A review by mburnamfink
The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers by Christopher Vogler

4.0

This is basically The Hero With a Thousand Faces turned into a self-help guide for aspiring screenwriters. Vogler is deeply experienced in how Hollywood makes stories, having worked as a professional narrative-smith for several major studios including Disney and Fox, and the advice is pragmatic, flexible, and surprisingly robust. Each chapter is concluded by a set of questions that a keen professor might ask of a story. Vogler would be the first to admit that the Hero's Journey is not a prescription for a good story, and that many films fall outside of its Archetypes and Steps, but if your story can't be described by the Hero's Journey, you probably have some work to do.

Some of the example movies are a little dated in the Year of Our Lord 2013 (Romancing the Stone, what's that?), and there isn't much said about the more complex stories typical of extended trilogies or television shows, but for all that, this is a critical book for writers looking to improve the structure of their stories.