Your Hero’s Journey
A Perfect Story for Your Script

The story needs work. How often did you hear that? There is nothing like a perfect script, but you can’t please everybody. Right?
 

So how much is enough? When can you release it to the public and stake your reputation on it?

In search for the answer I took a closer look at the Hero’s Journey. I find it useful as as a template for the perfect story, an outline of a story that’s complete, in a sense.

In studying legends and myths from many different cultures, Campbell noticed recurring patterns which he combined into The Hero’s Journey. According to Campbell these patterns originate in the collective unconscious of mankind and thus are much more than common structure of legends and fairy tales. They may well be patterns woven by life itself, but that’s a different article.

The Hero’s Journey is described in the book The Hero With a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell. The book The Writer’s Journey by Christopher Vogler’s applies it to the writing of movie scripts. You’ll find a brief table outlining the hero’s journey in the article Three Acts or What?

Here I’ll compare the patterns of the Hero’s Journey with some real-existing movies and their stories - starting with White Nights, a 1985 movie starring Mikhail Barishnikov, Gregory Hines, Isabella Rossellini,

Three Acts or What?
Screenwriting Paradigms Compared
 

What structure to use a screenplay is occasionally the issue of fervent discussions.

Most movies – both successful and unsuccessful – adhere to a three act structure that goes way back to Aristotle who observed that stage plays in ancient Greece have a beginning, a middle and an end with distinct functions for each of these components.

Different approaches to story development and screenwriting apparently favor this three act design. The article compares the opinions of Syd Field, Robert McKee, Blake Snyder and Christopher Vogler (based on Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey.

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