female hero's journey examples

The Heroine’s Journey: Examples, Archetypes, and Infographic

By Julia Blair

Joseph Campbell popularized the Hero’s Journey that has become a mainstay among writers. But he also said the symbols of ancient myths no longer fit the modern world. This is why we need to add the heroine’s journey to our myths.

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We Need New Myths

Myths are archetypal stories that reflect our inner selves. They reveal our foibles and laud our innate strengths so that we can better understand our shared humanity.

But society has changed a lot since Theseus slew the minotaur.

“When the world changes, then the religion has to be transformed. The only mythology that is valid today is the mythology of the planet—and we don’t have such a mythology.” – Joseph Campbell

Campbell was right about our changing world. We face challenges our ancestors never even dreamed of.

• Technology revolutionizes our lives. We’ve transferred much of our making and thinking to computers. We socialize online. Memory is digitized. 
• Societies struggle to cope with conflict and suffering based on socioeconomic, racial, and gender inequality.
• In business and politics, women are still subject to lower wages and discriminatory policies. 
• The Earth itself is in critical danger as climate change impacts land, sea, and air, and alters the habitats of plants and animals.

In a recent tweet, Glasgow International Fantasy Conversations affirmed:

“The great theme of our age is one of loss. In a time of ecological crisis, we need stories. We need to imagine better tomorrows, stories as alibis that get us through the day.”

This failure of old myths to deliver answers is echoed in the very movie franchise that put the Hero’s Journey into popular culture.

In  The Force Awakens , Rey exclaims, “Luke Skywalker! I thought he was a myth!”

She speaks for all of us in  The Last Jedi when she implores Luke, “I need someone to show me my place in all of this.” 

Luke reveals his disillusionment. “I only know one truth: It’s time for the Jedi to end.”

The loss of meaning in one’s life is painful to him—and to us, the audience—a feeling that echoes all too well our era of crisis and loss.

But when a myth becomes part of the collective memory, it’s remarkably persistent. We see that in the repetition of stories and movies based on the Hero’s Journey. The only way to change an outdated myth is to replace it with a better one, whose symbols make more sense and resonate with contemporary society. In this post, I’d like to look at alternative stories of self-discovery based on a pattern called the Heroine’s Journey.

A Female Perspective

Female action heroes like  Wonder Woman’s Diana Prince and  Divergent’s Tris rake in big bucks for Hollywood, showing that a woman can carry an action film and attract huge audiences. These movies stick to the basic shape of the Hero’s Journey, just replacing the male protagonist with a woman. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it’s the same old story dressed up in a new outfit.

In movies like  Thelma and Louise , where women break the rules, the audience feels empowered. In this David and Goliath trope even when the heroines take freedom to the ultimate extreme, we feel that justice has been done in a fight against an unfair system.

In real life, women who push back against societal norms aren’t always seen in a positive light. “Nevertheless, she persisted,” originally meant to denigrate Senator Elizabeth Warren’s resistance to a male colleague’s effort to stop her from speaking, epitomizes how women who dare to challenge the patriarchy are seen. Intended to demonstrate, the catchphrase was transformed into a feminist call to action.

Psychologists, mythologists, and writers have searched for feminine alternatives to Campbell’s monomyth, one that gives women and disenfranchised protagonists the agency and power to carry stories that follow a different path to self-actualization. From this search, the Heroine’s Journey was born. But unlike the classic Hero’s Journey, there are multiple versions of a Heroine’s Journey. Let’s take a look at two of the best known.

Maureen Murdock’s  The Heroine’s Journey

Maureen Murdock wrote  The Heroine’s Journey as counterpoint to Joseph Campbell’s  Hero with a Thousand Faces .

When she asked Campbell about women and the Hero’s Journey, he famously responded:

“Women don’t need to make the journey. In the whole mythological tradition, the woman is [already] there. All she has to do is to realize that she’s the place that people are trying to get to.”

This reply inspired Murdock, a trained psychologist, to dig deeply into the realms of myth and psychoanalysis to develop an archetypal pattern of a woman’s quest for enlightenment and wholeness: the Heroine’s Journey. 

You can trace the path of Heroine’s Journey in two popular stories. In the Pixar movie  Brave, the protagonist Merida closely follows Murdock’s model as she struggles to make a place for herself without compromise in a fantasy version of medieval Scotland. And, notably, Zuko from the animated series  Avatar the Last Airbender also follows a path that mirrors the Heroine’s Journey, which contributes to a powerful redemption arc of emotional depth and sensitivity.

The journey includes ten stages, modeled here:

The Heroine’s Journey

1.  separation from the feminine.

Women leave the nurturing shelter of the archetypal Mother behind. Some strike out in search of success and and a sense of self. Others flee from the negative associations of feminine behavior, wanting to be taken seriously and not unrealistically sexualized.

2.  Identification with the Masculine

To flourish in a male-oriented world, successful women often emulate male behavior by abandoning the domestic sphere, suppressing emotional displays, and adopting male traits in the boardroom or on the campaign trail. Merida rejects traditional women’s activities such as needlework. She excels in archery, defeating all her potential suitors in a competition. Zuko is separated from the nurturing love of his mother as a child and thrust into his father’s world of domination through conquest.

3.  The Road of Trials

The heroine confronts challenges and obstacles to her goals. She survives trials, earns degrees, or learns difficult skills. She must balance her personal and professional lives. She must prove herself to those who think she’s not worthy to succeed by male standards. Zuko chases the Avatar to restore his honor.

4.  The Illusory Boon of Success

Having overcome her trials, the heroine attains a measure of success, a powerful title, position, or wealth. She is a superwoman who has it all. Imposter syndrome still sneaks in, and she wonders when she will feel she has truly succeeded.

5.  Awakening to Spiritual Emptiness

Despite her successes, the heroine feels empty. She senses that there must be more to life. She may feel betrayed by the system or by her allies. She hears her inner voice after years of ignoring it. Even when he has returned home and regained his honor, Zuko finds the victory hollow. He questions his feelings and realizes that he has chosen the wrong path.

6.  Initiation and Descent to the Goddess

The heroine experiences the dark night of her soul. She sometimes withdraws from friends and family. She no longer sees the point in struggling for success by her previous terms. The heroine must face her Shadow, an archetype that, simply put, represents the things within herself that hold her back from what she truly needs. She learns to  be , not to  do . Merida travels deep into a wild forest to seek help from an old wise woman or witch. The Wise Woman is a strong archetype in her own right, the dark face of the Goddess representing danger and wisdom.

7.  Yearning to Reconnect with the Feminine

Having rejected the pursuit of outward success, the heroine may end associations with people or institutions that compromise her newly awakened spiritual growth. She turns to creative work and activities that enable mind-spirit-body connections. She begins to purify herself for the next stage.

8.  Healing the Mother/Daughter Split

The heroine reconnects with her roots and finds strength in the past. She emerges from the darkness with a deeper sense of self. She is able to nurture others and be nurtured by them. She reclaims feminine traits she once saw as weak. Merida must draw upon her knowledge of the feminine activities she rejected in order to save her mother from an enchantment.

9. Healing the Wounded Masculine

Having reoriented her concept of femininity, the heroine must shed toxic perceptions of masculinity. If she has rejected her earlier pursuits in the male-oriented world, she searches for what remains meaningful to her. She casts aside unrealistic concepts of men. Having rejected his father’s (and nation’s) violent traditions, Zuko’s loses his firebending skills until he learns how to use them in positive rather than destructive ways.

10.  Integration of Masculine and Feminine

Our heroine has come full circle. Male and female aspects of personality are integrated in a union of ego and self. She is whole and capable of genuine love for others. She remembers her true nature. Not until Zuko joins up with Avatar Aang, who represents the antithesis of violence, is Zuko able to integrate his dual nature and achieve wholeness on his own terms before bringing balance to the world. Merida, too, has learned to embrace the different aspects her life. She accepts the value of her mother’s instruction in feminine pursuits while retaining her interest in archery and other stereotypical masculine activities.

Murdock’s model has roots in the women’s movement of the Sixties and Seventies, with a generation who raised their fists against the status quo. She and her contemporaries had heavy cultural shackles to break. Their efforts enabled subsequent generations to build on and benefit from a growing acceptance of the equality of women.

The Heroine’s Journey described by Maureen Murdock is a quest for integration and healing. The circle closes with the union of male and female, representing a journey toward spiritual and societal growth.

Its real strength is found in its understanding of the duality of human nature. The yin-yang symbol incorporates dark in the light, and light in the dark. There is strength in our Shadow selves, but only when we face our personal demons does our Shadow step aside and let us move forward.

Murdock built her model as a path for introspection and self-awareness, not specifically as a tool for writers. Nevertheless, it is one of the most widely known versions of a female counterpart to the Hero’s Journey.

Kim Hudson’s  The Virgin’s Promise

Author Kim Hudson describes the Heroine’s and Hero’s Journeys as “two halves of a whole.” Although  The Virgin’s Promise portrays a feminine take on the search for one’s authentic self, it avoids limiting the gender of the protagonist. Viola in  Shakespeare in Love exemplifies the journey with a female lead and Billy in the movie  Billy Elliot , is a male protagonist following a similar path.

Hudson developed her model for writers, specifically screenwriters, so it’s structured in three acts and frames archetypes and imagery in storyteller’s terms. 

Some of the thirteen stages in this model have no equivalent in the Hero’s Journey. They reflect, instead, an inner emotional approach to life’s challenges. The thirteen stages are:

1.  The Dependent World

The protagonist is tied to her normal world in order to survive, either by social convention, physical protection, or as a stipulation of conditional love. She is dependent on others to get by.

2.  The Price of Conformity

The Virgin suppresses her inner gift to maintain the status quo. She may not realize she is captive in her Dependent World, or she may be critically aware of the need to hide her true nature. She may believe the low opinions others have of her and feel worthless. She is unable to break her chains or spread her wings.

3.  Opportunity to Shine

A chance to express herself comes without risk to her dependent world. She may discover a talent, be pushed to it (fairy godmothers are great at this), or she may act in the interest of another person who requires her help. She recognizes a dormant part of her soul, or uses her talent in a new way.

4.  Dresses the Part

The Virgin realizes her dreams may actually be within in reach. “Dressing the part” means she willingly steps into a role. In  Shakespeare in Love , for example, Viola dons costume and becomes an actor. Cinderella wears a magical gown and goes to the ball after all. Sometimes, the Virgin receives an object or talisman that symbolizes her secret self. She “becomes beautiful” physically, metaphorically, or both.

5.  The Secret World

Now she has a foot in the world of her dreams yet remains unwilling (or unable) to leave her old life behind. People might depend on her. She may be in physical danger, or fears the consequence of letting go of the Dependent World. Change is a hard thing. Who hasn’t hesitated before plunging into the unknown?

6. No Longer Fits Her World

As the Virgin discovers her true nature, she realizes her double life can’t go on. The risk of being caught increases. She may feel that she’s still an outsider in her secret world. Her behavior ranges from risk-taking to rejecting her dreams, thinking she can return to the way she used to be. 

7.  Caught Shining

The Virgin is revealed, exposed in one world or the other by betrayal or changing circumstance. Her secret is secret no longer. She may reveal her newfound strength by coming to the rescue of another. Ayla, in  Clan of the Cave Bear , exposes her skill with a forbidden weapon by saving a child from a hyena.

8. Gives Up What Kept Her Stuck

Many things may hold the Virgin back: fear of losing loved ones, being hurt by a new love, fear of success or loss. Now she faces those fears and breaks the hold that others have on her. Sometimes the Dependent World vanishes and she finds herself on her own for the first time. She is her own boss, the mistress of her fate.

9. Kingdom in Chaos

In the wake of her assertiveness comes disruption. She has rocked the boat and changed the status quo by her rejection of the things that held her back. She has upset the old order and the Dependent World may come after her with all its strength in order to re-establish itself.

10. Wanders in the Wilderness

The Virgin faces her moment of doubt. Despite her newfound confidence, things don’t go as planned. Her belief in herself is tested to the max. Things might look very good back home, tempting her to give up her crazy notions of independence.

11. Chooses Her Light

But the Virgin eventually chooses to shine. She expresses her gifts in an imperfect world, accepting her flaws and her strengths. She gains new insights about the world she left behind. Power has shifted, and she now holds at least some of it. She can take care of herself and has become a self-actualized soul. But her journey doesn’t stop here.

12. Re-ordering/Rescue

The world readjusts itself around her. The Virgin broke ties with the Dependent World in Stage 8. Now she returns to her community. Her transformation makes the old world a better place. She reunites with people she loves who recognize and value her true self. She is no longer controlled by others.

13. The Kingdom is Brighter

Not only has the Virgin grown, but the world has also become a better place as a result of her journey. She integrates her inner self with the outer world. Hudson explains, “She has moved from knowing conditional love to unconditional love.”

Shared Elements of Male and Female Archetypal Journeys

The Heroine’s Journey and  The Virgin’s Promise show us what stories are like when women achieve their full potential. The Heroine’s Journey (HJ), The Virgin’s Promise (VP), and the monomyth (MM) share some elements, demonstrating that at least some components of heroic stories are universal:

• The protagonist rejects or suppresses part of themselves to fit in the normal world. HJ: Separation of the Feminine; VP: The Price of Conformity; MM: Call to Adventure, Rejecting the Call.
• The protagonist expresses new talent or knowledge without risking themselves. For a while, things look like they’ll work. HJ: The Illusion of Success; VP: The Secret World; MM: Tests, Allies, Enemies.
• The protagonist experiences a moment of doubt. They wonder if they have chosen the right path and if they can return to the way things used to be. HJ: The Descent; VP: Wanders in the Wilderness; MM: Approaching the Inmost Cave.
• Continuing on the journey, the protagonist does what they must to defeat their demons, conquer the adversary, or complete their quest. HJ: Reconciliation with the Feminine, Reincorporation of the Masculine; VP: Chooses Her Light; Wanders in the Wilderness; HJ: The Road Back, The Final Battle.
• The protagonist integrates their conflicting selves, rejoins the world, brings inner and outer balance.  They have transformed themselves and the world. HJ: The Union; VP: Reordering/Rescue; MM: Return with the Elixir.

(The VP crisis occurs in Act III. In HJ and MM, the crisis takes place in Act II.)

You can download a printable version of this chart here .

Contrasts with the Hero’s Journey

The male and female journeys of self-actualization follow different paths but arrive at a similar destination. Both trace a voyage of self-discovery, of confronting and breaking down self-deception and learning to integrate aspects of personality in positive, productive ways. 

Heroine’s journeys are about self-worth and identity. The heroine brings balance to herself, then changes the world around her. It’s more about the journey than the destination. 

The Hero’s Journey is a quest for an external objective.  It is about obligation and rising to the task. The Hero seeks to right a wrong and bring balance to the world. In doing so, he is transformed.

One of the loudest and most legitimate complaints to be made about the Hero’s Journey is that it’s become formulaic. The constant barrage of mediocre action/adventure sequels out of Hollywood attests to that.  I’m not saying it’s time to abandon the Hero’s Journey. It’s still capable of surprises.  Star Wars’ Darth Vader arc gives us a failed Hero’s Journey and a fascinating character study. The Cohen brothers’  O Brother, Where Art Thou delivers a twist on the classic with escaped convicts as heroes. As writers create new variations on a theme, the archetypal pattern is shifting.

Putting It To Work

If you read my post on archetypes , you know I believe that writers have the ability and responsibility to bring joy, hope and change to the world. Myths and archetypes are powerful tools for accomplishing that.

While reading about alternatives to the Hero’s Journey, I began to see that the Heroine’s Journey and Virgin’s Promise are more than just female versions of the monomyth. They meet the responsibility to spark change because they arose in response to a need for change. 

Immutable Story Grid Truth: All good stories are about change.

All of them. Without exception. In every scene, sequence, and act there must be a change, or it’s not a working scene, sequence or act. Characters must change or fail.

The Virgin’s Promise and the Heroine’s Journey are different ways to achieve transformation. They’re alternative narrative structures that can breathe new life into the stories we tell and have the potential to bring some hope and joy as well.

In Story Grid terms, these models relate to the higher ranges of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. You’ll find them especially good fits for the internal genres of Worldview (self-actualization) and Status (self-esteem). You can also find elements of these models in the Love Story, an external genre, when characters seek a mature and unconditional love.

MASLOW’S HIERARCHY OF NEEDS

Balancing internal and external genres within a plot is one of the hallmarks of a compelling story. Both Heroine’s Journey models enable us as writers to delve into the psyche of a character in a different way. They inspire new responses to the challenges of change and growth and the consequences of failing to change. 

How might your current work-in-progress benefit by incorporating elements of the Heroine’s Journey?

Consider how your protagonist changes through the course of your story. Are they thrust into a situation that forces them to change whether they want to or not? Very often that’s the monomyth, and you can draw from the stages of the Hero’s Journey for inspiration.

Does your protagonist feel a growing dissatisfaction with the way things are? Are they faced with the realization that the problem is something inside them? Are they held back by external circumstance and lacking opportunity for their inner gift to bloom? You’ve got a great candidate for the Virgin’s Promise or Heroine’s Journey.

A Call To Action

Old myths are no longer as relevant in our complex 21 st century world as they once were, but we’ve not yet replaced them with something as strong and inspiring—and we need to. Campbell says that the most important purpose of myth is to guide humans through the stages of life, from cradle to grave. 

Robert McKee, an authority on writing powerful stories, tells writers to write the truth. The truth is, we need desperately need new myths to guide us forward in a compassionate and enlightened way.

So where do new myths come from?

Mythologists don’t create our myths, they study them. They dissect them, examine the pieces, investigate symbols and themes. But myth is far more than just the search for meaning. It is the  experience of meaning.

That’s precisely what happens inside a reader’s head when they read a book. Consuming stories gives readers the experience of meaning. Stories are how we deliver the new myths that the world needs now. 

You, dear writer, are a mythmaker. 

It’s our calling as writers to create new myths, to draw upon our experiences, uncover new symbols, and reinterpret archetypes. 

McKee and others tell us that through story, people experiment with change without risking themselves. Readers and movie-goers try on different mindsets and personas, just like trying on clothes before a mirror.

When they find something that fits, a new way of thinking about themselves, the world, and themselves in the world, you the writer have made a change.

J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series taught me that there is no greater power in all the world than love. Masashi Kishimoto’s long-running anime  Naruto taught me to never give up on my dreams.  The Gate to Women’s Country , a novel by Sheri S. Tepper, taught me that going through a stupid phase doesn’t mark me for life.

The monomyth has roots in humanity’s psycho-emotional past. It connects us with ancient storytellers. And that’s not a bad thing. But there are other ways of knowing. 

It’s time we looked to the future. You have a superpower that can change lives. Use it wisely, but  use it.

It is time for us to imagine and write better tomorrows.

More Heroic Journey Resources

• Villain Archetype
• Hero Archetype
• Mentor Archetype
• Trickster Archetype
• Shapeshifter Archetype
• Herald Archetype
• Threshold Guardian Archetype
• Allies Archetype

I am grateful to Shelley Sperry for her insightful comments and assistance in making this a better post.

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Julia Blair

Julia Blair knows firsthand the challenges of balancing writing, family, and an outside job. Her most creative fiction always seemed to flow when faced with grad school deadlines. While raising a family of daughters, horses, cats, and dogs, Julia worked as an archaeologist and archivist. She brings a deep appreciation of history and culture to the editing table.

As a developmental editor and story coach, her mission is to help novelists apply the Story Grid methodology to their original work and create page-turning stories that readers love. Her specialties are Fantasy, SciFi, and Historical Fiction.

She is the published author of the short story Elixir, a retelling of fairy tale Sleeping Beauty, and has several several articles on the Story Grid website. She the co-author of a forthcoming Story Grid masterguide for the Lord of the Rings.

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The Heroine Journeys Project

Exploring and documenting life-affirming alternatives to the hero's journey, maureen murdock’s heroine’s journey arc.

Maureen Murdock

Murdock’s model, described in The Heroine’s Journey: Woman’s Quest for Wholeness, is divided into the ten stages:

• HEROINE SEPARATES FROM THE FEMININE.  The “feminine” is often a mother/mentor figure or a societally prescribed feminine/marginalized/outsider role.
• IDENTIFICATION WITH THE MASCULINE & GATHERING OF ALLIES.  The heroine embraces a new way of life. This often involves choosing a path that is different than the heroine’s prescribed societal role, gearing up to “fight” an organization/role/group that is limiting the heroine’s life options, or entering some masculine/dominant-identity defined sphere.
• ROAD/TRIALS AND MEETING OGRES & DRAGONS.  The heroine encounters trials and meets people who try to dissuade the heroine from pursuing their chosen path, or who try to destroy the heroine.
• EXPERIENCING THE BOON OF SUCCESS.  The heroine overcomes the obstacles in their way. (This is typically where the hero’s journey ends.)
• HEROINE AWAKENS TO FEELINGS OF SPIRITUAL ARIDITY/DEATH.  The heroine’s new way of life (attempting the masculine/dominant identity) is too limited. Their success in this new way of life is either temporary, illusory, shallow, or requires a betrayal of self over time.
• INITIATION & DESCENT TO THE GODDESS. The heroine faces a crisis of some sort in which the new way of life is insufficient, and the heroine falls into despair. All of the masculine/dominant-group strategies have failed them.
• HEROINE URGENTLY YEARNS TO RECONNECT WITH THE FEMININE.  The heroine wants to, but is unable to return to their initial limited state/position.
• HEROINE HEALS THE MOTHER/DAUGHTER SPLIT.  The heroine reclaims some of their initial values, skills, or attributes (or those of others like them) but now views these traits from a new perspective.
• HEROINE HEALS THE WOUNDED MASCULINE WITHIN.  The heroine makes peace with the “masculine” approach to the world as it applies to them.
•  HEROINE INTEGRATES THE MASCULINE & FEMININE.  In order to face the world/future with a new understanding of themselves and the world/life, the heroine integrates the “masculine” and “feminine” qualities/perspectives. This permits the heroine to see through binaries and to interact with a complex world that includes the heroine but is also larger than their personal lifetime or their geographical/cultural milieu.

Below is the journey laid out in chart form.

Heroine’s Journey Arc by Maureen Murdock

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57 thoughts on “ maureen murdock’s heroine’s journey arc ”.

Excellent summation of the book. Thank you.

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This misses the mark quite dramatically at nearly the first step. Note that the male hero’s journey sees no need to integrate the feminine into the character’s development. Essentially all you have done here is assumed that a woman requires a male persona in order to take part in the hero’s journey instead of developing a fully separate and unique approach to the journey. A woman’s heroic journey should not revolve around attempts to emulate the male one. Your idea that the first step must be to “Break from the societal prescribed roles of femininity” first assumes that femininity is socially prescribed, and that masculine traits are the true natural state of being. Second that masculinity is a required state of being for a heroic female character, rather than these traits being somewhat inherent (though subdued) as femininity is in men, and part of their natural progression. You can write a story in which a male or female has to integrate the opposite gender’s persona in order to overcome an obstacles, but this story will never be one that fully explores the depths of a feminine or masculine hero. Instead it will be one that just investigates the dichotomy between the two, and that is a very different story. You state that a truly developed hero’s journey for a woman would be a one in which she adopts outside forces of masculinity in order to develop. There should be no mention of masculinity period in a female hero’s journey. A woman has the natural capabilities to overcome her journey’s obstacles, without altering her inherent nature (at least in terms of feminine and masculine roles) Instead it must be her task to understand how to overcome her obstacles within the context of femininity, not outside of it. In a male hero’s journey, the central character must overcome obstacles as they relate to his inherent masculine persona, they never require integration of outside personas nor do they require deviation from their male persona. Their journey is built around the road from an unrealised heroic masculine persona to a realised one. Your first step must be to figure out what a female heroic persona is, independent of masculinity.

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Ark, thanks for your comment. There are many heroine journeys. The one cited by Maureen Murdock is used most often. When it features a female protagonist (or a non-male protagonist) in a male-define context in which the woman or girl is oppressed, abused, or suppressed because of gender, then often the first step is to break out of the restriction by adopting the skills (and sometimes the values or part of the values) of the “other” or male. However, in the heroine’s journey this is never sufficient (if it is, then it is a female protagonist completing a hero’s journey). Something falls apart, either her “success” doesn’t last, is attacked, or she finds it empty or insufficient– she then has to go beyond the male/female binary to seek wholeness/ satisfaction/ fulfillment/ purpose or whatever she is seeking. In other cases the binary may not be so overtly gendered. Perhaps a male is seeking a peaceful solution to greed and war (King Arthur in Once and Future King) or a couple is seeking an enlivened life apart from expectations of “success” in their families/suburbia, or a writer is seeking purpose that is not defined by fame, approval or monetary success. Usually the starting point is based on some kind of distress or longing and there is a background assumption that some kind of societal prescription is the means to success, even if the protagonist or narrator intellectually rejects it. The female heroic persona can be just as much of a trap as a male heroic persona.It is the falling apart of the binary as solution (both ends) that often forces the author/ protagonist/ narrator / life experiencer to seek a new coherency or paradigm– and this is the heroine’s journey. Stay tuned and keep writing. We are going to wrestle with binaries in some fall blogs!

You wrote-In a male hero’s journey, the central character must overcome obstacles as they relate to his inherent masculine persona, they never require integration of outside personas nor do they require deviation from their male persona.– This is interesting to me. I want to agree with this, but I do not feel it is accurate. There is a reaching out, a wisdom teacher must be found. This is seen everywhere in the literature that uses the Hero’s Journey as a template. This wisdom teacher is the Sophia, the feminine, the nurturing and holistic healer/wisdom keeper. It is always a man, sadly, in these tails, but these are whole men, at least. They are whole in that they carry their masculinity within the container of the womb.. it has been through a process of development which allows the balance the hero is looking for. We, as women, are so often hurt by the masculine. We cannot find where we are embodying that part of ourselves, nor do we want to. I believe, too, that we can find that wisdom teacher in a male, as well as a female-one that has done their work and can guide us to nurture in ourselves what needs to blossom through this experience. I have both male and female characters in my life that have found me and am so blessed. Their influence is the same in many, many ways. I feel guided and loved by each of them. I feel unspeakable gratitude for them and the process of becoming a whole, healed woman, who has finally found her voice and power in this world of brokenness.

The separation from feminine is what the heroine needs to learn from. She needs to learn that her femininity is vital by FIRST separating from it and learning that masculine traits by themselves cannot help her. It is a natural progression for a woman to want to separate from her femininity when she is in a society where masculinity is the only thing praised. At first, she may view herself as being subversive and strong by taking up a strong mantel and separating from society’s gender roles; however, the moral of this journey is that this is not the best way to counteract patriarchy, and that she must return to her femininity and female strength to succeed.

If she already knew this, and never relied on masculinity, there would be nothing for her to learn, and no point for a story or ‘journey’.

It would probably help if this was a society where a women being feminine WAS praised in any way. I mean, seriously, the only thing the entertainment industry does these days with female characters is Toxic femininity and men with boobs. This heroine’s journey reflects that.

Honestly, it’s rather frustrating that I can’t find an actually feminine heroine’s journey. The only time Masculinity is positive in women is when it makes a tomboy.

I agree that the dominance of the Hero’s Journey in our cultural messages and popular media is frustrating. However, there are heroine’s journeys if you look for them. Check out our post on the short story, Kicking the Stone by Barbara Leckie. https://heroinejourneys.com/2018/12/07/kicking-the-stone-two-sisters-and-a-relationship-a-trifecta-of-heroine-journeys . And more recently, The Water Dancer by Ta-Neshi Coates (which has a male protagonist) is ultimately, I think a heroine’s journey (which is one of its virtues) although for much of the book it teeters on the edge of a Hero’s Journey. I don’t know what you mean by men with boobs, unless you are referring to stories about gay men or transgender people. Certainly they are likely to have heroine journey stories because they are not part of the dominant culture and rarely become “the master of both worlds” and heralded as a leader in their life times. That is true of many minorities or members of a non-dominant group– including those with psychological profiles or profound life experiences that are uncommon or dismissed; the heroine’s journey is not restricted to sexual orientation or sex roles.

