The Hero with A Thousand Faces

The Man, The Hero the Monomyth!

So I’ve recently finished The Hero with A Thousand Faces, which to those who are scratching their heads, is the original work by Joseph Campbell that spawned the ubiquitous concept of The Hero’s Journey. It was a fascinating read, moreso because of the huge ‘mythology’ (ironic) that has been built up around this concept, and how strange it is to read an original work with that kind of front-loading. I’ve talking about the Hero’s Journey a few times on this blog, so apologies for any of this gets repetitive, but I thought a deep dive was warranted.

Part One: The Background

For anyone who is still scratching their heads (get checked for lice), and hopefully without sounding patronizing, The Hero’s Journey or ‘Monomyth’ is a concept known by almost all modern writers. The Journey (I’m going to get sick of writing Hero’s Journey out in full over and over) can be seen above, and is a character development process that’s significance depends on who you ask (more on that later), but generally is deemed very fundamental, significant and at least in Campbell’s case underpins the most mythical of myths.

The basic steps of the journey, put very simply, go along the lines of a ‘hero’ exists in a normal world where they experience a call to adventure initially refusing but then being called again to cross the threshold into some kind of supernatural world where they face a (hurriedly checks graphic above) number of tests and eventually overcome an ordeal seizing the treasure (or boons) from the ordeal their return home and are resurrected along the way. Upon their return they share their treasure with the normal word forever changing it.

While the original Star Wars is often cited as the seminal movie using The Journey (apparently the success of Star Wars propelled the concept into as much fame as the movie), in my humble opinion none other than The Matrix is the perfect example, the movie the structured around Neo leaving the “real world” and becoming the One, complete with a resurrection on the trip home. There is a slight twist on the concept where Thomas Anderson exists in the supernatural world in a state of ‘sleep’ so initially his return to the real world seems to be crossing into the supernatural, but its actually the Matrix where the Kung Fu machine gun magic happens.

Anyway.

Part Two: The Implications

There are so many statements and theories of The Journey that its hard to process them all coherently even in a brief summary.

Some claim that The Journey is THE format for stories, its not just A format, but in the same way music is based on sound, stories are based on the Journey.

Others a little softer or maybe harsher depending on your perspective state that The Journey is the only format for GOOD stories, that the closer a tale cleaves to The Journey the better it is and any deviations are a flaw rather than variety (note they often back this up with some of the gobbledegook below which of course has little backing it up but typically by then you’re in to deep to disagree)

A more esoteric take is that the Journey represents a certain reality. Either in a concrete way, that our lives travel by Hero’s Journeys (e.g. the dragons are metaphoric I’m afraid but the ordeals are not) where we resist and overcome ordeals to learn or gain something that changes our status quos. OR in a more overall metaphor acquiring knowledge, that basically to learn we need to slay the dragon of ignorance and acquiring knowledge is akin to resurrection.

Campbell himself actually had a strange take that doesn’t really fit with the way The Journey has been used since he brought it into existence. Campbell didn’t seem to have much interest in ‘local’ or ‘modern’ fiction, as best I can tell he saw fiction as a sort of muddying of mythology. His focus was very much on the myths of the world, and in fact sort of saw the modern world (the 50s mind you goodness knows what he would make of social media etc) as being myth-less and in dire need of some new ones (but again didn’t consider popular fiction a source of that).

The hardest part to explain is that Campbell didn’t really see The Journey as explaining something concrete like the structure for a story or an everyday life experience. The best I can explain his thesis is that he saw myth as a sort of clumsy concrete metaphor for EVEN DEEPER knowledge, as in rather than say slaying a dragon as a metaphor for growing up – he saw slaying the dragon as the concrete story of some more subtextual reality. That reality (of course) is completely unknowable, the kind of super knowledge that to know it means you don’t exist anymore.

Phew!

Interlude: Joseph Campbell is a little nuts

This might be a good time to just review some of the more surprising parts of this book. I kinda had a heads up in reading a later book of Campbell where he leaned heavily into the word salad and mystical talk that would probably label him today as a conspiracy theorist or at least a source of disinformation.

Maybe this is all a bit harsh but I just want to take a moment to cover some of the dodgy arguments Campbell uses, and explain how its probably good this man was an academic who created a fundamental writing structure, as opposed to a cult leader.

First of all Campbell is guilty of the “No True Scotsman” fallacy (in regards to myth of course) this fallacy is where broad statements are made and any example contradicting them is dismissed as not a “true” myth. E.g. any myth not following the Hero’s Journey does of course, not count.

