Why Is the Hero’s Journey So Popular?

The Hero’s Journey has remained popular with audiences and writers since Joseph Campbell first published The Hero with a Thousand Faces in 1949 because the story structure entertains, informs, and inspires.

The Hero’s Journey

Boiled down, the hero goes some place and returns transformed, producing audience benefits (e.g., entertainment, information, and inspiration).

Audience’s Viewpoint

The hero’s journey appeals to many people because they love a person of courage who goes on an exciting adventure and returns transformed by life’s lessons.

Following the hero on the journey benefits the audience.

• The audience enjoys a sense of entertainment from the journey.
• Readers gain information about how people and the world work.
• Individuals feel a sense of inspiration to make personal changes.

Writer’s Viewpoint

The hero’s journey is popular with writers because it’s a storytelling framework.

• A timeless and successful pattern to create today’s myths.
• Global story beats help authors fulfill readers’ expectations.
• The ability to engage audiences with a sense of the familiar.

Where Does the Hero’s Journey Fall Short?

The Hero’s Journey marks many key milestones on the book-writing path, but for novelists, you’ll notice it does not fulfill all the expectations of today’s picky audiences.

Partial Framework

The universal tropes (i.e., patterns) in the Hero’s Journey offer writers many of the familiar story beats readers will love.

• You’ll find those global patterns in today’s popular books and films.
• However, you’ll also discover audiences want more.

Additional Story Beats

Because the Hero’s Journey gives writers only a partial framework of what makes for a great story, writers search for the additional story beats readers expect.

• The Hero’s Journey offers key beats, but no single story structure is perfect.
• Writers must find, adopt, and adapt a story structure to meet their needs.

The Writer’s Journey by Christopher Vogler

Christopher Vogler recognized The Hero’s Journey was popular, and he described in a 1985 memo its value for Walt Disney Animation executives regarding The Lion King. Later, Vogler turned his memo into a book, and The Writer’s Journey details a twelve-stage, myth-inspired method about cinematic storytelling.

Here’s a side-by-side comparison of the two story structures.

The Writer’s Journey offers detailed examples, and many of Vogler’s insights apply to novelists, but there’s still an opportunity for additional story beats.

Notable Teachers of Global Story Beats

Other teachers expanded on the global Story Beats.

For example:

• Super Structure by James Scott Bell
• Save The Cat! by Blake Snyder
• Structuring Your Novel by K. M. Weiland

From Bell, Snyder, and Weiland, we discover additional story beats, the ones that help novelists fulfill more of their target audience’s expectations.

The Trellis Method vs. Other Story Structures

Viewing story structure while standing on the shoulders of giants in the industry allows us to see further down the writing road.

With that in mind, the Trellis Method offers writers three key benefits.

1. Save Time and Money. The Trellis Method distills the best of what top writers already figured out, maximizing your time to write instead of studying, and so you don’t have to search, it provides additional story beats.
2. Universal Story Beats. The 18 Story Beats guide the narrative, dovetailing perfectly with the Key Scenes and Conventions of your chosen genre, and like a map, those detailed patterns mark the path to your desired story destination.
3. Repeatable Process. You can use the Trellis Method and its supporting worksheets and checklists again and again.

Here’s a comparison of the Trellis Method to four popular story structures.

Download the free pdf and explore how the Trellis Method’s comprehensive framework fulfills readers’ expectations by including more story beats.

What about Genre Conventions and Key Scenes?

In a future post, I’ll share how the Trellis Method’s overarching Story Beats empower you to create a mixed-genre story with multiple points of view.

Compare the five story structures shown in the download.

• Pay attention to how the Trellis Method creates a familiar narrative flow.

• When readers feel comfortable with the story structure, they suspend their disbelief and immerse themselves in your story.
• Once engaged, you have another opportunity.

Your innate creativity plus a timeless story structure engages readers, so you can surprise and delight them with a unique twist!

“The stuff dreams are made of*,” and it’s how you write a book readers will love.

*Note: Hat tip to Humphrey Bogart’s delivery of that line near the end of the Maltese Falcon.

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