You make very good points: consciousness is a layered and fractal phenomena, and ultimately has its roots in a field of unstructured infinite possibility. All maps that speak to a surface structure and ascribe that structure to a culture (in this case ‘the archetypal culture of the feminine’), break down because they polarise and seek to balance opposites rather than integrate them. That is a function of conciseness not M or F, which are merely culturally ascribed arising from bio, psycho, social / contextual phenomena.

Great points, Paul. Although I think that calling masculinity and femininity or male and female roles and identifications “merely” culturally ascribed understates the penetration of these concepts have in our experience of the world– some of which is personal, much of which is community/society prescribed and constantly reinforced (and then seeps into our own ways of seeing the world), and some of which seems to have evolutionary underpinnings. We can, of course, push against the binary and characteristics associated with a M or F role, and to the extent that seeing the world, another person, or ourselves as masculine or feminine is used to delimit or dismiss personal experience or the possibility that a person can enact any and all traits/roles, we should.

NBALLARD: A “man with boobs” doesn’t refer to transgender or gay men, no. It’s a common trope in Hollywood and Literature where they write a male character and then cast an actress so that they can claim their diversity quota. If you can interpose a man with the “female” character and nothing changes as far as the story is concerned except the romance is now gay, then you have a man with boobs.

I see. Thanks for clarifying. Do you have an example of when this has been done? In my own experience, I have heard more often of editors asking that girl characters be turned into boys (in chapter books and YA books) because boys read boy books and girls read boy books but boys (supposedy) don’t read girl books.

Thank you for posting this. I was immediately uncomfortable and disappointed with Murdock’s heroine journey arc. I’m looking out for an alternative. I would love some suggestions as to where to look. I can see that part of the initial difficulty is that much of the mythology that Campbell looks to is from patriarchal societies. Murdock’s, it seems to me, is a second-wave feminist response, instead of being based on matriarchal mythology, but possibly that was the point.

If the Murdock heroine’s journey doesn’t fit the story or experience you have in mind, check out Virginia Schmidt’s version and also the Healing Journey and the Journey of Integrity, all on separate pages in this website. Several of them also have blog post explanations. We are also working on a Seeker’s Journey, so stay tuned. Note: some journeys are based on myth (archetypal psychological yearnings) and some are post-myth journeys (grounded in contemporary non-dualistic multi-national diverse and/or non-magical thinking).

I’m very late to this conversation, but I feel that I have to comment that I don’t really agree that the male journey does include the feminine. From a Post-Jungian perspective, achieving the hieros gamos through embracing The ANIMA is central to the Inner Journey of the hero.

I feel historical context is also important. For those of us around in 1990, this was monumentally new and life-giving. It’s easy to look back 30 years and criticize the pathfinder. We can continue to study, however, look for weaknesses and continue to grow. All knowledge is built upon the shoulders of the pathfinders before us.

Where you see gaps, do the work and fill the gaps. Be a new pathfinder.

This is very helpful. I think the woman’s journey today includes the stages of Hero’s Journey of Joseph Campbell ( in the Identification with Masculine stage) but then moves beyond it at the end to re-connect to the feminine so as to move to a deeper intuitive understanding beyond any one time, person, culture, race. This is a timeless connection.

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Excellent. Thanks for doing this work!

Delighted to find you and this charting of a woman’s journey. I have my own experience of Campbell and have been finding/telling heroes’ stories for over 30 years . I once asked him if he knew of any stories from all his research in which a man and woman stayed together, worked together. He was silent a long time and then said he could only think of the old couple who lived by the side of a road and cared for travelers. Thinking back now on conversations with him, I’d say he was of his time, that he delighted in and was amused by women, but definitely believed that we’re here as sidekicks to men. At best.

Thanks for your comments. If you would are interested in other examples of people staying together, our team might be able to find some for you.

I would be interested in finding some examples like that.

we are working on a couple of blog posts that illustrate people’s loyalty to one another as part of a heroine’s journey.

I think of my own story of rowing across two oceans with my late husband as an example of people staying together. I’ve also thought a lot about my late husband’s take on our rows as Campbell’s hero’s journeys while my own take on our rows is something quite different. I’m not even sure Murdock’s model works for me because I am still in the process of charting what those journeys really were for me. In my recently published memoir “Rowing for My Life” I explore this as a couple. I know there is another story to be told of my journeys alone. Happy to find this blog!

Thanks for sharing your story, Kathleen. We’d love to here more about your journey and what you believe the differences are between your husband’s view of the journey and your own.

I consider my two rows across the Atlantic and South Pacific oceans with my late husband, examples of a couple staying together after the journey. I believe he saw our ocean rows from the POV of the hero’s journey while I saw it from the feminine journey POV. I just put up a post on my blog site about this. My recently published book on our ocean rows, “Rowing for My Life” illustrates this too. I’ve enjoyed the readings on this blog!

So interesting – I’ve always had a sense that the female journey is different from the male journey, but have in the past simply adapted the Hero’s Journey. The Heroine’s Journey has opened up the possibilities considerably in my WIP. Thank you!

One critique — number 4 is the ‘Illusionary’ boon of success, and that one word changes the entire meaning of that stage of life.

Food for thought.

Hi Luke, thanks for your comment! I agree that step four’s boon of success feels illusory, but usually only after one achieves some measure of success and it fails to provide the “boon” one had expected. E.g. the promised paradigm shift or ongoing fulfillment doesn’t materialize. It is the failure of the boon to stick (e.g. the failure of a happily-ever-after or change in community attitudes) that catapults the subject toward step five and ultimately the rest of the journey.

No. To be brief, in the book itself, the word illusionary is literally that. I feel that the omitting of that word in the list of ten steps is something (for you) to think about.

But that is the point, isn’t it? Maureen is saying that you deceive yourself about the ‘illusionary boon of success’ you are experiencing. Because it is not actually who you are, it is not what the voice inside wants, it is not what the person you keep locked up inside wants… whatever it is – it is not what your true self wants. So your success in life up to that point, even if you are a successful person, is ‘illusionary’ – not that it ‘feels’ illusionary, it *is* illusionary. And after you realize that, and make changes, then you are past the ‘illusionary boon of success’ and on to the next step of life.

since this is the internet, want to mention I write this without spite or malice. I just had a coworker randomly ask if I felt fulfilled at the job where we work together, and I couldn’t help but think about Maureen and the steps that women take in their lives. My coworker asked that because earlier in her life she wanted to work at a nursing home but said she selfishly chose other things. My coworker is currently under the ‘illusionary boon of success’. If all women are on the same path, or experience the same steps in life, as Maureen and other suggest, well that was my initial point in my post a year or so ago, that you too are in that stage/step, and hence purposely omitted the word illusionary.

Good luck with love.

Brilliant! This makes sense of the woman’s attempts to individuate from mother-figure—reveals the complexity of this effort. Thank you!!

Can you give us an example of a heroine Journey history, tale, or movie to understand it better?

Hi Matus, We have given lots of examples already on the site. Go to Journey Narratives and look at the drop down menu for movies, folk tales, short stories and novels. Here are are few more: Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf (novel); Random Family by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc (creative nonfiction/reportage); and Department of Speculation by Jenny Offill. We will probably be doing a review/exploration of each of these books (plus movies) and more this fall. So stay tuned!

Thank you for your summary. I am interested in exploring more of the binary of masculine/feminine. Identifying as a queer person, I see this binary as an inherently heterosexual one, and one which I do not relate to (nor do many people I know). Are there ways in which a journey could be made which do not divide us a category of two? Warm regards, Anna

One of the things I like about the Heroine’s Journey is that it is oriented toward wholeness, not win/lose/; success/failure; good/bad; male/female; leader/follower gay/straight, and other binaries. Wholeness is often conceived of as the integration of two opposing forces or ideas, but it need not be. You raise a very good point and I will try to integrate the idea of wholeness as something other than the integration of binaries into some new posts coming this fall. Part of the temptation to see life or purpose as a yin/yang binary is that many of our brain functions operate as binaries, but that is no excuse. Thanks for your comment and please keep coming back. If you have another conception you would like to offer as a blog or extended comment, by all means let us know. And we are glad you stopped by. Come again!

I am preparing to finalize an article regarding Haya’s journey on the first book of my Immortals series, The Sylph’s Tale. like this article and I am currently taking a class on Mythology that is the best, in my opinion, I have taken.

Wow! Just found your site and it’s very helpful. My wife just completed all her training to be a firefighter in our town. I am trying to be as supportive of her as she has been of me during my career. Unfortunately I am supporting her from my male perspective. I want to try and understand her ‘heroine’s journey, from her perspective. Your site may be very helpful indeed. Thank you!

Does the Monomyth need to be rewritten to be gender specific? Not in my opinion, I respect an attempt to tailor a gender specific guide to Campbell’s monomyth but I think it moves further from the barebones structure which allows it to resonate despite gender, time, class. To add to what has already been succinctly reduced seems counter productive, and introduces an exclusivity at odds with the original intent for universality. It’s the Problem Solver’s journey, in essence, and each step is vital to any gender who seeks to solve a problem or test the merit of a challenging idea. I agree the Monomyth can be tailored based on gender of protagonist when implemented into a narrative, but that would only be filling in the spaces between steps, not including those beats into the native template as some kind of be all and end all to interpreting the monomyth to fit gender, well that seems boldly presumptuous and potentially regressive to me. But what would I know?

Hi James, Neither the hero’s journey nor the heroine’s journey is gender specific. Nor do I believe there is one myth that encompasses the entire human experience, although there are myths that appear in multiple cultures. Indeed, the Hero’s journey can be characterized as the “problem solver’s” journey, but it ends when the problem is solved, and life is not a single problem that can be solved, either at the individual, group, country, or humanity level. The beginning of the heroine’s journey is similar to the hero’s journey, but it goes on after the “boon of success” — as life does. Many stories end with some boon of success– winning the Olympics, obtaining the treasure, getting the job, getting Union recognition for one’s fellow and sister workers, etc. but that doesn’t mean the real life experience would end there. We human beings like the idea of one problem being solved that would solve everything “once and for all” but we believe the real journey of life is longer and more complicated and requires multiple perspectives and patience. Of course, one can approach the next problem as the “real problem” that, if solved, will truly solve everything once and for all– and this accounts for so many hero’s journey sequels that are new hero’s journey and, of course, make room for the next sequel which is another go-round of a problem that repeats the same steps over again. Stay engaged, read more of the site, it’s good to hear from you.

Story – a test to evaluate the merit of an untested or challenging idea Shadow – represents the challenging idea that demands to be reconciled Herald – represents the most recent failed attempt to reconcile the idea and latest data set on the challenging idea, and calls for more Champions to attempt to reconcile. Champion – represents the successful tester and one who finally reconciles the idea, to decide whether the idea should be abandoned or integrated, accomplished via submitting to the idea with full empathy while relying on Sidekick (un-coerced support) to escape if overwhelmed (control for peer bonding reinforcement), and allow for a decision to be made to banish Shadow from hosts through enlightenment or else integrate Shadow with existing system of order to constitute final reconciliation if deemed worthy. Sidekick – represents the data set for the system of order with which the challenging idea must be reconciled, and tests the idea in respects to peer bonding reinforcement and sustainability across domains (mental, community, ecosystem at large) Mentor – expands data set on reconciling the challenging idea, ensures test parameters are met Trickster – expands data set to control for perception bias (subconscious limits) in idea appraisal (the jester, half blue, half red, spins purple in your head) Shapeshifter – expands data set to control for perception bias (projection) in appraisal of idea integration across domains (mental, community, ecosystem at large) Threshold Guardian – control for ensuring test parameters are met to facilitate a reliable result over the course of the test (narrative)

Meeting With The Goddess – defines parameters to be met for net positive outcome versus the parameters for net negative outcome. Atonement With The Father – addresses the previous inabilities on the part of the system of order to reconcile the idea, to better reconcile future challenging ideas via continued process update and redesign, and in turn, system of order update and redesign, to continually seek equilibrium across domains. Making Allies/Rescue From Without – control for Champions who try to validate an idea while overlooking its peer bonding reinforcement value. Returning with the Elixir – ensures the idea is reconciled, either through integration or abandonment, once investigation is done and knowledge claimed, to facilitate the final implementation of a sustainable solution, and serves as a control for Champion’s that may try to use the claimed knowledge of the Shadow to wield power over others rather than reconcile it. Master of Two Worlds – not the individual, but rather the solution, is elevated to “king of all lands”, allowing all people to live free from the previously un-reconciled idea (Shadow).

rush not in understanding, lest presumption leave you blind

Hard to disagree with this, although I might say, rush not to conclusions, lest presumption leave you blind. It’s hard to rush to true understanding– although sometimes it comes upon you in a rush.

Hi Sam, Good to hear from you. It sounds like you are exploring the hero’s journey/ heroine’s journey / life’s journeys through a game– the Monomyth game??? The categories you cite are intriguing and play a role in many stories. We’d love to have you write a blog for us on your analysis of the board game’s journey arc (or arcs). Many of the concepts have an analog in cognitive science that would be interesting for us to explore if you laid out the game concept a little more. (Or we can look at the game, if it’s a physical game board if you would prefer). As we have repeated said thorughout the site and our comments, neither the hero’s journey nor the heroine’s journey is gender specific. They often are launched by different catalysts, but boy, girl, many woman, trans etc. can go on either journey (and we all usually have experiences with both although we may not recognize it).

The Champion’s Journey (non-gender specific) – a list of checks and balances to prepare a human psyche to be able to judge the true merit of an idea which remains un-reconciled, through reliable determination of the potential impacts it has upon integrating across domains.

The Boon is the gaining of the sword of knowledge that allows a Champion to parse the negative aspects from the positive aspects inherent to an idea, and the journey to claim the sword requires they have also learned “true sight” to be able to fully understand the idea (unhindered empathy), and thus its potential positive/negative impacts across all known interconnected domains (systems of order) as explored on their journey beyond their original domain threshold.

The Champion is also required to have learned to remove their perception bias to ensure a reliable determination on where to parse the negative from the positive aspects inherent to the idea in respects to how it will potentially affect all domains.

Finally, the Champion must be proven able to serve the benefit of all through their actions, so as to not be tempted by the Illusory Boon (selfish use of the elixir) vs Ultimate Boon (elixir for the benefit of all).

I offer none of this in rebuttal, but to implore the universal underlying structure of the Monomyth be recognized and not compromised upon extrapolating for the depiction of gender specific Champions, but rather reinforced.

There are 18 stages to the Monomyth (the game board), with the story (rules of the game) consisting of 8 key archetypes each with a unique function, which reinforces the rules of the game and the relevancy of those rules to the game board. It seems this is often overlooked in understanding the work of Campbell..

Regard, Sam

I don’t think you need to worry about recognition of the underlying structure of Campbell’s monomyth– we have spent hundreds and hundreds of hours analyzing it in every form. Do read the entire site and I think it will be quite clear to you that neither the hero’s journey or the heroine’s journey is necessarily gender specific. Read, for example the two-part blog on Canadian Residential schools for a non-gender specific analysis. As noted in response to your previous comment, we’d love to have you do a guest blog analyzing the game to which you refer and the eighteen stages that seem to be part of the game. I leave you with one final thought– remember, myths are myths– not actual life experiences, and archetypes are simplified versions of aspects of people— and no single myth or archetype can explain either life or a person, but they are often helpful in shifting our perspective to look at our lives and selves in new ways.

The prince/castle/dragon/princess metaphor simply represents the elevation of the trait of being an “unselfish Champion who offers sustainable benefit to all” which evolution tends to select for.

That people easily agree on this being a positive trait to express is evidence of its universal “truth”, and is not gender specific, but specific only to those who would solve emerging problems of an unknown nature that yield a boon that has potential to help all if not kept selfishly.

Perhaps that this domain was once held by predominantly by men is what has colored the genders within the metaphor to date, but the metaphor holds true gender roles swapped or even homogenized, it is simply the point of the metaphor that it is important, not the gender’s involved. Especially with LGBTQ story telling, the prince/castle/dragon/prince or princess/castle/dragon/princess metaphor should continually strive to yield the same metaphor result, as it is my hope this shall hold true despite the ever changing landscape of human reproductive capabilities that awaits us.

And this final overture I offer, that what I have written and is awaiting moderation may yet see the light of day –

I think what you offer on this page serves as a really helpful insight to implementing the Problem Solver’s Journey for a would be Problem Solver who lives in a society that is plagued by a problem yet their ultimate savior and Problem Solver is denied entry to Problem Solving via a system wide prejudice toward them, and that may subsist across domains, and for which the solution should be implemented at the Atonement With The Father stage, (or else go un-reconciled as would be expected in a cautionary tale, or in tale of a lesser Champion who rids the world of some shadow, while living under another, and come tale’s end is still awaiting a Champion to set them free from the Shadow of “prejudice” which continues un-reconciled.

To say that the metaphor should perhaps always include multiple shadows to reflect the real world in which we live, and that it would be okay to allow such a “prejudice” shadow to not be reconciled (as opposed to banished where it eternally lurks in threat of resurgence) to become routine, would be to begin to complicate story metaphor’s to a point where potential allegories become difficult for younger minds (or any minds) to extrapolate.

I simply ask here that it be recognized, albeit as valuable as the work on display here may be, that it not be at the expense of any misunderstanding or derision to the true value underlying the Monomyth.

Blessings and best wishes be to you, and to any who may read this.

Kind regards, Sam

Hi again Sam, interesting comments. I resist the idea that we have an ultimate savior or problem solver– although that is sometimes the impression that the Hero’s Journey can leave on with. But certainly there are problems to be solved (which lead one to see new problems, or the solution creates a new problem, etc.) and both the hero’s and the heroine’s journey and other journey arcs can help us to see problems, solving problems, and problems that resist “solving” in new ways. See comments below, if you’d like to expand upon the themes in the board game you describe for us in a guest blog post.

This arc meshes beautifully with Grace by Paul Lynch which I am teaching this term. Grace must dress and act like a boy to survive the great hunger during the potato famine.

This is a fascinating thread. I’m writing an alternate history series with a female protagonist from the northwest coast of what we call North America. She passes through many of the evolutions mentioned here. I’m definitely following this thread. While I’m familiar with Campbell’s rules, I didn’t consciously try to follow them, but in retrospect I did. Her successes and failures drive her evolution. She is 14 at the start of the saga in 1031 CE. She is challenged almost immediately and finds the strength and intuition to take on a series of roles: messenger of danger; warleader; lover; wife (Not in the sense of modern culture); administrator, which she hated; explorer and diplomat; Spymistress (a title with implications in the Song Empire), and occasional rescuer of young people in bad situations.

This reminds me of actions that women take in Corporate America to get into the C-Suite. Until very recently, they had to become “one of the boys” and abandon their femininity. In business, compassion, feelings, connectedness, emotions, rapport talk, bringing your whole “personal” self to work were not valued traits. And then, when women get to “the top,” they realize that to stay there and maintain their emotional health, they have to rely on the very traits they’ve abandoned in order to survive the demands of “being in charge.”

There is a perfect film for the heroines journey – portrait of a lady on fire. It is a French film which cleaned up at many awards ceremonies with two central characters both women. It’s not just the writing that shows the heroines journey in this so clearly, it is in every shot. The director has Chosen not to point the camera at this character or that character – A preplanned point of view – instead she hasCarefully chosen many wide shots so that the action of the female characters can play out in almost a female heroines journey within each shot. A magnificent film.

very pleased to find this. I did my dissertation on Campbell’s racist bias against possible heroes within the black culture which were prevelent within his own working career times. Thanks for this!

Thank you for this site. I have been a fan of the Campbell’s universal monomyth but always sensed it was not capturing the felt sense of my own phenomenological inquiry. I work in ‘life excavation’ and am organizing an inquiry collective on the Heroine’s Journey- but don’t resonate with Murdoch’s model. I appreciate foundation of wholeness, but like ARK above, I’m questioning the 5 additional experiences and collapse after reaching towards leadership/ dignity/elixir in the finding “the boon”. If I may share, my Heroine’s Journey model resonates as 2 circles, one holding the other inside it as it spirals through multiple revolutions, coming and becoming at it expands. Its the invisible space- the generative process of reflective sense making – that transcends the structure of the 4 stages. The departure seeks creative expression & liberation, the initiation absorbs tools/ practices/mentors, the ordeal transmute fear into Presencing/emotional attunement, the elixir of safety is discovered, and that vessel of wisdom gets poured out to others (stage 5) and returns again to the fountain of creative liberation. This is a non binary model that acknowledges the human problem is to be solved is Love, (the diamond of dignity needs to be fully seen and heard) so that radiant autonomy can be fully witnessed and socially presenced. To me that is the Universal Child’s Journey. Thank you for allowing me a sandbox to play in!

For an example of a heroine’s journey in movies (the word “heroine” being, in my understanding, itself oxymoronic) check out the very accomplished “Her Composition”. In it, the director puts the protagonist on a traditional journey, which is however upended by force of her being a woman. The story then unfolds by taking us into new, unexpected directions told through the body of a woman, opening up new perspective of what a “heroine narrative” can be.

Great summary and conversation! Thank you.

Let us not be narrow minded. I had a student apply this journey to Achilles quite succwessfully!

As a father of two beautiful young ladies, an owner of a business that deals with feminine brands, I want to say thank you. I loved reading this.

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Exploring the art and craft of story

Personal Essays

August 19, 2020, rewriting the “hero’s journey” to fit a feminine narrative, a writer on a hunt to understand classic story structure ponders politics, movies and her grandmother's life, and searches for a journey of their own.

Madeline Bodin

Tagged with.

Madeline Bodin as an infant with her mother, left, and grandmother in Brooklyn in 1963. Courtesy of Madeline Bodin

Harris’s journey as a Black, Asian-American woman with the ambition and credentials to run for high office is going to be different from the path traveled by white men. We don’t have to look too far back for an example: Think about the story we are still telling about Hillary Clinton. She won the popular vote, yet the narrative casts her in the role of loser.

As a journalist with a passion for narrative, I’ve given a lot of thought to story structure. But I never considered that women might need a narrative structure of their own until I attempted to find the story in my 95-year-old grandmother’s memoirs. I typed what she had written in her neat script on lined paper, and arranged her vignettes in chronological order. But something was missing: a storyline.

I was confident I could help her find that story. Ask me about story, and I’ll tell you that the “somebody wants something” is the atomic structure of story and that “first something happened, and then, because of that, something else happened” is the force that holds a story together.

But I knew that my grandmother, growing up poor and female at the beginning of the 20th century, didn’t have many choices. She wasn’t allowed many wants; her family couldn’t afford them. Still, 14 years ago, as she sat in my living room a few days after Christmas, that was the direction I was heading when I asked her, “When you were a little girl, what did you dream your adult life would be like.”

“I didn’t,” she spat, with a forcefulness that was unlike her.

I never imagined my grandmother would be a tough interview. I rephrased the question, but got the same answer. “That’s OK,” I told my grandmother. “We’ll do this another time.” I certainly needed more time to figure out how to phrase this question in a way she could answer. But there wasn’t any more time. My grandmother died a little over a month later.

So there was a certain amount of guilt that got me wondering: What about the stories of people who don’t want something? Maybe they are women with limited choices in life. Maybe their culture emphases the goals of groups like families or communities, and not individual wants and needs.

When Hillary Clinton ran for president, she was somebody who wanted something — the foundational material of a story. But that wasn’t acceptable, yet, for a woman, so her story was reframed. My grandmother had been a fan of Clinton’s when she served as a senator from New York, so it was easy for me to draw the connection between their two stories. With Kamala Harris running for vice president, is there time to learn to tell her story — women’s stories — in a fair way, before the November 3 election?

A woman’s real-life journey

The hero’s journey was once popular among Hollywood screenwriters. It was certainly at play in the success of “Star Wars.” Writer and director George Lucas has said in interviews that he relied on “The Hero with a Thousand Faces” while writing his screenplays. Luke Skywalker’s journey belonged to the archetypal hero and spun box office gold.

So last year, when I learned there was a book called “The Heroine’s Journey,” (and I thought we might have a second female presidential candidate) I was in. Maybe this book had the answer about women’s stories that I was seeking.

In response, Murdock put together her own heroine’s journey. This journey starts when a woman separates from “the feminine” and retraces the hero’s journey. But that’s only the beginning. Once a heroine finds the “boon of success” that ends the hero’s journey, she experiences a spiritual death. Traveling a man’s path is not fulfilling for her. So, Murdock’s heroine works to reconnect to the feminine.

As I read, the second half of the circle —  the part about fighting, then healing, the patriarchy — felt to me like an unnatural growth, a pimple. I resisted the notion that women should have to fight the patriarchy. I’m looking for a fundamental story structure for women, and I’d like to find one that works in all societies, not just patriarchies.

In a later chapter, Murdock describes how she developed this journey to help her therapy clients, many of whom were women who were outwardly successful but deeply unhappy. Believe it or not, I did not realize until that moment  that I was reading a self-help book, not a literary or anthropological work, as Campbell’s book is. “The Heroine’s Journey” wasn’t giving me a universal story structure, so I kept reading.

I found a 2011 article in Los Angeles Magazine by , who would later become the writer and producer of the television series “Transparent.” The article is titled “Paging Joseph Campbell: turns out that the fabled Hero’s Journey is a bunch of hooey when you’re writing about heroines.”

Soloway had mastered the hero’s journey as a screenwriting form, and rejected it for heroines’ stories. They looked to movies written by women about women, such as Diablo Cody’s “Juno” and Callie Khouri’s “Thelma & Louise,” for patterns. Soloway decided that the structure of a heroine’s story is circular, but has different stops and winds forward differently than those along the hero’s journey. Soloway sees it more like a Slinky or a road that winds up a mountain, where a traveler views the same landmarks from a higher elevation with each turn around the circle.

Soloway writes about Murdock’s book and sees their two versions of the heroine’s journey as similar.

The three ages of the woman’s journey

In the chapter titled “Pure Heroines” in her 2019 book of essays, “Trick Mirror,” Jia Tolentino classifies literary heroines into three ages. The heroines we first meet as children are independent and active, she says; she uses Laura Ingalls from the Little House on the Prairie series as a frequent example. The heroines we meet as adolescents are traumatized; think of Katniss Everdeen in “The Hunger Games,” forced to kill to save her own life. And the heroines we meet as adults — Tolentino draws heavily on “Madame Bovary” and “Anna Karenina” — are bitter.

Within these age classes, it seems that the child heroines likely follow the hero’s journey. Tolentino paraphrases Simone de Beauvoir’s “Second Sex:” a girl is simply a human being before specifically becoming a woman. A girl’s journey is not much different from a boy’s or a man’s. Then something happens to change the map of her journey.

“Adulthood is always looming,” Tolentino writes. Specifically, she writes, marriage and children mean the end of the freedom to adventure. I would expand that to include sexual desire as an end. That may mean being the object of men’s desire, welcome or not, or it might mean wanting to be desired. So for our adventurous girl, maturity means a shift from fulfilling her own goals to helping others (husband, lover, children) meet their goals, or losing their place as a protagonist by becoming an object in someone else’s story. (Woman as bus station, again.)

The life cycle of the literary heroine that Tolentino describes could be a journey of its own: the freedom of childhood, a trauma, and an adulthood of disconnection, anger or bitterness.

If you don’t like the way that journey ends, well, neither do I. I think it’s important to remember that Madame Bovary and Anna Karenina lives were scripted by men. And that while Campbell was categorizing epic tales about heroes, he included both tragedies and comedies among the stories he included in his analysis. I don’t want to give up on a happier ending for women’s stories until a few comedies are in the analytical mix.

But Tolentino’s essay focuses on characters within stories, not on the structure of those stories. I’ve plucked out the ideas that fit here. In a February article in The New York Times Magazine, Brit Marling, an actor, writer and producer whose show, “The OA,” ran for two seasons on Netflix, addressed women’s stories directly. Marling says that she had to write her way out of the confining roles she was playing, both on the screen and in her life. But it wasn’t easy. “Even when I found myself writing stories about women rebelling against the patriarchy, it still felt like what I largely ended up describing was the confines of patriarchy.”

