The Hero’s Journey in the Writer’s Toolbox

The monomyth, now more popularly known as the Hero’s Journey, is a common structural pattern that serves as the foundation for countless stories. It has been a basic form of storytelling for as far back as humanity can remember, laying down the plot structure for ancient epics like Gilgamesh and in many of today’s New York Times best sellers and Hollywood blockbusters. Author’s haven’t always followed the Hero’s Journey structure, knowing that they were doing so. It wasn’t until the 1800s that hero myth narratives were studied and given this identity by mythologist Joseph Campbell in The Hero Wit hA Thousand Faces. Since then, The Hero’s Journey has become an essential tool in the writer’s toolbox. In this episode I will be breaking down the stages of The Hero’s Journey and linking them to some memorable moments of a few of our favorite heroes: Luke Skywalker, Bilbo Baggins, and Harry Potter. I am Arthur McMahon, and this is Paracosms.

You can listen to The Hero’s Journey in the Writer’s Toolbox online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

The Hero’s Journey in the Writer’s Toolbox is an episode from Paracosms: Know Your Fiction by Arthur McMahon.

This episode is 00:16:26 long.

This episode was published on May 30, 2017.

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