The Hero’s Journey Outline

The Hero’s Journey is a pattern of narrative identified by the American scholar Joseph Campbell that appears in drama, storytelling, myth, religious ritual, and psychological development.  It describes the typical adventure of the archetype known as The Hero, the person who goes out and achieves great deeds on behalf of the group, tribe, or civilization.

Its stages are:

1. ARCHETYPE

   1. STORYPOINT Told from that Archetype’s perspective

      1. My notes about what I am going to write about

2. THE HERO

   1. THE ORDINARY WORLD.  The hero, uneasy, uncomfortable or unaware, is introduced sympathetically so the audience can identify with the situation or dilemma.  The hero is shown against a background of environment, heredity, and personal history.  Some kind of polarity in the hero’s life is pulling in different directions and causing stress.

      1. See the hero in humble beginnings as an orphan farmer under his mentor’s protection

      2. Meet the Mentor as a parent and learning figure for the hero.

      3. ShapeShifter from the hero’s perspective as early child hood friend and love interest

      4. Glimpse at hero’s gift.

   2. THE CALL TO ADVENTURE.  Something shakes up the situation, either from external pressures or from something rising up from deep within, so the hero must face the beginnings of change.

      1. Meet the Herald who will become a part of the hero’s group and friend. Warns about coming of the shadow.

      2. See instant polar opposite of hero and shadow.

      3. Face-off cliffhanger

3. THE MENTOR

   1. REFUSAL OF THE CALL.  The hero feels the fear of the unknown and tries to turn away from the adventure, however briefly.  Alternately, another character may express the uncertainty and danger ahead.

      1. Week after the face-off. Hero is despondent and lost. Mentor worried about him both emotionally and practically.

      2. Learn about Mentors views on Shapeshifter, seeing what the Hero does not in her

      3. Hero has lost his home to shadow

      4. Get a recap of the face-off from mentor’s spectator perspective. Shows true power of the Hero’s Gift and how it also caused the lost of his world while fighting the shadow

   2. MEETING WITH THE MENTOR.  The hero comes across a seasoned traveler of the worlds who gives him or her training, equipment, or advice that will help on the journey.  Or the hero reaches within to a source of courage and wisdom.

      1. Learn more about history of mentor and and character

      2. Hero learns there is a way to control his power

      3. Begin “montage” of hero’s training

4. THE THRESHOLD GUARDIAN

   1. CROSSING THE THRESHOLD.  At the end of Act One, the hero commits to leaving the Ordinary World and entering a new region or condition with unfamiliar rules and values.

      1. Mystical, almost divine guardian of relic that the hero is destined to find watches through magical means as the hero trains and makes his way to the Guardian.

      2. Gives insight into the world and the other characters in it. Perhaps foreshadows treachery of the shapeshifter. maybe sacrifice of mentor or friend.

5. THE HERALD

   1. TESTS, ALLIES AND ENEMIES.  The hero is tested and sorts out allegiances in the Special World.

      1. Trials to reach supernatural location of threshold guardian who has the means to help hero control his gift.

      2. Herald sees how the hero has changed from humble beginning to being a moral hero by the journey to this place

   2. APPROACH.  The hero and newfound allies prepare for the major challenge in the Special world.

      1. Aids the hero with perspective on his journey. Asks the more philosophical questions about why the hero needs to control his gift, why he fights before he goes into the special world.

6. THE SHAPESHIFTER

   1.  THE ORDEAL.  Near the middle of the story, the hero enters a central space in the Special World and confronts death or faces his or her greatest fear.  Out of the moment of death comes a new life.

      1. The shape Shifter watches and helps as the Hero faces his challenges, Being his youngest childhood friend and love interest she becomes more and more despondent the closer they get to the end foreshadowing her “shapeshift”.

      2. Watches as the hero faces his final challenge alone. Having a final debate about where her loyalties lie: with hero: or unrevealed others

   2. THE REWARD.  The hero takes possession of the treasure won by facing death.  There may be celebration, but there is also danger of losing the treasure again.

      1. As the hero defeats the Guardian, the hero begins to realize the relic just amplifies his power and the ability to control it. However, treachery strikes and the shape-shifter reveals her own gift in an attempt to take the relic. She fails due to the intervention of the mentor, resulting in the mentors grave physical injury, and other emotional injury all around.

7. THE SHADOW

   1. HE ROAD BACK.  About three-fourths of the way through the story, the hero is driven to complete the adventure, leaving the Special World to be sure the treasure is brought home.  Often a chase scene signals the urgency and danger of the mission.

      1. On the way from the special world the Hero is torn between the chase of  the Shifter and a rush to get healing for his mentor, again being guided by the herald on the moral implications of his journey.

      2. This part is told from the shadow’s perspective, as his mean catch on to them after the leave the special world and (the shadow being an elite and evil noble with resources beyond magical gifts) The shadows agents follow and spy on the hero in his mad rush back into the world For-shadowing final conflict

   2.  THE RESURRECTION.  At the climax, the hero is severely tested once more on the threshold of home.  He or she is purified by a last sacrifice, another moment of death and rebirth, but on a higher and more complete level.  By the hero’s action, the polarities that were in conflict at the beginning are finally resolved.

      1. Just as the hero realizes that his gift can be used for more than destruction but to heal  his mentor, the shadow himself finally appears again desiring revenge for the first battle. In a grand display, the hero manages to show the Shadow’s true colors to his subordinates in his lack of control of his (the shadow’s) gift and subsequent “friendly fire”. Winning the battle through morality and saving his energy to heal his mentor.

8. THE TRICKSTER

   1. RETURN WITH THE ELIXIR.  The hero returns home or continues the journey, bearing some element of the treasure that has the power to transform the world as the hero has been transformed.

      1. After the grand battle as the Hero returns home with mentor and Herald, they form plans to meet the Herald’s superiors and assume a more productive life of service to the people of his lands. At the footsteps of the Heralds home city, they camp and it is revealed that they are being watched. After some amusing commentary on their journey the trickster steps forth with the shapeshifter, using a far more devious gift to subdue the hero and his party and take the relic, explaining the greater politics of the world beyond the purely good and evil battle the hero has had.

      2. This sets up for an expansion to the story. And takes the story from being purely a fantastic tale, showing the gray areas of the world.