#Heroine's Journey

[whilereadingandwalking]

The Heroine with 1,001 Faces by Maria Tatar is a powerful book of literary analysis seeking to do for heroines what Joseph Campbell famously did with "the hero's journey" (in which he dismissed female characters as having much purpose at all).

I really enjoyed most of the literary analysis in this book! I particularly loved the monomyth of woman as weaver/truth-teller/spider/spinner. Charlotte and her web, Arachne punished by Athena, Philomena exposing her assault through tapestry. Women and girls are silenced, limited in their creativity, but they use it. Women use their supposed invisibility to find ways around silencing. Telling truth, exposing story, seemed to be women's fundamental purpose in myth and folklore, broadcasting injury and harm to change the world or impose justice, even when their good work is then punished.

Increasingly over the years, the stories that women used to pass on knowledge became vilified in our culture, dismissed as 'old wives' tales' as women became gossipers, storytellers but of stories with little to no value. Yet even as this disdain for women's speech grew, women authors wrote characters who used their curiosity, nosy-ness, gossip, to succeed. And then they wrote heroines who learned to fly under the radar to investigate and expose the truth, from Nancy Drew to Marple to Katniss Everdeen.

So much of the analysis by Tatar was fascinating and brilliant. I did sometimes struggle with the writing however. In academic fashion, she brings in many examples where she'll analyze without a concluding statement or point. Sometimes I was desperate for a sentence at the end of an analysis or even a chapter that summed up a bit, connected it back to the larger thesis. I could have used a more conclusive tone, in other words, throughout a lot of the book, to keep me as a reader on track with the heroine's journey she was showing us.

Still, I loved a lot of this, and will take a ton of it with me moving forward as a reader and writer. I especially loved her point that myth is still evolving, that the women retelling old fairytales and myths right now are doing the work that was always needed, because those stories were never meant to be written, cemented fixtures, but ever-changing stories that shift to fit their times and listeners. Altogether, an interesting if sometimes difficult read.

[high-quality-tiktoks]

Love spotting the heroine's journey in film & hoping to see it in barbie

[allgirlsareprincesses]

I'm gonna write a meta about Guildford Dudley's Heroine's Journey in My Lady Jane. Because there's nothing I love as much as a man going on a feminine journey!

[tinyreviews]

Writing Tips: Heroic Story Structures

Hello! Today I’ll talk about the story structure of Hero’s and Heroine’s Journey. And how they (and all popular structures) are similar.

The Hero's Journey:

The quintessential heroic story structure is also referred to as the "Hero's Journey" or the "Monomyth," a narrative pattern identified by Joseph Campbell in his work "The Hero with a Thousand Faces." This structure outlines a series of stages that the hero typically goes through in their journey. 

Here’s my interpretation of the Hero’s Journey:

The Ordinary World: The hero's normal life before the adventure begins. This establishes who the hero is and what his goals are.

The Call to Adventure: The hero is presented with a challenge, problem, or adventure. This event disrupts the hero’s normal life and sets the story in motion.

Refusal of the Call: The hero initially refuses the call to adventure due to fear, insecurity, or other reasons.

Meeting the Mentor: The hero encounters a mentor who provides guidance, wisdom, magical gifts, or training. The mentor helps the hero prepare for the journey ahead.

Crossing the Threshold: The hero commits to the adventure and leaves his ordinary world, entering a dangerous new world.

Tests, Allies, and Enemies: The hero faces challenges, makes allies, and encounters enemies. These experiences help the hero grow and develop.

Approach to the Inmost Cave: The hero approaches a major challenge or crisis. Perhaps, a dangerous place where the object of the quest is hidden.

The Ordeal: The hero faces a life-threatening challenge that tests his abilities and resolve.

The Reward: After overcoming the ordeal, the hero receives a reward or accomplishes his goal. This reward could be an object, knowledge, or reconciliation.

The Road Back: The hero begins the journey back to his ordinary world, often facing additional challenges or a pursuit by remaining enemies.

The Resurrection: The hero faces a final test where everything is at stake, maybe involving a moment of death and rebirth. This stage represents the hero’s ultimate transformation.

