The Hero's Journey

Popularized by mythologist Joseph Campbell in his book The Hero With a Thousand Faces, the Hero’s Journey is a story structure that has been used to tell exciting and captivating stories for centuries. Campbell, a literature professor, found that this was a common mythic structure. It’s widely known by the moniker the Hero’s Journey, but this name didn’t come around until well after Campbell’s 1949 book.

Other scholars and storytellers have made tweaks to Campbell’s original monomyth structure, which has seventeen steps instead of the twelve I’ll be discussing today. The version of the Hero’s Journey widely used by screenwriters, authors, and playwrights today was popularized by screenwriter and producer Christopher Vogler.

The Hero's Journey: An Overview

There are three overall stages to the Hero’s Journey, each with individual story beats. These are 1) Departure, 2) Initiation, and 3) Return.

1. Departure
• The Ordinary World
• The Call to Adventure
• Refusing the Call to Adventure
• Meeting the Mentor
• Crossing the Threshold
  
2. Initiation
• Test, Allies, and Enemies
• Approach to the Inmost Cave
• The Ordeal
• The Reward
3. Return
• The Road Back
• Resurrection
• Return With the Elixir

To read a more detailed description of each step, as well as some examples, click here.