Her success as a filmmaker gave her access to a new role in others’ films: the strong female lead. You know this character: “She’s an assassin, a spy, a soldier, a superhero, a C.E.O.” Marling writes that playing these characters made her feel formidable and respected. Eventually, however, she realized that, far from portraying some deep truth about women, she was depicting masculine traits in a woman’s body. Do movies and television shows always have to kill the feminine?

At the very end of the article, Marling compares the hero’s journey to a male orgasm, but says she has only questions, not answers, about how a woman’s journey would unfold when it doesn’t merely reflect a man’s desire.

Writing to a new ending

At the end of my own journey in search of a universal structure for women’s stories I found myself, like Marling, with no clear answers, but a better idea of where to search for them. I’ll keep looking for answers in the stories that women tell about other women for other women. And I’ll look to writers like Marling who have given these ideas a lot of thought.

I’ve also realized that, yes, fighting patriarchal notions, cultural restraints, male violence, and male abuse shouldn’t be part of the fundamental story shared by womankind. But I think that we’re stuck with it for a while. Even Sweden, where women enjoy legal rights and cultural equality that I’m not sure we in the United States can really grasp, has made crime novels featuring violence against women one of its leading exports.

We’ve already seen how the story of Kamala Harris, possibly the next vice president of the U.S. and a future contender for the presidency, is getting bent to fit the mold; I can only imagine what the next three months will bring.

If “somebody wants something” is the atomic structure of story (and I do realize that’s a rule of my own creation), and we live in a culture where a woman’s desire — sexual, political, financial — is considered unseemly, we have a fundamental problem telling any woman’s story. In this environment, women have a hard time identifying their own desires and seeing the story in their own lives.

I suspect that at least part of the answer lies in not being too respectful of Campbell’s vision when we chose to use the hero’s journey as a story structure.

Douglas Burton, a novelist and blogger , wrote a series of blog posts about women’s stories, inspired by “Game of Thrones,” “Wonder Woman,” and his own novel about the Byzantine Empress Theodora, all written by men. Despite the male focus, he noticed that for the hero, home is a safe space, where for the heroine, home is often a place that must be fled. For the hero, the enemy that must be overcome is the outsider: a monster, an invader, or even death itself. For the heroine, the enemy that must be confronted may be someone near to her, someone beloved to her, or even herself.

I think Burton has a good point. Maybe the heroine does not return with a boon for all humanity. We can tell the story anyway. Maybe the heroine is not called to adventure, but is spit out into the world by her home circumstances. Maybe the monster the heroine must slay is not alien to her, but the patriarchal elements of her own culture.

Madeline Bodin with her mother (center), grandmother and infant daughter. Vermont 1996. Courtesy of Madeline Bodin

A wise journalist, editor and teacher once said, that when you are stuck, you need to ask more questions. So I called my mom to ask her what she thought had made my grandmother so angry when I asked about her life story. My mother thinks my grandmother was bitter at the end of her life, and that made it hard for her to think about her life’s happier beginning. (And my mother hasn’t even read Jia Tolentino’s essay.)

I was glad to hear that my mother thought that my grandmother once had desires and had made choices to fulfill those desires. I was glad to know that she had a story once, even if I won’t know the truths behind that story. Maybe I was wrong about the role of thwarted choices and unacceptable desires in women’s fundamental narratives, I said to my mom.

That’s when my mother launched into a story of her own. How when she was in high school (in the middle of the 20th Century), women had few choices. How her father thought college was a waste of time for a woman. How she was determined to go anyway, so she worked two jobs to pay for it.

And then she apologized. “I know I’ve told you this story many times before.”

Madeline Bodin is a freelance environmental and science journalist who is based in Vermont, but will travel just about anywhere for a good story.

Further Reading

When the bounds of conventional journalism are too tight, by brendan meyer, how protest songs echo — and sometimes lead — the stories of our times, by dale keiger, a displaced writer picks up a camera — and falls back in love with learning, by roy wenzl.

Author, educator, and photographer

• Meet Maureen
• Selected Work
• Changing Woman Gallery
• Speaking/Contact

Articles: The Heroine’s Journey

By Maureen Murdock Published in the Encyclopedia of Psychology and Religion edited by David A. Leeming, 2016

In 1949 Joseph Campbell presented a model of the mythological journey of the hero in The Hero with a Thousand Faces, which has since been used as a template for the psycho-spiritual development of the individual. This model, rich in myths about the travails and rewards of male heroes like Gilgamesh, Odysseus, and Percival, begins with a Call to Adventure. The hero crosses the threshold into unknown realms, meets supernatural guides who assist him in his journey, and confronts adversaries or threshold guardians who try to block his progress. The hero experiences an initiation in the belly of the whale, goes through a series of trials that test his skills, and resolves before finding the boon he seeks – variously symbolized by the Grail, the Rune of Wisdom, or the Golden Fleece. He meets a mysterious partner in the form of a goddess or gods, enters into a sacred marriage, and returns across the final threshold to bring back the treasure he has found (Campbell 1949, pp. 36–37).

The hero’s journey is a search for one’s soul and is chronicled in mythologies and fairy tales throughout the world. This quest motif does not, however, address the archetypal journey of the heroine. For contemporary women, this involves the healing of the wounding of the feminine that exists deep within her and the culture.

Fig. 1: The Heroine’s Journey

In 1990, Maureen Murdock wrote The Heroine’s Journey: Woman’s Quest for Wholeness as a response to Joseph Campbell’s model. Murdock, a student of Campbell’s work, felt his model failed to address the specific psycho-spiritual journey of contemporary women. She developed a model describing the cyclical nature of the female experience. Campbell’s response to her model was, “Women don’t need to make the journey. In the whole mythological tradition the woman is there. All she has to do is to realize that she’s the place that people are trying to get to” (Campbell, 1981). That may be true mythologically as the hero or heroine seeks illumination but psychologically, the journey of the contemporary heroine involves different stages.

The Heroine’s Journey begins with an Initial Separation from feminine values, seeking recognition and success in a patriarchal culture, experiencing spiritual death, and turning inward to reclaim the power and spirit of the sacred feminine. The final stages involve an acknowledgement of the union and power of one’s dual nature for the benefit of all humankind (Murdock, 1990, pp. 4-11). Drawing upon cultural myths, Murdock illustrates an alternative journey model to that of patriarchal hegemony. It has become a template for novelists and screenwriters, shining a light on twentieth-century feminist literature.

The Heroine’s Journey is based on the experience of fathers’ daughters who have idealized, identified with, and allied themselves closely with their fathers or the dominant masculine culture. This comes at the cost of devaluing their personal mothers and denigrating values of the female culture. This occurs for both men and women if not on a personal level, then certainly on a collective level. If the feminine is seen as negative, powerless or manipulative the child may reject those qualities she associates with the feminine, including positive qualities such as nurturing, intuition, emotional expressiveness, creativity and spirituality. On a cultural level, the Separation from the Feminine results from a reaction to images of the feminine presented by the media that are impossible to identify with or because of a lack of feminine imagery in religion.

Gods and goddesses are often seen as diverse ways of being in the world and the ancient goddess Athena symbolizes the second stage of the Heroine’s Journey. This Greek goddess of civilization sprang full grown from the head of her father, Zeus. Her mother Metis had been swallowed whole by Zeus, thus depriving Athena of a relationship with her mother. This stage involves an Identification with the Masculine, but not one’s inner personal masculinity. Rather, it is the outer patriarchal masculine whose driving force is power. An individual in a patriarchal society is driven to seek control over themselves and others in an inhuman desire for perfection.

The young girl may see men and the male world as adult and becomes identified with her inner masculine voice, whether that is the voice of her father, god the father, the professional establishment, or the church. Unfortunately, masculine consciousness often tries to help the feminine to speak; it jumps in, interrupts, and takes over, not waiting for her body to know its truth.

The next stage, like the hero’s journey, is the Road of Trials where the focus is on the tasks necessary for ego development. In the outer world, the heroine goes through the same hoops as the hero to achieve success. Everything is geared to climbing the academic or corporate ladder, achieving prestige, position and financial equity, and feeling powerful in the world.

However, in the inner world, her task involves overcoming the myths of dependency, female inferiority or deficit thinking, and romantic love. Many females have been encouraged to be dependent, to disregard their needs for another’s love, to protect another from their success and autonomy.

We live in a society dominated by a masculine perspective where the feminine is perceived as less than the masculine. The Mother Tongue, the language of experience and body knowing is not seen as valid as the Father tongue, the language of analysis. In some families, cultures and religions, being born in a female body is second rate; the female child has therefore failed from the beginning and is marked psychologically as inferior solely because of her gender. In this century the foremost moral issue, from third world countries to the leading world powers, is the abuse and oppression of women and girls around the globe.

The myth of romantic love is that the other will complete her life whether the other is a husband, lover, son, ideology, political party or spiritual sect. The attitude here is that the “other” will actualize her destiny. This stage is symbolized by the myth of Eros and Psyche.

The first part of the heroine’s journey is propelled by the mind and the second part is in response to the heart. The heroine has been working on the developmental tasks necessary to be an adult, to individuate from her parents, and to establish her identity in the outer world. However, even though she has achieved her hard-earned goals, she may experience a sense of Spiritual Aridity. Her river of creativity has dried up and she begins to ask, “What have I lost in this heroic quest?” She has achieved everything she set out to do, but it has come at great sacrifice to her soul. Her relationship with her inner world is estranged. She feels oppressed but doesn’t understand the source of her victimization.

At this stage, she is afraid to look into the depths of herself and clings instead to past patterns of behavior, old relationships, and a familiar life style. There’s a fear of saying “no” and holding the tension of not knowing what’s next. In Leaving My Father’s House, Jungian analyst Marion Woodman (1992) writes,

“It takes a strong ego to hold the darkness, wait, hold the tension, waiting for we know not what. But if we can hold long enough, a tiny light is conceived in the dark unconscious, and if we can wait and hold, in its own time it will be born in its full radiance. The ego then has to be loving enough to receive the gift and nourish it with the best food that new life may eventually transform the whole personality” (p. 115).

At this point, the heroine is faced with a Descent or dark night of the soul, a time of major de-structuring and dismemberment. A descent brings sadness, grief, a feeling of being unfocused and undirected. What usually throws a person into a descent is leaving home, separating from one’s parents, the death of a child, lover or spouse, the loss of identity with a particular role, a serious physical or mental illness, an addiction, the midlife transition, divorce, aging, or loss of community. The descent may take weeks, month, years, and cannot be rushed because the heroine is reclaiming not only parts of herself, but also the lost soul of the culture. The task here is to reclaim the discarded parts of the self that were split off in the original separation from the feminine–– parts that have been ignored, devalued, and repressed, words and feelings swallowed in her quest for success.

Dismemberment and renewal is a key feature of the ancient Sumerian myth of Inanna and Ereshkigal. Inanna, the Queen of the Great Above, journeys to the Underworld to be with her sister Ereshkigal, the Queen of the Great Below. Ereshkigal’s consort has died and Inanna traverses seven thresholds and seven gates to be with her sister in her grief. At each gate she divests herself of symbols of her power. When she reaches the Underworld, Ereshkigal fixes her with the eye of death and hangs her on a peg to rot. Inanna sacrifices herself for the earth’s need for life and renewal. Her death and subsequent return to life predates Jesus Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection by three thousand years.

At this stage in the heroine’s journey, a woman seeks to reclaim a connection with the sacred feminine to better understand her own psyche. She may become involved in research about ancient goddess figures such as Inanna, Ereshkigal, Demeter, Persephone, Kali, or the Marian mysteries. There is an Urgent Yearning to reconnect with the Feminine and to heal the mother/daughter split that occurred with the initial rejection of the feminine. This may or may not involve a healing with one’s personal mother or daughter, but it usually involves grieving the separation from the feminine and reclaiming a connection to body wisdom, intuition and creativity.

The next stage involves Healing the Unrelated or Wounded Aspects of her Masculine Nature as the heroine takes back her negative projections on the men in her life. This involves identifying the parts of herself that have ignored her health and feelings, refused to accept her limits, told her to tough it out, and never let her rest. It also involves becoming aware of the positive aspects of her masculine nature that supports her desire to bring her images into fruition, helps her to speak her truth and own her authority.

The final stage of The Heroine’s Journey is the Sacred Marriage of the Masculine and Feminine, the hieros gamos . A woman remembers her true nature and accepts herself as she is, integrating both aspects of her nature. It is a moment of recognition, a kind of remembering of that which somewhere at the bottom she has always known. The current problems are not solved, the conflicts remain, but one’s suffering, as long as she does not evade it, will lead to a new life. In developing a new feminine consciousness, she has to have an equally strong masculine consciousness to get her voice out into the world. The union of masculine and feminine involves recognizing wounds, blessing them, and letting them go.

The heroine must become a spiritual warrior. This demands that she learn the delicate art of balance and have the patience for the slow, subtle integration of the feminine and masculine aspects of her nature. She first hungers to lose her feminine self and merge with the masculine, and once she has done this, she begins to realize this is neither the answer nor the objective. She must not discard nor give up what she has learned throughout her heroic quest, but view her hard-earned skills and successes not so much as the goal but as one part of the entire journey. This focus on integration and the resulting awareness of interdependence is necessary for each of us at this time as we work together to preserve the health and balance of life on earth (Murdock, 1990, p.11).

In the Navaho Creation Story Changing Woman speaks to her consort the Sun:

“Remember, as different as we are, you and I, we are of one spirit. As dissimilar as we are, you and I, we are of equal worth. As unlike as you and I are, there must always be solidarity between the two of us. Unlike each other as you and I are, there can be no harmony in the universe as long as there is no harmony between us” (Zolbrod,1984, p. 275).

See also : The Hero Within, Dark Mother, Inanna, Ereshkigal, Demeter, Persephone, Femininity, Great Mother, Campbell, Joseph, Mother, Myths and Dreams, Feminine Psychology, Feminine Spirituality

Bibliography

Campbell, J. (1949). The hero with a thousand faces. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP. Campbell, J. interview with author, New York, 15 September 1981. Murdock, M. (1998). The heroine’s journey workbook. Boston: Shambhala Pub. Murdock, M. (1990). The heroine’s journey: Woman’s quest for wholeness. Boston: Shambhala Pub. Woodman, M. (1992). Leaving my father’s house: A journey to conscious femininity. Boston: Shambhala Pub. Zolbrod, P. G. (1984). Dine bahane: The Navaho creation story. Albuquerque: U of New Mexico P.

Using the Heroine’s Journey

Image by Shutterstock

The monomyth known as the Hero’s Journey has become widely popular. Unfortunately, the original was clearly intended for men and not women. In response, some feminists have created their own, female-centered version, called the Heroine’s Journey. Lucky for us storytellers, both can be abstracted into a structure that works for a wide array of stories.

I’ll take you through a tour of The Heroine’s Journey by Maureen Murdock . She created this journey to help real women through life’s hardships, but it has a lot to offer as a story structure. In honor of its feminist roots, I will refer to the central character as the heroine, with she/her. However, it applies to male characters just as well.

To show you how it might work in a story, I’m going to develop an ongoing example. I’ll name my heroine Mara. As we go through the steps of the structure, she’ll ride beside us.

Why Use the Heroine’s Journey?

Like other mythic structures, you should use the Heroine’s Journey if it fits the story you want to tell. The structure of the Heroine’s Journey is particularly well suited for:

• Character arcs : The stages of the original framework correlate with how the heroine feels, not what she is doing. I’ve externalized this framework, but it’s still a strong choice for a story about an internal struggle.
• Quests for identity: The heroine may battle dragons and claim treasure, but the real core of the story is her struggle to find herself.
• Themes of privilege and oppression: The heroine taking the journey must triumph despite living in a society that undervalues who she is. You don’t have to include privilege and oppression in your story, but if you want it, this framework will help you bring it out.

Most of all, the Heroine’s Journey is about a heroine who must find balance as she struggles between the sides of a duality .

Finding Your Duality

First, identify the duality that lives within your heroine. It might be obvious. If you have a half elf, half human caught between those races, that’s clearly your duality. It can also be abstract concepts – perhaps your heroine’s caught between membership in a group and following her individual path. Or between the excitement of travel and the comforts of home. Whatever it is, both sides must be essential to her wellbeing. If you use the light side and the dark side of the Force, you’ll need to portray the dark side as constructive when used in moderation.

The structure refers to one side of the duality as the feminine, and the other as the masculine. Your next step is to pick which side of your duality is which. Use your discretion, but in general:

The feminine is the side of the duality that your heroine identified with as a small child. However, society undervalues the feminine. The story begins as the heroine chooses to reject it.

The masculine is the side of the duality that your heroine adopts as she comes of age. Society prizes the masculine, but in many tales it has been poisoned, misinterpreted, or taken to such extremes that it has become harmful. The heroine sets out on her journey by embracing it.

Mara is a war orphan who was raised by the Sali people. They’re a peaceful farming culture that meditates every day and values quiet and contemplation. However, they’re a minority in the nation they live in. Their culture and society will be Mara’s feminine. Though they raised her, Mara is actually descended from a warrior culture, called the Barock. Once nomads, they’re now the ruling class. They will be her masculine.

The Eight Stages of the Heroine’s Journey

Here’s an overview of the stages of the journey. I lightly modified the stages from Murdock’s original structure to create a version that was easier for writers to follow.

1. Shift from Feminine to Masculine

During stage one, the heroine rejects the feminine in favor of the masculine. She may still be tied to the feminine, but she increasingly resents that attachment.

She could have any number of reasons for rejecting the feminine, but a unhappy relationship with a feminine role model, known as the mother, is chief among them. To the heroine, the mother represents the worst of the feminine end of her duality. She might be powerless, unhappy, flawed, or just interpreted that way. The mother is threatening to the heroine because she’s afraid of becoming her, just as Luke Skywalker fears becoming Darth Vader .

Alternatively, the mother may be intimidating in her strength and perfection , particularly if you decide to make the feminine more privileged than the masculine in your story. The heroine may reject her to avoid feeling inadequate next to her.

As she rejects the mother, the heroine will embrace a metaphorical father. The father represents whatever the heroine admires in the masculine. He may have a dark side , or be a despicable person altogether, but she isn’t aware of that yet. He opens to the door to a path that leads away from the mother, and makes the heroine feel like she could succeed on that path. In turn, she does her best to gain his attention and approval.

He offers an escape from the mother, but at the same time he might rub in that the heroine is tied to the lowly feminine. He could praise her strength and brilliance as he tells her the feminine makes her weak and stupid. This will only spur her harder to prove herself in his eyes.

As a result of this dynamic, the heroine discards the feminine, and any part of herself tied to it.

Mara has no memory of before she came to live with the Sali. She is content to live with them until she turns twelve, and is allowed to go into town to trade at the market. There she learns that everyone thinks of the Sali as cowards, because they hide behind their walls when the swarm comes, instead of helping to protect everyone. She also meets the Barock. They look like her, and they appear powerful and confident. She’s curious about them; the older warriors humor her by showing her how to handle their weapons.

But her Sali guardian doesn’t approve of the way Mara has begun to prize possessions she gained in the marketplace, or how she runs off to the market when she has nothing to trade. He forbids her from going to the market for a month, instead mandating regular meditation. This only makes her more determined to leave the Sali and join the Barock.

2. The Road of Trials

In stage two, the heroine sets off on a journey, departing the ordinary of the feminine and fully embracing the masculine. This might mean she actually leaves home, sword in hand, or it could just mean that she abandons sewing classes and goes fishing instead.

Regardless, she has something to prove to herself and others. In her new journey, she is surrounded by masculine allies . They still think she is less, or at least not one of them. In her heart, she believes they’re right. But that doesn’t mean she’ll give up. She’s fixated on showing everyone that they’re wrong.

For that, she needs big victories. She wants something to show others, like a trophy or treasure. In pursuit of her prize she will face threshold guardians who try to deter her, and battle real or metaphorical monsters.

In her enthusiastic pursuit of the masculine, she forgets to stay in touch with her inner self. All her actions are designed to make her look better to her masculine allies; she never does anything because she simply wants to do it. She’s always compensating for the feminine lurking within her.

At sixteen Mara finally comes of age. She forgoes the Sali coming of age ceremony, and abruptly leaves to join a band of Barock warriors. She wants to help them protect others against the swarm. The group agreed to take her, but not all of them think it was wise. They’ve been training with weapons their entire lives, and their skill is superior to hers.

So she trains day and night. Whenever there is a fight, she is out in front; no one can call her a coward. The mark of a great Barock warrior is the stinger of a swarm queen. She’s determined to capture one of her own.

3. The Illusion of Success

By stage three, the heroine has faced great trials and emerged victorious. She feels the thrill of success, and her confidence is bolstered by the applause of others. She has built an impressive, masculine reputation.

But that does not dull her appetite for adventure and victory in masculine pursuits. On the contrary, as soon as she finds success on one quest, she immediately sets out on another. Her victories are never enough, so she tries to do more and more to distract herself. She must maintain the outside validation and applause that makes her feel justified as a person.

Somewhere inside, she begins to realize that something is missing from her life. She feels stretched thin. She looks in the mirror, and isn’t sure she knows the person looking back. Even her victories seem empty. She counsels the great and powerful, but does not feel great and powerful herself.

Mara collects her first queen stinger, and then another, and yet more. In her twentieth year, she destroys an entire swarm with a fire trap, and is hailed as the savior of the town. The Barock remark that she is remarkable despite her Sali upbringing, and she’s given a pass to watch as the High Council deliberates.

But the stingers and praise feel small and trivial to her. They were too long in coming and too hard won. Mara spends her spare time pouring over her battle maps, devising new strategies to try against the swarm. She never stops to rest, because she doesn’t know what she would do with herself if she did. She is nothing without her endless hunt of the swarm.

4. The Descent

In stage four, tragedy strikes . It could be a cataclysm that shakes the world, or a private matter that no one else knows of. Regardless, she is suddenly made aware of what’s really important to her. When her allies come to usher her along on the next adventure, she turns them down.

They tell her she is a coward. Or perhaps that she is selfish, impulsive, or whatever despised quality the masculine attributes to the feminine. But she doesn’t hear them. She is already far away, undergoing her own inner turmoil.

She begins a period of voluntary isolation , descending into a metaphorical cave. There time passes slowly. It’s dark; there are no sights or sounds to distract her. There she searches for herself.

She may have to sift through a maelstrom of emotions . Anger, remorse, and grief may all set upon her. She might be afraid to follow her thoughts and feelings to their conclusion, but she knows she must.

Mara and her warriors are battling against a large swarm that is precariously close to a village. A lookout catches sight of the queen in the distance. There is just the barest of openings to pursue her. Mara takes it, leading a group after the queen.

She succeeds, but on her return, Mara finds her departure opened a breach in the defense. As a result, a nearby Sali settlement was overrun, killing everyone inside. The old memories of being in the Sali come back to her and she weeps over the fallen. She tells her warriors to move on, but she stays to bury every one of them. The Barock think she’s lost her nerve, but they eventually leave. She continues her work alone.

5. Meeting With the Goddess

The heroine begins stage five in her darkest hour. But she is rewarded for her struggle when she encounters the goddess.

The goddess symbolizes the true nature of the feminine, and the best of what the heroine left behind. The goddess imparts a great truth to the heroine about herself and the feminine.

When the heroine parts with the goddess, she feels reborn.

Mara spends weeks burying the fallen. She leaves the destroyed settlement, but does not return to the Barock. Instead she wanders aimlessly.

Then Mara sees an old Sali city, abandoned since the invasion of the Barock long ago. She goes there and walks through what’s left of the ancient Sali temples and streets. Everything is familiar from her childhood, yet greater than it. She is filled with nostalgia and wonder. She remembers the happy days in her Sali settlement, and begins to miss it.

She is perplexed by how open the city is. It has no walls to block out the swarm. The only thing marking the city borders are enormous braziers. She can only conclude that before the Barock came, the Sali did not struggle against the swarm like they do now.

6. Reconciliation With the Feminine

In stage 6, the heroine heads back to the familiar surroundings she left behind. She finds and nurtures her inner child, the part of her left from before she rejected the feminine. She may seek to bond with the mother, and to gain new understanding about her.

She spends her time on simple tasks of a feminine nature. She receives no glory for her toil. Former allies find her and try to convince her to return to the way she was before her descent. Even the mother or others of the feminine may not welcome her back, remembering her rejection of them with bitterness.

But she continues her humble work. She maintains hope that if she continues down the path that feels right to her, she will be redeemed. She waits patiently for improvement.

Mara returns to the settlement she was raised in. They tell her she is not a member of the Sali, because she did not undergo the coming of age rite of their people. But she refuses to go. She sits on their steps and fasts until they allow her to work the land beside them. She speaks with childhood friends, but they hesitate to socialize with her.

Her Barock warriors find her there. They tell her to get herself together and come back with them. She refuses. They warn her there is a swarm that is coming soon. She says she has other, more important work. Slowly, the Sali begin to trust her again. She undergoes the coming of age ceremony she missed.

7. Reincorporation of the Masculine

In stage seven, a crisis erupts in the realm of the feminine. In dealing with this crisis, the heroine once again faces the masculine side of herself, ready to emerge and dominate. She now understands the inner need that the masculine fulfills, and why she lost herself in it before. She recognizes that while the masculine was not her true goal, it was an important part of her journey.

And she refuses to let it take control. Instead, she channels her masculine impulses to positive ends. She solves the crisis with serenity and grace. When it is over, she asks for no rewards.

There is a weakness in the wall around the Sali settlement. When the swarm comes it breaks and they leak through. Mara does not have her sword, so she grabs a staff and runs out to fight them. She blocks the opening in the wall, allowing the Sali to fall back and reach safety. She is tempted to continuing fighting, to see if she can outlast the swarm. But the Sali call her to retreat behind the next wall. They will survive without the crops the swarm will destroy. She listens, and retreats.

8. The Union

By stage 8, the heroine has found balance between the feminine and the masculine. But she is not finished until she helps others find that balance as well. She uses her synergy of the feminine and masculine to bring everyone, on either side, together. If they are embattled by a great enemy , her leadership guides them to victory.

If it fits your story, this is also the time to discard your duality altogether. The heroine could reveal that it is false, arbitrary, or destructive.

With permission from the Sali leaders, Mara acquires a new set of weapons. They are not flashy, but functional. However, she does not think that simply cutting down the swarm is the answer. The Sali traditionally burn a special incense when the swarm comes, but only inside because it’s not allowed elsewhere. She thinks this incense repels the swarm, and that is how the Sali used to survive before the Barock came. Mara convinces the Barock leaders of the town to try it.

The Sali gather the ingredients for the incense in large quantities, and prepare bonfires. Because there are no large and protected braziers to burn it in, Barock warriors must protect the fires from the swarm when it comes, or the creatures might put them out too quickly to have an effect. The swarm comes, grouping together and rushing at the fires. The warriors stay firm. Soon, the whole area is filled with the fumes from the incense. The swarm weakens and retreats. The town is completely undamaged.

The town leaders mandate the construction of large braziers immediately afterwards. The Sali and Barock design and build them together.

The Union With the Hero’s Journey

If you’re a structure-phile who’s been wondering this whole time whether your story could be both a hero’s and a heroine’s journey, your answer is “yes!” Mara just did it.

Here’s how the stages of these two structures match up:

Because the hero’s journey focuses on external struggle, and the heroine’s journey focuses on internal struggle, they have a lot to offer each other.

Applying the Structure to Your Story

It’s important to remember that the Heroine’s and Hero’s Journeys aren’t recipes that should be followed precisely. Don’t add a literal goddess to your scifi story just because the Heroine’s Journey has a goddess stage. Instead, find a world-appropriate story element that symbolizes truth, and use that. It’s these larger, more general concepts that make the structures strong. Use them to find meaning and inspiration for your story, and bring them out. If breaking the rules of the journey makes your story feel stronger to you, do it.

