[From our deconstruction of hundreds of Hollywood blockbusters and sitcoms....; 188 stages of the Hero's Journey you need to know about...]

The Hero's Journey is the template upon which the vast majority of successful stories and Hollywood blockbusters are based upon. In fact, ALL of the Hollywood movies we have deconstructed are based on this template.

Understanding this template is a priority for story or screenwriters.

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) Interpreted metaphorically, laterally and symbolically, allows an infinite number of varied stories to be created.

and more...

The Trials and Transformation

The Trials and Transformation make up the "Road of Trials" and can be one of the most confusing yet critical parts of the story / screen writing process.

There are various ways to break up the trials in order to make them manageable:

a) Passive, Active and Proactive: In Elizabethtown (2005) Drew meets his father lying in a coffin; then meets his other family and engages with them and then finally saves the relative in the car.

b) Tending back to the Old World, Threat of the Old World and Pushed to the Old World: The essence of the vast majority of stories is transformation [movement from an Old World to a New World] e.g. In An Officer and

a Gentleman, Meo is annoyed at having to use martial arts (representative of his Old World), then the threat of being pushed back to the Old World is made explicit in the underwater test sequence and then Meo is forced back to his Old World by Foley.

Learn more…

The Complete 188 stage Hero's Journey and other story structure templates can be found at http://www.clickok.co.uk/

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Kal Bishop, MBA

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