Return with the Elixir: The hero returns to his ordinary world, bringing back something valuable that can benefit his community. This "elixir" can be a physical object, knowledge, or a new sense of purpose.

The Heroine's Journey:

Originally proposed by Maureen Murdock as a framework for exploring the female experience in literature. A counterpart to the Hero's Journey.

Here’s my interpretation of the Heroine’s Journey:

Separation from the Feminine:  The heroine begins in a world dominated by traditional female roles and seeks to escape from these limitations, rejecting her feminine qualities.

Identification with the Masculine: The heroine embraces traditionally masculine traits to succeed in a patriarchal society. She gathers allies who help her navigate this new world.

The Road of Trials: The heroine faces a series of challenges and obstacles. These trials help her develop abilities and resolve.

Finding the Boon of Success: The heroine achieves her goal. She gains success in the masculine world.

Awakening to Feelings of Spiritual Death: The heroine experiences a sense of emptiness. Her previous pursuit brings no fulfilment. She confronts inner fears and doubts.

Ascent to the Goddess: The heroine embarks on an inner journey, reconnecting with her feminine aspects and seeking deeper wisdom. She faces her shadow self.

Reconnect with the Feminine: The heroine feels a strong desire to reintegrate the feminine into her life, recognizing the importance of balance and wholeness. This involves healing relationships and embracing compassion

Healing the Mother/Daughter Split: The heroine heals her relationship with her mother or maternal figure, symbolizing the reconciliation of feminine aspects within herself. This can also represent healing with other significant female relationships.

Healing the Wounded Masculine: The heroine helps to heal the wounded masculine within herself and others, fostering a balanced and integrated sense of self. This often involves acknowledging the positive aspects of masculine traits.

Union of Masculine and Feminine: The heroine achieves a wholeness of both masculine and feminine qualities, finding harmony within herself. She finds a new sense of wisdom and balance.

Bonus - Return to Community: The heroine returns to her community with her new understanding. She imparts her knowledge to her community.

Drawing upon both structures, and simplifying them further, into my favorite 7 beat structure:

Old World: Establish who the hero is. The heroine is usually dissatisfied by her feminine qualities and adopts masculine qualities.

Call To Adventure: Also known as the Inciting Incident. An event propels the hero(and heroine) towards a New World. 

New Journey: They meet with mentors, allies, enemies, and obstacles. 

Midpoint: An important twist or reveal happens. For the heroine, she experiences an early victory here.

Lowest Point: They experience drastic setback. All seem lost. For the heroine, she feels empty, without her feminine self.

Highest Point: The final conflict where they overcome their greatest obstacle to achieve their goal. For the heroine, she realizes she must embrace both masculine and feminine qualities to be whole, to be her best self. She uses this to overcome her greatest obstacle.

New World: They gain new experiences, new knowledge, maybe even a physical boon. And use this to benefit their community.

So there you have it. Both Hero’s and Heroine’s story structure. I feel all stories follow the same structure, more or less. Old World, Call To Adventure, New Journey, Mid Point, Low Point, High Point, and New World. The Heroine’s story is more nuanced I guess. In that she gets both an external and internal journey. Though we can also write the Hero’s journey in the same fashion.

I am always on the lookout for structures that are wholly different than this 7 beat structure. But so far, I always manage to contort all other structures into this one. So I am still searching...

This is part of my Writing Tips series. I publish writing tips to this blog.

[writingtheother]

Webinar: The Heroine's Journey with Gail Carriger

We've all heard about the Hero's Journey, but how often do we hear about the Heroine's Journey, Western culture's other prominent story structure?

In this webinar, New York Times bestselling author @gailcarriger provides a full break down of what aspects of the heroine's journey make for compelling narratives and voracious readers, where these elements originate, why they're successful, and how to write them. She'll help you take control of story structure by delving behind the scenes for hidden messages and gain insight into under-studied narrative conventions and modern publishing markets.

After this webinar you'll have the tools to craft narrative beats, steps to write a compelling journey, and an understanding of why these are appealing based on history and mythology. You'll also gain an understanding of why genre fiction (and romance in particular) is dismissed, vilified, and disregarded, and how to combat this negative stereotyping.