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Comments on Using the Heroine’s Journey

I read Joseph Campbell’s Hero with a Thousand Faces and studied the Hero’s Journey many years ago. I even applied it to some short stories… and found the formula came automatically sometimes – not surprising as it is ingrained in us. The Heroine’s Journey is a refreshing addition that will really help my writing. Thank you.

Dang. I thought this said “Hermione.” (The obsession deepens!) Seriously, though, wonderful addition. This is extremely helpful. Thanks.

If the goddess is the Eternal Female or Eternal Mother for a hero experiencing a divisive binary of abandoned feminine versus overvalued masculine, and the goddess for Mara is the archetypal or eternal Sali as embodied by the Sali village she discovered, then if your aforementioned half-elf were two brothers, one of whom despised his inner elvishness after living among humans and the other of whom despised his human half after living among elves, would the goddess for the former be the Eternal Aelfre (perhaps a guest starring appearance by Galadriel?) while the goddess for the latter brother might be an archetypal embodiment of humanity (this time with Aragorn as guest star?) — have I got it?

I think you’ve got it :) But for storytelling purposes, the way they embody the feminine isn’t as important as their ability to impart truth and guidance to the heroine. A goddess that technically has nothing to do with the feminine, but nonetheless acts as a catalyst that makes the heroine think about herself and her relationship to the feminine would work too.

This is incredibly fascinating. I didn’t realize it until reading this post that the heroines of my novels have this sort of journey as well—certain aspects rang true for me. Thanks for sharing. I found this to be amazingly helpful. I especially agree with having to reconcile the feminine with the masculine to find a balance instead of abandoning one for the other.

Thanks for this amazing introduction! Inspired my writing too. When I search the other information of the Heroine’s Journey, I found there are some different steps with your version. Like they would have ten steps more than your eight steps. I wonder what’s the difference between it? Could you explain more about this? Thanks a lot!

No problem.

The Hero’s Journey was made famous by one, really popular book, so everyone agrees what structure we’re talking about when we say “The Hero’s Journey.” But this is not the case with the Heroine’s Journey. I personally know of two independently derived structures, one by Maureen Murdock (the one I am using), and one by Valerie Frankel. In addition, when someone discusses it, they could just as easily be talking about their own idea of what the Heroine’s Journey is. So when you search for information, you could get a variety of frameworks.

My goal was to provide a structure that would be useful to storytellers. I thought the Valerie Frankel version was too similar to the Hero’s Journey to offer something new, and bogged down in specifics that would be more restrictive than helpful. Even though the Murdock framework was meant to guide women in real life, and not as a story structure, I found it very useful.

However, even when looking at other summaries of the Murdock version, you’ll still see stages that are a bit different than mine. Her stages weren’t meant for writers, and so I did a little adaptation to make them work better for that purpose. For instance, a story structure always presents events that happen in sequence, one after the other. But Murdock’s first two stages, “Separation from the feminine” and “Identification with the masculine”, would happen simultaneously in a story. So I combined them into Shift From Feminine to Masculine. I also combined “Urgent yearning to reconnect with the feminine” and “Healing the mother/daughter split” into Reconciliation With the Feminine for pretty much the same reason.

I hope that answers your question. I’m glad you found my summary useful!

Thank you for this. Until this article I’d never even considered that the heroine got a separate journey. The hero male or female has been to me a sacrificial figure,a tool that a community employs in defenses against existential threats.

This will be helpful to me in decrypting something that has been on my mind for some time,the Female Power. The often maligned Male Power fantasy is at the heart of the Hero’s Journey and can be distilled into a single sentence.

Overcoming adversity and being rewarded for having done so.

Maybe the sentence to distill the heroines journey and Female Power could be:

Balancing the duality and healing the split/wound in oneself and society by doing so.

Hi Chis! Thanks for writing this! Like Whitney, I have female characters who have been, blindly, following these steps. Both though have reached a point where I have been stuck trying to transition them from destructive behaviors.

Reading through your article illustrates where I am stuck with each. One at the Illusion of Success, and the other Meeting with the Goddess. The stages you’ve given here have already given me the insights to see where I’ve failed to do the characters justice.

Again, thank you very much for sharing your insight.

Excellent! I’m glad I could help.

“However, it applies to male characters just as well.”

Yes! I found out about Maureen Murdock by way of Christopher Vogler. When I looked carefully at the stages, I found it fit Kurt Wimmer’s Equilibrium and the character of John Preston very well. It fit Campbell’s overt steps, but it really fit like a glove when I included Murdock’s inner path. John Preston turning from highest ranking Tetragrammaton Cleric to Champion of the Resistance brought Reintegration of the Masculine.

I have blogged about it at some length, if you are interested in reading.

Yeah, go ahead and post a link. (It’ll go through moderation because it has a link, but we’ll approve it.)

Sorry it took so long for me to get back to you!

Here you are:

https://jaklumen.wordpress.com/2013/07/01/the-heros-journey-equilibrium/

The stages are separate posts- each one has a link to the next.

Very interesting article, it is good and refreshing to see alternatives to the Hero’s Journey, i also like the contrast between them as one is mostly external and the other is mostly internal like you said.

I also think that despite the gender specific naming either of them could work with a male hero or female heroine depending on the story and character, and it gets even better if we use elements from both for the development of a single specific character, and you are right .. The elements of these “Journeys” are merely guidelines not to be taken literally, also not all of them have to be used nor do they even have to happen in the same exact order in every story.

Thanks for writing this detailed analysis of the Heroine’s Journey and i have to say i did enjoy Mara’s story even if it was just an example, keep it up Chris.

Interesting. But if you are interested in another form of the Heroine’s journey, I strongly recommend the book by Valerie Estelle Frankel, her book is called “From Girl to Goddess; The Heroine’s Journey through Myth and Legend”

Its a recent book and probably, IMO, a better version of Maureen Murdock’s (I actually read her book and I thought it was dated). Frankel’s book seems more interesting and explains that the Heroine’s Journey is much more complex than we expected.

The Hero’s Journey, Cosmogonic Cycle, and Monomyth applies to both men and women because it applies to “Human Beings.” To say that the Hero’s Journey is not intended for women is to misunderstand its purpose.

The desire to create a more modern, 3rd wave feminized, or woo woo filled approach isn’t all that helpful, but the claim that the original is lacking is just not correct. The man who came up with our modern interpretation of this was a genius who worked decades to understand it. Slapping together some derivative goddess stuff is not the same.

Campbell himself isn’t with you there. To him, women were stages, not journeyers.

Perhaps because he looked out a lot for classic myths which usually have a male hero and only incorporate women as the backdrop. Or perhaps he couldn’t imagine female heroes because of his upbringing and his surroundings. The fact that one person writing about something left out part of the possibilities doesn’t mean they don’t exist.

There’s nothing special to this. It’s still the Hero’s Journey (something done to death to begin with), but given a feminist slant.

I’m hoping for Finn to have an arc like this in the Star Wars films. While it’s a little weird to see the First Order as the feminine, I suppose it was mostly represented for him through a female political officer. But he leaves it, abandons its values – including being a fighter (he just wants to run) or standing for something beyond himself (he just wants to survive). His escape is a road of trials, and pretence to be a resistance fighter and passage on that freighter an illusion of success. Rey and Maz together could be the goddess in this schema, as they start to show him reasons to fight or stand again. Right now he’s in his descent (out of order, yes). When he recovers, I assume he’ll be fighting for the Resistance, for sake of people like himself, like Rey, and like the people from the village on Jakku – that’s the masculine and the feminine, as he uses what the First Order taught him against it. And I’m hoping he’ll get a Union by inspiring and leading a faction of stormtroopers in rebellion.

This was really helpful! I’m trying to write more stories with female main characters, and I have a habit of making them sort of pushovers. I just have a question to help me use this to help me finish an outline. How do you create duality in the heroine? I usually just make them blank slates at the beginning to be pushed into the adventure, For example, an MC named Tsuki has the ability to obtain a different power each day, replacing the old one as it becomes stronger. In her world it makes the #1 ability user. She has no conflict since people don’t know of this ability and has no feminine or masculine side to go after.

This framework is about an internal struggle, so you’ll need to give her one. I think you’ll find that once you do, your story is stronger for it. If your main character has a personal problem at the beginning, you can solve it during your story. Give her room to grow into a better person.

For the heroine’s journey, the easiest way to add a duality is to make the heroine feel divided between two paths she can take in her life. Maybe she can’t decide whether she wants to be a priestess or a warrior, or if she wants to wander with the nomads or live in comfort with the ruling class. She could be divided about her profession, cultural identity, lifestyle, or what type of person she wants to be. Making one of her parents represent one of the these options and the other parent embody the other is an easy way to bring the duality to life. So if she’s divided between being a warrior and a priestess, you can make her mother a warrior and her father a priest.

You can’t leave her blank for this, she needs fears and desires. At the beginning she should desire the glory that comes with the masculine side of this duality (assign the masculine to whichever life path is glorified more) and increasingly fear or resent the feminine path she followed when she was young (assign the feminine to whichever life path people might look down on).

If you have that, you should be able to follow the rest of the structure.

Yes, the heroine’s journey is more internal than than external. But nothing says you have to make you female characters do the heroine’s journey or male characters the hero’s journey. Several of both groups criss cross. The blank hero? That suits more the hero’s journey. One bit of advice I’d give you is write a male character but change the pronouns. From the sound of it, your preconceptions are getting in the way, so write a male character and change the gender and see how the character feels. Sometimes, an old trope for one gender may not be for the other because it is so rare to see.

That said: some ideas if you really want the heroine’s journey: Masculine: Her Powers Feminine: Those with few powers but other skills. Masculine: One attack power Feminine: One Utility power

I would say your hero sounds a bit strong if she can have any power and if she gets more powerful everyday, sounds like she’d make a better villain since it seems so big. But you can have her alternate between two powers every day or every 12 hours (when the sun rises or sets) and go between being weak and strong. The weak power should have a larger use than combat and that can be her duality?

It’s very wee hours and I feel like my eyes have been opened by this article/literally everything on this site. Brilliantly written, definitely will come back to it. This got me thinking about one of my characters who is from a very rural society that raises the first child as traditionally masculine regardless of whether it’s a son or a daughter, and if it’s a firstborn girl she can choose whether or not she remains what she was brought up as and the head of the family after her father’s passing or steps down in favor of her brother if she gets one, and usually those ‘firstborn’ girls are very respected because they are seen as “one of us” by both men and women (in retrospect, it may not be as well developed as I think it is but hey in my defense at least in other places they’re looked at strange and shunned because urgh, weirdo). She’s embracing the masculine, nurturing protector role in her peaceful village, but can that very ‘nurturing protector’ be taken as the ‘feminine’ in the context of this article? Especially since it’s in her journey to become a soldier and learn to destroy?

The feminine and masculine can really be any priorities that conflict. So if she’s a nurturing protector of her village, and then she leaves to become a soldier, the protector could be her feminine, and the soldier could be her masculine. It does work a little better if the masculine is the more glorified trait, and it sounds like in your story, being the village protector is an honored position. However, she just needs a reason to embrace the masculine that isn’t necessarily the right one. For instance, maybe being the protector of her village is a lot of hard work, and then she abandons her village to join the army so she can get revenge for the loss of a loved one. Then later she could realize her thirst for revenge can’t be quenched, and it’s time to give it up and go back to the duty she abandoned. You can definitely make it work.

Glad you’re enjoying the site! Good luck with your story.

I’m thinking of using this for a shorter story but I don’t want to clutter the story with too much backstory or too many flashbacks. Again, shorter story

Suffice to say this was a grand analyse to read, I really loved how you worked in an actual story outline for Mara to help demonstrate your points.

Mara’s story actually sounds really cool, if you start writing/publishing it in full, then awesome!

Weirdly some part of me found more than a few segments comparing to what I know of Luke Skywalker’s arcs, but only some segments.

I seriously love how you broke down the differences as being the external and the internal and how that influences the story. Similarly the idea of duality and how its about finding balance or casting off the idea of duality entirely is great as it allows for great freedom while still providing a solid guide.

Great post, but l cant help but thinking of something. I still dont understand why a female MUST unite her feminine and masculine side. Why cant she stay a warrior as it is and proud of it?(rewards etc). A male would go through this journey, too?maybe that’s who they are, their identity.

I agree, there is some stereotyping in the heroine’s journey.

Question #1 is why a heroine with feminine talents needs to discover her masculine side and push the feminine one aside. That suggests a woman can’t be successful by being only a woman and every woman would completely forego her feminine side to achieve success, instead of trying to merge both.

Question #2 is why the masculine side can’t be a success on its own. If a woman strives to be a warrior, why can’t she just be a warrior, but has to reconciliate with her female side? Why does she, in essence, have to be warrior and mother, instead of just a warrior?

So as this is applied to stories, the feminine and masculine are just symbolic, the structure doesn’t require the heroine to have any struggle between feminine and masculine at all. Using the structure only requires that the heroine finds balance between two extremes of some kind. If that’s not the right thing for your story, you’ll want to choose a different plot framework. This is not intended to fit every story.

The real life context that shapes why feminine and masculine are the symbols used has to do with the real imbalance of power between them. Our society takes masculinity to the point of being toxic and looks down on anything feminine because it is feminine, and that puts pressure on real life women to adopt masculine traits in order to succeed. The structure was taken from the experiences of those women, and how they have dealt with that pressure. While not every woman will have the same experience, there is a real life disparity that this is responding to.

Which still separates traits into ‘feminine’ and ‘masculine,’ suggesting any kind of fighting is only done by men and any kind of caregiving is only done by women. Which is part of the problem that all things considered ‘feminine’ are looked down upon. The heroine’s journey essentially cements that idea. Humans are more complicated than ‘I was born male, so I love swinging a sword’ or ‘I was born female, so I love raising kids.’

I feel like you’ve got a fundamental misunderstanding of this. That sort of thing is not suggested anywhere, and the heroine’s journey is, as Chris said, molded after real life experiences of women’s struggle to reconcile what they were raised to be and what they realized they needed to be in this world.

I think it bears to say that it also rings true of the stories of people who abandon one ideology in favor of the other – when they go too much with the other one, trying to compensate for a perceived shortcoming, until they settle and find a balance between what they chose and the person they used to be, and let the new ideology – say, atheism, or even feminism, stop defining them. Heroine’s journey can very much apply to men, it’s an internal struggle as much as external, but it’s a bit more applicable to women in the context of a story.

(Personal example: when I was younger I discovered intersectional feminism, identity politics, the social justice warrior movement, the whole shebang (arguably feminine in nature), and it presented itself as a perfect striving for equality which matched my own personal views, and I took to that ideology and was too much on that side. When I grew older and learned more about the world and how it works, the movement itself, its utter performativity, inapplicability to my entire part of the WORLD, and all of its shortcomings and the ways it did NOT live up to anything, especially what it itself was preaching, it was a newfound friend who at the time was full fascist who gave me insight into another (EXTREMELY masculine) way of thinking, which had much better arguments and actually applied to the world at large. You can guess where that took me until I found actual balance and settled somewhere apolitical again – the way I was before everything started. Two heroine’s journeys all in one folks!)

As for your original questions, the thing is, “feminine” and “masculine” traits alone are usually not enough, and don’t add up to a completely rounded human being – hence the reconciliation. Why should a warrior not be allowed human softness underneath, male or female? Why should a woman always shrink in perfect display of what the society calls feminine? It doesn’t add up, and messes people up a lot.

I disagree with SgrA entirely as the comments of Cay Reet are not actually addressed by the post. The Heroine’s journey cements a separate dynamic for two sides, thereby showcasing differences which are inherent in both sides and must be reconciled. It does not provide for any sort of real life intersectional dynamic between two sides and instead perpetuates a stereotype of systemic inherent difference.

In addition, the results of the Heroine’s journey, even removed from the gender dynamic, cement the Heroine as an outsider existing in the insider’s world rather than an equal with different traits.

Huh! I was using the Heroine’s journey all along and I didn’t even know it. Cool.

Very interesting read! Thanks. And even though we just saw the stages of Mara’s journey, I would still love to read it in full.

Just completed the action-adventure video game, Hellblade : Senua`s Sacrifice ! It generally follows the stages of the Heroines Journey very closely, and no I am not trying to advertise, but the game is highly recommended as an example of the heroines journey. But it is not for the faint-hearted : Very graphic and disturbing images of extreme violence and nightmarish scenes and content ! The game is both a tragic/epic tale and at the same time meant as a metaphorical presentation of the protagonist struggle with mental illness. Often very unpleasant, but also often beautiful images as well as a highly emotional story, as the heroine descends deeper into hel, the realm of the dead from Nordic mythology, and deeper into her own madness, and unlocks clues to her background story and the reasons for her mental troubles. Has good examples of most of the stages in Heroines Journey !

I’m amazed how well this fits the journey of the heroine in the story I’m working on. Beautiful.

There’s also the Lady Hero’s Journey… (it’s satire, though) https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/the-lady-heros-journey

There was an interesting take on this in The Lego Movie: The Second Part, in which Emmet goes through something like this. It was a rare case in which a male character was the one to go through this sort of arc.

I also found that the conflict being between siblings fighting over Legos was actually a vastly more interesting one than the previous movie because it was far more accurate.

I got to musing on this and had to dig up this article to verify I recalled the discussion correctly. I can’t help but think the terminology being commonly used is misleading given the text of the article here. Since you’ve repeatedly stated that this can apply regardless of characters’ sex/gender, and the ‘masculine/feminine’ is symbolic in context, why not call it “the internal/identity journey” and the ‘hero cycle’ can be the ‘external/warrior journey’ (or something like that)??? When it’s called the “hero cycle” and “heroine cycle” with reference to ‘the feminine’ and ‘the masculine’ it absolutely invites assumptions about the gender/sex of the protagonist it is meant to apply to. If such assumptions are not intended, avoiding gendered language from the start is perhaps better than attempting to explain it as ‘symbolism’ after those assumptions are already set in many readers’ minds. (for example: ‘the masculine’ could perhaps be called the ‘dominant’ or ‘enforced’ values and ‘the feminine’ could be called the ‘undervalued’ or ‘denigrated’ values).

They’re called that because that is how they’re labelled in non-fiction literature and when you’re looking those principles up, those are the search words which will give you the results you want to find. Those are the expressions which have been coined for them … it will take time to shift those expressions into something other.

sure it would take time for the shift to catch on. but since the author of THIS article clearly wanted to make a point of it being gender-neutral, stating the conventions at the start and then switching to more gender-neutral language for the body of the article would have been a heck of a lot more helpful rather than “it’s gender neutral! we swear! …so the feminine/masculine blah blah blah”. it’s directly counterproductive to the point they say they’re making. and anyway, it might take time but if it’s more accurate to the concepts… I think that’s worth striving for. you’re free to disagree, of course!

Chris Winkle, why’d you delete your comment?

That wasn’t actually Chris, just a troll pretending to be her, which isn’t allowed.

Ah, that explains it.

I couldn’t tell if the commenter was being sarcastic or not; I have trouble with sarcasm sometimes, ESPECIALLY on the internet*.

*Although, to be fair, that happens with most people too; hence why people on sites like Reddit will tag their comments with /s for sarcasm.

They’re back. I guess Chris really makes them feel threatened.

Yikes. YIKES. That is a LOT of spam. As of this comment (only counting the ones below me), there are FOURTEEN spam comments. FOURTEEN.

Is this as bad as it usually gets, or is it worse sometimes?

(Also, I knew that the spam had returned because one comment I saw in the ‘recent comments’ list was from ‘Chris Wrinkle’.

Yeah, fortunately it’s the work of a few moments to clean it all up.

I’ve noticed a lot more spam comments on Mythcreants recently; is that what’s happening, or am I just browsing at the right time to see them before they’re deleted?

Well if you’re on after we’ve been sleeping for 8 hours there will be more, but also, occasionally a bot gets through our spam filter, and it takes a bit before the filter learns to keep it out. So there are surges in spam from time to time. Right now it’s a little worse than average, but we’ve also seen worse.

So it’s a combination of the two, then.

So, based on what I’m seeing this morning, the spam is currently WAY worse than average.

In fact, it’s possibly the WORST spam surge I’ve ever seen since I started browsing Mythcreants.

I think the heroine’s journey could be retrofitted to a villain’s redemption arc (especially if you plan for the villain to redeem his/herself from the beginning). Step one can be implied or left out of the story, and the villain can be shown doing steps 2 through 7 or 2 through 8, depending on whether you want to redeem just the villain or the entire “masculine” civilization.

However, I don’t agree with the idea that the hero’s journey was intended for men and not women. The only reason you don’t often see women following the hero’s journey is that older works don’t often see women as capable adventurers. This doesn’t mean the hero’s journey isn’t suitable for women.

That’s true. Just as you can have a male character follow the heroine’s journey.

This perfectly describes the plot of The Traitor Baru Cormorant.

I mentioned this post in a comment On Sean Carlin’s blog

https://www.seanpcarlin.com/the-writers-journey/#comment-7187

I think this is a much stronger story structure than the hero’s journey because the hero’s journey only provides support for the exterior aspects of a story and does little to provoke character growth. However, as an agender person, the casting of a person’s two halves as masculine and femenine is unnerving for me. It feels like an incendental codification of the gender binary as the aspects of a person, rather than presenting people as having an inner duality of any sort. I acknowledge that this originally comes from the feminist movement and therefore is designed to reinforce the value of traditionally femenine things to society. However, it feels like it further defines what people can be by saying the two aspects of a person are the benefical femenine and the dangerous masculine, only to be used in moderation. To be clear, this not me attacking the femenine movement, only the casting of people as femenine and masculine exclusively in nature

That part is actually something I also have problems with, despite not being agender myself – it is also limiting how a female character should be by holding on to society’s view of what is ‘masculine’ or ‘feminine’ when in real life most of us have skills and traits that fall in both groups.

Just as I don’t think the girl ‘who is not like the other girls’ (by having masculine traits and/or skills) is something we should keep using for a female lead, I don’t think the Heroine’s Journey is a structure that should ‘replace’ the Hero’s Journey.

Perhaps we should step back from a gendered approach in general and look more into the mechanical aspect of storytelling.

This heroine’s journey structure seems more in tune to create a story about a woman’s journey through a man’s world that it works to create a feminine centric adventure, at least from my perspective. It’s about a woman reconciling herself in terms of who she is in comparison to men rather than on her own, which is what the classical hero’s journey does.

I feel like this would work for a coming of age story specifically dealing with that; however, it doesn’t seem to be applicable as a generic model for stories. After all, the structure itself fails the Bechdel test. It’s characters are defined by their connection to their gender specifically.

To add to my previous comment, after attempting to remove the gender binary from this scenario, I still don’t think this structure is well suited as a generic model as it’s suited specifically to only one type of story. It’s about a character that is different from a society that they are in and is defined by their difference.

This is less a fish out of water type difference than a role difference, since the character isn’t actually an outsider in the traditional sense.

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What About the Heroine’s Journey?

The Harvard scholar Maria Tatar has made a career of studying fairy tales and folklore. Now she is taking aim at Joseph Campbell and showing us the women he left out of the story.

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By Gal Beckerman

In Hollywood, not that long ago, it was something of an insider’s tip that to achieve success as a screenwriter, you needed a working knowledge of Joseph Campbell’s “Hero With a Thousand Faces.”

In that 1949 book, Campbell laid out the ideas and symbols that undergird myths all over the world, including the hero’s journey, the basic plot that propels the stories of Jesus, the Buddha, Moses and Odysseus. In the hands of George Lucas, who looked to Campbell as a guide for what made a hero, Luke Skywalker was added to this pantheon.

When it came to women, though, Campbell, who died in 1987 , was a little more limited. There were no adventures or battles or triumphant returns for them. Women’s place in these foundational myths, he once insisted, while writing about muses, was threefold: “one, to give us life; two, to be the one who receives us in death; and three, to inspire our spiritual, poetic realization.”

Campbell’s ideas have rippled out in the culture for decades — especially after a popular series hosted by Bill Moyers in 1988 — but he has long demanded a feminist response. It would be hard to conjure up a more suitable person to provide one than Maria Tatar, the Harvard professor who is one of the world’s leading scholars on folklore.

Her new book, “The Heroine With 1,001 Faces,” out this month from Liveright, is an answer to Campbell, though she is careful not to frame it as an assault. “Even though my title suggests that I’m writing a counternarrative, or maybe an attack on him, I think of it as more of a sequel,” Tatar said in a video interview from her home in Cambridge, Mass.

She is stirring what J.R.R. Tolkien once called the “cauldron of story” in search of the girls and women, some silenced and some forgotten, some from the Iliad and some from Netflix, who live in Campbell’s blind spot. The reader jumps from Arachne’s battle with Athena to the escape of Bluebeard’s trickster wife to Pippi Longstocking and Nancy Drew and even to Carrie Bradshaw typing away on her laptop.

It was a book, Tatar said, that she had been writing all her life, but it took the uniquely isolating first year of Covid-19 to provide the focus to put it all together.

“It was such an adventure for me at a time that was so dark for everybody,” she said. “It was also during the long winter nights at the height of the pandemic. It kept me alive. This is what stories do, after all.”

The first woman at Harvard to rise through the ranks from assistant professor to a full tenured position in 1978, Tatar, trained as a German literature specialist, fell into the study of children’s books and fairy tales almost by accident. As a mother in the 1980s reading these stories to her own children, and discovering their strangeness and violence, she came upon the idea of writing about and eventually teaching them. The first course where she tried it out was a hit, and she had her new specialization. She has since annotated many volumes of folklore, including ones by the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen.

When the #MeToo movement arrived, it made her look back at all the stories she had been teaching and see, as she hadn’t quite before, the need to elevate women’s voices — to find the heroines. “The silencing part was only half of it, because women did find ways to express themselves,” she said. “You just had to recognize the instruments they used.”

Her Harvard colleague, Henry Louis Gates Jr., who worked with her on the 2017 book, “ The Annotated African American Folktales ,” praised Tatar for “rounding out Campbell on gender” in the same way the cultural critic Albert Murray began to fill in Campbell on race (Murray’s 1973 book, “The Hero and the Blues,” was part of that effort).

“She’s not a demolition expert,” Gates said of Tatar. “It would never occur to her to undertake a revision of Campbell in a hostile way. For her it’s an elaboration. But that elaboration is a major revision of our understanding of the representation of women in mythology and storytelling more broadly.”

Tatar started off by looking at the classic myths at the center of Western civilization. Standing in the background of the hero’s journey were women without much agency, like Penelope waiting for Odysseus. What would it mean to see these stories from their perspectives, as writers like Margaret Atwood in “ The Penelopiad ” are now doing? Suddenly the mortal women who were “seduced” by gods, like Leda or Europa, appear as victims of sexual violence and not women who choose dalliances with swans and bulls.

But Tatar then moved to folk tales, oral traditions firmly in the domain of women, even though they were often recorded for posterity by men. These tales, with their lessons about how to navigate past a menacing wolf or the cruelty of fate, did offer up heroines full of wile and quick thinking. Though they were never given the status of Greek mythology, these stories contained morals aimed at women and girls about how to live.

At the end of this search, Tatar finally landed in modern-day culture, immersing herself — at one point she started quoting Britney Spears to me — and began teasing out the distinct qualities that made for a heroine. She wasn’t interested in committing herself to concrete archetypes or a certain set of numbered stages in a heroine’s journey, like Campbell. But looking at characters like Jo March, Miss Marple and even Lisbeth Salander allowed her to arrive at certain features: curiosity, empathy, a desire for justice or fairness.

Tatar realized she’d been struggling with what it means to be a heroine ever since she was a girl in the Chicago suburbs reading Wonder Woman comics. She was 5 when her family emigrated from Hungary to the United States after World War II, and she felt marked as a “displaced person,” remembering her panic at the thought that she could be deported if she failed to report an address change.

The public library was her refuge, she said, “the one place where you could really just be by yourself and work through some of the discomfort that you had about being in a place where the language didn’t come naturally and the culture was unfamiliar.”

