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106 reviews for:
The Writer's Journey - 25th Anniversary Edition: Mythic Structure for Writers
Christopher Vogler
3.98 AVERAGE
106 reviews for:
The Writer's Journey - 25th Anniversary Edition: Mythic Structure for Writers
Christopher Vogler
3.98 AVERAGE
I would rank this volume high on the scale of usefulness for working novelists and screenplay writers. It's not as rich as the source material, Joseph Campbell's groundbreaking Masks of the Hero, but whereas Campbell focused on comparative mythology, its gods and permutations, Vogler breaks down elements of mythic structure and applies it directly to storytelling in a way that is practical and simple. Best of all each chapter ends with questions to get a writer thinking about his/her own story. "It's a form not a formula," Vogler points out several times, since this mythic structure has endless variations.
I'm going to post a longer analysis on my blog, http://[email protected]
The appendices at the end make for a welcome addition, although I could have done without the extended analysis of Titanic. A solid read all in all.
I'm going to post a longer analysis on my blog, http://[email protected]
The appendices at the end make for a welcome addition, although I could have done without the extended analysis of Titanic. A solid read all in all.
Tells the structure of an adventure story. Well, maybe, any story really. It was interesting to see how movies followed this structure. How the hero or protagonist journey follow a set map.
It was nice that it used movies to demonstrate what the author was talking about. Although it would be nice if this was updated to include some newer movies. The Harry Potter ones would be good.
It was nice that it used movies to demonstrate what the author was talking about. Although it would be nice if this was updated to include some newer movies. The Harry Potter ones would be good.
Excellent study of archetypes and structure... must-read for any writer.
On Writing books are always so hard to judge by their covers (ironically I guess) as in you never know how deep or practical the advice is going to get until you read it.
But thankfully Vogler's piece is one of the good ones. It's Hero's Journey based, meaning you're going to hear about Joseph Campbell and Archetypes. What I very much appreciated about this book though is Vogler presented what to date is my favourite balance of understanding the Journey as a "form" not a "formula" he doesn't wax lyrical about bizarre subconscious gobbledegook and explains the way that writers can tweak or adjust the Journey for their own purposes.
He also explains how storycraft is an evolving process not a set in stone program. In my opinion the amount of weight given and time spent on each stage of the journey and archetype is perfect for being useful and informative without adding too much pointless word-count.
There are a couple of strange additions though. Vogler dissects several films explaining the Hero's Journey within them, in some cases the examples are exactly what I mentioned - evidence of how flexible and variable the Hero's Journey should be! E.g. he examines Titanic which has pretty straightforward structure, but then Pulp Fiction, which IMO has anything but straightforward structure!
Then there is the appendices which are some topics that Vogler obviously wanted to riff on but didn't fit the story. I found these interesting, but not vital (so makes sense they weren't in the body of the text).
But thankfully Vogler's piece is one of the good ones. It's Hero's Journey based, meaning you're going to hear about Joseph Campbell and Archetypes. What I very much appreciated about this book though is Vogler presented what to date is my favourite balance of understanding the Journey as a "form" not a "formula" he doesn't wax lyrical about bizarre subconscious gobbledegook and explains the way that writers can tweak or adjust the Journey for their own purposes.
He also explains how storycraft is an evolving process not a set in stone program. In my opinion the amount of weight given and time spent on each stage of the journey and archetype is perfect for being useful and informative without adding too much pointless word-count.
There are a couple of strange additions though. Vogler dissects several films explaining the Hero's Journey within them, in some cases the examples are exactly what I mentioned - evidence of how flexible and variable the Hero's Journey should be! E.g. he examines Titanic which has pretty straightforward structure, but then Pulp Fiction, which IMO has anything but straightforward structure!
Then there is the appendices which are some topics that Vogler obviously wanted to riff on but didn't fit the story. I found these interesting, but not vital (so makes sense they weren't in the body of the text).
informative
medium-paced
The Writer's Journey is as interesting to read as a textbook, but about as deep as half a dozen copies of Writer's Digest. If you read a lot and write quite a bit and you pay attention while you do these things, there is nothing in here you don't already know. Maybe you don't know the author's terms for each component, but you already know the stuff. I thought this would be a good reference, something to sit on the shelf and go back to when I need to look something up. Nope.
With a book this thick, I was hoping for some in-depth study. With a title like this, I expected a look into mythology and how it affected contemporary fiction. Instead, I read a lot of repetition and many vague descriptions. Do you know what an anti-hero is? Of course you do. Do you want to hear a scholar's analysis of the anti-hero, what makes them tick why we identify with them? Of course you do; so did I. You won't get that here. This book will tell you that anti-heros are characters like Han Solo. Then the author will say that again and then once more for good measure. That's all you'll get.
