broader view of the story through the eyes of other
characters, perhaps characters with different goals and values, and hidden
motives in accompanying the Heroine and pooling resources with her.
Stories within stories can be told in this fashion.
The story then focuses upon the Supreme Ordeal. Here,
the Heroine will win or lose. Everything for which she has prepared comes
into play. Her every resource is thrown into the defeat of her adversary,
or the acquisition of what she needs to take back with her to the Ordinary
World.
If we were writing commercial fiction of this depth,
this is where it would be a good idea to work with flawed characters that
have as much internal as external conflict. The Heroine has a great fear,
or a weakness her enemies have discovered and will use against her. The
reader is more aware than the Heroine herself of the danger she is in.
This is where it pays to convince the reader of the invulnerability of the
Villain or the impossibility for the Heroine to ever achieve her goal. It
appears as if everything is going to be sacrificed for nothing.
Our Heroine, of course, is not going to be defeated. We
will have planted seeds of victory early in our story. The Heroine has an
innate strength, if she can but overcome her secret weakness and recognize
her true worth in time to use it. Coincidence is never used, although
synchronicity lies at the heart of the story, and aces are kept up the
sleeve until the last moment. At the last moment, there’s a way to
victory. The Villain is just as startled and horrified, staring defeat in
the face with utter disbelief.
So, this is the end of the story. The Heroine takes her
prize, her victory, what Christopher Vogler calls Seizing the Sword, and
she goes home and lives happily ever after.
Not quite. She's a long way from home, and the Villain
has legions of followers seeking vengeance. The Villain, too, may recover
enough to go hobbling after the Heroine in a suicidal rage.
The Heroine has suffered profound changes. She is a
different woman, but her new self is fragile and untried. She's not quite
sure that what she has gained will last. She fears she will revert, or is
unworthy to hold the prize she has won.
The Heroine needs her new self to be tested. And when
she encounters her resurrected nemesis one last time, she is born into her
full glory. When she kicks butt this time, she does so with a vengeance.
The Villain is utterly destroyed. Even if he physically survives, he will
be a demoralized and defeated entity forever.
The Heroine returns to the Ordinary World, the Return
with the Elixir, as Christopher Vogler calls the final stage. The ordinary
world is a better place for the battle that has taken place. All wrongs
have been righted, and she is a new person, moving through her old haunts,
renewing acquaintances and establishing a new hen-pecking order.
Now would be the time to untie all the knots woven in
the lives of our characters, for not only has the Heroine undertaken a
journey down the main course of the story, so have her Companions and
Sidekicks undertaken parallel journeys of their own. The mythic journey
will be applied to some degree to all of of our characters, and perhaps to
the story itself on a different level.
The above forms the template for a novel, but it’s as
well suited for our little diaries as well, as much of it as we care to
use. Armed with personality styles and knowledge of archetypes and mythic
journeys, we’re almost ready to put pen to paper, or fingers to the
keyboard, or vocal cords to the voice recorder.