One memory stuck with Tatar from her teenage years. Taking a college-entrance exam in a room with a hundred other students, she was given an hour to write on the question, “What is the hero?” She froze. “I remember so clearly, clutching at that moment, because I, you know, I could rattle off the names Achilles, Hercules and Odysseus,” she said. “But I couldn’t get at what was so heroic about them.”

Beyond that fact that they were “natural born killers,” she said, and that they were striving for immortality, she couldn’t come up with anything to write besides that they were courageous. “I was so embarrassed by this,” she said. “It was a cliché. But I couldn’t figure out what was so exceptional about them, what positive thing they had done.”

In the introduction to her book, Tatar also enacts the kind of speaking out that is the hallmark of the characters she writes about. The story involved her dissertation committee and one professor on it who had almost torpedoed her Ph.D. defense. A year earlier, he tried to corner her in his office (“I can still hear him declaring his passion for red-haired Eastern European women as I grabbed the handle of his office door, relieved to discover it was not locked”). Her adviser defended her, but when he asked afterward if she had any history with the professor, she couldn’t bring herself to say what had happened. “Like many others,” she writes, “I silenced myself.”

Tatar declined to name the professor, in the book and in conversation, but said he was no longer on the faculty. “I cite the experience less to indict than to show how easily derailed women could be back then,” she later added in an email, “as well as to suggest that there must have been plenty of women who were in fact derailed.”

Even if on the surface there is something still and peaceful about her presence, her book and its argument feel fierce. As another of her Harvard colleagues, the literary scholar Elaine Scarry, said, this is a typical juxtaposition with Tatar.

“She’s so calm and wise, almost pearl-like,” Scarry said, “and then she is taking on these stories that have such troubling matters in them. It’s like Vermeer meets Grimm.”

All the pandemic Netflix watching (though she did limit herself to an hour a day) has also made Tatar wonder if the binary she’s developing — a heroine to match the hero — might be a necessary but already outdated exercise in a culture moving quickly, and happily, she thinks, toward the blurring of these distinctions.

“One of the things story tells us is that things keep evolving and changing,” she said, “that the story is dead if you don’t change it, it won’t be relevant, it won’t be compelling, if you don’t keep making something new out of it.”

Gal Beckerman is an editor at the Book Review and the author of “When They Come for Us, We’ll Be Gone: The Epic Struggle to Save Soviet Jewry.” More about Gal Beckerman

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The Hero’s Journey Ultimate Writing Guide with Examples

by Alex Cabal

What do Star Wars , The Hobbit , and Harry Potter have in common? They’re all examples of a story archetype as old as time. You’ll see this universal narrative structure in books, films, and even video games.

This ultimate Hero’s Journey writing guide will define and explore all quintessential elements of the Hero’s Journey—character archetypes, themes, symbolism, the three act structure, as well as 12 stages of the Hero’s Journey. We’ll even provide a downloadable plot template, tips for writing the Hero’s Journey, and writing prompts to get the creative juices flowing.

What is the Hero’s Journey?

The Hero’s Journey is a universal story structure that follows the personal metamorphosis and psychological development of a protagonist on a heroic adventure. The protagonist goes through a series of stages to overcome adversity and complete a quest to attain an ultimate reward—whether that’s something tangible, like the holy grail, or something internal, like self confidence.

In the process of self-discovery, the archetypal Hero’s Journey is typically cyclical; it begins and ends in the same place (Think Frodo leaving and then returning to the Shire). After the epic quest or adventure has been completed by overcoming adversity and conflict—both physical and mental—the hero arrives where they once began, changed in some as they rose to meet the ultimate conflict or ordeal of the quest.

Joseph Campbell and Christopher Vogler

The Hero’s Journey has a long history of conversation around the form and its uses, with notable contributors including Joseph Campbell and the screenwriter Christopher Vogler , who later revised the steps of the Hero’s Journey.

Joseph Campbell’s “monomyth” framework is the traditional story structure of the Hero’s Journey archetype. Campbell developed it through analysis of ancient myths, folktales, and religious stories. It generally follows three acts in a cyclical, rather than a linear, way: a hero embarks on a journey, faces a crisis, and then returns home transformed and victorious.

Campbell’s ideation of the monomyth in his book The Hero With a Thousand Faces was influenced by Carl Jung’s perspective of psychology and models of self-transformation , where the Hero’s Journey is a path of transformation to a higher self, psychological healing, and spiritual growth.

While Campbell’s original take on the monomyth included 17 steps within the three acts, Christopher Vogler, in his book The Writer’s Journey , refined those 17 steps into 12 stages—the common formula for the modern structure many writers use today.

It’s also worth checking out Maureen Murdock’s work on the archetype, “The Heroine’s Journey.” This takes a look at the female Hero’s Journey, which examines the traditionally masculine journey through a feminist lens.

Hero’s Journey diagram: acts, steps, and stages

Below, you can see the way Volger’s Hero’s Journey is broken into twelve story beats across three acts.

Why is the Hero’s Journey so popular?

The structure of the Hero’s Journey appears in many of our most beloved classic stories, and it continues to resonate over time because it explores the concept of personal transformation and growth through both physical and mental trials and tribulations. In some sense, every individual in this mythic structure experiences rites of passage, the search for home and the true authentic self, which is mirrored in a protagonist’s journey of overcoming obstacles while seeking to fulfill a goal.

Additionally, the Hero’s Journey typically includes commonly shared symbols and aspects of the human psyche—the trickster, the mother, the child, etc. These archetypes play a role in creating a story that the reader can recognize from similar dynamics in their own relationships, experiences, and familiar world. Archetypes allow the writer to use these “metaphorical truths”—a playful deceiver, a maternal bond, a person of innocence and purity—to deeply and empathetically connect with the reader through symbolism. That’s why they continue to appear in countless stories all around the world.

Hero’s Journey character archetypes

Character archetypes are literary devices based on a set of qualities that are easy for a reader to identify, empathize with, and understand, as these qualities and traits are common to the human experience.

It should be noted that character archetypes are not stereotypes . While stereotypes are oversimplifications of demographics or personality traits, an archetype is a symbol of a universal type of character that can be recognized either in one’s self or in others in real life.

The following archetypes are commonly used in a Hero’s Journey:

The hero is typically the protagonist or principal point-of-view character within a story. The hero transforms—internally, externally, often both—while on their journey as they experience tests and trials and are aided or hindered by the other archetypes they encounter. In general, the hero must rise to the challenge and at some point make an act of sacrifice for the ultimate greater good. In this way, the Hero’s Journey represents the reader’s own everyday battles and their power to overcome them.

Heroes may be willing or unwilling. Some can be downright unheroic to begin with. Antiheroes are notably flawed characters that must grow significantly before they achieve the status of true hero.

The mentor often possesses divine wisdom or direct experience with the special world, and has faith in the hero. They often give the hero a gift or supernatural aid, which is usually something important for the quest: either a weapon to destroy a monster, or a talisman to enlighten the hero. The mentor may also directly aid the hero or present challenges to them that force internal or external growth. After their meeting, the hero leaves stronger and better prepared for the road ahead.

The herald is the “call to adventure.” They announce the coming of significant change and become the reason the hero ventures out onto a mysterious adventure. The herald is a catalyst that enters the story and makes it impossible for the hero to remain in status quo. Existing in the form of a person or an event, or sometimes just as information, they shift the hero’s balance and change their world.

The Threshold Guardian

This archetype guards the first threshold—the major turning point of the story where the hero must make the true commitment of the journey and embark on their quest to achieve their destiny. Threshold guardians spice up the story by providing obstacles the hero must overcome, but they’re usually not the main antagonist.

The role of the threshold guardian is to help round out the hero along their journey. The threshold guardian will test the hero’s determination and commitment and will drive them forward as the hero enters the next stage of their journey, assisting the development of the hero’s character arc within the plot. The threshold guardian can be a friend who doesn’t believe in the hero’s quest, or a foe that makes the hero question themselves, their desires, or motives in an attempt to deter the hero from their journey. Ultimately, the role of the threshold guardian is to test the hero’s resolve on their quest.

The Shape Shifter

The shape shifter adds dramatic tension to the story and provides the hero with a puzzle to solve. They can seem to be one thing, but in fact be something else. They bring doubt and suspense to the story and test the hero’s ability to discern their path. The shape shifter may be a lover, friend, ally, or enemy that somehow reveals their true self from the hero’s preconceived notion. This often causes the hero internal turmoil, or creates additional challenges and tests to overcome.

The shadow is the “monster under the bed,” and could be repressed feelings, deep trauma, or festering guilt. These all possess the dark energy of the shadow. It is the dark force of the unexpressed, unrealized, rejected, feared aspects of the hero and is often, but not necessarily, represented by the main antagonist or villain.

However, other characters may take the form of the shadow at different stages of the story as “foil characters” that contrast against the hero. They might also represent what could happen if the hero fails to learn, transform, and grow to complete their quest. At times, a hero may even succumb to the shadow, from which they will need to make sacrifices to be redeemed to continue on their overall quest.

The Trickster

The trickster is the jester or fool of the story that not only provides comic relief, but may also act as a commentator as the events of the plot unfold. Tricksters are typically witty, clever, spontaneous, and sometimes even ridiculous. The trickster within a story can bring a light-hearted element to a challenge, or find a clever way to overcome an obstacle.

Hero’s Journey themes and symbols

Alongside character archetypes, there are also archetypes for settings, situations, and symbolic items that can offer meaning to the world within the story or support your story’s theme.

Archetypes of themes, symbols, and situations represent shared patterns of human existence. This familiarity can provide the reader insight into the deeper meaning of a story without the writer needing to explicitly tell them. There are a great number of archetypes and symbols that can be used to reinforce a theme. Some that are common to the Hero’s Journey include:

Situational archetypes

Light vs. dark and the battle of good vs. evil

Death, rebirth, and transformation in the cycle of life

Nature vs. technology, and the evolution of humanity

Rags to riches or vice versa, as commentary on the material world and social status

Wisdom vs. knowledge and innocence vs. experience, in the understanding of intuition and learned experience

Setting archetypes

Gardens may represent the taming of nature, or living in harmony with nature.

Forests may represent reconnection with nature or wildness, or the fear of the unknown.

Cities or small towns may represent humanity at its best and at its worst. A small town may offer comfort and rest, while simultaneously offering judgment; a city may represent danger while simultaneously championing diversity of ideas, beings, and cultures.

Water and fire within a landscape may represent danger, change, purification, and cleansing.

Symbolic items

Items of the past self. These items are generally tokens from home that remind the hero of where they came from and who or what they’re fighting for.

Gifts to the hero. These items may be given to the hero from a mentor, ally, or even a minor character they meet along the way. These items are typically hero talismans, and may or may not be magical, but will aid the hero on their journey.

Found items. These items are typically found along the journey and represent some sort of growth or change within the hero. After all, the hero would never have found the item had they not left their everyday life behind. These items may immediately seem unimportant, but often carry great significance.

Earned rewards. These items are generally earned by overcoming a test or trial, and often represent growth, or give aid in future trials, tests, and conflicts.

The three act structure of the Hero’s Journey

The structure of the Hero’s Journey, including all 12 steps, can be grouped into three stages that encompass each phase of the journey. These acts follow the the external and internal arc of the hero—the beginning, the initiation and transformation, and the return home.

Act One: Departure (Steps 1—5)

The first act introduces the hero within the ordinary world, as they are—original and untransformed. The first act will typically include the first five steps of the Hero’s Journey.

This section allows the writer to set the stage with details that show who the hero is before their metamorphosis—what is the environment of the ordinary world? What’s important to the hero? Why do they first refuse the call, and then, why do they ultimately accept and embark on the journey to meet with the conflict?

This stage introduces the first major plot point of the story, explores the conflict the hero confronts, and provides the opportunity for characterization for the hero and their companions.

The end of the first act generally occurs when the hero has fully committed to the journey and crossed the threshold of the ordinary world—where there is no turning back.

Act Two: Initiation (Steps 6—9)

Once the hero begins their journey, the second act marks the beginning of their true initiation into the unfamiliar world—they have crossed the threshold, and through this choice, have undergone their first transformation.

The second act is generally the longest of the three and includes steps six through nine.

In this act, the hero meets most of the characters that will be pivotal to the plot, including friends, enemies, and allies. It offers the rising action and other minor plot points related to the overarching conflict. The hero will overcome various trials, grow and transform, and navigate subplots—the additional and unforeseen complexity of the conflict.

This act generally ends when the hero has risen to the challenge to overcome the ordeal and receives their reward. At the end of this act, it’s common for the theme and moral of the story to be fully unveiled.

Act Three: Return (Steps 10—12)

The final stage typically includes steps 10—12, generally beginning with the road back—the point in the story where the hero must recommit to the journey and use all of the growth, transformation, gifts and tools acquired along the journey to bring a decisive victory against their final conflict.

From this event, the hero will also be “reborn,” either literally or metaphorically, and then beginning anew as a self-actualized being, equipped with internal knowledge about themselves, external knowledge about the world, and experience.

At the end of the third act, the hero returns home to the ordinary world, bringing back the gifts they earned on their journey. In the final passages, both the hero and their perception of the ordinary world are compared with what they once were.

The 12 steps of the Hero’s Journey

The following guide outlines the 12 steps of the Hero’s Journey and represents a framework for the creation of a Hero’s Journey story template. You don’t necessarily need to follow the explicit cadence of these steps in your own writing, but they should act as checkpoints to the overall story.

We’ll also use JRR Tolkien’s The Hobbit as a literary example for each of these steps. The Hobbit does an exemplary job of following the Hero’s Journey, and it’s also an example of how checkpoints can exist in more than one place in a story, or how they may deviate from the typical 12-step process of the Hero’s Journey.

1. The Ordinary World

This stage in the Hero’s Journey is all about exposition. This introduces the hero’s backstory—who the hero is, where they come from, their worldview, culture, and so on. This offers the reader a chance to relate to the character in their untransformed form.

As the story and character arc develop, the reader is brought along the journey of transformation. By starting at the beginning, a reader has a basic understanding of what drives the hero, so they can understand why the hero makes the choices they do. The ordinary world shows the protagonist in their comfort zone, with their worldview being limited to the perspective of their everyday life.

Characters in the ordinary world may or may not be fully comfortable or satisfied, but they don’t have a point of reference to compare—they have yet to leave the ordinary world to gain the knowledge to do so.

Step One example

The Hobbit begins by introducing Bilbo in the Shire as a respectable and well-to-do member of the community. His ordinary world is utopian and comfortable. Yet, even within a village that is largely uninterested in the concerns of the world outside, the reader is provided a backstory: even though Bilbo buys into the comforts and normalcy of the Shire, he still yearns for adventure—something his neighbors frown upon. This ordinary world of the Shire is disrupted with the introduction of Gandalf—the “mentor”—who is somewhat uncomfortably invited to tea.

2. Call to Adventure

The call to adventure in the Hero’s Journey structure is the initial internal conflict that the protagonist hero faces, that drives them to the true conflict that they must overcome by the end of their journey.

The call occurs within the known world of the character. Here the writer can build on the characterization of the protagonist by detailing how they respond to the initial call. Are they hesitant, eager, excited, refusing, or willing to take a risk?

Step Two example

Bilbo’s call to adventure takes place at tea as the dwarves leisurely enter his home, followed by Gandalf, who identifies Bilbo as the group’s missing element—the burglar, and the lucky 14th member.

Bilbo and his ordinary world are emphasized by his discomfort with his rambunctious and careless guests. Yet as the dwarves sing stories of old adventures, caverns, and lineages, which introduce and foreshadow the conflict to come, a yearning for adventure is stirred. Though he still clings to his ordinary world and his life in the Shire, he’s conflicted. Should he leave the shire and experience the world, or stay in his comfortable home? Bilbo continues to refuse the call, but with mixed feelings.

3. Refusal of the Call

The refusal of the call in the Hero’s Journey showcases a “clinging” to one’s original self or world view. The initial refusal of the call represents a fear of change, as well as a resistance to the internal transformation that will occur after the adventure has begun.

The refusal reveals the risks that the protagonist faces if they were to answer the call, and shows what they’ll leave behind in the ordinary world once they accept.

The refusal of the call creates tension in the story, and should show the personal reasons why the hero is refusing—inner conflict, fear of change, hesitation, insecurity, etc. This helps make their character clearer for the reader.

These are all emotions a reader can relate to, and in presenting them through the hero, the writer deepens the reader’s relationship with them and helps the reader sympathize with the hero’s internal plight as they take the first step of transformation.

Step Three example

Bilbo refuses the call in his first encounter with Gandalf, and in his reaction to the dwarves during tea. Even though Bilbo’s “Tookish” tendencies make him yearn for adventure, he goes to bed that night still refusing the call. The next morning, as Bilbo awakes to an empty and almost fully clean hobbit home, he feels a slight disappointment for not joining the party, but quickly soothes his concerns by enjoying the comfort of his home—i.e. the ordinary world. Bilbo explores his hesitation to disembark from the ordinary world, questioning why a hobbit would become mixed up in the adventures of others, and choosing not to meet the dwarves at the designated location.

4. Meeting the Mentor

Meeting the mentor in the Hero’s Journey is the stage that provides the hero protagonist with a guide, relationship, and/or informational asset that has experience outside the ordinary world. The mentor offers confidence, advice, wisdom, training, insight, tools, items, or gifts of supernatural wonder that the hero will use along the journey and in overcoming the ultimate conflict.

The mentor often represents someone who has attempted to overcome, or actually has overcome, an obstacle, and encourages the hero to pursue their calling, regardless of the hero’s weaknesses or insecurities. The mentor may also explicitly point out the hero’s weaknesses, forcing them to reckon with and accept them, which is the first step to their personal transformation.

Note that not all mentors need to be a character . They can also be objects or knowledge that has been instilled in the hero somehow—cultural ethics, spiritual guidance, training of a particular skill, a map, book, diary, or object that illuminates the path forward, etc. In essence, the mentor character or object has a role in offering the protagonist outside help and guidance along the Hero’s Journey, and plays a key role in the protagonist’s transition from normalcy to heroism.

The mentor figure also offers the writer the opportunity to incorporate new information by expanding upon the story, plot, or backstory in unique ways. They do this by giving the hero information that would otherwise be difficult for the writer to convey naturally.

The mentor may accompany the hero throughout most of the story, or they may only periodically be included to facilitate changes and transformation within them.

Step Four example

The mentor, Gandalf, is introduced almost immediately. Gandalf is shown to be the mentor, firstly through his arrival from—and wisdom of—the outside world; and secondly, through his selection of Bilbo for the dwarven party by identifying the unique characteristics Bilbo has that are essential to overcoming the challenges in the journey. Gandalf doesn’t accompany Bilbo and the company through all of the trials and tribulations of the plot, but he does play a key role in offering guidance and assistance, and saves the group in times of dire peril.

5. Crossing the Threshold

As the hero crosses the first threshold, they begin their personal quest toward self-transformation. Crossing the threshold means that the character has committed to the journey, and has stepped outside of the ordinary world in the pursuit of their goal. This typically marks the conclusion of the first act.

The threshold lies between the ordinary world and the special world, and marks the point of the story where the hero fully commits to the road ahead. It’s a crucial stage in the Hero’s Journey, as the hero wouldn’t be able to grow and transform by staying in the ordinary world where they’re comfortable and their world view can’t change.

The threshold isn’t necessarily a specific place within the world of the story, though a place can symbolize the threshold—for example a border, gateway, or crossroads that separate what is safe and “known” from what is potentially dangerous. It can also be a moment or experience that causes the hero to recognize that the comforts and routine of their world no longer apply—like the loss of someone or something close to the hero, for example. The purpose of the threshold is to take the hero out of their element and force them, and the reader, to adapt from the known to the unknown.

This moment is crucial to the story’s tension. It marks the first true shift in the character arc and the moment the adventure has truly begun. The threshold commonly forces the hero into a situation where there’s no turning back. This is sometimes called the initiation stage or the departure stage.

Step Five example

The threshold moment in The Hobbit occurs when the party experiences true danger as a group for the first time. Bilbo, voted as scout by the party and eager to prove his burglar abilities, sneaks upon a lone fire in the forest where he finds three large trolls. Rather than turn back empty-handed—as he initially wants to—Bilbo chooses to prove himself, plucking up the courage to pickpocket the trolls—but is caught in the process. The dwarves are also captured and fortunately, Gandalf, the mentor, comes to save the party.

Bilbo’s character arc is solidified in this threshold moment. He experiences his first transformation when he casts aside fear and seeks to prove himself as a burglar, and as an official member of the party. This moment also provides further characterization of the party as a whole, proving the loyalty of the group in seeking out their captured member.

Gandalf’s position as the mentor is also firmly established as he returns to ultimately save all of the members of the party from being eaten by trolls. The chapter ends with Bilbo taking ownership of his first hero talisman—the sword that will accompany him through the rest of the adventure.

6. Tests, Allies, Enemies

Once the hero has crossed the threshold, they must now encounter tests of courage, make allies, and inevitably confront enemies. All these elements force the hero to learn the new ways of the special world and how it differs from the hero’s ordinary world—i.e. how the rules have changed, the conditions of the special world vs. the ordinary world, and the various beings and places within it.

All these elements spark stages of transformation within the hero—learning who they can trust and who they can’t, learning new skills, seeking training from the mentor, and overcoming challenges that force and drive them to grow and transform.

The hero may both succeed and fail at various points of this stage, which will test their commitment to the journey. The writer can create tension by making it clear that the hero may or may not succeed at the critical moment of crisis. These crises can be external or internal.

External conflicts are issues that the character must face and overcome within the plot—e.g. the enemy has a sword drawn and the hero must fight to survive.

Internal conflicts occur inside the hero. For example, the hero has reached safety, but their ally is in peril; will they step outside their comfort zone and rise to the occasion and save their friend? Or will they return home to their old life and the safety of the ordinary world?

Tests are conflicts and threats that the hero must face before they reach the true conflict, or ordeal, of the story. These tests set the stage and prime the hero to meet and achieve the ultimate goal. They provide the writer the opportunity to further the character development of the hero through their actions, inactions, and reactions to what they encounter. The various challenges they face will teach them valuable lessons, as well as keep the story compelling and the reader engaged.

Allies represent the characters that offer support to the protagonist along the journey. Some allies may be introduced from the beginning, while others may be gained along the journey. Secondary characters and allies provide additional nuance for the hero, through interactions, events, and relationships that further show who the hero is at heart, what they believe in, and what they’re willing to fight for. The role of the allies is to bring hope, inspiration, and further drive the hero to do what needs to be done.

Enemies represent a foil to the allies. While allies bring hope and inspiration, enemies will provide challenges, conflicts, tests, and challenges. Both allies and enemies may instigate transformative growth, but enemies do so in a way that fosters conflict and struggle.

Characterization of enemies can also enhance the development of the hero through how they interact and the lessons learned through those interactions. Is the hero easily duped, forgiving, empathetic, merciful? Do they hold a grudge and seek revenge? Who is the hero now that they have been harmed, faced an enemy, and lost pieces of their innocent worldview? To answer that, the hero is still transforming and gestating with every lesson, test, and enemy faced along the way.

Step Six example

As the plot of The Hobbit carries on, Bilbo encounters many tests, allies, and enemies that all drive complexity in the story. A few examples include:

The first major obstacle that Bilbo faces occurs within the dark and damp cave hidden in the goblin town. All alone, Bilbo must pluck up the wit and courage to outriddle a creature named Gollum. In doing so, Bilbo discovers the secret power of a golden ring (another hero talisman) that will aid him and the party through the rest of the journey.

The elves encountered after Bilbo “crosses the threshold” are presented as allies in the story. The hero receives gifts of food, a safe place to rest, and insight and guidance that allows the party to continue on their journey. While the party doesn’t dwell long with the elves, the elves also provide further character development for the party at large: the serious dwarf personalities are juxtaposed against the playful elvish ones, and the elves offer valuable historical insight with backstory to the weapons the party gathered from the troll encounter.

Goblins are a recurring enemy within the story that the hero and party must continue to face, fight, and run from. The goblins present consistent challenges that force Bilbo to face fear and learn and adapt, not only to survive but to save his friends.

7. Approach to the Inmost Cave

The approach to the inmost cave of the Hero’s Journey is the tense quiet before the storm; it’s the part of the story right before the hero faces their greatest fear, and it can be positioned in a few different ways. By now, the hero has overcome obstacles, setbacks, and tests, gained and lost allies and enemies, and has transformed in some way from the original protagonist first introduced in the ordinary world.

The moment when the hero approaches the inmost cave can be a moment of reflection, reorganization, and rekindling of morale. It presents an opportunity for the main characters of the story to come together in a moment of empathy for losses along the journey; a moment of planning and plotting next steps; an opportunity for the mentor to teach a final lesson to the hero; or a moment for the hero to sit quietly and reflect upon surmounting the challenge they have been journeying toward for the length of their adventure.

The “cave” may or may not be a physical place where the ultimate ordeal and conflict will occur. The approach represents the momentary period where the hero assumes their final preparation for the overall challenge that must be overcome. It’s a time for the hero and their allies, as well as the reader, to pause and reflect on the events of the story that have already occurred, and to consider the internal and external growth and transformation of the hero.

Having gained physical and/or emotional strength and fortitude through their trials and tests, learned more rules about the special world, found and lost allies and friends, is the hero prepared to face danger and their ultimate foe? Reflection, tension, and anticipation are the key elements of crafting the approach to the cave.

Step Seven example

The approach to the cave in The Hobbit occurs as the party enters the tunnel of the Lonely Mountain. The tunnel is the access point to the ultimate goal—Thorin’s familial treasure, as well as the ultimate test—the formidable dragon Smaug. During this part of the story, the party must hide, plot, and plan their approach to the final conflict. It’s at this time that Bilbo realizes he must go alone to scout out and face the dragon.

8. The Ordeal

The ordeal is the foreshadowed conflict that the hero must face, and represents the midpoint of the story. While the ordeal is the ultimate conflict that the hero knows they must overcome, it’s a false climax to the complete story—there’s still much ground to cover in the journey, and the hero will still be tested after completing this, the greatest challenge. In writing the ordeal phase of the Hero’s Journey, the writer should craft this as if it actually were the climax to the tale, even though it isn’t.

The first act, and the beginning of the second act, have built up to the ordeal with characterization and the transformation of the hero through their overcoming tests and trials. This growth—both internal and external—has all occurred to set the hero up to handle this major ordeal.

As this stage commences, the hero is typically faced with fresh challenges to make the ordeal even more difficult than they previously conceived. This may include additional setbacks for the hero, the hero’s realization that they were misinformed about the gravity of the situation, or additional conflicts that make the ordeal seem insurmountable.

These setbacks cause the hero to confront their greatest fears and build tension for both the hero and the reader, as they both question if the hero will ultimately succeed or fail. In an epic fantasy tale, this may mean a life-or-death moment for the hero, or experiencing death through the loss of an important ally or the mentor. In a romance, it may be the moment of crisis where a relationship ends or a partner reveals their dark side or true self, causing the hero great strife.

This is the rock-bottom moment for the hero, where they lose hope, courage, and faith. At this point, even though the hero has already crossed the threshold, this part of the story shows how the hero has changed in such a way that they can never return to their original self: even if they return to the ordinary world, they’ll never be the same; their perception of the world has been modified forever.

Choosing to endure against all odds and costs to face the ordeal represents the loss of the hero’s original self from the ordinary world, and a huge internal transformation occurs within the hero as they must rise and continue forth to complete their journey and do what they set out to do from the beginning.

The ordeal may also be positioned as an introduction to the greater villain through a trial with a shadow villain, where the hero realizes that the greatest conflict is unveiled as something else, still yet to come. In these instances, the hero may fail, or barely succeed, but must learn a crucial lesson and be metaphorically resurrected through their failure to rise again and overcome the greater challenge.

Step Eight example

Bilbo must now face his ultimate challenge: burgle the treasure from the dragon. This is the challenge that was set forth from the beginning, as it’s his purpose as the party’s 14th member, the burglar, anointed by Gandalf, the mentor. Additional conflicts arise as Bilbo realizes that he must face the dragon alone, and in doing so, must rely on all of the skills and gifts in the form of talismans and tokens he has gained throughout the adventure.

