The Hero's Journey for Non-Fiction Writers - Deep Dive Part 1
Practicing The Write Stuff Issue #35
In Issue 28 Five Story Structure Models, I introduced five different story models. Story models are nearly as important for non-fiction writers as they are for fiction writers. One of my favourite books about story is “The Science Of Storytelling“ by Will Storr. I also attended a seminar given by the author on this subject, two years or so in advance of the books publication.
One of the interesting facts that Storr cited, in both the seminar and his book, is that all the sensory data received by your brain goes first into the part of the brain that deals with story.
Without getting too deep into the weeds, what this means is that what you experience, as reality is different from what someone stood next to you experiences as reality… because you have different backgrounds, and different ways of interpreting the same facts. What the brain tries to do is create story – and therefore, meaning – out of all the sensory input you receive.
This explains why there are so many “conspiracy theories“ that abound on all sorts of topics. The brain doesn’t like to be presented with random information, and if presented with random information will try and create a “story“ with causal links between those random pieces of information.
So, as a non-fiction writer, if you can structure your writing based on story principles that the brain is already familiar with… It will make comprehension of that material, much easier and take up much less of the reader’s brain energy. Which allows more brain energy to be expended on comprehension.
So understanding story models is crucial for all writers. That brings us to The Hero’s Journey.
#1. Joseph Campbell and The Hero With A Thousand Faces.
The first thing to tell you about the Hero’s Journey is that if you read someone discussing the Hero’s Journey and they describe Joseph Campbell – more on him in a moment – as some kind of story structure guru, then you can safely disregard that author.
That’s because Joseph Campbell wasn’t a story structure guru, and he wasn’t interested in story structure as such – at least in the way we know it – until much later in his life.
Campbell was a comparative mythologist and his studies – summarised in his seminal work The Hero With A Thousand Faces – distilled his exploration of myth and legends from hundreds of cultures worldwide into a single book that focused on the common themes he found in this disparate collection of myths and legends.
Campbell sometimes referred to this as the mono myth. It bears repeating that this work was never intended as some kind of guide or blueprint for story structure. Campbell was fascinated by the similarities he found worldwide in myth and legend.
Two things changed the perception of Campbell: the first was George Lucas namechecking Campbell’s work in the context of the first Star Wars movie; the second was a Hollywood story analyst called Chris Vogler creating a seven page memo that could be used by Hollywood analysts and executives to identify problems – and fixes – with screenplays before hundreds of thousands of dollars has been invested in development.
If memory serves, Lucas’s mention of Campbell sent Vogler to read The Hero With A Thousand Faces and then pen his adaptation of Campell for screenwriters and story development execs into a famous seven page memo that was faxed all over Hollywood.
In Issue 32 of Practicing The Write Stuff, I talked about how Vogler’s seven-page memo became a book called The Writer’s Journey. So the next step in the chain is Chris Vogler.
#2 Chris Vogler and The Writer’s Journey.
Chris Vogler is the guy who popularised The Hero’s Journey for writers. Although his book is aimed squarely at screenwriters and fiction writers, the underlying ideas can also be used by non-fiction writers. Which is something that Vogler acknowledges, but doesn’t talk much about.
The only book I’ve seen that uses anything like the Hero’s Journey framework from a business perspective is Story Brand by Donald Miller. One thing I personally don’t like about Miller’s book is that he never cross references, either Campbell or Wagner but – in my opinion – draws heavily on their work. The second thing about his book that I’m not crazy about, is his use of a truncated hero’s journey is taught purely in the context of writing a “brand story.”
So it may be worth checking that out, and then adapting how he uses the Hero’s Journey. Or, my advice, go straight to Vogler, identify the underlying elements, and adapt them for your specific needs. Though I’ll be sketching out some applications in this mini series.
Back to Vogler.
Vogler’s interpretation of Campbell, with the specific purpose of providing a framework for screenplay writers, distills Campbell’s work in The Hero With A Thousand Faces down to twelve essential steps. These steps are covered in the original seven page memo, which you can download here:
As well as the twelve step story sequence, Vogler also details the archetypal characters found in stories. An archetypal character is a character who performs a specific story function. These range from the Herald to the Trickster to the Shadow to Threshold, Guardians and Mentors, and more.
These archetypes are important, because if you are writing any kind of non-fiction, you will find these characters. Depending on what you are writing about, and who you’re writing to, you - the author of the piece - will probably be writing as one of these archetypal characters.
The most common archetypal character for non-fiction writers to adopt is that of the mentor. Think Obi-Wan in the first Star Wars film. Or Yoda in the next two. Or Haymitch in The Hunger Games. Or Dumbledore in the Harry Potter series.
Identifying both what archetype you are writing as, and what archetype, the reader takes, is another important step into your information being accepted with the least expenditure of brain energy by the reader. (To clarify why that’s important: the less energy expended understanding what you are saying, the more energy available for the brain to process that information. And ideally be inspired by it, and act upon it.)
So understanding Vogler’s work is crucial to using the Hero’s Journey for your non-fiction writing.
Sidebar
As noted in Issue 28 about story structure models, there are dozens of story structure models that you could use. What’s important for you as a writer isn’t that you take my recommendation of the Hero’s Journey as the story structure model that you should use, but that you should read what I write in this mini–series of articles about using story structure for non-fiction, and apply the same thinking to your preferred story structure model.
