Writing a hero’s journey
The hero’s journey is a common storytelling structure that can be found everywhere.
You might assume that examples of the hero’s journey are from stories like The Odyssey or Beowulf(and you’d be right!) but this structure has persisted throughout the ages. Modern examples of the hero’s journey include stories like Interstellar, The Hunger Games, and Star Wars (this is most prominent in “Episode IV: A New Hope”).
What is the hero’s journey?
At its core, the hero’s journey (sometimes called the “monomyth”) is a template. This story follows a specific series of events, but at its simplest form, looks like this:
1. The hero is called to adventure;
2. They are successful in a significant event/challenge/conflict;
3. They end the story changed.
Simple, right?
How many steps in the hero’s journey?
Here is where the hero’s journey can get a little bit complicated.
It depends. Joseph Campbell (see more below) says 17 steps, while others have had different opinions (we will be covering all of these in greater depth another time).
There is a fair bit of scholarly debate about the hero’s journey, though some theories are more cited than others. For the sake of simplicity, we’re not going to get into the weeds on the theory side of things.
We’re more interested in the structure.
One book that comes up often in this discussion is The Hero with a Thousand Faces (Joseph Campbell, 1949). In this most excellent book (I recommend reading this one along with The Power of Myth (1988, based on a PBS documentary)), Campbell thoroughly explains the template through the context of world mythologies (from Tibetan to Incan to Greek).
The three main parts of the monomyth
The hero’s journey has three main parts. We’ve already touched on them above. The first is the call to adventure, the second is the conflict, and the final one is the return home. This last one, the “return home” does not need to be a literal return home, but can be “taking one’s place in the normal world” (more on this later).
Let’s look at two examples that we mentioned before: Interstellar and The Hunger Games. What is the general arc for the protagonists?
1. Call to action:
o (Interstellar) Cooper is called to action to go on a mission to save humanity.
o (The Hunger Games) Katniss Everdeen is called to action when she volunteers to participate in the Hunger Games to save her sister.
2. Facing the challenge:
o (Interstellar) Cooper navigates the tesseract.
o (The Hunger Games) Katniss and Peeta survive the games.
3. The return:
o (Interstellar) Cooper sets out after seeing Murphy to find Dr. Brand.
o (The Hunger Games) Katniss returns to District 12 (though she has doubts about her future).
While the specifics routinely change, the template doesn’t really.
Is the hero’s journey formulaic?
Yes, it is.
But that’s not the same question as “is the hero’s journey boring”.
Like we noted above, stories as different as Interstellar and The Hunger Games operate on the same formula.
For the record, I don’t think that the monomyth is a bad set up; it’s a classic pattern that serves many different stories. But I do think that there are a few things to consider about it if you’re going to write a story using the template.
Keep in mind that these are only my opinions and that there are lots of ways that this can be done.
Let’s focus on three particular points that I think are pivotal to the success of the story:
1. The known vs. the unknown;
2. The mentor figure;
3. The return.
You’ll notice that above we talked about facing a challenge, but that this list mentions the “mentor” instead. We’ll be covering the idea of facing a challenge in much more depth in another article. It’s a very important element of the journey, so it’s important to make sure we cover it properly.
The known vs. the unknown
The hero starts off their adventure in a normal or familiar environment. This does not necessarily mean “normal” or “familiar” to the reader, only to the protagonist. I’m neither an astronaut, a chosen one-type force user, or a Hobbit, but all of those stories start in a grounded and understandable place.
“Place” here being a more emotional use of the word rather than a specific physical location.
The unknown is what lies beyond the realm of the familiar.
“If I take one more step, I'll be the farthest away from home I've ever been.”
- Samwise Gamgee, The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
The reader needs to understand the contrast between these two things—to see the stakes in the protagonist leaving their normal life behind in the call to adventure. Frodo and Sam et al. could have stayed in the Shire, but they didn’t.
They embarked on the journey.
“I’m neither an astronaut, a chosen one-type force user, or a Hobbit, but all of those stories start in a grounded and understandable place.”