During the ordeal, Bilbo uses the courage he has gained by surmounting the story’s previous trials; he’s bolstered by his loyalty to the group and relies upon the skills and tools he has earned in previous trials. Much as he outwitted Gollum in the cave, Bilbo now uses his wit as well as his magical ring to defeat Smaug in a game of riddles, which ultimately leads Smaug out of the lair so that Bilbo can complete what he was set out to do—steal the treasure.

The reward of the Hero’s Journey is a moment of triumph, celebration, or change as the hero achieves their first major victory. This is a moment of reflection for both the reader and the hero, to take a breath to contemplate and acknowledge the growth, development, and transformation that has occurred so far.

The reward is the boon that the hero learns, is granted, or steals, that will be crucial to facing the true climax of the story that is yet to come. The reward may be a physical object, special knowledge, or reconciliation of some sort, but it’s always a thing that allows for some form of celebration or replenishment and provides the drive to succeed before the journey continues.

Note that the reward may not always be overtly positive—it may also be a double-edged sword that could harm them physically or spiritually. This type of reward typically triggers yet another internal transformation within the hero, one that grants them the knowledge and personal drive to complete the journey and face their remaining challenges.

From the reward, the hero is no longer externally driven to complete the journey, but has evolved to take on the onus of doing so.

Examples of rewards may include:

A weapon, elixir, or object that will be necessary to complete the quest.

Special knowledge, or a personal transformation to use against a foe.

An eye-opening experience that provides deep insight and fundamentally changes the hero and their position within the story and world.

Reconciliation with another character, or with themselves.

No matter what the reward is, the hero should experience some emotional or spiritual revelation and a semblance of inner peace or personal resolve to continue the journey. Even if the reward is not overtly positive, the hero and the reader deserve a moment of celebration for facing the great challenge they set out to overcome.

Step Nine example

Bilbo defeats the dragon at a battle of wits and riddles, and now receives his reward. He keeps the gifts he has earned, both the dagger and the gold ring. He is also granted his slice of the treasure, and the Lonely Mountain is returned to Thorin. The party at large is rewarded for completing the quest and challenge they set out to do.

However, Tolkien writes the reward to be more complex than it first appears. The party remains trapped and hungry within the Mountain as events unfold outside of it. Laketown has been attacked by Smaug, and the defenders will want compensation for the damage to their homes and for their having to kill the dragon. Bilbo discovers, and then hides, the Arkenstone (a symbolic double edged reward) to protect it from Thorin’s selfishness and greed.

10. The Road Back

The road back in the Hero’s Journey is the beginning of the third act, and represents a turning point within the story. The hero must recommit to the journey, alongside the new stakes and challenges that have arisen from the completion of the original goal.

The road back presents roadblocks—new and unforeseen challenges to the hero that they must now face on their journey back to the ordinary world. The trials aren’t over yet, and the stakes are raised just enough to keep the story compelling before the final and ultimate conflict—the hero’s resurrection—is revealed in the middle of the third act.

The hero has overcome their greatest challenge in the Ordeal and they aren’t the same person they were when they started. This stage of the story often sees the hero making a choice, or reflecting on their transformed state compared to their state at the start of the journey.

The writer’s purpose in the third act is not to eclipse the upcoming and final conflict, but to up the stakes, show the true risk of the final climax, and to reflect on what it will take for the hero to ultimately prevail. The road back should offer a glimmer of hope—the light at the end of the tunnel—and should let the reader know the dramatic finale is about to arrive.

Step Ten example

What was once a journey to steal treasure and slay a dragon has developed new complications. Our hero, Bilbo, must now use all of the powers granted in his personal transformation, as well as the gifts and rewards he earned on the quest, to complete the final stages of the journey.

This is the crisis moment of The Hobbit ; the armies of Laketown are prepared for battle to claim their reward for killing Smaug; the fearless leader of their party, Thorin, has lost reason and succumbed to greed; and Bilbo makes a crucial choice based his personal growth: he gives the Arkenstone to the king as a bargaining chip for peace. Bilbo also briefly reconnects with the mentor, Gandalf, who warns him of the unpleasant times ahead, but comforts Bilbo by saying that things may yet turn out for the best. Bilbo then loyally returns to his friends, the party of dwarves, to stand alongside them in the final battle.

11. Resurrection

The resurrection stage of the Hero’s Journey is the final climax of the story, and the heart of the third act. By now the hero has experienced internal and external transformation and a loss of innocence, coming out with newfound knowledge. They’re fully rooted in the special world, know its rules, and have made choices that underline this new understanding.

The hero must now overcome the final crisis of their external quest. In an epic fantasy tale, this may be the last battle of light versus darkness, good versus evil, a cumulation of fabulous forces. In a thriller, the hero might ultimately face their own morality as they approach the killer. In a drama or romance, the final and pivotal encounter in a relationship occurs and the hero puts their morality ahead of their immediate desires.

The stakes are the highest they’ve ever been, and the hero must often choose to make a sacrifice. The sacrifice may occur as a metaphoric or symbolic death of the self in some way; letting go of a relationship, title, or mental/emotional image of the self that a hero once used as a critical aspect of their identity, or perhaps even a metaphoric physical death—getting knocked out or incapacitated, losing a limb, etc.

Through whatever the great sacrifice is, be it loss or a metaphoric death, the hero will experience a form of resurrection, purification, or internal cleansing that is their final internal transformation.

In this stage, the hero’s character arc comes to an end, and balance is restored to the world. The theme of the story is fully fleshed out and the hero, having reached some form of self-actualization, is forever changed. Both the reader and the hero experience catharsis—the relief, insight, peace, closure, and purging of fear that had once held the hero back from their final transformation.

Step Eleven example

All the armies have gathered, and the final battle takes place. Just before the battle commences, Bilbo tells Thorin that it was he who gave the Arkenstone to the city of men and offers to sacrifice his reward of gold for taking the stone. Gandalf, the mentor, arrives, standing beside Bilbo and his decision. Bilbo is shunned by Thorin and is asked to leave the party for his betrayal.

Bilbo experiences a symbolic death when he’s knocked out by a stone. Upon awakening, Bilbo is brought to a dying Thorin, who forgives him of his betrayal, and acknowledges that Bilbo’s actions were truly the right thing to do. The theme of the story is fully unveiled: that bravery and courage comes in all sizes and forms, and that greed and gold are less worthy than a life rich in experiences and relationships.

12. Return with the Elixir

The elixir in the Hero’s Journey is the final reward the hero brings with them on their return, bridging their two worlds. It’s a reward hard earned through the various relationships, tests, and growth the hero has experienced along their journey. The “elixir” can be a magical potion, treasure, or object, but it can also be intangible—love, wisdom, knowledge, or experience.

The return is key to the circular nature of the Hero’s Journey. It offers a resolution to both the reader and the hero, and a comparison of their growth from when the journey began.

Without the return, the story would have a linear nature, a beginning and an end. In bringing the self-actualized hero home to the ordinary world, the character arc is completed, and the changes they’ve undergone through the journey are solidified. They’ve overcome the unknown, and though they’re returning home, they can no longer resume their old life because of their new insight and experiences.

Step Twelve example

The small yet mighty hero Bilbo is accompanied on his journey home by his mentor Gandalf, as well as the allies he gathered along his journey. He returns with many rewards—his dagger, his golden ring, and his 1/14th split of the treasure—yet his greatest rewards are his experience and the friends he has made along the way. Upon entering the Shire Bilbo sings a song of adventure, and the mentor Gandalf remarks, “My dear Bilbo! Something is the matter with you, you are not the hobbit you were.”

The final pages of The Hobbit explore Bilbo’s new self in the Shire, and how the community now sees him as a changed hobbit—no longer quite as respectable as he once was, with odd guests who visit from time to time. Bilbo also composes his story “There and Back Again,” a tale of his experiences, underlining his greatest reward—stepping outside of the Shire and into the unknown, then returning home, a changed hobbit.

Books that follow the Hero’s Journey

One of the best ways to become familiar with the plot structure of the Hero’s Journey is to read stories and books that successfully use it to tell a powerful tale. Maybe they’ll inspire you to use the hero’s journey in your own writing!

The Lord of the Rings trilogy by J. R. R. Tolkien.

The Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling.

The Earthsea series by Ursula K. Le Guin.

The Odyssey by Homer.

Siddhartha by Herman Hesse.

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.

Writing tips for the Hero’s Journey

Writing a Hero’s Journey story often requires planning beforehand to organize the plot, structure, and events of the story. Here are some tips to use the hero’s journey archetype in a story:

Use a template or note cards to organize and store your ideas. This can assist in ensuring that you tie up any loose ends in the plot, and that the cadence of your story is already outlined before you begin writing.

Use word count goals for writing different sections of your story. This can help you keep pace while you plan and write the first draft. You can always revise, edit, and add in detail at later stages of development, but getting the ideas written without bogging them down with details can assist in preparing your outline, and may perhaps provide additional inspiration and guidance along the way.

Lean into creativity and be flexible with the 12 steps. They don’t need to occur in the exact order we’ve listed above, but that ordering can offer great checkpoint moments for your story.

Invest in characterization and ensure that your main character is balanced with credible strengths and weaknesses. A perfect, pure hero has no room to grow. A one-dimensional villain who relies on the trope of “pure evil” without any motivations for their actions is boring and predictable.

Ensure tension and urgency is woven into the story. An epic tale to the grocery store for baby formula may still be fraught with danger, and the price of failure is a hungry child. Without urgency, tension, and risk, a Hero’s Journey will fall flat.

Be hard on your characters. Give them deep conflicts that truly test their nature, and their mental, physical, and spiritual selves. An easy journey isn’t a memorable one.

Have a balance of scenes that play on both positive and negative emotions and outcomes for the hero to create a compelling plot line that continues to engage your reader. A story that’s relentlessly positive doesn’t provide a pathway for the hero to transform. Likewise, a story that’s nothing but doom, strife, and turmoil, without a light at the end of the tunnel or an opportunity for growth, can make a story feel stagnant and unengaging.

Reward your characters and your reader. Personal transformation and the road to the authentic self may be grueling, but there’s peace or joy at the end of the tunnel. Even if your character doesn’t fully saved the world, they—and the reader—should be rewarded with catharsis, a new perspective, or personal insight at the end of the tale.

Hero’s Journey templates

Download these free templates to help you plan out your Hero’s Journey:

Download the Hero’s Journey template template (docx) Download the Hero’s Journey template template (pdf)

Prompts and practices to help you write your own Hero’s Journey

Use the downloadable template listed below for the following exercises:

Read a book or watch a movie that follows the Hero’s Journey. Use the template to fill in when each step occurs or is completed. Make note of themes and symbols, character arcs, the main plot, and the subplots that drive complexity in the story.

When writing, use a timer set to 2—5 minutes per section to facilitate bursts of creativity. Brainstorm ideas for cadence, plot, and characters within the story. The outline you create can always be modified, but the timer ensures you can get ideas on paper without a commitment; you’re simply jotting down ideas as quickly as you can.

Use the downloadable template above to generate outlines based on the following prompts.

A woman’s estranged mother has died. A friend of the mother arrives at the woman’s home to tell her that her mother has left all her belongings to her daughter, and hands her a letter. The letter details the mother’s life, and the daughter must visit certain places and people to find her mother’s house and all the belongings in it—learning more about her mother’s life, and herself, along the way.

The last tree on earth has fallen, and technology can no longer sustain human life on Earth. An engineer, having long ago received alien radio signals from a tower in their backyard, has dedicated their life to building a spaceship in their garage. The time has come to launch, and the engineer must select a group of allies to bring with them to the stars, on a search for a new life, a new home, and “the others” out there in the universe.

A detective is given a new case: to find a much-talked-about murderer. The twist is, the murderer has sent a letter to the detective agency, quietly outing a homicidal politician who is up for re-election and is a major financial contributor to the police. In the letter, the murderer states that if the politician doesn’t come clean about their crimes, the murderer will kill the politician on the night of the election. The detective must solve the case before the election, and come to terms with their own feelings of justice and morality.

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Why Screenwriters Should Embrace The Heroine's Journey

Katniss. Moana. Rey. Jinn. Wonder Woman. The Age of the Heroine is now flourishing.

Many of us grew up in a time where a strong female character leading a big cinematic story was nothing more than an anomaly. Back in the day, we had Sarah Connor and Ellen Ripley — that was all.

Hollywood was stuck in the constant regurgitation of The Hero's Journey — the mythic structure of Joseph Campbell's monomyth. For decades, screenwriters have obsessively bowed down to his writings, as well as The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure For Writers , Christopher Vogler's celebrated companion piece that took Campbell's monomyth declarations and applied them specifically to cinematic storytelling.

Such structure, concepts, and breakdowns have, can, and will apply successfully to some outstanding films, but "the times they are a changing."

What most people overlook is that Campbell's monomyth best emphasizes characteristics and values found strictly in male characters. In fact, in Campbell's framework for The Hero's Journey, he details only two roles for women. The first — “The Meeting with the Goddess" — references the woman as the love interest or as some sort of maternal divinity role. The second —  “Woman as Temptress" — references the woman as a character that temps the hero, usually in lusty fashion.

This doesn't jive well with these contemporary times, does it?

For years Hollywood has struggled with developing strong female roles that are at the forefront of tentpole features. Even the seemingly critical bullet proof Marvel Cinematic Universe has still yet to feature a stand alone film for one of the its most beloved and ever present characters — the Black Widow.

Thankfully, female lead roles are becoming more and more prevalent outside of the romantic comedy genre. The reason behind this is the ever-progressing nature of our society.

You see, Campbell based his mythic stages primarily on history. The times he looked back to were some of the most sexist eras of mankind's past where women were either the subjects of man — mothers, daughters, lovers — or were the temptresses of them. Women weren't allowed to fight. They weren't allowed to go on dangerous journeys. Even as recent as the twentieth century — the 1950s in particular — women had the expectation of being a subservient to their male counterparts.

Thus, Joseph Campbell's vision was always emulating the past. That time has come and gone as The Heroine's Journey has proven to always look to the future in terms of progress in society — specifically towards the role that women play.

The Differences Between The Hero's Journey and The Heroine's Journey

“Women don’t need to make the journey. In the whole mythological journey, the woman is there. All she has to do is realize that she’s the place that people are trying to get to.”

Joseph Campbell himself told this to Maureen Murdock, the woman who would later create the stages we now know as the somewhat official Heroine's Journey. It's clear that Campbell was ignorant to the times that were possible — and soon on the horizon.

Murdock later described her own model in The Heroine’s Journey: Woman’s Quest for Wholeness , which   is divided into ten stages. We'll use the recent acclaimed film Wonder Woman as an example for each.

• Separation from the Feminine  —   Often a mother or prescribed feminine role. Diana (Wonder Woman), the princess, wishes to become a warrior. However, her mother, the Queen, initially forbids her to.
• Identification with the Masculine and Gathering of Allies — Often entails choosing a path that is different than the role prescribed for her, deciding to gear to”fight” an organization, role, or group that is limiting or entering some male/masculine-defined sphere.   Diana finds a World War I pilot after he crash lands near her island. This is the first time she has seen a man and she quickly gathers an ally in him after she learns that a great war is raging, killing millions of innocents.
• Road or Trials and Meeting the Ogres and Dragons —  Heroine encounters trials and meets people who try to dissuade her from pursuing her chosen path and/or destroy her (ogres and dragons or their metaphorical counterparts) . Diana ventures on the strange "road" through the civilized world of mankind. She wishes to go to the front of the war, but man after man opposes her doing so.
• Experiencing the Boon of Success — The Heroine overcomes obstacles. In The Hero's Journey, this is normally where the hero's tale ends .  Diana proves herself in battle, showcasing her skills and powers that are above and beyond any man present.
• Heroine Awakens to Feelings of Spiritual Aridity/Death   —   Success in this new way of life is either temporary, illusory, shallow, or requires a betrayal of self over time . Diana can not understand the reluctance on mankind's part to saving the innocent and ending the war. Steve, the World War I pilot and her ally, is focused on completing the mission at hand of getting the secret gas plans to his superiors. Diana wants to stop the mythical Ares from waging war.
•   Initiation and Descent to the Goddess    —  The heroine faces a crisis of some sort in which the new way is insufficient and falls into despair. All of her “masculine” strategies have failed her.  Despite her efforts and powers, many are killed by deadly German gases. Diana is heart broken.
•   Heroine Urgently Yearns to Reconnect with the Feminine —  The heroine cannot go back to her initial limited state or position . Diana kills Ludendorff, but the war does not stop. She loses faith in the goodness of man and is perhaps ready to give up and fall back to her Amazon women beliefs that she was brought up with.
•   Heroine Heals the Mother/Daughter Split —  The heroine reclaims some of her initial values, skills or attributes but views them from a new perspective.  Diana   reclaims her vision as Ares reveals himself finally. Her true powers are then unleashed, showcasing what her mother always knew. 
•  Heroine Heals the Wounded Masculine Within —    Heroine makes peace with the “masculine” approach to the world as it applies to herself . Diana says goodbye to Steve and realizes that while mankind is flawed, it is worth fighting for.
•  Heroine Integrates the Masculine and Feminine — She faces the world or future with a new understanding of herself and the world/life. Heroine sees through binaries and can interact with a complex world that includes her but is larger than her personal lifetime or geographical/cultural milieu . Diana accepts her role. She will fight for justice and for mankind. This leads to the time leading up to and through the events of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and beyond.

And then we go back to The Hero's Journey and Vogler's own breakdowns...

•   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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• Tests, Allies, and Enemies —   The hero is tested and sorts out allegiances in the Special World.
• Approach —   The hero and newfound allies prepare for the major challenge in the Special World.
• 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.
• 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.
• The 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.
• 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.
• 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.

You'll see many similarities between the two, but as mentioned before, The Heroine's Journey is centered on moving forward, with the female trying to bridge the gap between male and female roles while The Hero's Journey is often much more about personal glory and achieving victory in the end. The Hero already has power as a man. The Heroine battles not only the conflicts at hand within the story, but is also dealing with the prejudice of being a woman.

Can Heroes Be Written Using  The Heroine's Journey — and Vice Versa?

The mistake that Hollywood can and will make while attempting to write female-driven features is simply writing a hero with boobs story where the screenwriter uses the applications of The Hero's Journey and simply gender flips the character — essentially just writing she instead of he,  and so forth, while retaining the overall stages of The Hero's Journey. In essence, the screenwriter would be missing the point of writing a female driven story if they choose to ignore the female elements of conflict that women are faced with.

Elements of The Hero's Journey can certainly be utilized — and are ever present — in The Heroine's Journey, but what needs to always be included within the latter are forward-thinking answers to questions and conflicts that women face. Such things need to be addressed because that is where the conflict of such stories are set apart from a hero's tale. Men and women deal with very different types of conflict and that has to be showcased within the confines of each of their types of journeys. Female characters can certainly have characteristics found within The Hero's Journey, but it would be difficult to apply characteristics found within The Heroine's Journey to a male character because they generally can't and don't relate.

Is The Heroine's Journey the New Hero's Journey ?

The initial answer? It should be.

This is not to say that The Hero's Journey should be pushed aside. There are many such stories to tell. However, as Hollywood is slowly getting the signal that audiences are responding to variations of The Heroine's Journey, it would be wise — and righteous — for any and all screenwriters to seek out stories that feature strong female characters within that context.

Hollywood is looking for such stories. They are actively seeking out voices that can bring such stories to the forefront. And it doesn't always have to be a female screenwriter that does so. In fact, since women account for just 15 percent of sector screenwriting employment and are outnumbered by more than three-to-one among screenwriters, according to an early summary of the 2014 Hollywood Writers Report, male screenwriters — the vast majority — should be the ones to lead the continued charge, then forcing Hollywood to adapt and accept female voices to drive that percentage up.

The wonderful aspect of The Heroine's Journey over the more conventional Hero's Journey is that it makes way for more supporting characters as well. Jinn had her Rogue One war mates in Star Wars: Rogue One . Katniss had her support team in The Hunger Games . Wonder Woman had Steve and their collected posse of supporting characters.

If a screenwriter is going to have a character undergo a journey, The Heroine's Journey allows for more great characters ready and able to get into the mix, as opposed to The Hero's Journey that often focuses solely on the hero himself.

The Key Is to Create the Ultimate Journey Hybrid

The truth is, whether you're using The Hero's Journey or The Heroine's Journey as a launching pad for the structures and themes of your screenplay, there's no set formula to follow. There is no right or wrong way to write any story as long as there is a great story to tell and a great character to follow through the journey of that story.

Adapt. Plain and simple.

I'm currently in the process of gender switching a screenplay that Lionsgate previously picked up. That decision was made not to chase a trend, but to add depth to the concept and character. Women face more conflict than men, thus the screenplay benefits because as most should know, conflict is everything. Without conflict, there is no compelling and intriguing story to tell.

So as a screenwriter, if you're looking for ways to shake things up and take what may be a more routine concept, story, or character, look no further than the gender of your lead or strong supporting character(s). What would happen if you flipped that gender?

We saw that happen with Star Wars: The Force Awakens . The Luke-type character from the original trilogy was replace by Rey, a young woman. And that changed the character-type for the better in many ways. Rey rejected Finn's continued attempts to "protect" her while she was the one that was actually holding her own. More conflict. More depth. All because of the gender flip.

She still shared some elements of the classic The Hero's Journey, all while handling the forward-thinking aspects of The Heroine's Journey.

Whatever your situation may be, just know that we are at the dawn of an exciting time where a new array of characters and concepts centered around female characters is coming to light. Audiences have shown up for such films in droves. And when the audience comes, the powers that be in Hollywood and beyond take notice.

Guest blogger Ken Miyamoto has worked in the film industry for nearly two decades, most notably as a studio liaison for Sony Studios and then as a script reader and story analyst for Sony Pictures.

He has many studio meetings under his belt as a produced screenwriter, meeting with the likes of Sony, Dreamworks, Universal, Disney, Warner Brothers, as well as many production and management companies. He has had a previous development deal with Lionsgate, as well as multiple writing assignments, including the produced miniseries Blackout , starring Anne Heche, Sean Patrick Flanery, Billy Zane, James Brolin, Haylie Duff, Brian Bloom, Eric La Salle, and Bruce Boxleitner. Follow Ken on Twitter @KenMovies 

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Wonder Woman and the Female Hero’s Journey

It’s rare that I appreciate major blockbuster comic book films these days.

They’re fun, but rarely do they have deep life lessons for all of us, and they nearly never go on my list of classics to keep in mind for the kids one day.

But, just back from date night last night, I took my queen to see Wonder Woman , and we both loved  it.

Admittedly, you can’t go wrong with a fit and powerful lead woman, so when Jam said she wanted to see Wonder Woman , it was easy to persuade me. But there was a tremendous amount of unexpected depth to this story.

Gal Gadot delivered a great performance as Princess Diana of Themyscira, an Amazonian trained to be an incomparable warrior, daughter of Hippolyta and (SPOILER ALERT) of Zeus, the king of the gods. How this immortal ends up walking into World War I — the “war to end all wars” — is a mystery I’ll leave you to discover for yourself if you haven’t seen this flick yet.

An unknowing demigoddess raised naive of her heritage, Diana only gradually discovers her incredible abilities as she develops courage and confidence in herself — a nice metaphorical message I approve of!

A great mix of moving drama, mild romance, action, and humor. Bravo to director Patty Jenkins!

The Heroine’s Journey in Wonder Woman

Beyond your typical movie reviews, it’s even more fun to analyze films from an archetypal perspective, incorporating what’s usually referred to as Jungian psychology.

From Lewis Carrol’s 1865 Alice in Wonderland , to the roaring success of the Harry Potter series, and  The Hunger Games  trilogy, the “Hero’s Journey” charts the stages and trials that the average Jane must face in order to discover her greatest self and share her exceptional gifts with the world.

It is the recurring story of those who choose to pursue greatness, of those who strive to make the world a better place, the greatest story ever told, a story older than time.

The heroine starts out as an ordinary person in the ordinary world, and receives a call to adventure. If she accepts the call, she must face internal and external trials, sometimes alone and sometimes with help from a guide…

This is what Joseph Campbell identified as the perennial  “Hero’s Journey” monomyth — the cyclical hero’s path seen time and again throughout mythical stories passed down over the millennia, in spiritual traditions, in children’s bedtime stories, classic literature, and now in the fantasy and science fiction of today.

The long, difficult road of trials and challenges, as well as the heroine’s frequent brush with death, loss, or confrontation with evil, transform her for the better. In the end, the heroine must return to the “normal world” to share her extraordinary gifts with others, often facing life-threatening obstacles along the way.

“The heroic quest is about saying ‘yes’ to yourself and in so doing, becoming more fully alive and more effective in the world…. The quest is replete with dangers and pitfalls, but it offers great rewards: the capacity to be successful in the world, knowledge of the mysteries of the human soul, and the opportunity to find and express your unique gifts in the world.”

–Carol S. Pearson, author,  Persephone Rising

While Wonder Woman  isn’t for younger children, the two most important ladies in my life thoroughly enjoyed the film, and I look forward to sharing this film with any daughters I have one day, as a decent example of an empowering heroic female role model.

Fun trivia: at 75, Wonder Woman was recently named a U.N. Honorary Ambassador for the Empowerment of Women and Girls. Check Wikipedia for more on Wonder Woman’s character origins and history .

What Does It Mean to Be a Real-Life Hero?

“In times of radical uncertainty, it’s necessary that the Hero be born. Because the Hero is the person who doesn’t deal with something specific, the Hero is the person that deals with Uncertainty itself. And that’s the Great Dragon of Chaos. …What’s necessary is for the individual to become prepared for anything and everything, and the way that you do that is by developing your character.”

– Dr. Jordan Peterson , University of Toronto professor of psychology

The hero or heroine is the person who is not afraid to confront their own inner demons, to explore the world of the Unknown, discover hidden power and talents, slay dragons, and eventually return to their regular day-to-day life to help lead their community towards a better future.

We were all born Kings and Queens, but we must reclaim the power and authority that is rightfully ours to take charge of this magical life and sculpt it into something beautiful.

But what does it truly mean to be a real-life, modern hero? As the Buddha observed, the REAL enemy who  every  great hero must defeat is oneself, and all of humanity’s greatest myths are really metaphors for this (often painful) process of self-overcoming.

“In many indigenous traditions, a person seeking answers to questions would approach a medicine man or woman sitting by the fire and ask what they should do to resolve their dilemma. He or she classically would respond to this request by saying, “Let me tell you a story.” Moms, dads, mentors, and friends can do this, too…. In new situations, often what is needed is a new story that can help supply a map for the new journey and a toehold when that journey feels like climbing up a steep and dangerous mountain.”

–Carol S. Pearson

A New Map: Come Sit By the Fire and Let Me Tell You a Story

I’m bringing together a community  to help me fine-tune my upcoming book, Chasing the Sun , and to help develop a new theoretical framework for personal growth based around the Hero’s Journey!

It’s a story about finding purpose, about building a life, a business, and a family, illustrated through travel memoirs and wild, never-before-told stories of some of my more questionable travel adventures around the world over the last 8+ years, business trials, failures, successes, and more.

It’s  finally  time to share a few of the most important lessons I’ve learned along the way.

Sign up to get updates about the HERO Project below!

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The hero's journey: a story structure as old as time, the hero's journey offers a powerful framework for creating quest-based stories emphasizing self-transformation..

Table of Contents

Holding out for a hero to take your story to the next level? 

The Hero’s Journey might be just what you’ve been looking for. Created by Joseph Campbell, this narrative framework packs mythic storytelling into a series of steps across three acts, each representing a crucial phase in a character's transformative journey.

Challenge . Growth . Triumph .

Whether you're penning a novel, screenplay, or video game, The Hero’s Journey is a tried-and-tested blueprint for crafting epic stories that transcend time and culture. Let’s explore the steps together and kickstart your next masterpiece.