The last third are just stories of the movies the author helped "improve," citing all of the ideas he offered that were used in, say, The Lion King as well as all of the ideas he had that were not used and would have made the movie better had the executives listened to him. I won't even opine; if that sounds like good reading to you, be my guest.
Mostly, this book is a collection of abstracts from better authors - it gets two stars for encouraging me to go read some more Jung.
With a book this thick, I was hoping for some in-depth study. With a title like this, I expected a look into mythology and how it affected contemporary fiction. Instead, I read a lot of repetition and many vague descriptions. Do you know what an anti-hero is? Of course you do. Do you want to hear a scholar's analysis of the anti-hero, what makes them tick why we identify with them? Of course you do; so did I. You won't get that here. This book will tell you that anti-heros are characters like Han Solo. Then the author will say that again and then once more for good measure. That's all you'll get.
The last third are just stories of the movies the author helped "improve," citing all of the ideas he offered that were used in, say, The Lion King as well as all of the ideas he had that were not used and would have made the movie better had the executives listened to him. I won't even opine; if that sounds like good reading to you, be my guest.
Mostly, this book is a collection of abstracts from better authors - it gets two stars for encouraging me to go read some more Jung.
Livro escrito por um roteirista de Hollywood e baseado extensivamente no trabalho do [a:Joseph Campbell|20105|Joseph Campbell|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1429114498p2/20105.jpg] sobre estruturas narrativas dos mitos de diferentes culturas.
Apesar do título se referir a uma jornada do escritor subentendida como uma jornada geral, o livro foi escrito principalmente para roteiristas de cinema. A maior parte do livro, contudo, na verdade descreve a jornada de personagens tal qual ela é narrada nos mitos. Ao longo desta jornada a personagem principal (o herói) passa por etapas e encontra outras personagens - descritos como arquétipos - que exercem papéis específicos que contribuem para o sucesso ou fracasso da jornada do herói. Esta maior parte do livro é na verdade um preâmbulo para a parte final na qual o autor finalmente sugere como incorporar estes elementos na criação de histórias.
O livro é muito bom, mas no final o autor divaga para uma analogia com chakras que me parece muito forçada. É uma mudança repentina no tom da publicação, um devaneio "nova era" que não fechou muito bem o livro.
Apesar do título se referir a uma jornada do escritor subentendida como uma jornada geral, o livro foi escrito principalmente para roteiristas de cinema. A maior parte do livro, contudo, na verdade descreve a jornada de personagens tal qual ela é narrada nos mitos. Ao longo desta jornada a personagem principal (o herói) passa por etapas e encontra outras personagens - descritos como arquétipos - que exercem papéis específicos que contribuem para o sucesso ou fracasso da jornada do herói. Esta maior parte do livro é na verdade um preâmbulo para a parte final na qual o autor finalmente sugere como incorporar estes elementos na criação de histórias.
O livro é muito bom, mas no final o autor divaga para uma analogia com chakras que me parece muito forçada. É uma mudança repentina no tom da publicação, um devaneio "nova era" que não fechou muito bem o livro.
Just as good as advertised, breaks down Joseph Campbell's mythic structure into practical applications for writers of both screenplays and novels.
The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers, third edition. Written by Christopher Vogler and based on the works of Joseph Campbell. Third edition published in 2007 by Sheridan Books.
I read this book for work. I am a novelist, so I had to self-edit as I went, since it is written with a strong bent toward screenwriters. I was taking extensive notes, since I was planning on using the Hero's Journey model for an upcoming project. Let's just put it this way: I wouldn't un-read the book, I need the information I gleaned and am thankful for it. On the other hand, it was quite dry. It read much more like a manual than a novel. Since it is more of the first than the second, I can't really fault Vogler, but I would have loved some snazz.
So what is the Hero's Journey, and where did this book come from?
The Hero's Journey is a concept first pioneered by Joseph Campbell in his book The Hero With a Thousand Faces, in the 1940s. The idea is that most--if not all--stories have a discernible pattern in common (and that pattern comes from ingrained human psychoses, heavily leaning on Jung's interpretation of it (and Freud?)). From ancient myths to modern movies, great stories--stories that resonate with people--have a number of components, structure and stages, in common. There are seventeen stages in Campbell's Heros Journey (also called a Monomyth), and not all of them are present in every story. Campbell's ideas have been both expanded and refined since his presentation of them, and became very popular in the 1980s and 1990s.
