It's true, *Hero of a Thousand Faces* was not intended as a writing guide, and Joseph Campbell emphasized that many (if not most) stories do not include all the "steps" he described. Several decades of filmmakers have taken inspiration from Campbell anyway. I laid out in a previous post how *Beavis and Butt-Head Do America* followed the 17 Campbell stages pretty much exactly.
Especially when I was younger, I found storytelling structure books like *The Writer's Journey* and *Save the Cat* helpful for if I had a beginning and end in mind for a story, but wasn't sure what to put in the middle, or how to pace the story overall. But treating these storytelling structure guides as strict formulas can backfire.
Yeah, I've come to despise the Hero's Journey and prefer the Heroine's Journey, which nobody talks about. Heroine's Journey is where the protagonist gathers a ragtag group of friends and they work as a team to accomplish a goal or take down the big bad. Lots of anime does this. Western writers only know Hero's Journey, however, so the team usually gets killed off or betrayal the hero so the hero can stand alone at the end. Hugely unsatisfying because the reader instinctively knows that's not how that kind of story is supposed to work.
A very interesting article and video that seems to dovetail into my own suspicions about all the writing advice and formulas being followed today by both writers and editors. Such as "show don't tell"....
1) As I look into this Vogler guy, his highest accomplishment is to have written "additional story material" (whatever that means) for The Lion King. He seems to have generated nothing of worth in his creative career, why would screenwriters follow the ramblings of such a hack (because by the current output it looks like that)? His influence seems astro-turfed.
2) There must be a special place in Hell for those who spoil valid academic works by dumbing them down for their own vanity.
Never much liked or followed the formulas. Never could grok them. But I can grok what a hero is. Be they in a foxhole, on the barren seas of Mars, or deep in dark woods.... Sometimes they're forced into it, sometimes they choose it, eager and willing. Some look for the next hill, and some look for the hearth at journey's end. Some earn kingdoms, and others statues and graves. We still know which ones are heroes.
I've begun to see the Golden Age ahead, and think it is just beyond the hill, we need only gather together and charge forward one last time, and we will find the sun shining upon us! Loved this essay!
Hey JD, loved the article. Do you recommend any sources/books about story telling that avoid the mistakes of things like Save the Cat? I've immersed myself in all of that and now I feel like I have to de-program myself.
Writers like Brian Niemeier and David V. Stewart frequently offer writing advice divorced from those formulas. Otherwise I would suggest older essays on storytelling itself like Tolkien's On Fairy Stories or GK Chesterton's essays on people like Dickens. They tend to focus on the deeper point of the storytelling beyond the tropes we all know so well.
"What (Christopher Vogler) did was take Campbell's work then build his own formula around it by bending and warping the original purpose into a one-size fits all screenwriting guide"
Vogler is a Jew, and this what Jews always do. They make stuff up in their head to create "formulas" and "systems" which they pontificate as accurate and true with no underlying basis in fact. Concocting "systems" is a genetic mania or obsession with them. Such Jew system-inventers are rife throughout the soft social sciences (which really aren't science).
It's true, *Hero of a Thousand Faces* was not intended as a writing guide, and Joseph Campbell emphasized that many (if not most) stories do not include all the "steps" he described. Several decades of filmmakers have taken inspiration from Campbell anyway. I laid out in a previous post how *Beavis and Butt-Head Do America* followed the 17 Campbell stages pretty much exactly.
Especially when I was younger, I found storytelling structure books like *The Writer's Journey* and *Save the Cat* helpful for if I had a beginning and end in mind for a story, but wasn't sure what to put in the middle, or how to pace the story overall. But treating these storytelling structure guides as strict formulas can backfire.
Yeah, I've come to despise the Hero's Journey and prefer the Heroine's Journey, which nobody talks about. Heroine's Journey is where the protagonist gathers a ragtag group of friends and they work as a team to accomplish a goal or take down the big bad. Lots of anime does this. Western writers only know Hero's Journey, however, so the team usually gets killed off or betrayal the hero so the hero can stand alone at the end. Hugely unsatisfying because the reader instinctively knows that's not how that kind of story is supposed to work.
A very interesting article and video that seems to dovetail into my own suspicions about all the writing advice and formulas being followed today by both writers and editors. Such as "show don't tell"....
1) As I look into this Vogler guy, his highest accomplishment is to have written "additional story material" (whatever that means) for The Lion King. He seems to have generated nothing of worth in his creative career, why would screenwriters follow the ramblings of such a hack (because by the current output it looks like that)? His influence seems astro-turfed.
2) There must be a special place in Hell for those who spoil valid academic works by dumbing them down for their own vanity.
"why would screenwriters follow the ramblings of such a hack"
I wondered the same thing about Save the Cat, honestly.
Never much liked or followed the formulas. Never could grok them. But I can grok what a hero is. Be they in a foxhole, on the barren seas of Mars, or deep in dark woods.... Sometimes they're forced into it, sometimes they choose it, eager and willing. Some look for the next hill, and some look for the hearth at journey's end. Some earn kingdoms, and others statues and graves. We still know which ones are heroes.
I've begun to see the Golden Age ahead, and think it is just beyond the hill, we need only gather together and charge forward one last time, and we will find the sun shining upon us! Loved this essay!
Hey JD, loved the article. Do you recommend any sources/books about story telling that avoid the mistakes of things like Save the Cat? I've immersed myself in all of that and now I feel like I have to de-program myself.
Writers like Brian Niemeier and David V. Stewart frequently offer writing advice divorced from those formulas. Otherwise I would suggest older essays on storytelling itself like Tolkien's On Fairy Stories or GK Chesterton's essays on people like Dickens. They tend to focus on the deeper point of the storytelling beyond the tropes we all know so well.
Formulas are designed to create something uniform, not unique.
Some great stories are hidden... but their time is coming.
Re: Vogler, John Truby did it better anyway.
"What (Christopher Vogler) did was take Campbell's work then build his own formula around it by bending and warping the original purpose into a one-size fits all screenwriting guide"
Vogler is a Jew, and this what Jews always do. They make stuff up in their head to create "formulas" and "systems" which they pontificate as accurate and true with no underlying basis in fact. Concocting "systems" is a genetic mania or obsession with them. Such Jew system-inventers are rife throughout the soft social sciences (which really aren't science).
Oh goody, the anti-semite has shown up
You say that like it's a bad thing.
Considering anti-semitism is the root of all manner of despotism and evil, you bet your ass I sure did.
And who told you that? Jews. What a dope.
Go back into your racist tunnel, worm.