Hero's Journey

One of the first things you learn when you are learning to analyze stories is the hero's journey. And for good reason. Nearly every story that has ever been told, particularly when it comes to action and adventure stories. From the classics by Homer to The Lion King, the Hero's Journey describes the journey of a hero through his story. From low beginnings, to learning new abilities, facing hardships, and having a climatic face off before the story settles down to show a snippet of life after everything has taken place.

It's pretty basic. There's a reason it works with so many stories. If it was any more complicated, any more in depth, then it wouldn't be as effective in describing stories as it is. And it was specifically designed for that purpose. It's a great tool for understanding good storytelling, as there are very few stories that shouldn't follow the path of a steadily rising intensity plot that reaches its peak in the final showdown before mellowing out for an epilogue.

Consider what would happen if you didn't do this. Perhaps you started your story with the climax. The story begins with your character defeating the thing that has plagued them their entire life. They overcome and conquer it, becoming something that they never before thought it possible that they could become. Now what? They can settle down, start a new life, be everything they've ever dreamed of. It's possible that you could write an entire story out of this, sure, but where would it go? Perhaps they could face new conflicts, but likely the story would have to go in a radically different direction from its beginning chapters in that situation, meaning that anyone who attempts to read it will be highly misdirected.

But there are some people who will look at a story, see that it follows the hero's journey, and criticize it because of that. Say that it is not original enough of a story because it follows this age old transcript that thousands of stories before it has followed. That the author should be trying harder to test their boundaries and push the limits of their storytelling.

But is that fair? It is so easy for someone to be following this guideline that they would have to be actively trying not to, and in actively forcing their story to stray away from such a basic, simple path, they are severely limiting their creativity and making the story something that it does not wish to be. To put it simply - trying not to follow the hero's journey actively will more than likely only serve to make your story worse.

And in the long run, there's probably a good chance that it will follow the hero's journey anyway. It's just that far encompassing of an idea.