You'll leave with a solid and powerful alternate model to the overused and chronically discussed Hero's Journey that is guaranteed to have you looking at and discussing plot structure in pop culture differently for the rest of your life.

When: June 15th, 2024 | 10AM – 5PM Pacific Time Can't make the live webinar? Register to get the recording after Price: $75 – $100 Scholarships Available | Deadline: May 25

Please visit our website more details on registration options, required texts (if any), technical requirements, our accessibility statement, class audience, and the scholarship application.

👉🏾👉🏾 Details and Registration 👈🏾👈🏾

[innervoiceartblog]

Vasilisa Goes Into the Woods by Forest Rogers

[fortunatefires]

I could be crazy but Fang Runin follows the heroine's journey when it comes to her culture

Separation starts even before the story began. She is a war orphan raised completely separate without any knowledge of her culture.

Then there is identification with her colonizers, recognizing that they are the only way she can escape her life.

She is kicked out of her classes for her dark skin and social class. But Jiang soon recognizes her dedication and trains her.

But instead of healing there is only rage. She breaks away from the culture that has bound her.

[jesterbells]

Dunno how to put it properly into words but lately I find myself thinking more about that particular innocence of fairy tales, for lack of better word. Where a traveller in the middle of a field comes across an old woman with a scythe who is very clearly Death, but he treats her as any other auntie from the village. Or meeting a strange green-skinned man by the lake and sharing your loaf of bread with him when he asks because even though he's clearly not human, your mother's last words before you left home were to be kind to everyone. Where the old man in the forest rewards you for your help with nothing but a dove feather, and when you accept even such a seemingly useless reward with gratitude, on your way home you learn that it's turned to solid gold. Where supernatural beings never harm a person directly and every action against humans is a test of character, and every supernatural punishment is the result of a person bringing on their own demise through their own actions they could have avoided had they changed their ways. Where the hero wins for no other reason than that they were a good person. I don't have the braincells to describe this better right now but I wish modern fairy tales did this more instead of trying to be fantasy action movies.

[what-about-zaladane]

The Heroine's Journey Tarot Spread, Variant B

This is variant on this spread which adheres more closely to the "three act" structure outlined in Greer's book.

It is a 10-card spread: A 3x3 block of cards, with a 10th card below. Each row is an Act -- each of the three cards is the first, middle, and last card in that Act. The 10th card is the World, which exists outside the Acts -- it is the act of becoming and fulfillment, and is the only upright card in the spread.

The Hero's Journey normally has the Fool floating outside the Acts, above the spread. The Heroine's Journey has the World floating outside the Acts, below the spread. It's an inversion in and of itself.

Purpose: Use this spread to trace your descent, your disassembly, and your reformation. It is not a spread of clarity—it is a spread of becoming.

ACT I: DEPARTURE & DISSOLUTION

Card 1 – The Mask (Fool Rx) [Moore: Situation] The fracture of identity. What part of you is unraveling or performing? What have you lost touch with in yourself?

Card 2 – The Loss (Empress Rx) [Moore: Inner Root] What was denied to you? What nurturing or belonging did you long for but not receive?

Card 3 – The Entanglement (Lovers Rx) [Moore: Challenge] Where have you chosen out of fear, obligation, or seduction? What false desire has shaped you?

ACT II: DESCENT & DISINTEGRATION

Card 4 – The Break (Chariot Rx) [Moore: Turning Point] Where did momentum slip through your fingers? What were you trying to control that couldn't be held?

Card 5 – The Collapse (Wheel Rx) [Moore: External Force] What outside event, accident, or betrayal disrupted your life path? What fortune turned?

Card 6 – The Descent (Death Rx) [Moore: Deep Self] What part of your old self must be surrendered or buried? What must die to make room?

ACT III: INTEGRATION & RETURN

Card 7 – The Healing (Temperance Rx) [Moore: Integration] What balance are you learning to hold? What new rhythms or rituals are forming in your bones?

