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cmagnan 's review for:
The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers
by Christopher Vogler
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.