Second, I don’t actually know if there is a term of this but its an extremely common misinformation tactic (and btw toxic interaction for personal relationships) – where there is a surprisingly lack of any actual specific verifiable statements made. There are a lot of grand terms, and a MASSIVE amount of examples given but a dearth of key assertions to actually judge. For example Campbell doesn’t directly say that The Journey is present in all myths, or even most myths, he makes statements like “all myths have striking similarities” and then goes on to describe parts of the Journey with examples.

The reason I say this is common in misinformation is that such arguments lead a reader to form an obvious conclusion – however its hard to truly pin that statement on the author – its easy to dodge accountability by saying that isn’t what you mean or adding caveats.

Just to be clear I don’t think that Joseph Campbell is dodgy or deceptive. In fact I kinda chuckled when Campbell at the end of the book started slagging off Capitalism (there’s a part of The Journey you don’t hear much about) in a way I gelled with. It’s actually in part just a case of 50s qualitative research that leaves a lot to be desired.

And again another clarification, its actually people since Campbell who have assumed to treated his work as definitive evidence of The Journey being a universal thing re: storytelling. Campbell’s focus was much more lofty (and strange)

Part Three: Back to the Implications

Something to be mindful of in reviewing The Journey is that definitive and extreme statements sell better. No-one wants to read whole books or watch youtube videos filled with equivocations and maybes.

I say because in real life everyone I’ve spoken to is like “oh yeah The Hero’s Journey its cool but its just one way of doing things, useful if its useful.”

Whereas whenever I read a book or resource on its its like “Following the Hero’s Journey is why Harry Potter books make billions, the fatal flaw of Lord of the Rings is that hobbits are eternal children that’s why Frodo had to die.”

While I’m sure some people are huge converts most people have a very reasonable adaptive view of the Journey. It’s certainly a very robust and effective story structure, my two cents about the implications meanings:

I do think there is some metaphoric power to The Journey, in that I believe is does loosely model how people change. We do tend to resist calls to change, and have to face an ordeal to accept new things, whether that’s literal new stuff, or new knowledge.

That said I think there are some major limits to The Journey, sometimes we push ourselves to change or adventure. We don’t always return to the “normal” world and we don’t always bring boons/treasure to the normal world sometimes we gain the boons and the normal worlds gets to suck eggs.

As a fictional structure I do think The Journey is actually a great story outline and honestly when you’re tuck or without a better idea, go for The Hero’s Journey.

However I do think in a massive example of irony, its actually pretty outdated. Despite Campbell’s argument that its the most mythical of the mythical structures, The Hero’s Journey is oddly shallow. When you examine the myths Campbell does, you see an almost bluntness to the subtext. e.g. when a hero wins a bride or a golden fleece this could be interpreted as Godly knowledge, or slaying a Minotaur as overcoming your own ignorance. But in my opinion stories nowadays are much deeper and often subtler (wow subtler is a word?!?)

Take Lord of the Rings. A story considered very “archetypal” however there are deep elements contrary to The Journey that in my opinion are simply better. E.g. The One Ring feels straight out of mythology, but superior to throwing that think in the lava is Frodo’s development into a pacifist. A subtle character arc that is almost completely unacknowledged even by Gandalf and certainly not a boon Frodo brings to the normal world.

In Conclusion.

I feel a little like I’m losing control of this blog post (again maybe some irony in that). Something I’ve noticed about ideas and arguments is that they sort of Evolve or Die, or more specifically adapt helpfully or grow stale and deranged, clinging to existance by any means necessary.

Something I didn’t mention earlier is Campbell is really into his psychoanalysis, which spearheaded by Freud is all but cast aside and stomped out by modern empirical and evidence based psychology. Funnily enough I think die-hard fans of The Journey have been aware of this – as almost all discussion will invoke Jung instead.

I find this super interesting as you’d think that fans would want to go with the OG right? Incorrect. Obviously to keep ideas alive you have to excise the crap and while I’m happy to be challenged on this I believe this shift in The Journey being more associated with Jung is the realisation of an image problem if they stuck with Freud.

Which is a very long winded way of getting to my argument that I think The Hero’s Journey is somewhat of a relic, rather than the true Monomyth is claims to be. It’s kind of weird, there must be any number of ways to structure a work of fiction but again in truly culty fashion because there is a bunch of psuedo-emprical word salad backing up The Hero’s Journey (oh and apparently Star Wars) the Monomyth has this overblown status.

Now just to be clear I still thinks its super interesting and useful to study and consider, when I say its a relic I mean its outdated and I think storytellers have moved on.

As final thoughts, its certainly a very strange experience to get to the bottom of a huge concept and find the foundation is somewhat more jello than expected. This isn’t a criticism of Campbell really I don’t believe he ever intended to spawn any number of fiction theories – its a strange frustration with everyone else who has built up the mythology of The Hero’s Journey.