Card 8 – The Glimmer (Star Rx) [Moore: Support] What part of your hope is soft, uncertain, but real? What quiet light still shines for you?

Card 9 – The Voice (Judgment Rx) [Moore: Expression] What truth wants to be spoken? What story are you here to tell -- not loudly, but fully?

CARD 10 – THE WORLD (Upright) [Moore: Alignment] Who are you now? What have you reclaimed? This card is not drawn -- it is placed upright as a promise, a beacon, and a reminder: You return with wholeness. You return with wisdom. You return as yourself.

Options for this Spread

Pull all the cards reversed, except for the 10th card. The World is the stepping stone -- and the choice -- to convert to uprightness and begin as the Fool in the Hero's Journey.

You can use optional upright shadow counterparts for each of the 9 cards in the main block. The Question: "What happens when I integrate this?" The Answer: The upright add-on card.

[writingtheother]

Reminder: The Heroine's Journey webinar registration ends June 9!

There are still spots available. And you can still register to get the recording after.

Date: June 15th, 10AM – 5PM Pacific Time Price: $75 – $100

👉🏾👉🏾 Get Details or Register Now 👈🏾👈🏾

@gailcarriger

[tarysande]

Mass Effect 2: The Case for the Heroine's Journey

I have a theory. And I think it's something others--especially other storytellers--might find interesting. It explains why some people absolutely adore Mass Effect 2 while others (not as many, in my experience!) think dealing with all the companions and their personal quests is boring or irrelevant.

What it boils down to is the difference between the Hero's Journey and the Heroine's Journey. There a couple of takes on the Heroine's Journey (ranging from more philosophical and psychoanalytical to more story-based), and I'm going to be pulling hard from the story-based iteration, which author Gail Carriger has written a fabulous book about. I highly recommend it.

One thing I want to mention right off the bat: the gender, sex, or sexuality of your protagonist has nothing to do with whether they're a hero or a heroine.

Everyone and their dog knows the Hero's Journey. A literal ton of writing advice refers to the Hero's Journey as if it's the be-all and end-all of narrative (thanks Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell, and Christopher Vogler); it ain't called the monomyth for nothing.

But if a part of you grits your teeth every time it gets trotted out as The One Right Way to tell a story that sells or a story people love, you may have your mind blown by the concept of the Heroine's Journey. Every single one of you who tingles with excitement at the very thought of found family (or romance, for that matter)? Yeah, strap in, we're going for a ride.

I don't want to go into a lot of detail about the Hero's Journey; it's everywhere. You know it even if you don't realize you know it. So for brevity's sake, I'll give you wikipedia's one-sentence description: a hero goes on an adventure, is victorious in a decisive crisis, and comes home changed or transformed. Luke Skywalker. Everyone always talks about Luke Skywalker. And on the surface, Mass Effect could seem like a Hero's Journey, right?

According to Gail, a Hero's Journey boils down to

A repeated pattern of withdrawal and return, and those withdrawals are voluntary, as voluntary withdrawal and increased isolation yields self-reliant strength.

Victory is in isolation and asking for help is bad.

But looking at it (especially ME2) through the lens of the Heroine's Journey is where it gets interesting.

This is the infographic Gail created and supplies on her website:

In her book, Gail notes that not every element has to be present to qualify a story as a Hero/Heroine's Journey and the events don't have to happen specifically in this order.

In the Heroine's Journey

The heroine's withdrawal is involuntary; something is broken and she must abdicate the power she had in order to rebuild, retrieve, or reunite with what was taken or broken.

Victory is a group effort; asking for help is a sign of strength; and the protagonist realizes that while she can't do everything herself, she has surrounded herself with people whose skills she can effectively deploy.

In the Heroine's Journey, the DESCENT is involuntary. Something is done to her or taken from her, and it breaks her familial network.

In ME2, obviously, uh, the thing that's taken from Shepard is her own life. Of course, instead of that being the end of the story, it's the inciting incident that leads to the involuntary withdrawal from her found family on the Normandy, her connection to the Alliance, and her Spectre status. Her home is literally destroyed. And then, kinda hilariously, she wakes up in the literal underworld. You know. Cerberus, dog that guards the gates of Hades?