What is the Hero’s Journey?

The Hero’s Journey is a famous template for storytelling, mapping a hero's adventurous quest through trials and tribulations to ultimate transformation. 

What are the Origins of the Hero’s Journey?

The Hero’s Journey was invented by Campbell in his seminal 1949 work, The Hero with a Thousand Faces , where he introduces the concept of the "monomyth."

A comparative mythologist by trade, Campbell studied myths from cultures around the world and identified a common pattern in their narratives. He proposed that all mythic narratives are variations of a single, universal story, structured around a hero's adventure, trials, and eventual triumph.

His work unveiled the archetypal hero’s path as a mirror to humanity’s commonly shared experiences and aspirations. It was subsequently named one of the All-Time 100 Nonfiction Books by TIME in 2011.

How are the Hero’s and Heroine’s Journeys Different? 

While both the Hero's and Heroine's Journeys share the theme of transformation, they diverge in their focus and execution.

The Hero’s Journey, as outlined by Campbell, emphasizes external challenges and a quest for physical or metaphorical treasures. In contrast, Murdock's Heroine’s Journey, explores internal landscapes, focusing on personal reconciliation, emotional growth, and the path to self-actualization.

In short, heroes seek to conquer the world, while heroines seek to transform their own lives; but…

Twelve Steps of the Hero’s Journey

So influential was Campbell’s monomyth theory that it's been used as the basis for some of the largest franchises of our generation: The Lord of the Rings , Harry Potter ...and George Lucas even cited it as a direct influence on Star Wars .

There are, in fact, several variations of the Hero's Journey, which we discuss further below. But for this breakdown, we'll use the twelve-step version outlined by Christopher Vogler in his book, The Writer's Journey (seemingly now out of print, unfortunately).

You probably already know the above stories pretty well so we’ll unpack the twelve steps of the Hero's Journey using Ben Gates’ journey in National Treasure as a case study—because what is more heroic than saving the Declaration of Independence from a bunch of goons?

Ye be warned: Spoilers ahead!

Act One: Departure

Step 1. the ordinary world.

The journey begins with the status quo—business as usual. We meet the hero and are introduced to the Known World they live in. In other words, this is your exposition, the starting stuff that establishes the story to come.

National Treasure begins in media res (preceded only by a short prologue), where we are given key information that introduces us to Ben Gates' world, who he is (a historian from a notorious family), what he does (treasure hunts), and why he's doing it (restoring his family's name).

With the help of his main ally, Riley, and a crew of other treasure hunters backed by a wealthy patron, he finds an 18th-century American ship in the Canadian Arctic, the Charlotte . Here, they find a ship-shaped pipe that presents a new riddle and later doubles as a key—for now, it's just another clue in the search for the lost treasure of the Templars, one that leads them to the Declaration of Independence.

Step 2. The Call to Adventure

The inciting incident takes place and the hero is called to act upon it. While they're still firmly in the Known World, the story kicks off and leaves the hero feeling out of balance. In other words, they are placed at a crossroads.

Ian (the wealthy patron of the Charlotte operation) steals the pipe from Ben and Riley and leaves them stranded. This is a key moment: Ian becomes the villain, Ben has now sufficiently lost his funding for this expedition, and if he decides to pursue the chase, he'll be up against extreme odds.

Step 3. Refusal of the Call

The hero hesitates and instead refuses their call to action. Following the call would mean making a conscious decision to break away from the status quo. Ahead lies danger, risk, and the unknown; but here and now, the hero is still in the safety and comfort of what they know.

Ben debates continuing the hunt for the Templar treasure. Before taking any action, he decides to try and warn the authorities: the FBI, Homeland Security, and the staff of the National Archives, where the Declaration of Independence is housed and monitored. Nobody will listen to him, and his family's notoriety doesn't help matters.

Step 4. Meeting the Mentor

The protagonist receives knowledge or motivation from a powerful or influential figure. This is a tactical move on the hero's part—remember that it was only the previous step in which they debated whether or not to jump headfirst into the unknown. By Meeting the Mentor, they can gain new information or insight, and better equip themselves for the journey they might to embark on.

Abigail, an archivist at the National Archives, brushes Ben and Riley off as being crazy, but Ben uses the interaction to his advantage in other ways—to seek out information about how the Declaration of Independence is stored and cared for, as well as what (and more importantly, who) else he might be up against in his own attempt to steal it.

In a key scene, we see him contemplate the entire operation while standing over the glass-encased Declaration of Independence. Finally, he firmly decides to pursue the treasure and stop Ian, uttering the famous line, "I'm gonna steal the Declaration of Independence."

Act Two: Initiation

Step 5. crossing the threshold.

The hero leaves the Known World to face the Unknown World. They are fully committed to the journey, with no way to turn back now. There may be a confrontation of some sort, and the stakes will be raised.

Ben and Riley infiltrate the National Archives during a gala and successfully steal the Declaration of Independence. But wait—it's not so easy. While stealing the Declaration of Independence, Abigail suspects something is up and Ben faces off against Ian.

Then, when trying to escape the building, Ben exits through the gift shop, where an attendant spots the document peeking out of his jacket. He is forced to pay for it, feigning that it's a replica—and because he doesn't have enough cash, he has to use his credit card, so there goes keeping his identity anonymous.

The game is afoot.

Step 6. Tests, Allies, Enemies

The hero explores the Unknown World. Now that they have firmly crossed the threshold from the Known World, the hero will face new challenges and possibly meet new enemies. They'll have to call upon their allies, new and old, in order to keep moving forward.

Abigail reluctantly joins the team under the agreement that she'll help handle the Declaration of Independence, given her background in document archiving and restoration. Ben and co. seek the aid of Ben's father, Patrick Gates, whom Ben has a strained relationship with thanks to years of failed treasure hunting that has created a rift between grandfather, father, and son. Finally, they travel around Philadelphia deciphering clues while avoiding both Ian and the FBI.

Step 7. Approach the Innermost Cave

The hero nears the goal of their quest, the reason they crossed the threshold in the first place. Here, they could be making plans, having new revelations, or gaining new skills. To put it in other familiar terms, this step would mark the moment just before the story's climax.

Ben uncovers a pivotal clue—or rather, he finds an essential item—a pair of bifocals with interchangeable lenses made by Benjamin Franklin. It is revealed that by switching through the various lenses, different messages will be revealed on the back of the Declaration of Independence. He's forced to split from Abigail and Riley, but Ben has never been closer to the treasure.

Step 8. The Ordeal

The hero faces a dire situation that changes how they view the world. All threads of the story come together at this pinnacle, the central crisis from which the hero will emerge unscathed or otherwise. The stakes will be at their absolute highest here.

Vogler details that in this stage, the hero will experience a "death," though it need not be literal. In your story, this could signify the end of something and the beginning of another, which could itself be figurative or literal. For example, a certain relationship could come to an end, or it could mean someone "stuck in their ways" opens up to a new perspective.

In National Treasure , The FBI captures Ben and Ian makes off with the Declaration of Independence—all hope feels lost. To add to it, Ian reveals that he's kidnapped Ben's father and threatens to take further action if Ben doesn't help solve the final clues and lead Ian to the treasure.

Ben escapes the FBI with Ian's help, reunites with Abigail and Riley, and leads everyone to an underground structure built below Trinity Church in New York City. Here, they manage to split from Ian once more, sending him on a goose chase to Boston with a false clue, and proceed further into the underground structure.

Though they haven't found the treasure just yet, being this far into the hunt proves to Ben's father, Patrick, that it's real enough. The two men share an emotional moment that validates what their family has been trying to do for generations.

Step 9. Reward

This is it, the moment the hero has been waiting for. They've survived "death," weathered the crisis of The Ordeal, and earned the Reward for which they went on this journey.

Now, free of Ian's clutches and with some light clue-solving, Ben, Abigail, Riley, and Patrick keep progressing through the underground structure and eventually find the Templar's treasure—it's real and more massive than they could have imagined. Everyone revels in their discovery while simultaneously looking for a way back out.

Act Three: Return

Step 10. the road back.

It's time for the journey to head towards its conclusion. The hero begins their return to the Known World and may face unexpected challenges. Whatever happens, the "why" remains paramount here (i.e. why the hero ultimately chose to embark on their journey).

This step marks a final turning point where they'll have to take action or make a decision to keep moving forward and be "reborn" back into the Known World.

Act Three of National Treasure is admittedly quite short. After finding the treasure, Ben and co. emerge from underground to face the FBI once more. Not much of a road to travel back here so much as a tunnel to scale in a crypt.

Step 11. Resurrection

The hero faces their ultimate challenge and emerges victorious, but forever changed. This step often requires a sacrifice of some sort, and having stepped into the role of The Hero™, they must answer to this.

Ben is given an ultimatum— somebody has to go to jail (on account of the whole stealing-the-Declaration-of-Independence thing). But, Ben also found a treasure worth millions of dollars and that has great value to several nations around the world, so that counts for something.

Ultimately, Ben sells Ian out, makes a deal to exonerate his friends and family, and willingly hands the treasure over to the authorities. Remember: he wanted to find the treasure, but his "why" was to restore the Gates family name, so he won regardless.

Step 12. Return With the Elixir

Finally, the hero returns home as a new version of themself, the elixir is shared amongst the people, and the journey is completed full circle.

The elixir, like many other elements of the hero's journey, can be literal or figurative. It can be a tangible thing, such as an actual elixir meant for some specific purpose, or it could be represented by an abstract concept such as hope, wisdom, or love.

Vogler notes that if the Hero's Journey results in a tragedy, the elixir can instead have an effect external to the story—meaning that it could be something meant to affect the audience and/or increase their awareness of the world.

In the final scene of National Treasure , we see Ben and Abigail walking the grounds of a massive estate. Riley pulls up in a fancy sports car and comments on how they could have gotten more money. They all chat about attending a museum exhibit in Cairo (Egypt).

In one scene, we're given a lot of closure: Ben and co. received a hefty payout for finding the treasure, Ben and Abigail are a couple now, and the treasure was rightfully spread to those it benefitted most—in this case, countries who were able to reunite with significant pieces of their history. Everyone's happy, none of them went to jail despite the serious crimes committed, and they're all a whole lot wealthier. Oh, Hollywood.

Variations of the Hero's Journey

Plot structure is important, but you don't need to follow it exactly; and, in fact, your story probably won't. Your version of the Hero's Journey might require more or fewer steps, or you might simply go off the beaten path for a few steps—and that's okay!

What follows are three additional versions of the Hero's Journey, which you may be more familiar with than Vogler's version presented above.

Dan Harmon's Story Circle (or, The Eight-Step Hero's Journey)

Screenwriter Dan Harmon has riffed on the Hero's Journey by creating a more compact version, the Story Circle —and it works especially well for shorter-format stories such as television episodes, which happens to be what Harmon writes.

The Story Circle comprises eight simple steps with a heavy emphasis on the hero's character arc:

• The hero is in a zone of comfort...
• But they want something.
• They enter an unfamiliar situation...
• And adapt to it by facing trials.
• They get what they want...
• But they pay a heavy price for it.
• They return to their familiar situation...
• Having changed.

You may have noticed, but there is a sort of rhythm here. The eight steps work well in four pairs, simplifying the core of the Hero's Journey even further:

• The hero is in a zone of comfort, but they want something.
• They enter an unfamiliar situation and have to adapt via new trials.
• They get what they want, but they pay a price for it.
• They return to their zone of comfort, forever changed.

If you're writing shorter fiction, such as a short story or novella, definitely check out the Story Circle. It's the Hero's Journey minus all the extraneous bells & whistles.

Ten-Step Hero's Journey

The ten-step Hero's Journey is similar to the twelve-step version we presented above. It includes most of the same steps except for Refusal of the Call and Meeting the Mentor, arguing that these steps aren't as essential to include; and, it moves Crossing the Threshold to the end of Act One and Reward to the end of Act Two.

• The Ordinary World
• The Call to Adventure
• Crossing the Threshold
• Tests, Allies, Enemies
• Approach the Innermost Cave
• The Road Back
• Resurrection
• Return with Elixir

We've previously written about the ten-step hero's journey in a series of essays separated by act: Act One (with a prologue), Act Two , and Act Three .

Twelve-Step Hero's Journey: Version Two

Again, the second version of the twelve-step hero's journey is very similar to the one above, save for a few changes, including in which story act certain steps appear.

This version skips The Ordinary World exposition and starts right at The Call to Adventure; then, the story ends with two new steps in place of Return With Elixir: The Return and The Freedom to Live.

• The Refusal of the Call
• Meeting the Mentor
• Test, Allies, Enemies
• Approaching the Innermost Cave
• The Resurrection
• The Return*
• The Freedom to Live*

In the final act of this version, there is more of a focus on an internal transformation for the hero. They experience a metamorphosis on their journey back to the Known World, return home changed, and go on to live a new life, uninhibited.

Seventeen-Step Hero's Journey

Finally, the granddaddy of heroic journeys: the seventeen-step Hero's Journey. This version includes a slew of extra steps your hero might face out in the expanse.

• Refusal of the Call
• Supernatural Aid (aka Meeting the Mentor)
• Belly of the Whale*: This added stage marks the hero's immediate descent into danger once they've crossed the threshold.
• Road of Trials (...with Allies, Tests, and Enemies)
• Meeting with the Goddess/God*: In this stage, the hero meets with a new advisor or powerful figure, who equips them with the knowledge or insight needed to keep progressing forward.
• Woman as Temptress (or simply, Temptation)*: Here, the hero is tempted, against their better judgment, to question themselves and their reason for being on the journey. They may feel insecure about something specific or have an exposed weakness that momentarily holds them back.
• Atonement with the Father (or, Catharthis)*: The hero faces their Temptation and moves beyond it, shedding free from all that holds them back.
• Apotheosis (aka The Ordeal)
• The Ultimate Boon (aka the Reward)
• Refusal of the Return*: The hero wonders if they even want to go back to their old life now that they've been forever changed.
• The Magic Flight*: Having decided to return to the Known World, the hero needs to actually find a way back.
• Rescue From Without*: Allies may come to the hero's rescue, helping them escape this bold, new world and return home.
• Crossing of the Return Threshold (aka The Return)
• Master of Two Worlds*: Very closely resembling The Resurrection stage in other variations, this stage signifies that the hero is quite literally a master of two worlds—The Known World and the Unknown World—having conquered each.
• Freedom to Live

Again, we skip the Ordinary World opening here. Additionally, Acts Two and Three look pretty different from what we've seen so far, although, the bones of the Hero's Journey structure remain.

The Eight Hero’s Journey Archetypes

The Hero is, understandably, the cornerstone of the Hero’s Journey, but they’re just one of eight key archetypes that make up this narrative framework.

In The Writer's Journey , Vogler outlined seven of these archetypes, only excluding the Ally, which we've included below. Here’s a breakdown of all eight with examples: 

1. The Hero

As outlined, the Hero is the protagonist who embarks on a transformative quest or journey. The challenges they overcome represent universal human struggles and triumphs. 

Vogler assigned a "primary function" to each archetype—helpful for establishing their role in a story. The Hero's primary function is "to service and sacrifice."

Example: Neo from The Matrix , who evolves from a regular individual into the prophesied savior of humanity.

2. The Mentor

A wise guide offering knowledge, tools, and advice, Mentors help the Hero navigate the journey and discover their potential. Their primary function is "to guide."

Example: Mr. Miyagi from The Karate Kid imparts not only martial arts skills but invaluable life lessons to Daniel.

3. The Ally

Companions who support the Hero, Allies provide assistance, friendship, and moral support throughout the journey. They may also become a friends-to-lovers romantic partner. 

Not included in Vogler's list is the Ally, though we'd argue they are essential nonetheless. Let's say their primary function is "to aid and support."

Example: Samwise Gamgee from Lord of the Rings , a loyal friend and steadfast supporter of Frodo.

4. The Herald

The Herald acts as a catalyst to initiate the Hero's Journey, often presenting a challenge or calling the hero to adventure. Their primary function is "to warn or challenge."

Example: Effie Trinket from The Hunger Games , whose selection at the Reaping sets Katniss’s journey into motion.

5. The Trickster

A character who brings humor and unpredictability, challenges conventions, and offers alternative perspectives or solutions. Their primary function is "to disrupt."

Example: Loki from Norse mythology exemplifies the trickster, with his cunning and chaotic influence.

6. The Shapeshifter

Ambiguous figures whose allegiance and intentions are uncertain. They may be a friend one moment and a foe the next. Their primary function is "to question and deceive."

Example: Catwoman from the Batman universe often blurs the line between ally and adversary, slinking between both roles with glee.

7. The Guardian

Protectors of important thresholds, Guardians challenge or test the Hero, serving as obstacles to overcome or lessons to be learned. Their primary function is "to test."

Example: The Black Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail literally bellows “None shall pass!”—a quintessential ( but not very effective ) Guardian.

8. The Shadow

Represents the Hero's inner conflict or an antagonist, often embodying the darker aspects of the hero or their opposition. Their primary function is "to destroy."

Example: Zuko from Avatar: The Last Airbender; initially an adversary, his journey parallels the Hero’s path of transformation.

While your story does not have to use all of the archetypes, they can help you develop your characters and visualize how they interact with one another—especially the Hero.

For example, take your hero and place them in the center of a blank worksheet, then write down your other major characters in a circle around them and determine who best fits into which archetype. Who challenges your hero? Who tricks them? Who guides them? And so on...

Stories that Use the Hero’s Journey

Not a fan of saving the Declaration of Independence? Check out these alternative examples of the Hero’s Journey to get inspired: 

• Epic of Gilgamesh : An ancient Mesopotamian epic poem thought to be one of the earliest examples of the Hero’s Journey (and one of the oldest recorded stories).
• The Lion King (1994): Simba's exile and return depict a tale of growth, responsibility, and reclaiming his rightful place as king.
• The Alchemist by Paolo Coehlo: Santiago's quest for treasure transforms into a journey of self-discovery and personal enlightenment.
• Coraline by Neil Gaiman: A young girl's adventure in a parallel world teaches her about courage, family, and appreciating her own reality.
• Kung Fu Panda (2008): Po's transformation from a clumsy panda to a skilled warrior perfectly exemplifies the Hero's Journey. Skadoosh!

The Hero's Journey is so generalized that it's ubiquitous. You can plop the plot of just about any quest-style narrative into its framework and say that the story follows the Hero's Journey. Try it out for yourself as an exercise in getting familiar with the method.

Will the Hero's Journey Work For You?

As renowned as it is, the Hero's Journey works best for the kinds of tales that inspired it: mythic stories.

Writers of speculative fiction may gravitate towards this method over others, especially those writing epic fantasy and science fiction (big, bold fantasy quests and grand space operas come to mind).

The stories we tell today are vast and varied, and they stretch far beyond the dealings of deities, saving kingdoms, or acquiring some fabled "elixir." While that may have worked for Gilgamesh a few thousand years ago, it's not always representative of our lived experiences here and now.

If you decide to give the Hero's Journey a go, we encourage you to make it your own! The pieces of your plot don't have to neatly fit into the structure, but you can certainly make a strong start on mapping out your story.

Hero's Journey Campfire Template

The Timeline Module in Campfire offers a versatile canvas to plot out each basic component of your story while featuring nested "notebooks."

Simply double-click on each event card in your timeline to open up a canvas specific to that card. This allows you to look at your plot at the highest level, while also adding as much detail for each plot element as needed!

If you're just hearing about Campfire for the first time, it's free to sign up—forever! Let's plot the most epic of hero's journeys 👇

Lessons From the Hero’s Journey

The Hero's Journey offers a powerful framework for creating stories centered around growth, adventure, and transformation.

If you want to develop compelling characters, spin out engaging plots, and write books that express themes of valor and courage, consider The Hero’s Journey your blueprint. So stop holding out for a hero, and start writing!

Does your story mirror the Hero's Journey? Let us know in the comments below.

Shortform Books

The World's Best Book Summaries

Woman as Temptress: The Hero’s Journey, Stage 8 (Explained)

This article is an excerpt from the Shortform summary of "The Hero with a Thousand Faces" by Joseph Campbell. Shortform has the world's best summaries of books you should be reading.

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What is stage 8 of Joseph Campbell’s hero’s journey? What is the significance of the “woman as temptress”?

The woman as temptress is the stage of the hero’s journey in which the hero is tempted by a “bad” mother figure, a goddess who attempts to either harm the hero, spurn his advances, hamper him in his quest, or tempt him into desire . The woman as temptress is stage 8 of Joseph Campbell’s hero’s journey, from The Hero with a Thousand Faces .

We’ll cover what the woman as temptress entails and look at an example of a hero encountering the woman as temptress.

Stage 8: Woman as Temptress

Now we move into the main action of the myth, wherein the hero undergoes a series of trials and tests, with the aid of their supernatural helper. The hero might also discover the existence of a benevolent, omnipotent power guiding all things in the universe.

Connection with Our Subconscious

Removed from the confines of their safe and familiar world, the mythological hero now confronts a land of symbolic and allegorical figures—according to the psychoanalysts, the same imagery we see in our dreams. Just as the images are instrumental in helping the hero achieve their transformation, they are also puzzles that each of us must unlock in order to understand what our subconscious is trying to tell us.

Unlike the ancients, we do not have the benefit of allegory and mythology to help us make sense of the bubbling up of our subconscious. As a secular, rational society, we increasingly lack the language to process this—psychoanalysis may be the closest thing, but it’s not a substitute for the power of mythology and religion. Indeed, we have rationalized and argued our gods away . It is only through studying these ancient soothsayers and shamans and the dead gods they once worshipped that we can truly grasp our fullest humanity.

In mythology, the hero’s journey often requires entering the underworld or the land of the dead before the stage of woman as temptress.

Union with the Goddess

The goddess is the epitome of beauty and represents the feminine ideal in all its aspects —mother, sister, mistress, and bride. This is the classic maternal goddess figure, the “good” mother.

But there is also a dark twist on this theme. For there is a “bad” mother figure, a goddess who attempts to either harm the hero, spurn his advances, hamper him in his quest, or tempt him into desire . This is the woman as temptress.

Needless to say, these figures are deeply rooted in psychological complexes as we grapple with balancing 1) our need for the love and protection of our parents (especially our mothers) 2) with our concurrent need to grow up and become independent adults (and deny the woman as temptress).

Sometimes, the goddess assumes both forms (goddess mother and woman as temptress)—either a decrepit hag who transforms into a beautiful maiden, or vice versa. Only the truly perceptive hero can fully discover the mysterious nature of womankind. The hero who can show her the right type of kindness is the one truly worthy of being king or even reincarnated God.

Woman as Temptress Example: Niall

In an ancient legend of Ireland, five brother princes separately come across an ugly old woman at the bottom of a well. Looking for water to drink, each brother, in turn, asks her if they can drink from her well. She says they may, but only on the condition that they give her a kiss. The first four refuse, remarking that they would rather die of thirst than put their lips to her hideous countenance. 

The fifth brother, Niall, consents to the woman’s request and kisses her.  After he does so, she transforms into the most beautiful woman in the world. She reveals herself to be the living embodiment of Royal Rule and tells Niall that he has earned the right to his father’s kingdom. He has shown himself willing to embrace the ugly and the beautiful, as a good and noble king should.

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Amanda Penn

Amanda Penn is a writer and reading specialist. She’s published dozens of articles and book reviews spanning a wide range of topics, including health, relationships, psychology, science, and much more. Amanda was a Fulbright Scholar and has taught in schools in the US and South Africa. Amanda received her Master's Degree in Education from the University of Pennsylvania.

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The Heroine’s Journey: How Campbell’s Model Doesn’t Fit

In the first post of the Heroine’s Journey series, we defined the key concepts that form the basis of our heroine-centered storytelling model. As we described, many great stories with a female lead character won’t fit within our Heroine’s Journey framework – for instance, because the protagonist is already an adult and isn’t undergoing a coming of age tale, or because she is an anti-heroine – and that’s part of the intention. Our goal is more limited: to help continue the push for more and better stories with great female leads by thinking about what would constitute the elements of a heroine-centered storytelling model parallel to the well-known Hero’s Journey monomyth.

Which naturally raises the question: why isn’t the existing Hero’s Journey model already good enough to use for heroine-centered stories? In this post, we address the three main problems we see in Joseph Campbell’s monomyth and its impact on storytelling, and how we hope to design the Heroine’s Journey model differently to avoid them.

Campbell’s Model Looks Backward, Not Forward

Joseph Campbell was a skilled academic, and in his long study of myth, legends, and the Hero’s Journey he undertook the kind of extensive research and analysis at which career academics excel. These sorts of projects are the whole point of academic scholarship: a deeply intellectual endeavor involving careful review of the breadth and depth of existing sources, a thoughtful analysis of history and the path of change over time, and a synthesis of concepts and ideas that few others have the time or inclination to undertake. It is hardly surprising, then, that on the merits of his analysis Campbell’s work remains influential and highly regarded decades later.

Like any historically grounded analysis, Campbell’s framework for the Hero’s Journey is inextricably bound up in the values, conventions, and perspectives of the sources upon which it draws. By examining literally thousands of years of human history, Campbell surely identifies concepts, themes, and archetypes that will continue to resonate for centuries to come. At the same time, human civilization has undergone social change at a rate previously unimaginable, especially in modern industrialized and high-tech societies. For that reason, a storytelling model that only looks backward, as Campbell’s model does, runs a great risk of losing touch with the norms and expectations of the contemporary audience.

Even just in American popular culture, comparable examples are easy to identify. The Hollywood westerns of the 1960s and ‘70s, for instance, portray Native Americans in a way that rightfully would be roundly criticized for offensive stereotypes today. And hopefully no one would look to films like Gone With the Wind or The Song of the South for inspiration on how to write African-American characters. Various religious and ethnic groups have been similarly stereotyped in invidious ways, as have gays and lesbians. But looking only at historical sources, rather than contemporary society, is likely to perpetuate these injustices rather than help to end them.

Unfortunately, the same concerns are present in Campbell’s academic study of classical stories. Most of the historical myths he studied arose in profoundly sexist eras of human history. Women were property of their fathers or husbands; they were prizes to be won, or spoils of war to be seized and raped. They often held little role in society other than to bear and raise children, and only rarely did they wield political, military, or religious power. And the stories these societies produced usually portrayed women in similar ways, reflecting how the storytellers and their audiences viewed social relations in their time. Female characters were wives and mothers, seductresses and villains, lovers and conquests – but rarely the celebrated victors.

In Campbell’s famous seventeen-stage framework for the Hero’s Journey, only two stages are described in terms of a role for women, and each is condescending in its own way. In the stage called “The Meeting With the Goddess,” the hero discovers or experiences powerful love, usually either in the form of a “true love” soulmate or an almost divine maternal metaphor. Such female roles are not partners or allies or equals, but figures to be honored or protected, even idolized on a pedestal. In the next stage, called “Woman as Temptress,” the hero is faced with a powerful temptation that threatens to divert him from the path of his destiny, and Campbell chose to frame the metaphor as a woman because so many classical stories used the trope of barely constrained male lust to tempt the hero. The negative implications of slapping all forms of temptation with the broad brush of women’s sexual appeal pretty much speaks for itself. And while other stages of Campbell’s monomyth could include female characters, few of the stories he studied went out of their way to do so.

Consequently, the Heroine’s Journey model cannot hew too closely to Campbell’s model or the historical sources on which he based it. Putting too much weight on old myths with antiquated, if not downright misogynistic, attitudes toward women will only reinforce sexist limitations from a sexist time in human history.

Campbell’s Model is Built for Male Heroes

In large part because of the historical focus of Campbell’s analysis, his model for the Hero’s Journey describes a character arc that is built for male heroes, emphasizing what are familiar and traditional male choices and male values. In Campbell’s monomyth, for example, the hero often leaves his home and his family behind to undertake his adventure, sometimes abandoning his wife and children for years in service of his quest. Or the hero often toils by himself, waging a lone struggle to conquer his adversary. Similarly, the classical Hero’s Journey often involves not just courage or bravery, but a self-aggrandizing pursuit of personal glory and an approach to confrontation and conflict that is often militant, aggressive, or macho. The hero also often is motivated to seek reward or validation from authority figures such as the gods, a king, or his father.

