Understanding this template is a priority for story or screenwriters. This is the template you must master if you are to succeed in the craft.
[The terminology is most often metaphoric and applies to all successful stories and screenplays, from The Godfather (1972) to Brokeback Mountain (2006) to Annie Hall (1977) to Lord of the Rings (2003) to Drugstore Cowboy (1989) to Thelma and Louise (1991) to Apocaplyse Now (1979)].
THERE IS ONLY ONE STORY
THE HERO'S JOURNEY:
a) Attempts to tap into unconscious expectations the audience has regarding what a story is and how it should be told.
b) Gives the writer more structural elements than simply three or four acts, plot points, mid point and so on.
c) Gives you a tangible process for building and releasing dissonance (establishing and achieving catharses, of which there are usually four).
d) Gives you a universal structural template upon which you can superimpose your situational story. This is why stories such as Alien (1979), Gladiator (2000), Midnight Cowboy (1969), American Beauty (1999), The Graduate (1967) and many others (all deconstructed at the URL below) appear to be different but are all constructed, almost sequence by sequence, in the same way.
and more...
*****Universal Terminology*****
The Hero's Journey uses specific terminology, such as "Final Conflict," "Hand-to-Hand Battle," "Unbearable Antagonism," "the Oracle," etc. This misleadingly implies that it applies to only specific story-types (Arthurian Legend, Damsel in Distress, Fantasy, etc). In fact, the terminology applies metaphorically to the vast majority (if not, every) successful story or screenplay you may have come across.
For example, In Annie Hall (1977), when Alvie finally goes to meet Annie in Los Angeles, that is a Hand-to-Hand Battle and is the same one-on-one confrontation as Luke and Vader battling it out at the end of Star Wars; the same mano-a-mano confrontation between Riggs and Joshua in Lethal Weapon (1987), the same confrontation as the one between John McClane and Hans Gruber in Die Hard (1988) and the same as the confrontation between Harry and Sally at the end of When Harry met Sally (1989).
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Go to http://www.clickok.co.uk/index4.html for more info on the 188+ stage Hero's Journey....
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