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Whether you’re writing fiction, starting a marketing campaign, crafting a pitch, or trying to ride the ups and downs of an entrepreneurial li ...
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- Create narratives with this structure in mind.
Rather than follow the model religiously, use it as ...
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There were many critiques about whether or not Campbell’s original model really applied to folklore, or whether he selectively cited his examples. At the same time, his model which referenced such things as ‘meeting with goddess’ and ‘woman as temptress’ was rightly critiqued from a feminist perspective. I would argue that the updated model from Vogler does address many of these issues, especially when seen as a ‘loose framework’ rather than a tight script.
Another criticism is about its complexity and therefore usefulness to be applied. Vogler obviously reduced and streamlined the stages from 17 to 12 but even so it might be too much for some applications. Indeed, Dan Harmon, who was behind Community and Rick and Morty, simplified it further to the story circle which consists of 8 stages: a character in comfort; they want something; they enter an unfamiliar situation; they adapt; they get what they wanted; they pay a price; they return to their familiar situation; they’ve changed.
Perhaps the biggest criticism in a business context is that the approach is too bloated for a busy, overwhelmed audience. If that’s the case, Minto’s Pyramid or other models might be a better approach.
So many examples.
Many examples have been cited to back up the relevance of the Hero’s Journey in storytelling. I particularly like this wonderful infographic explaining how it applies in popular movies such as Harry Potter, Star Wars, the Matrix, Spiderman, the Lion King and the Lord of the Rings.
The hero’s journey is a fundamental, persistent and broadly used model in storytelling.
Use the following examples of connected and complementary models to weave the hero’s journey into your broader latticework of mental models. Alternatively, discover your own connections by exploring the category list above.
Connected models:
- Three act model: a three act approach to storytelling.
- Minto's pyramid: it’s different but the simplified business focused narrative structure bares some resemblance.
Complementary models:
- Journey map: use the hero’s journey to provide a structure to a customer journey.
- Design thinking: to empathise with a protagonist or customer as part of telling their story.
- Lean startup: tell your entrepreneurial story with the hero’s journey.
- Non violent communication: another communication model that you might incorporate with the hero's journey to express yourself in a more compelling way.
First described in 1949 by Joseph Campbell in his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces, the hero’s journey, or monomyth, aimed to capture the universal or archetypal story element found everywhere. Campbell originally described 17 stages to the model. Our diagram references the modernised and simplified version presented by Christopher Vogler in his 2007 book, The Writer’s Journey, though we have still cited Campbell as the model’s originator.
For more, watch this animated video about the hero’s journey from TedEd. Or, for my favourite video on the topic, view the Glove and Boots puppet inspired explanation of the character archetypes in the hero’s journey.
The Emma Coates framework mentioned in the summary above came from this Pixar story page by David Price.
My Notes
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1127 days ago mlrAnother limitation is the gendered nature of Campbell's model - the heroine's journey is different and well documented. The male-gendered (Campbell) hero figure acts alone, sacrifices his connections with family and society, and seeks goals that ultimately exile him from society. In contrast, the female-gendered heroine responds to a loss of power by turning to friends and family for assistance; she enables others to have agency and demonstrate their own talents; and when she regains power, there's usually a compromise solution that is designed to bring benefits to all sides. See Gail Carriger (2020) The Heroine's Journey for a fast, easy-to-read summary of both models, as applied to writing novels and movies. https://gailcarriger.com/books/the-heroines-journey-for-authors-book/
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