I play a very Paragon Shepard and haven't played Renegade, so I can't speak to that. However, I can tell you that my Paragon Shep wakes up working for Cerberus and promptly proceeds to gain more Renegade points in the first couple of missions--hell, the first couple of conversations with Miranda, Jacob, and TIM--than she got in all of ME1.

Jacob: Do you trust me, Shepard? Shepard: NO, omg.

I've probably played ME2 five or six times with this Shepard, and she always strikes me as a bit off, a bit manic even, until she sees Tali. And she doesn't really start to settle or feel like herself until Archangel takes off his helmet, believes she is who she says she is, and without hesitation agrees to follow her into hell.

(As the protagonist in his own story, Garrus is also a heroine on a Heroine's Journey, by the by. Shepard's death breaks his network; C-Sec and the Council's denial of the Reapers leads to his abdication of power in the hunt for justice. His underworld is Omega. He puts together a surrogate family to fight injustice; he learns to delegate; he doesn't do it for glory... And then Sidonis's betrayal breaks the new family and sends him on another cycle. My theory, however, is that if you let him kill Sidonis, his journey takes on the revenge aspect of a Hero's Journey instead of the family and reunification structure of a Heroine's Journey.)

In ME2, the arc of recruiting an ally, earning their loyalty, and deploying their suggestions to improve the entire team's chances of survival is repeated over and over; this is the SEARCH of the cycle. And anyone who's ever tried to race their way through ME2 without doing all those loyalty missions or without scanning all those planets for resources finds out pretty quick why they're important.

So, while you potentially could race through ME1 without even recruiting several teammates (did you even know you can play that game without recruiting Garrus???), thereby making it much more of a Hero's Journey of the Strength of the Individual, you really can't do that in ME2 without massive casualties. You need the people around you. You need to build relationships. And you need to learn to delegate well, or things will absolutely fall apart during the end run.

Even the stated mission of ME2 is more Heroine's Journey. You're not fighting for glory; in fact, most of the people who used to be in awe of you now think you're a crazy terrorist. You're fighting to stop what's happening to human colonists.

The end run is so satisfying specifically because it leans in to the Heroine's Journey of information gathering and network building. You cannot beat the game as a solitary soldier. You cannot achieve a good outcome--minimal deaths, etc.--without having spent a lot of time and effort gaining the loyalty of your crew and then knowing how to deploy them to best serve the whole team.

ME2 is a story about finding and building a family after the last one is broken.

And though it's a whole other can of worms, I actually think the reason why the ending of ME3 was ultimately so unsatisfying for so many (again, not all) is because the majority of the game is once again a Heroine's Journey--team building and information gathering across the galaxy--but the endgame pulls the expected narrative out from under you. Instead of actually using the resources you've so carefully built, you're quite literally beamed up into complete isolation (weakness) and left to make a choice in isolation. It breaks the narrative promise that's been set up since the beginning of the game. And, whether you realize it or not, that's a huge part of why that lonely choice feels so hollow. Instead of a structured reunion and a rebuilt network, it's actually the broken family and involuntary descent that heralds the beginning of a new Heroine's Journey--not the the end of a successful one.

Also, incidentally? It's Heroine's Journeys that usually get satisfying instead of distracting-the-hero-from-his-real-mission romance, banter, fully realized side characters, and humor.

[what-about-zaladane]

The Heroine's Journey Tarot Spread

(Here's a different, more structured variant on this spread.)

Based on Mary K. Greer's archetypal (reversed) Heroine's Journey in The Complete Book of Tarot Reversals, and Barbara Moore's modular spread principles in Tarot Spreads. A mythic self-exploration.

Why doesn't this follow the format of the Hero's Journey? Because Greer’s heroine’s path isn’t linear: it’s spiral, archetypal, mythic, and lunar.

Reversing the arc scrambles it intentionally to reflect inner fragmentation, psychic realignment, and shadow-walking.

9 cards, 3 phases.

Phase 1: The Descent (The Shattering)

You are not broken. You are being disassembled on purpose.