Of course, these sorts of choices and values also may appear in stories with a strong female heroine as the central protagonist – but many such stories will have a far different nature, based in the different choices faced by women and the different values they often possess.

Campbell’s Model Often Is Unintentionally Limiting

Another major influence of the monomyth is probably one that Campbell did not intend. The Hero’s Journey model is focused on the character development arc of the story’s central hero, and many authors following Campbell’s insights design their protagonist’s arc roughly to fit his framework. Given the success of many modern stories based on the monomyth, it is often a good model to follow.

The difficulty arises when the author neglects to design character arcs of meaningful depth for the other characters in the story. Tales of a truly solo hero on a lone adventure are rare; most heroes will have supporting characters joining them on their quests. The stories that give these secondary characters development of their own – like Han Solo’s and Princess Leia’s arcs in the Star Wars Original Trilogy, or Hermione Granger’s and Ron Weasley’s arcs in the Harry Potter series – actually strengthen the arc of the central protagonist, as well. On the other hand, stories with weak or nonexistent arcs for other characters – such as the Fate of the Jedi series in the Star Wars Expanded Universe – often fall flat.

In designing the Heroine’s Journey model to avoid these difficulties, it makes sense to start with the simplest, starkest difference.

The Heroine’s Journey Should Be Built for Female Heroines

Just as Campbell’s monomyth encompasses a wide variety of heroes and their journeys, though, the Heroine’s Journey model for a strong female heroine experiencing a mythic coming of age tale is about defining the broad archetype for these kinds of tales. It should avoid being too restrictive or limiting in its parameters. Not every Heroine’s Journey, for example, will include a love interest, or a family, or a team of allies. Some heroines may not be particularly nurturing, or they may be fighting for personal glory. The goal is not to force all Heroine’s Journeys to conform to specific plot elements or character development tropes; that would be foolish as well as counterproductive. Rather, the goal is to ensure that the Heroine’s Journey model is built in a way that guides storytellers to create stories that are centered not around a “hero with boobs” but around a strong female heroine. Whatever the multitude of possible differences among these epic coming of age tales, a Heroine’s Journey is not just a woman taking a man’s journey, but a woman taking a woman’s journey.

The Heroine’s Journey Should Support Other Characters, Too

Many of the successful stories centered around a strong female heroine also feature a supporting cast whose help is important to the protagonist’s success. Buffy Summers has the Scooby Gang. Katniss Everdeen has Team Katniss . Sydney Bristow has her colleagues at APO, and Jaina Solo has her fellow Jedi and squadron-mates during the Yuuzhan Vong war. Whether it is friends, family, mentors, allies, or lovers, heroines usually work cooperatively with others to achieve their triumphs and endure their tragedies. Consequently, the Heroine’s Journey model should be designed to incorporate these elements as a natural part of the protagonist’s path.

In doing so, the model also helps to avoid some of the unintended effects of Campbell’s monomyth. For one, including other characters in the journey makes it less likely men will be systematically overlooked or downplayed in heroines’ stories, the way the Hero’s Journey can impact female characters. Likewise, building in participation for other characters makes it easier to remember to design character development arcs for them, too, not just for the central protagonist. Again, some Heroine’s Journeys may not have a big cast or a supporting team, but the general framework needs to be built to naturally and readily include these elements.

The Heroine’s Journey Should Be Forward-Looking: Creating Modern Myth

Although we argue that Campbell’s historically based Hero’s Journey model has significant problems that counsel against simply transposing his framework onto the story of a strong female heroine, that doesn’t mean we think the monomyth should be jettisoned completely when it comes to the Heroine’s Journey. To the contrary – as discussed above, history frequently has much utility in understand the present and the future, even as it also has limitations. In formulating a Heroine’s Journey model, then, an important part of the analysis is to determine which aspects of Campbell’s monomyth are appropriate to retain in the Heroine’s Journey, and which should be modified, rejected, or replaced.

One important difference in the Heroine’s Journey model is that it needs to take a modern and forward-looking approach to the roles of women, female characters, and heroines. The values and stories of the past often are inextricably connected with negative views of women in real life and in storytelling. Making a clean break, and focusing on the present and the future, has the best chance of creating stronger female characters in general as well as a Heroine’s Journey model that not only serves the characters well, but also the writers, readers, and audience of the real world, too. Our vision for the Heroine’s Journey is about designing stories and character arcs for heroines the way they should be portrayed, rather than how they have been portrayed (or, more often, not portrayed at all).

If the Heroine’s Journey should be about shaping modern myth, instead of reliance on classical myth, then what does this sort of storytelling entail? Needless to say that is a very broad topic, and books have been written about it . For now, an useful illustrative example is to consider the kind of epic struggle that often forms the core of a mythic tale.

In ancient and classical myths, the iconic struggle is usually based in the divine. The hero may be a demigod, or have a prophesied destiny, or clash with the gods. The hero triumphs by fulfilling his destiny, or fails against the overpowering might of his supernatural opponents. Even in clashes between mere mortals, religion and faith often play a deciding part in who prevails. In whatever their exact form, it is these external forces that shape the nature of the hero’s quest and determine its success or failure.

In the modern era, by contrast, the focus shifts to humanity. The examples are legion across numerous disciplines: democracy and the will of the people replaces the divine right of kings in defining political legitimacy; the philosophy of reason and science supplant theology in understanding morality, society, and the natural world. In storytelling, the iconic struggle changes, too. The hero or heroine faces fundamental challenges presented in notions like free will, a pluralism of religious and moral views of right and wrong, and personal responsibility for our own choices. Rather than faith in an external power, it is often the heroine’s faith in herself, or lack of it, that determines whether she succeeds or fails. And often the hero triumphs not by fulfilling the expectations of others, but by changing the rules and winning on his own terms.

Some of the highly popular and successful genre stories of the contemporary era provide good examples of this use of modern mythmaking. The Star Wars movie saga shows both sides: in the Prequel Trilogy, Anakin Skywalker and the Jedi Order fail because they rely too much on the prophecy of the Chosen One and the “will of the Force” to guide them; in the Original Trilogy, Luke Skywalker defeats the Emperor and redeems Darth Vader by making his own choice, rejecting not only the expectations of Yoda and Obi-Wan Kenobi but also the choice presented by the Sith Lords, too. In all the various iterations of the Star Trek franchise, the core operating principle of the Federation and its Starfleet is the Prime Directive – not a theological rule or a divine command, but a law humankind created for itself as it explored the final frontier. In Serenity , when Mal is struggling and seeks out guidance at Haven, Shepherd speaks to him not about belief in gods, but belief in the self. The reimagined Battlestar Galactica television series carried a similar theme, as Matthew Stover discussed in his provocatively titled essay “The Gods Suck” in the 2006 Smart Pop anthology So Say We All : even in a society of religion, faith, and even occasional divine intervention, ultimately individuals must make their own moral choices. Even the hit Broadway musical Wicked hits this theme in one of its featured songs, Ephalba’s “Defying Gravity,” in which she declares her break from the expectations of her elders and charts her own path.

As with other aspects of the Heroine’s Journey, the variations on modern myth can be as varied as the heroines and their tales. But to do these characters justice, their stories should be grounded in this forward-looking, modern spirit.

In upcoming posts in the blog series, we’ll discuss some of the similarities and differences between the classical monomyth and the contemporary Heroine’s Journey.

In the meantime, you can read these related posts:

The Heroine’s Journey: Defining Concepts

Journey of a Strong Female Heroine: Katniss Everdeen

Team Katniss: Collaborative Success in The Hunger Games

And the characters featured in the Seeking Strong Female Heroines series.

B.J. Priester is editor of FANgirl Blog and contributes reviews and posts on a range of topics. A longtime Star Wars fandom collaborator with Tricia, he is also editing her upcoming novel Wynde. He is a law professor in Florida and a proud geek dad.

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B.J. Priester has been a Star Wars fan since he played with the original Kenner action figures as a young boy. His fandom passion returned after watching Attack of the Clones in 2002 and reading the entire New Jedi Order series in 2003. He voraciously caught up on the novels and comics in the Expanded Universe in addition to writing fanfiction, frequently co-authoring with Tricia. B.J. has served as editor of FANgirl Blog from its inception, as well as contributing reviews and posts on a range of topics. He edited Tricia’s novel Wynde, and is collaborating with her on several future projects set in that original universe. Currently a tenured law professor in Florida, B.J. has been a practicing lawyer in Washington, D.C., a law clerk to a federal appeals court judge, and a law journal editor-in-chief. He is also a proud geek dad whose son who is a big fan of Star Wars and The Clone Wars.

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I always hated Campbell.

Who ARE YOU?? I haven’t even read this yet but only scanned and i dont even know how i found it right now- But we need to talk

I stumbled upon this article because I recently noticed that “Castle”‘s Kate Beckett’s heroine journey follows Campbell’s model to a T. I even wrote a bit about it here: http://bit.ly/KTd54P . I had to modify the model a little bit to bypass certain sexist elements of the monomyth that you spoke of, but I found that the model works for female heroines, or at least it does for Kate Beckett. I didn’t think of her as a “hero with boobs”, I thought of her as a character.

I was actually surprised that Campbell’s model worked for a female heroine because, if I remember correctly, Campbell or one of his scholars presented an alternative, more chopped up, and more sexist, model of the hero journey for female heroines, with different goals, motivations and payoffs. There was something about female heroines’ coming of age not being acknowledged externally — like a male’s coming of age would be — but through an internal change within the woman where she kind of comes to terms with her own womanhood. In this scenario, the hero externally slays a metaphorical dragon and internally comes to terms with his Father (symbolic or literal), whereas the heroine’s journey is purely internal. Kate Beckett experiences both an external and internal change, exactly like Campbell’s male heroes.

I haven’t bothered to apply Campbell’s model to any other modern female heroines, though, so maybe it’s just one isolated instance in which it works, whereas it may not work for any other modern female heroines, but still, it does work.

Of course, as you said, you have to laugh at certain sexist implications in Campbell, which you spoke of (the old virgin-whore dynamic). You can’t take them literally. I think perhaps it’s best to consider certain examples Campbell gives symbolically, eg. slaying a dragon doesn’t have to mean the hero has to slay an actual dragon, and so the Gift of the Goddess doesn’t have to mean eg. a wedding, a reunion with a female lover/mother/repressed femininity.

That said, I find your article refreshing because 1) I’ve been thinking about the hero quest a lot lately and how to make it work for female characters, 2) it gave me a lot to think about, 3) I didn’t really think of the sexist implications in Campbell because I kind of considered the model in terms of character rather than gender. Well, I did think about the sexism, but I chose to ignore it because I thought about character development rather than gender.

I agree that a heroine’s motivation is different than a hero’s, but I think you can still find a way to fit it into Campbell’s model, albeit in a modified form, eg. everything you wrote about the heroine’s motivation (motherhood, work vs. family, etc) can still work within the bounds of Campbell’s model. It doesn’t have to mean that the heroine is a “hero with boobs” if you think about Campbell’s model in terms of character. But I’m also all for a gender-based model of a heroine’s journey in specifically feminine terms, like the one you’re proposing.

I’m actually torn between wanting heroines to follow universal character development, so that it wouldn’t focus on difference and show them in human terms rather than in specifically feminine terms, and a specifically feminine gender-based character development that would focus on difference. I think, generally, they’re the two poles women are torn between that we haven’t really found a way to reconcile yet.

I would be for the Heroine’s Journey if it accounted for the many types of modern femininity: the Lucys, the Laura Petries, the Mary Tyler Moores, the Maddie Hayes, the Diane Chambers, the Liz Lemons, the Murphy Browns, the Sarah Palins, etc., in both universal and specifically feminine terms, without penalizing anyone’s choices. It would have to include the provision that some women do follow a stereotypically male path (which they’re totally okay with, and which is not about “false consciousness” or “internalized sexism” or whatever else have you), and that they’re included, too. As are women who follow a stereotypically male path because of false consciousness and internalized sexism. Otherwise it would be ghettoization all over again.

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I think for older women, the journey is inward to discover our own voice, our own spirituality, through our night dreams, women’s groups, and contemplation. I wonder if it works to take a heroine’s outer journey without first taking the journey to Self. And so the heroine travels within and encounters her inner patriarch, the one who keeps stopping her from doing what she says she wants to do. And she discovers that she is all right as she is; she is not too emotional, too dreamy, too heart-feeling, or too…whatever the world has accused her of being too much of because she is not put together like a man. I do think a tragedy occurs when we blindly emulate the hero’s journey…all people have both classically feminine and masculine traits, but the world has not valued the classic feminine: co-operative, compassionate, nurturing, intuitive, and so on.

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Actually, I still think the Hero’s Journey and the monomyth can work well for the female character. Recently, I watched ‘Gravity’ with Sandra Bullock and found every element of the formula, not only to be present and accounted for, but also to fit very well with the heroine’s journey. If we think Joseph Campbell was thinking backwards and not forwards, then perhaps it us who is thinking backwards and not forwards.

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As long as a heroine is following a self sacrificial path, i don’t see what’s wrong with a female character following the Hero’s Journey.

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Excellent article. Thoroughly enjoyable to read thank you. I’m writing my own article on this topic and while looking up what other people had to say on this topic online found this article – I will link to /quote from this article in my article as it so well written and clear in its points. Can I ask who the author is so I can contact them on twitter?

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I would ask you to look at “The Hero’s Journey” as a metaphor, eliminate the male and female aspects. As a female, yes, I can relate to Luke Skywalker, I have gone through the same “Hero’s Journey” as Luke. I received “The Call to Adventure”, had to deal with my issues with my parents. every single breathing person in this world goes through this, it goes hand and hand with Carl Jung’s “Collective Unconscious”. We all have have more in common than we think, that is why movies like “Star Wars” are so popular, because each one of us relates. Campbell himself did say that many of the myths were limited to to males, again you have to look past the gender issue. I am happy as a female that the stereotypical female is becoming stronger versus the “Save me, where is my white knight in shining Armour” i.e. Cinderella. Yet at the same time look at “The Wizard of Oz” so many things packed into that little gem and goes hand in hand with Star Wars with a female character as the hero. For me what has helped so much is Campbell’s wise words about seeing things metaphorically, just like religious text so many take it literally…“When you translate the Bible with excessive literalism, you demythologize it. The possibility of a convincing reference to the individual’s own spiritual experience is lost. (111)” ? Joseph Campbell, Thou Art That: Transforming Religious Metaphor

I really love this idea. I’ve always felt that the Hero’s Journey is a male-centric model. It was uncovered by analyzing the products of male fantasy and myth. I’ve seen psychologists talk about the role of sexual selection in pushing the hero archetype to the forefront of men’s minds- selection pressure is pretty much a female-on-male phenomenon. Women face an entirely different set of pressures and challenges. It only makes sense for them to have a different archetypal story.

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Check this out – it’s a hoot: https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/the-lady-heros-journey?fbclid=IwAR13Lfbt82V0-hJuW66j1qvoEdI0mDkkO_uufOzlPJNOb32aZq9-RhcYmdk

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12 female tv characters redefining the hero's journey.

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Even if it's not always referred to by name, almost everyone who has ever watched a film or television show, or read a book, is aware of the “hero’s journey.” Within the context of pop culture, heroes like Harry Potter or Frodo Baggins or Luke Skywalker follow the steps within this narrative pattern from beginning to end. But what is refreshing recently in the realm of pop culture is that more and more women have been stepping into the roles typically occupied by men.

And though women still have to fight through the muck and mire in order to garner the respect that their male counterparts would easily obtain, more female heroes (and anti-heroes) are being written well on television these days. They’re characters who are redefining what it means to be a hero and breaking some stereotypes within the narrative context of the hero’s journey .

Here are twelve women who are redefining what it means to be a hero.

12. Carol Peletier ( The Walking Dead )

Carol’s (Melissa McBride) arc in The Walking Dead is one of the most interesting “hero’s journey” developments on the series. She began the series timid, afraid, and meek, and has since evolved into a character who has hardened herself to the world. Carol is not cold – she still maintains emotional connections with others – but she is logical.

Characters generally move from a place of emotional distance to a place of warmth and gentleness throughout the hero’s journey. Carol, on the other hand, moves from places of fear to places of power. She is cunning, utilizing the perception of herself by others in order to gain the upper hand against them. While a lot of the traditional hero’s journey is spent learning how to rely on others, Carol transitions from relying on others and allowing them to manipulate her, to relying on herself.

11. Trish Walker ( Jessica Jones )

When the audience meets Trish Walker (Rachael Taylor) in Netflix’s Jessica Jones , they are conditioned to see her as the sum of her assets – she’s pretty and blonde and enjoys her job. But Trish is much more than that, and this show doesn’t hesitate to remind audiences of that fact. Not only is Trish resilient and tough, but she’s also extremely loyal and loving. She’s able to take care of herself, and she doesn’t play “sidekick” to the hero of the story, Jessica.

Moreover, Trish defines her own narrative and does not allow anyone – not even people she cares about – to define that for her. Trish is not the main character of this series, so she doesn’t immediately embark on a journey. There are not many typical “hero’s journey” tropes here – no necessary “call to adventure” or subsequent “refusal of the call.”

No, Trish Walker is redefining what it means to be a hero and a woman by reminding everyone that women don’t need to have superpowers to be powerful.

10. Iris West ( The Flash )

Not every hero faces a direct call to heroism, nor do they always have a mentor to advise them. In The Flash , Iris West (Candice Patton) asserts this when she tells the titular superhero: “A girl’s gotta be her own hero every now and again.” And that’s precisely the reason Iris is a hero without ever needing to don a mask or a costume. In spite of the often uneven writing of Iris’ character – and the decision on the part of the show’s characters to keep her in the dark about Barry Allen’s (Grant Gustin) superhero alter ego – the writers of the show recognize that a hero’s journey isn’t necessarily one that follows strict progression or the cause-and-effect patterns so often portrayed in pop culture.

Instead of heeding a call to put on a mask because of personal tragedy, Iris West wages her own heroic crusade every day by hunting down leads and typing up stories. Her hero’s journey is one that has progressed from being kept in the dark to fighting bad guys in the light.

9. Felicity Smoak ( Arrow )

When Felicity Smoak (Emily Bett Rickards) debuted on Arrow , she was a bubbly, babbly IT girl. But over the years, the show has progressed her character from one who assists the team from the outside to a woman who uses her skills to become a hero in her own right.

Recently, Felicity and Oliver (Stephen Amell) broke off their engagement. It was Felicity who called it off, after finding out about a child that Oliver kept secret from her. As a result, Felicity has begun to embark on her own alteration of the hero’s journey narrative. Though she will never be the main character of the series or the main focus, her arc appears to be one sprung out of “the ordeal” phase of the narrative. After Felicity’s brief paralyzation and break-up with Oliver, she has begun to realign herself around a central purpose. “The ordeal” phase of the narrative includes this phrase: “Out of the moment of death comes new life.”

Now, Felicity is embarking on this “new life,” apart from Oliver and a new quest that is singularly hers – her own twist on the hero’s journey.

8. Peggy Carter ( Agent Carter )

Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) is a character who is quoted as saying: “I know my value.” As a female character within a realm of male and female superheroes, Peggy Carter is just as heroic. And what’s interesting about her particular hero’s journey is that one of the pillars of a hero’s journey is leaving the normal world in order to be in the fantastical.

What’s admirable about Peggy Carter as a character and why she shakes up this hero’s journey is because she never gives up what she is good at in order to pursue the extraordinary. It is because she is a woman who refuses to be pushed around or dismissed by men that she is revered as a character and a hero. Peggy does make sacrifices – no doubt about it – but she chooses to remain in her circumstances and change them from the inside out. That is heroic.

7. Alex Parrish ( Quantico )

In Quantico , Alex Parrish (Priyanka Chopra) has been a part of an unconventional hero’s journey. Rather than beginning the series in a state of potential heroism, Alex begins the series as a potential villain, being suspected as a terrorist by nearly everyone around her. And yet, Alex is still a hero.

She’s flipping the typical narrative on its head and re-ordering the steps. Because Alex’s story begins with her trying to clear her name – with her presumed guilt, not her innocence. Everything that follows is a desperate attempt at survival and at remaining one step ahead of those who are trying to harm her. In fact, Alex’s narrative is one in which she is nearly immediately immersed in adventure and thrown headfirst into chaos.

In spite of the fact that her journey is not one that perfectly parallels the stereotypical hero’s journey, Alex constantly believes in others and fights for justice. She is self-sacrificing and kind, genuinely caring about those around her. She’s vulnerable and unapologetic in expressing her emotions. Alex is, by all definitions, a hero.

6. Emma Swan ( Once Upon A Time )

In Once Upon A Time , Emma Swan (Jennifer Morrison) begins the series as a non-believer: a woman who is grounded in logic, reason, and – most importantly – pain. Emma has been hurt by past loves, by her family, and by the world, and she isn’t very quick to trust or let others in. Extremely guarded, Emma doesn’t begin the series as someone desperate to escape her world and trade it in for the fantastical. When Henry (Jared Gilmore), the young son she gave up for adoption, approaches her with fairytales, she rebuffs him.

Elements of the hero’s journey play heavily into Emma’s life in Storybrooke and her eventual role as the town’s savior – “refusal of the call” being a part of the story that Emma weaves for herself frequently. But it is in Emma’s constant shifting and emotional growth that she becomes the hero she was always meant to be. And what’s so refreshing is that Once Upon A Time fixates on the fact that heroes are not meant to journey alone. It is Emma’s constantly growing trust in others that is one of her most heroic traits.

5. Kara Danvers/Supergirl ( Supergirl )

Kara Danvers (Melissa Benoist) is, by all accounts, a normal young woman working at CatCo media. But her secret identity is that of Supergirl, a woman with incredible strength and the ability to fly. In the first season of the CBS series , Kara has embarked on a journey to discover who she is – both with and without her powers. The duality of identity is something superheroes struggle with and Kara knows this all too well. In spite of all of that – or perhaps because of it – Kara has embarked on her own hero’s journey. She has no mentor, necessarily, to guide her. At the beginning of the series, that role was partially filled by Superman’s advice.

But what Supergirl has done as a series is remind the audience that Kara doesn’t need constant reassurance or aid from her superhero cousin. Kara relies on others for help and occasionally for advice, but she is her own guiding force. And that aspect of her journey has allowed Kara to become more relatable and more well-rounded as both a hero and a woman.

4. Clarke Griffin ( The 100 )

There is nothing very typical about Clarke Griffin (Eliza Taylor), a teenaged survivor, commander, and compassionate leader. Clarke hasn’t always longed for adventure, though, nor has she longed for heroism. She has simply longed to keep her people alive. That is what Clarke cares most about. She is a woman who deeply loves, and love is occasionally her weakness. In terms of the hero’s journey narrative, Clarke embarking on a journey to earth would be considered her fulfillment of the “crossing the threshold.”

But instead of facing one arc or journey, Clarke is constantly bombarded with decisions that define her as a hero. She is forced to make tough calls – decisions that would make even adults with years of tactical and military experience pause – and makes these calls with the best interests of her people constantly at the forefront of her mind. Though she does not always make the perfect decisions or even the right ones, Clarke’s heroism stems from self-sacrifice: she is willing to bear the burden of guilt for horrible things so that those she loves will not have to.

This dark and gritty element is what makes her such an intriguing female character and hero. As more and more of pop culture is beginning to embrace atypical heroines – ones who break molds and who serve larger, more integral purposes apart from just being pretty faces – Clarke Griffin is an example of a hero to model after.

3. Elektra ( Daredevil )

In terms of a hero’s journey, Daredevil ’s Elektra (Elodie Yung) falls more toward the side of “anti-hero” than anything else. When she is first introduced, it is as a seductive, talented assassin who would gladly sacrifice anyone and anything that stands between her and what she wants. She cares deeply about Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) and vocalizes this later in the season, but she also enjoys luring him into her schemes, in spite of the fact that Matt knows they do not generally lead anywhere good. Elektra pushes Matt, both in the flashbacks and in the present-day, and the most complex thing about her is the fact that she’s not always good or noble. In fact, she rarely is – she chooses to lie or else evade the truth, and she gets a rush from killing. Elektra is a bit unhinged in many ways. So then why is she not a villain?

Because her character’s journey – though not always noble – is a spin on the hero’s journey narrative. Elektra is tested by Stick (Scott Glenn) and must make the choice to remain with Matt or return to the man who trained her. Elektra begins to believe there might be something good still within her, and the longer she spends with Matt, the more she dares to believe this is true. But there’s also this inner conflict, because at the same time Elektra wants to be good, she also doesn’t want to be. She doesn’t want to put people behind bars – she wants to bury them.

So while the typical tension in the hero’s journey focuses on a pull between two desires (the normal life vs. the extraordinary), Elektra’s pulls or darker, vaster, and more complex than that. Moreover, in the part of the journey where the hero has to sort out allegiances, Elektra has to sort out her internal allegiances rather than external ones. The fact that Elektra’s struggles are mostly inward and her biggest adversary is herself makes this character’s heroic journey toward self-sacrifice all the more interesting.

2. Sara Lance ( Arrow , Legends of Tomorrow )

Sometimes, where we pick up a heroic journey isn’t at the beginning of the story, but the middle. When audiences are first truly introduced to Sara Lance (Caity Lotz), she is donning a black mask and wielding a bo staff against enemies. Her alter ego – the Canary – is filled with pain and darkness. Sara’s journey may have begun on a boat, but her hero’s journey began when she returned to Starling City. After spending time training in the League of Assassins, Sara began to harness her inner pain and use it as a weapon against others. The more Sara fought and killed, the more she sunk into the pain within her own heart.

And that’s precisely what makes Sara Lance’s journey so refreshing. Because in spite of the fact that she does not believe she is a hero, Sara is one. Her journey is unlike most – she begins big, pivotal moments of  Arrow in the “resurrection” phase of the traditional narrative – and darker than most as well. Rather than donning a costume to hide her identity from others, Sara dons one to hide from herself. It’s this self-deprecation that is not as common in the hero’s journey but that adds an extremely interesting layer of complexity to Sara as a hero.

It is only when Sara begins to embrace the goodness within and around her that she begins to see herself worthy enough to be deemed “heroic.” She was a hero in the beginning – saving the life of a woman who was being attacked by a group of men – but on Legends of Tomorrow , Sara has begun to more fully embrace the lightness that her soul still has. A hero’s journey typically bridges the ordinary with the extraordinary, peppering darkness in like a seasoning: in small doses and with little pungency.

But Sara’s darkness is deep and vast, and lightness is seasoned sparingly throughout. Nevertheless, it is the harnessing of that light and stints in the darkness that make Sara Lance so heroic.

1. Jessica Jones ( Jessica Jones )

Brash, dark, and perpetually drinking, Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter) is the kind of character no one would suspect to be a hero. And truly, what is impressive about the Netflix series is its refusal to sugarcoat Jessica’s character or her tragedy. This is a woman who begins the series in massive pain, seeking only to survive. She has no hope of anything outside of merely existing. But then, hope (both literal and figurative) is introduced into her life, and Jessica is changed. A hero’s journey typically begins with a tension between a life they know and a life they desire. And through Hope’s (Erin Moriarty) pain and abuse at the hands of Kilgrave (David Tennant), Jessica is catapulted back into her own pain.

There is dark parallelism present in Jessica Jones , because though the titular character appears to be the exact opposite of what one might consider “heroic,” she is a hero no less. Jessica doesn’t follow the hero’s journey exactly, but important pieces (like “the resurrection” phase in which there is a final sacrifice to be made, for example) are prevalent. Not all hero’s journeys are full of light and easy solutions. Though Jessica eventually completes the cyclical journey of a hero by defeating the man who abused her and breaking others free as well, that doesn’t mean her journey is full of light. Jessica Jones, as a series, is dark and filled with heaviness. It stands to reason then that Jessica’s journey toward heroism would be similar.

What other female characters have you seen break traditional heroic roles in pop culture?