The Heros Journey

Writing The Hero's Journey

In 1949 Joseph Campbell gleaned from ancient mythology “The Hero’s Journey”, a step-by-step initiatory progression that takes the hero through a descent, an ordeal, and a triumphant return. You’ve seen this formula in countless movies and novels.

The Call to Adventure

The hero begins in a situation of normality from which some information is received that acts as a call to head off into the unknown.

Campbell:"The call of adventure is to a forest, a kingdom underground, beneath the waves, or above the sky, a secret island, lofty mountaintop, or profound dream state; but it is always a place of strangely fluid and polymorphous beings, unimaginable torments, super human deeds, and impossible delight. The hero can go forth of their own volition to accomplish the adventure, as did Theseus when he arrived in his father's city, Athens, and heard the horrible history of the Minotaur; or they may be carried or sent abroad by some benign or malignant agent as was Odysseus, driven about the Mediterranean by the winds of the angered god, Poseidon. The adventure may begin as a mere blunder... or still again, one may be only casually strolling when some passing phenomenon catches the wandering eye and lures one away from the frequented paths of man. Examples might be multiplied, ad infinitum, from every corner of the world."

Examples include unlikely heroes such as Frodo Baggins receiving the One Ring from his uncle Bilbo and the wizard Gandalf subsequently revealing its true nature in The Fellowship of the Ring, and Luke Skywalker finding the message of the imperiled Princess Leia in the original Star Wars film shortly after meeting the wise Jedi master Obi-Wan Kenobi.

​

You can use this formula to help tell many family history stories just by plugging your main character into the role of hero and describing their experience with these milestones:

1. Ordinary world
2. Call to adventure
3. Refusal of the call
4. Meeting with the mentor
5. Crossing the first threshold
6. Tests, allies and enemies
7. Approach to the inmost cave
8. The ordeal
9. Reward
10. The road back
11. The resurrection
12. Return with the elixir