If you don’t have a preferred story structure model at this point, I cross reference five in Issue 28. My advice would be to read that article, then research the story structure models, and read about them and find the model that resonates the most with you. More on why the hero’s journey resonates so strongly for me in a moment.
#3 As you study story structure more… you’ll discover there’s no one story structure model to rule them all
A story structure model can be thought of as how one person, or one group of people, think about story. All story structure models attempt to model the same thing: how great stories are told.
Even if you settle on one specific model as the one model that resonates most with you, you will still find elements in other story structure models that you can learn from. That can be added to whichever model provides your story foundations, and so build a hybrid model.
For example, the best story guru for symbolism is - IMO - John Truby. John is also one of a handful of sources that deal with one of the underlying flaws of the Hero’s Journey - said flaw being that it’s male oriented.
Another idea that I’ve adapted for my own work is from the story theory and associated software Dramatica. The software uses a process of asking a series of questions in a guided way, to dive deeper into the details of your story.
The point is: studying, story, structure, and story structure models, is a never ending journey. Taking elements that resonate with you and adding them to your existing model, helps build a hybrid structure that works for you that you can draw on for your non-fiction. (And fiction if appropriate.)
#4 Why The Writer’s Journey Was The Story Structure Model That Resonated For Me.
The writers journey was first published in 1992. By the time I purchased a copy and read it, I’d bought dozens and dozens of books on writing and plotting to try and help me be a better writer. (That could be the subject of a complete issue.)
This was around the time I started reading more books about story structure from a screenwriting perspective, rather than the perspective of writing novels. As a generalisation, to learn story structure you should learn from screen writers as they are much more story focused than fiction writers.
If you look on Amazon, now, the top story structure books, are probably Save The Cat by Blake Snyder, Story by Robert McKee, Anatomy Of Story by John Truby, and The Writer’s Journey. All of these books were originally written by, or for, screen writers.
Back to The Writer’s Journey.
I’ve made an explicit point in this issue to recommend that you search out a story model that resonates with you. The reason for that is we all have unique backgrounds and unique experiences growing up.
The reason why The Writer’s Journey resonated with me when I first read it is that when I was young, I was a “myth nerd.”
When I was around 10, I had a book called Bullfinches Mythology, almost on permanent loan from the local library. This book is a collection of myths, ranging from Greek and Roman to Norse myths, to Arthurian stories, to the French equivalent with the chanson des gestes based around the mythical court of Charlemagne. And there were more. I read and re-read my favourite myths from that book dozens of times, and also found my way to other mythological stories, like the Red Branch Heroes from Ireland, Robin Hood, El Cid and so on.
As I got older I naturally gravitated to Science Fiction and Fantasy – both genres that are heavily influenced by mythology and legend.
So, when I started reading The Writer’s Journey, everything that Vogler wrote resonated, because there were a wealth of stories and legends in my background that directly connected to Vogler’s distillation of the Hero’s Journey.
A year or so after first, reading The Writer’s Journey, and still searching for a way to implement it fully in stories I wanted to write, I came across the Dramatica theory of story, and the software that goes with it.
I won’t go into detail about Dramatica as story model, but the main element that I took was their use of open ended questions within a guided framework to generate detail for stories. At one stage in the 90s, I started learning to program using Visual Basic so I could turn my “hero’s journey question method“ into a program to make it easier to use. I’m hoping at some stage to resurrect that project with the help of no code AI.
#5 Flaws With The Hero’s Journey.
There are two major flaws with the hero’s journey that you should be aware of. The first I’ve already mentioned, and that’s the fact that the hero’s journey is male oriented.
The second flaw in the hero’s journey is that when used as a story structure model, it’s focused on and around a single character.
Yes, there are other characters present – and these often represent the character archetypes mentioned earlier – but ultimately, the hero’s journey is focused on a single character.
However, and Vogler and makes this point, every character - read every person – is simultaneously playing multiple archetypal roles in their life. For example, if you have children, a lot of your interactions with them – especially when they are young - will involve you taking on the role of the mentor.
If you are trying to inspire people to take specific actions in their lives, then you’re delivering a call to adventure and manifesting the archetype of the Herald.
In the hero’s journies of your friends, you might embody the archetype of a threshold Guardian, or a trickster.
The important line of wisdom, which I swear I read in Vogler’s book, but have never been able to find again, is this:
Every character is the hero of their own journey.
When we start looking at how to use the hero’s journey to structure your non-fiction, this concept will stand us in good stead.
The Rideout.
So that’s the background to the hero’s journey. As mentioned, while the hero’s journey resonates for me as a story structure, model – and as a model of human improvement – it may not have the same effect for you.
There’s nothing wrong with that.
But what it means is that you need to find the story structure model that works for you. For some people, it’s Save The Cat by Blake Snyder. For others, it’s Story by Robert McKee. Or Truby’s book. And there are plenty of other models to explore out there. Remember that all these models are different ways of viewing the same thing…which is story.
Understanding story is understanding human psychology. Adding that to your writing toolbox is – in my opinion – one of the highest leverage skills you can add to make you a better writer.
Issue 36
In the next issue we’ll look more deeply into Vogler’s distillation of the hero’s journey for writers. If you want to start reading and studying before then, here’s a short list of books that I recommend:
The Writer’s Journey by Chris Vogler
The Science Of Storytelling by Will Storr
Into The Woods by John Yorke.
The Anatomy Of Genre by John Truby - and specifically the section on mythic stories.