Among such adherents and fans (like Bob Dylan and Geroge Lucas) was a man named Christopher Vogler. He had been working as a film producer and writer when he released a memo for Disney workers called "A Practical Guide to the Hero's Journey." This memo was based on studies of Campbell and the Monomyth and it so changed Vogler's life, his approach to writing, and possibly even the industry, that he expanded it considerably in the first edition of A Writer's Journey. He became a Campbell proponent, a lecturer, and a screenwriting story consultant supreme, causing a further movement in the Hero's Journey's own story arch.
I can't tell you much more about Campbell's Monomyth, but I can lay out the stages and archetypes according to Vogler. And they are: ACT ONE: Ordinary World; Call to Adventure; Refusal of the Call; Meeting the Mentor; the First Threshold; ACT TWO: Test, Allies and Enemies; Approach to the Inmost Cave; the Supreme Ordeal; the Reward; ACT THREE: the Road Back; Resurrection; and Return with the Elixir. The main archetypes are the Hero, Mentor, Threshold Guardian, Herald, Shapeshifter, Shadow, Ally, and Trickster. Vogler takes a loose approach to the whole thing, saying that stages can be moved around and archetypes can be combined or split. Gender is not set, although historically the hero and mentor have been male, the shapeshifter female. Vogler encourages the writer to play with the forms, but to keep in mind that all great stories have these things in common. I appreciate his practical approach to everything: Does it work? Great.
Vogler also embraces Campbell's views that the Monomyth arises from the human psyche. He goes a step further, in fact, asserting that the Hero's Journey can be used to navigate our real lives and real emotions and motives. His book is mainly a primer on the stages and archetypes of the Hero's Journey, fleshed out and with examples. In the epilogue, Vogler also addresses such issues as the role of the reader in the interpretation of story, polarity as a theme, catharsis as a concept and a necessity, and trusting the journey of writing.
If you are a writer of any sort, this is the kind of book that if you haven't read it already, you will want to get your hands on it. Not only are you going to look completely out of it if it comes up at your next cocktail party, but it can work for you. Vogler doesn't suggest--just the opposite actually--that you simply plug stuff in to a Vogleresque structure. He wants to make you aware, as a writer, of what a story is--has always been--about, and how structure, plot, and characters are part of that heart-stirring, life-changing process. Especially for writers in crisis (which happens to all of us at least a few times, right?), this book could be instrumental in getting yourself out of a pickle, let alone changing the way you approach your own process.
If you are a leftist feminist or a generally angry person, you might disagree. (See "Criticism" section of Wikipedia's article on Monomyth for some fodder.) I've never had a problem with generalizations as long as we don't consider them absolutes. I admire--and participate in--anecdotal observation to make sense of things. I didn't exactly swallow the whole psychobabble pill, but I certainty didn't find it offensive. I would love for storytelling to continue to evolve and come up with wonderfully fresh material and yet I strongly believe that there is nothing new under the sun. Why not acknowledge our common threads while addressing the world from the stage of novel writing?
I also loved the illustrations. And can't believe I didn't mention Star Wars once in the review.
__________
"The structure should not call attention to itself, nor should it be followed too precisely" (p19).
"These wounds of rejection, betrayal, or disappointment are personal echoes of a universal pain that everyone has suffered from: the pain of the child's physical and emotional separation from its mother. In a larger sense, we all bear the wound of separation from God or the womb of existence--that place from which we are born and to which we will return when we die" (p93).
"Hundreds of writers have told me they plotted their screenplays, romance novels, or TV sitcom episodes using the Hero's Journey and the guidance of mythology" (p233).
"These archetypal patterns turn a chaotic event like the sinking of an ocean liner into a coherent design that asks questions and provides opinions about how life should be lived" (p237).
"The Ship of Fools is an allegory, a story in which all the conditions of life and levels of society are lampooned savagely in the situation of a boatfull of pathetic passengers. It is a sardonic tale, harshly depicting the flaws in the people and social systems of its time" (p248).
*REVIEW WRITTEN FOR THE STARVING ARTIST BLOG.*
I read this book for work. I am a novelist, so I had to self-edit as I went, since it is written with a strong bent toward screenwriters. I was taking extensive notes, since I was planning on using the Hero's Journey model for an upcoming project. Let's just put it this way: I wouldn't un-read the book, I need the information I gleaned and am thankful for it. On the other hand, it was quite dry. It read much more like a manual than a novel. Since it is more of the first than the second, I can't really fault Vogler, but I would have loved some snazz.
So what is the Hero's Journey, and where did this book come from?
