Neal Soloponte - The Ultimate Heros Journey: 195 Essential Plot Stages Found in the Best Novels and Movies

(Very Short) Introduction

Words are, in my not so humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic, capable both of inflicting injury and remedying it.

Dumbledore ( Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows By J.K. Rowlin g )

What is the Heros Journey?

American scholar Joseph Campbell discovered that mostif not allworks of literature, myths, folkloric tales, and religious texts follow a common narrative structure. That means that, deep down, all stories are the same, or that at least they mirror a general, archetypical story, called th e Heros Journey ( The Hero with a Thousand Faces, 1949. Graphic by the author):

What is this book about?

This book is about uncovering that structure with enough detail to inspire us to create, plot, and write on a whole new level.

Take for example the picture shown below. It has been going around the web, blogged and reblogged so many times that I couldnt find the source anymore.

The comparison was only intended as a funny observation, but I found it so intriguing that I decided to go deeper down that rabbit hole.

After chewing and devouring tons of novels and movies, in this book I perform a similar exercisebut instead of doing it in one page, I do it in 195. I also include mythical associations, practical advice for writers, and examples from famous works of fiction.

Why 195 stages? Why not 196?

If the Heros Journey is described in too few stepslike in the circular graphic at the beginning of this introductionit fails to reflect the parallels between different stories in a useful level of detail. For a critic or a writer, twelve, fifteen, or seventeen stages fall way too short.

On the other extreme, if you atomize the steps too much (I have seen versions with literall y thousand s of stages), it all becomes repetitive and blurry. You end up with too many stages that apply to some stories but not to others, which means that many of those stages are not truly fundamental.

So, why 195?

Because thats the number I came to after distilling the stages that are truly essential, the ones that describe the mythical Heros Journey as presented in modern bestsellers and blockbusters.

A World in four acts

English writer E. M. Forster (1879-1970) said, The king died and then the queen died is a story. The king died, and then the queen died of grief is a plot.

I respectfully disagree.

The king died and then the queen died is a chronology. The king died, and then the queen died of grief is almost a plot, but not quite.

So whats missing?

Well, in their most elemental form, stories (or plots) have three parts:

1) Something happens (Act I Setup).

2) Someone does something about it (Act II Confrontation).

3) Either things change for good, or not (Act III Resolution).

Anything less than this, and what you have is just a chronicle. For that reason, in this book I begin by dividing the Heros Journey as follows:

Are all the 195 stages always there?

I am confident in saying that at least eighty percent of them are always there. The sequence changes, the characters change, the symbolism changes, but the stages are there.

Whats more, stories that leave too many stages out will probably feel hollow and incomplete, because they will not fully resonate with the mythical structure that we have engrained in our minds.

If you are a writer (or aspiring writer), I encourage you to include as many of these stages as possible in your story, even if some stages are represented by just one sentence. The exception would be those stages that only present backstory . The Matrix , for example, doesnt deal with Neos infancy; it simply starts when the hero is already an adult (like most stories do).

Stages versus scenes

How much space, in paragraphs or pages, should each stage take in your novel?

If you write one page for each stage in this book, you have a 195-page novel right there. But it doesnt work like that.

Some stages might take several pages, and others might only need a single sentence. It all depends on the relative importance of each stage in a particular story.

Consider the following, though:

The general sequence . The narrative timeline may jump around, which sometimes complicates things for both the writer and the reader, but the story has to have a consistent causal chain. The Call to Adventure can only happen after the Hero meets the Mentor, the Final Battle must take place (or resolve) at the end, and so on.

Some scenes represent more than one stage . Movies and novels have sixty scenes on average. So each scene comprises about three stages. For example, when Han Solo joins the battle at the end o f Star War s : Episode IV - A New Hope , three different stages are represented by that one action (stages 165, 166, and 167 of this book).

Some stages dont translate directly into scenes . These stages act as arcs, moods, motifs, or themes. This is where the authors use their talent to avoid rigidity and transcend clichs.

Clichs are the enemy

The 195 stages form the master structure of great stories. But two pitfalls lie ahead:

Predictability . When I watch a movie, I always know when the Mentor is going to die, whether or not the Hero is going to pass a particular test, and so on. In fact, I am gladly surprised when something happens that I didnt see coming. And every good story should have an element of surprise.

Unconscious plagiarism . If you write a novel following the stages to the letter, you may end up with a rip-off o f Harry Potte r o r Star War s on your handsand a lawsuit at your doorstep. That would be a pity, because even if all stories are fundamentally similar, there is a myriad of great ways to tell them, waiting to be discovered by the next imaginative author.

Take advantage of the 195 stages, but stay creative because novels written by numbers only mimic the real thing. Dont just follow the stages; make them sing and dance for you.

How to use The Ultimate Heros Journey

Use it to plot . You can use the stages either to develop the big picture of your story or to define scenes to the finest detailor both (which is what I do).

Use it to defeat writers block . Getting lost in Act Two is pretty common because it is usually the longest act. But with this book you will never get stuck there again; just jump to the next stage and continue writing or plotting from there. Later on, everything will fall into place as you fill any remaining holes.

Use it to become a better critic . You dont have to write a novel or a script, of course; you can simply read this book for learning and enjoyment. But something interesting will happen: You will become a sharper observer. Granted, you will be harder to please, because weak passages and plot holes will be more evident to you. But you will also gain appreciation for subtle, masterful touches. I promise, after reading this book, youll enjoy everything you read or watch at a whole new level.