Position 1: The Mask

Moore Function: The Situation

Greer Theme: The Fool, reversed

Card Meaning: What you once believed yourself to be; the identity you wore into the world

Position 2: The Gatekeeper

Moore Function: The Challenge

Greer Theme: The Magician, reversed

Card Meaning: What keeps you from reclaiming power. A false story, a fear of misusing it.

Position 3: The Lost Thing

Moore Function: The Heart

Greer Theme: The Empress, reversed

Card Meaning: What was denied to you, or what you were asked to surrender. Your inheritance, your softness.

Phase 2: The Limen (The Holding)

You are in the in-between. Not what you were. Not yet what you will be.

Position 4: The Witness

Moore Function: Inner Voice

Greer Theme: The Hermit, reversed

Card Meaning: What sees you, even now. What persists through silence.

Position 5: The Bone Thread

Moore Function: Advice

Greer Theme: Death, reversed

Card Meaning: The thread you must follow, even if it costs you comfort. The truth beneath endings.

Position 6: The Mirror

Moore Function: Reflection

Greer Theme: The Star, reversed

Card Meaning: The hope you are afraid to claim. Your future self whispering back.

Phase 3: Emergence (The Return)

You return, but not unchanged. You come back upright, with fire in you.

Position 7: The New Name

Moore Function: The Result

Greer Theme: Judgment, reversed

Card Meaning: Who you are now, if you accept it. What the old world might call you.

Position 8: The Torch

Moore Function: Tool/Integration

Greer Theme: The High Priestess, reversed

Card Meaning: What wisdom you carry forward in silence. A gift from your own descent.

Position 9: The Step Forward

Moore Function: Next Action

Greer Theme: Upright (Querent’s choice)

Card Meaning: One thing you can do to honor this journey. The Upright card is the only one in the spread.

Optional Variant

Pull all cards reversed, except the final card (The Step Forward), which is upright.

This is because the journey is through the reversal...But the act of choosing to continue is always an upright step. We journey throughout the reversal and step into the upright -- the Hero's Journey.

[the960writers]

The Heroine's Journey

Hello writers, I want to introduce you all to The Heroine’s Journey.

I've pulled this together from an old series of posts I've written for a project at @the-wip-project. There will be homework!

Through general media consumption most of us know about or have at least unknowingly absorbed The Hero’s Journey. I spare you the details, they’re easy to look up, but in the most general sense, lots of very successful stories are set up like this:

The Ordinary World

The Call of Adventure

Refusal of the Call

Meeting the Mentor

Starting the Quest

Tests, Allies, Enemies

Approach the Underworld

The Ordeal

Reward

The Road Back

Recognition

Glory, Reward, and Isolation

If you look at that and think “Star Wars: A New Hope” you got it exactly right. A lot of successful stories are written with these steps in mind. It usually follows a hero, who has to overcome internal and external conflicts to reach their goal.

The lesser known Heroine’s Journey is the equivalent to this but with a focus on connections and relationships. Where the Hero’s Journey is about a lone hero, the Heroine’s Journey is about finding community.

The concept of the Heroine’s Journey is not new but there wasn’t a lot of easy to read literature written about it. But recently, Gail Carriger has written a delightful and educational non-fiction book for writers and readers, called, not surprisingly, The Heroine’s Journey.

The terms Hero and Heroine are gender neutral, for instance the movie Wonder Woman is a Hero’s Journey while a buddy comedy like Man In Black is a Heroine’s Journey (generalizing here).

I like to think about it in terms of found family and friends. These stories are Heroine's journeys, they tell of community building and how we are stronger together. If you think about your WIP and how it can be applied to it, it might just blow your mind. Let me just says those tropes, “found family”, “the gang gets together”, “me and my friends gonna kick your ass” that we all love? Those are all elements of The Heroine’s Journey 😘. Doesn't that sound great?

Just to compare it to the list I made at the beginning of the post, The Heroine's Journey has the following points:

A broken familial network

Heroine's pleas are ignored

Abdication of power

Family offers aid

Subversion and disguise

Find surrogate family

Visit the Underworld, search aided by companions

Information gathering, delegation, networking

Negotiation for reunification

Revenge and Glory are irrelevant

Network established or rebuilt

Let me just put in a graphic here that Gail Carriger provided on her website.