So yeah that’ my latest On Writing book I guess.

Has anyone else read The Hero with a Thousand Faces? (man still a very badass title)

What are people’s experience with The Hero’s Journey?

Any I’ve said which has gravely offended? (let me have it with a comment)

Weekly Writing Roundup 27.8.2023

I wonder what Joseph Campbell would say about Lighthouses being a popular fiction motif??

YouTube channels for writing?
by u/coffincreature in writing

Ok, so as I surveyed this thread I came across a rather strange realization that I’m not a huge fan of youtube writing videos. Don’t get me wrong, I share a few of them and I will click on them. But for one thing youtube IMHO is where you suffer the most conflict of the question: is this video for education or marketing (e.g. the reason most authors are on youtube is to sell their own books or just promote their youtube career, and there is nothing wrong with that its just I want to learn)

Also a tiny rant is that many youtubers base their videos on TV and Movies, which is logical for a visual medium and can be useful but I feel it can lean into confusion between the mediums (not all that works for film works for books)

Anyway rant over there are tonnes of channels in that link!

The Power of Subtext: Reading Between the Lines

Jarakit pens an excellent deep dive into subtext on their blog. It’s a topic I love to discuss because there are many different ‘takes’ on it and I realized recently that the reason there are so many takes is because there isn’t a final answer! The irony of ‘reading between the lines’ is that what exists between the lines is infinitely interpretable…

Ergo my answer to the below question is “no”

Writer Mario Quintana once said: "When someone asks an author what they meant, it’s because one of the two is stupid." Do you agree?
by u/Significant_Ask_ in writing

Speaking of videos this one I found a little funny as Weiland admits she’s never done multiple drafts AND gotten published. For those wondering there is a sort of graded difference between editing, rewrites, and multiple drafts. A lot of the difference is in approach and to some extent the perception of that approach, but some people go so far as to basically give a story a redo after basically a “practice draft.” I’ve done this once but it was actually when I lost a draft except for the chapter titles – re-drafting is actually a very productive process as I get unduly influenced by what’s already written. (sounds like a contradiction but I’ve waffled a lot already)

An to end todays post – I’ve finally got around to reading Campbell’s seminal work. For anyone wondering this is the work that spawned the concept of the Monomyth and/or The Heroes Journey. Suffice to say the book is much stranger than I expected and I will have a lot to say about it, in it’s own post!

Take care all.

Weekly Writing Roundup 19.8.2023

If only…

My thoughts on late introductions are as follows:

• Obviously anyone introduced later must still fit with the pace of the novel, and you can’t expect attachment / interest like a Act 1 character (but its not a deal breaker)
• Be wary of character-ex-machina
• I feel that antagonists and villains can get away with late intros (not because they are bad guys and break rules!!) because they increase tension and fit with the flow of the story
• In some respects I see stories as an exploration of “What if” you don’t want to introduce more ‘what’ while you’re getting into the ‘if’ – new characters can come along but be careful they don’t ruin or break the premise you’ve already established

What Are Plot Devices? (Why You Should Be Cautious)

It’s hard to judge what’s too contrived – the way I tend to “vomit draft” is to give myself permission to do whatever to just get words on page, but I figure I’ll have to face the editing music if I ever get the point of having a draft I want to go beyond 1st.

Why is a plot that takes itself too seriously a bad thing?
by u/AvisLord12 in writing

This is actually a really good question as it tends to be something taken for granted that if you take yourself and work seriously that everyone else will do anything but.

I think this might be a combo punch of tone and suspension of disbelief. Taking oneself too serious is kind of akin to having extreme or over the top melodrama. An overly serious tone creates a very monolithic feel to the piece being read which constantly reminds the reader that its just a book (and a book that is too serious)

To what extent do you consider your audience?
by u/kcmcca in writing

This is interesting in that I tend to find successful writers are extremely considerate of their audience, whereas novices seem to think this is a sell-out move.

One might benefit from considering what is the point of writing if not to do something to the audience? I know its ‘woke’ (/s) to write for yourself or for the artform itself but 99% of writers are wanting to impact other people so its only rationale to consider those other people.

Finally thanks to my Older Brother I’ve actually been getting into podcasts lately and Writing Excuses is a nice straightforward modest podcast.

Weekly Writing Roundup 13.8.2023

The Two Most Important Tricks for How to Build Suspense

Above a pretty straightforward article – suspense I think is one of those elements that is very different for the writer and the reader, e.g. as writer you tend to know what is going on so your story isn’t “suspenseful” to write, its also an oft overlooked element as writers race to create big scenes, rather than build suspense.