The mentor
Gandalf, Obi Wan Kenobi, Splinter, Rufus, and any other “old wise figure that is there to guide our hero(es) along their journey towards destiny” serves as a mentor. These characters tend to be very important and (sometimes) central figures in the lives of our hero(es).
I say “old” here though that isn’t a requirement (though it is very common).
While it’s a great archetype, and can be interesting and extremely valuable, it can be very pedestrian. How many “old wizard types” can you name off the top of your head?
It’s important to note that while this trope is very common, that doesn’t mean that it’s a bad one. What matters more than anything else is how compelling the character is and what story you’re telling. Gordon Bombay from the Mighty Ducks and Mary Poppins are both mentors, but they don't fall into the classic stereotypes.
Be creative, because the mentor is a role more than it is a specific individual.
We will be covering how to write good mentor characters soon.
The return
In the context of the monomyth, what is a “return”?
A protagonist doesn’t need to become the king or some have prophecy be fulfilled—they only need to return from the journey changed in some meaningful way. Without change, the journey wouldn’t have had a purpose. Luke steps into the footsteps of his father (though he doesn’t know it yet), Bilbo returns from the Battle of the Five Armies and the “dragon business” braver and changed, and Cooper in Interstellar has answers to questions that were introduced at the beginning of the movie.
This conclusion is what we have been waiting for.
But how can we draw a contrast between the character before and who they are after? As we mentioned earlier, the return here doesn’t need to be a literal return to a physical location. It might just be that a character is comfortable with their place in the world.
Perhaps the end result is a degree of acceptance with what life was before, or perhaps it is a new drive to make changes. It struck me recently that Wakanda Forever really was a story about a young woman finding their own place in the world and coming to terms with events that took place in their past that threatened to destroy their future. That character’s return (in fact multiple characters had similar journeys) was about them being at peace with where they were in the end.
Writing the hero’s journey
This is both simple and challenging. Simple because the template and examples exist, but challenging because if you’re writing such a story, there’s a lot of other examples that you’re trying to differentiate yourself from. When sitting to write your own interpretation of the monomyth, it helps to have a strong sense of your characters, the mentor, and what the return is going to be in your story.
Campbell notes that the monomyth has some 17 different elements, and we’ll take a look at these later, but for now we’re going to look at some simple tips to write the three points mentioned above: the known vs. unknown, the mentor, and the return.
How to write the known vs. unknown
Because there are so many genres with so many different settings, it’s easy to get lost in the weeds about what “the known” means.
Some stories don’t have a problem in communicating what this is because they’re set in contemporary society in locations that exist. We can all imagine living in a big city or in a small town. Other stories have a more challenging task in this.
Tatooine is a desert planet in the Outer Rim where moisture farming is a job and giant slug gangsters run vast crime syndicates.
But a “young person’s desire to explore and be free of their own mundane life and to fight for the freedom of others” is relatable.
A New Hope’s success is driven in part by Luke’s hero’s journey. Presumably, Luke is the “new hope”, and so the story is about his journey.
At its core, your story is about a journey. The locations of the journey are not as important as what the emotional journey is.
Breaking down the hero’s journey
Start by clarifying what the journey of the hero is. For example:
“Luke’s mentor leads him to adventure where he saves a princess, defeats the bad guys, and saves the day. He takes his place as a hero in the rebellion.”
A couple of lines to clarify the general spine of the story. What does yours look like?
Being able to define your story quickly, clearly, and knowing what beats you want to hit will help you keep the story focused. Sometimes it’s easy to get lost in trying to explain what the unknown is. Or even the known if it’s in a fantasy or science fiction story. Keep your emotional elements grounded and your reader won’t get lost.
How to write a mentor
Mentors are tricky.
Anyone could name half a dozen good mentor characters, and we know them when we see them in movies and stories. How many times have you watched a movie and thought, “A ha! This is the teacher character and they’re probably going to die!” More than once I’m guessing.
Let’s clarify that mentor characters don’t have to die. Writers often kill off mentors because it’s a very simple way to force the hero to go out on their own. Sometimes, your mentor character fighting a balrog and falling off the Bridge of Khazad Dum is enough.
Here are a few things you need to keep in mind when writing a mentor:
Mentors are not fortune cookies;
Avoid clichés;
Make sure they matter;
Avoid deus ex machina mentors.
