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A review by caligirlrae
The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers by Christopher Vogler
5.0
My creative writing mentor in high school passed this on to me to help make my stories more coherent. Various writing rules change all the time but the one thing is constant. A character's goals, the obstacles they face to get to said goal, and the character's decision to face them or turn away. This book is an excellent structure for both new writers looking to hone their structure and veterans who want to revisit and compare their story structure with this classic model. It follows the hero's journey (The Ordinary World, The Call to Adventure, Refusal of the Call, Meeting With the Mentor, Crossing the Threshold, Tests, Allies & Enemies, Approach, The Ordeal, The Reward, The Road back, The Resurrection, Return With the Elixir) which is usually identified with the high fantasy genre. This outline is mostly used in screenwriting but can be used to help structure a novel or short story.
Even if you are writing a different genre than the fantasy paradigm, this book an awesome jumping point for writers to add to their arsenal. Revisiting The Writer's Journey as a writer myself of about two decades and seeing how writing has changed over the course of the time puts this in a new light. I'm glad to look back at this time as I'm currently taking a blueprint workshop which makes use of beat sheets, also used in screenwriting. It's interesting to see how similar beat sheets are to the writer's journey. I highly recommend this to writers if only to learn the rules, apply it, write and rewrite until you're comfortable bending and stretching the rules a bit to tell a great story.
Even if you are writing a different genre than the fantasy paradigm, this book an awesome jumping point for writers to add to their arsenal. Revisiting The Writer's Journey as a writer myself of about two decades and seeing how writing has changed over the course of the time puts this in a new light. I'm glad to look back at this time as I'm currently taking a blueprint workshop which makes use of beat sheets, also used in screenwriting. It's interesting to see how similar beat sheets are to the writer's journey. I highly recommend this to writers if only to learn the rules, apply it, write and rewrite until you're comfortable bending and stretching the rules a bit to tell a great story.