I have mixed feelings about ‘special’ names. It can feel a bit too much like a nod and a wink to the reader and/or writerly showing off. On the other hand names with meaning can help massage a theme or add a dynamic to the story that might have been otherwise not existence. I can’t think of a subtle example right now, so since I’ve been playing Hades – imagine calling a character Sisyphus to foreshadow or create a tension that they are never going to meet their goal.

Personally my main plan with names is to have something memorable and easy on the eye to repeat all the time (if they are a main) and easy to remember despite being low on page time if they are a minor one.

Nine Novellas For Our Current Age of Distraction

I don’t technically have anything against Novellas but oddly I don’t much seek them out to read and despite being time poor and more of an ‘underwriter’ I prefer to go for either short stories, or novels. Go figure.

I mostly shared this video because in my opinion there simply is not enough resources on prose (it gets said so often its starts to sounds like pros). Consistent with the first part (stating considerable subjectivity) I don’t actually like all the examples given but still a worthwhile watch.

And finally I admit I haven’t watched this whole video – its a lot of the Coles just chilling out on a stream, but I love these guys (the original creators of Quest for Glory) some of my favourite games from my childhood.

Weekly Writing Roundup 5.8.2023

Irony Board and Foreshadow Puppet are my favs

This week I had a strange argument on Reddit on this topic:

I read that "good prose can keep a reader engaged even if the story is slow in parts" – is this true?
by u/Eurothrash in writing

I have to flesh out the post a little to explain the argument the OP mentions that dreading writing advice “everything has to advance or develop the plot/story”

Now the weird argument I got into is that IMHO people don’t really understand what advancing the plot actually means. My stance is that you can’t actually separate “good” prose from the story, as they actually ARE EACH OTHER. Metaphorically you’d never hear a painter say you could cover up a boring bit of their image with good brush strokes.

I believe the confusion comes from many writers not fully understanding how certain passages and scenes and elements of writing are contributing to the story. e.g. When the hobbits mess about partying in the Shire it builds up the concept of a sweet innocent place worth protecting from the evils of the world (and later something Frodo can’t return to SPOILER ALERT I guess)

Like of course technically good prose helps any part of a story, but I greatly detest the idea that can perhaps have a dud piece of a story that is band-aided by good words. When you’re a reader you don’t overtly treat every section of the book as “advancing” the story you do find some parts dull and boring but typically those parts are still contributing.

Rant over this is supposed to be a roundup not just me mouthing off!

Using phrases like “I guess” or “I suppose” in past tense
by u/Honestly_Vitali in writing

This post raised an interesting technical question. I’m pretty poor at my tenses so its always good to recap on them. The odd thing about present tense is you can dance into past tense at times, e.g. when a character is remembering something in the past (seems obvious as I write it but its surprisingly tricky in practise). e.g. I think back to when I first arrived in town and everything seemed great and we ate a lot of food.

The other challenge of this question is an interesting conflict between present and past tense. Certain verbs are actually really weird to use in past tense because the implication is that the narrator is relaying the story in some future point, so guesses and supposed can sometimes not work well especially in 1st person (e.g. its weird to relay that you guessed or supposed something now that you know it, this is where you sometimes get a sort of narrator interjection “at that time I supposed she didn’t like me”

Any advices to writting likeable asshole characters?
by u/slayeryamcha in writing

Funnily enough I’m just reading the book

And they cover some of the clearest advice I’ve read for gaining sympathy and understanding for characters of all moral ilks:

• Give them problems. Even a-holes have problems and we as readers as the very least want to see how they solve them, even if we don’t 100% want to see a bad guy get a good solution
• Give them relatable goals, as above, even if don’t like the character, you can resonate with their goals (e.g. look after their family, make sense of the world)
• A really interesting point was transference where even though a character might be completely deplorable have a plot-thread or other characters relatable situation be put onto them – an example of this might be when Luke Skywalker asks Han Solo for help, nothing about Solo at this point is relatable but Luke is a hero sort and is asking for his help! So we start to care about Solo too quite quickly

Ann Patchett on Grabbing Galleys and Getting Drafts Done

Hearing other writers routines can be both useful and debilitating (I don’t recommend trying to write like Stephen King) what always stands out to me is knowing yourself and what routines work best, at THAT time at well. We aren’t in the same space all year round and I often feel people fail to connect the two facts that novels take a long time to write with they are going to be going through and experiencing different things over that time. (for a while I had a good routine of writing 500 words first thing every morning – but I naively assumed I could do that forever, cue daylight savings wrecking my sh*t)

Anyhow – that’s this week from me!