Let’s talk about each of these briefly.
“Who knew that you could learn martial arts by waxing a car and painting a house.”
Mentors are not fortune cookies
A mentor to your hero should inspire them, not be cracked open for snippets of wisdom. In an ideal world, how the mentor is written should reflect the ideals that the hero takes with them. The more generic a mentor is the less memorable they are (and the less memorable their guiding principles are).
Can you tell me what Obi Wan Kenobi’s guiding principles are? Can you tell me how those influenced Luke Skywalker?
Can you tell me what Bron’s guiding principles are in Eragon? Can you tell me how those influenced Eragon?
Make sure that rather than being an exposition fountain (though there is always some amount of this) that they demonstrate the values that they try to teach.
Avoid clichés
Some of the best mentors are the ones that are the most unexpected. While you can have your Gandalfs and your Dumbledores, sometimes avoiding the overused archetypes completely accomplishes a far more memorable character.
Yoda is an excellent mentor character, he looks different, he speaks different, he’s tiny and green. His response to Luke telling him that he’s looking for a “great warrior” is “wars not make one great”. He teaches his lessons through action rather than just explicitly saying what he thinks.
Another interesting mentor character is Mr. Miyagi in The Karate Kid. Who knew that you could learn martial arts by waxing a car and painting a house. The methods are unconventional but the lessons are memorable. By straying from the traditional “old wise men” archetype (though both are wise old men) they are more interesting.
Make sure they matter
A mentor’s purpose is to help the hero grow, but they need to be able to do so in a way that is unique to them.
It’s important to make sure that a mentor’s role can’t be achieved by the Guy on the Bus. Who’s the Guy on the Bus? Exactly. If you can replace your mentor with a Guy on the Bus and get to the same end result, your mentor needs work. They need to matter to the reader; they have to matter.
If your mentor dies in your story, that should be distressing to the reader. Obi Wan’s death is traumatic to the viewer, and he truly mattered to Luke because he helped the soon-to-be Jedi take his “first step into a larger world” (one could say).
Give your mentor character, meaning, and weight. They shouldn’t be “some old smart guy”, because they’re setting up the hero for success.
Avoid deus ex machina mentors
There is a temptation to use the mentor to solve your hero’s problems. They have a skill that is unique that removes the need for the hero to be challenged. A mentor should impart wisdom and teachings, but not negate the growth of a hero by doing everything for them.
That’s less a “hero’s journey” and more “hero’s casual weekend of people doing things for them”.
A mentor should (and often does) save the hero. This usually happens at the time of the initial meeting. But it is important to ensure that there is growth on the part of the hero, and that they are absorbing the lessons from the mentor (not just being saved by them).
If you’re trying to figure out how to write a mentor, it helps to mentally take the position of “I don’t want the mentor to help the hero”.
Easy to see why mentors often have short shelf-lives in the context of the hero’s journey, right?
How to write the return
And we’ve arrived at the end of the journey, where the hero is retuning home.
But what does “home” really mean? In some cases, it’s quite literal.
Bilbo Baggins returns to Bag End after the events of The Hobbit, but he is changed. He’s no longer the same Hobbit he was before his adventure. In a similar way, after the destruction of the One Ring, Frodo sails off to the Undying Lands with the elves, the journey having changed him so much that going back to a “normal life” was impossible.
“Bilbo Baggins returns to Bag End after the events of The Hobbit, but he is changed. He’s no longer the same Hobbit he was before his adventure.”
In keeping with the Star Wars examples above, Luke’s return home isn’t a return to Tatooine. Luke returns to his new family; the Rebellion, Leia, Han and Chewbacca. His return home is less literal, but is still a return from the adventure. In a nutshell, evil is defeated (for a time) and the princess is rescued.
There should be a contrast between the hero at the beginning and the hero at the end. If you want to write a good return, you need to be able to examine your hero in a specific way.
How is the hero different? They faced a specific set of challenges to get where they are, how would the hero at the start of the story have failed? This helps to start seeing where the character growth occurs and how the story arc of the hero comes to a satisfying end.
Good luck with your hero’s journey.