The Hero's Journey is a concept first pioneered by Joseph Campbell in his book The Hero With a Thousand Faces, in the 1940s. The idea is that most--if not all--stories have a discernible pattern in common (and that pattern comes from ingrained human psychoses, heavily leaning on Jung's interpretation of it (and Freud?)). From ancient myths to modern movies, great stories--stories that resonate with people--have a number of components, structure and stages, in common. There are seventeen stages in Campbell's Heros Journey (also called a Monomyth), and not all of them are present in every story. Campbell's ideas have been both expanded and refined since his presentation of them, and became very popular in the 1980s and 1990s.
Among such adherents and fans (like Bob Dylan and Geroge Lucas) was a man named Christopher Vogler. He had been working as a film producer and writer when he released a memo for Disney workers called "A Practical Guide to the Hero's Journey." This memo was based on studies of Campbell and the Monomyth and it so changed Vogler's life, his approach to writing, and possibly even the industry, that he expanded it considerably in the first edition of A Writer's Journey. He became a Campbell proponent, a lecturer, and a screenwriting story consultant supreme, causing a further movement in the Hero's Journey's own story arch.
I can't tell you much more about Campbell's Monomyth, but I can lay out the stages and archetypes according to Vogler. And they are: ACT ONE: Ordinary World; Call to Adventure; Refusal of the Call; Meeting the Mentor; the First Threshold; ACT TWO: Test, Allies and Enemies; Approach to the Inmost Cave; the Supreme Ordeal; the Reward; ACT THREE: the Road Back; Resurrection; and Return with the Elixir. The main archetypes are the Hero, Mentor, Threshold Guardian, Herald, Shapeshifter, Shadow, Ally, and Trickster. Vogler takes a loose approach to the whole thing, saying that stages can be moved around and archetypes can be combined or split. Gender is not set, although historically the hero and mentor have been male, the shapeshifter female. Vogler encourages the writer to play with the forms, but to keep in mind that all great stories have these things in common. I appreciate his practical approach to everything: Does it work? Great.
Vogler also embraces Campbell's views that the Monomyth arises from the human psyche. He goes a step further, in fact, asserting that the Hero's Journey can be used to navigate our real lives and real emotions and motives. His book is mainly a primer on the stages and archetypes of the Hero's Journey, fleshed out and with examples. In the epilogue, Vogler also addresses such issues as the role of the reader in the interpretation of story, polarity as a theme, catharsis as a concept and a necessity, and trusting the journey of writing.
If you are a writer of any sort, this is the kind of book that if you haven't read it already, you will want to get your hands on it. Not only are you going to look completely out of it if it comes up at your next cocktail party, but it can work for you. Vogler doesn't suggest--just the opposite actually--that you simply plug stuff in to a Vogleresque structure. He wants to make you aware, as a writer, of what a story is--has always been--about, and how structure, plot, and characters are part of that heart-stirring, life-changing process. Especially for writers in crisis (which happens to all of us at least a few times, right?), this book could be instrumental in getting yourself out of a pickle, let alone changing the way you approach your own process.
If you are a leftist feminist or a generally angry person, you might disagree. (See "Criticism" section of Wikipedia's article on Monomyth for some fodder.) I've never had a problem with generalizations as long as we don't consider them absolutes. I admire--and participate in--anecdotal observation to make sense of things. I didn't exactly swallow the whole psychobabble pill, but I certainty didn't find it offensive. I would love for storytelling to continue to evolve and come up with wonderfully fresh material and yet I strongly believe that there is nothing new under the sun. Why not acknowledge our common threads while addressing the world from the stage of novel writing?
I also loved the illustrations. And can't believe I didn't mention Star Wars once in the review.
__________
"The structure should not call attention to itself, nor should it be followed too precisely" (p19).
"These wounds of rejection, betrayal, or disappointment are personal echoes of a universal pain that everyone has suffered from: the pain of the child's physical and emotional separation from its mother. In a larger sense, we all bear the wound of separation from God or the womb of existence--that place from which we are born and to which we will return when we die" (p93).
"Hundreds of writers have told me they plotted their screenplays, romance novels, or TV sitcom episodes using the Hero's Journey and the guidance of mythology" (p233).
"These archetypal patterns turn a chaotic event like the sinking of an ocean liner into a coherent design that asks questions and provides opinions about how life should be lived" (p237).
"The Ship of Fools is an allegory, a story in which all the conditions of life and levels of society are lampooned savagely in the situation of a boatfull of pathetic passengers. It is a sardonic tale, harshly depicting the flaws in the people and social systems of its time" (p248).
*REVIEW WRITTEN FOR THE STARVING ARTIST BLOG.*