I spotted this diagram the other day on Instagram. I snapped a screenshot so I could keep it handy and refer to it when needed. It was posted by a fellow writer. She used it to not only explain the Hero's Journey, but its history, and her thoughts on it, too.
The reason I'm thinking about it now is for precisely the opposite reason I took the picture in the first place.
I haven't thought about it at all.
I've been involved in this writing game for almost a decade, and I've been attending writing conferences and symposiums for nearly as long. One thing writers like to do--and, anyone else, for that matter--is to offer advice. Sometimes it's good; sometimes it's crap.
If you're a new writer just starting out, you need a plan. It can be a well-orchestrated and thought out plan, or it can be a general thought of where you'd like to end up. Like building a house, you've got to know about foundations if you want your structure to stand. As a writer, you've got to know about story structure if you want to see it succeed. I've attended, and been part of, so many classes, lectures, discussions on how to write a story--how to set it up--it becomes so natural...it's like breathing.
The same thing can be said about most movie storylines these days as well. In fact, the rules on screenwriting are even more ridged. Audiences expect a story structure they know, that they're familiar with, whether they even know it or not.
The Hero's Journey: we begin in the ordinary world, and venture into a different one. We eventually return to the ordinary, but the hero is anything but. He's changed, and we change with him. There have been entire libraries written on the subject, but the most interesting thing for me is, we know this journey. We see it, we read it, almost every day. And since it's such a successful journey, I don't see that changing any time soon.
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