Homework: The Heroine’s Journey begins with the protagonist having broken with their familial network, their pleas being ignored, turning away / being pushed out from their position, and finding help from family/friends. Think how this beginning could apply to your WIP.

I'm pretty sure, a few of you had the kind of “omg why did I not see that?” epiphany with The Heroine’s Journey 😀. Same thing happened to me and I realized why one story just wasn’t working. It couldn’t work because I was trying to cram a Heroine story into a Hero’s Journey. If you want to hear the author Sasha Black have that kind of epiphany live on air (so to speak), listen to this [podcast], where she interviews Gail Carriger about The Heroine’s Journey. Just be warned, that epiphany involves a lot of swearing 😜.

We talked about the beginning of the Heroine’s Journey. In this first part, the Heroine is involuntarily kicked out of their familial network. This is one of the main differences to the Hero’s Journey, where the Hero refuses and turns away voluntarily. The first part of the Heroine’s Journey is about involuntary isolation.

The Hero refuses the quest, for whatever reason, the Heroine is getting kicked into the quest.

The next part is the Search.

The Heroine’s Journey follows a pattern of connections, reunification, finding family. Mentally, physically, or emotionally. A successful journey ends with new connections, new community.

The Heroine searches for new connections, new companions, to solve the problem the story gives them. Often they employ disguise/subversion and alter their identity in this part. They form a new network, a found family. With the network, they go on a quest into “the Underworld” to gather information and build more connections.

Homework: Applying the Heroine’s Journey to your WIP, what connection does your protagonist make? What kind of community do they form? And if you have a problem with your WIP, maybe try giving your protagonist more friends?

As humans, we easily think in binary concepts, things are either this way or that way. But in reality, things overlap, mix and match, and the same can be said for the Heroine’s Journey and the Hero’s Journey.

Stories can have a Hero and a Heroine working together. Think about your basic buddy comedy, the one stoic character who wants to work alone and the fun character, who has many friends and connections. That’s a Hero with a Heroine in the same story and one possible arc could be that the Hero changes into a Heroine.

In romance, you often have the bad boy, a rogue character, who wants to stay on a Hero’s Journey, but the love of the one good person in their life changes them and pulls them into their Heroine’s Journey.

Stories with multiple characters may have each character on a different journey, with different focal points on what is important for their journey.

I also think that fanfiction often has a way of turning a Hero’s Journey into a Heroine’s Journey. When the source material says “and they won the fight but now they’re all alone”, fanfic takes a stick and whacks that on the head with “but what if they had friends /whack/”, “and they all lived together in a house /whack/”, “and they raised tomatoes, kids, and chickens together /whack whack whack/”.

Homework: Think of your favorite characters (from your WIP or from an interesting source material) and identify who leans more towards Hero and who leans more towards Heroine. Sketch out how they influence each other and what direction their stories could go.

This has been a short overview of the Heroine’s Journey, if you’re interested in this structure, I very much recommend the book [https://gailcarriger.com/books/the-heroines-journey-for-authors-book/]. It’s really a fun read, Gail Carriger did not switch to some weird academic tone for this book. She has lots of popular examples in the book, to illustrate how these concepts apply to stories we know and love.

[allgirlsareprincesses]

Choosing the Beast: Modern Folklore Heroines Embrace the Animal Husband

ATU 425A

Word Count: ~3200

Folktale Types in Star Wars - Meta Masterpost

So I wrote a few things about how the Skywalker Saga fits into the Aarne-Thompson-Uther Classification of Folk Tales, and I thought I’d link them all in one place. I’ve included the ATU class number for reference and approximate word count so you know how long it might take to read each one!

The Search for the Lost Husband: Reylo as Eros and Psyche ATU 425 Word Count: ~7000

More Search for the Lost Husband: The Burning of the Beast’s Skin in Star Wars ATU 425A-449 (Animal Bridegroom) Word Count: ~1400

The Quest for the Lost Bride: Anidala (and Reylo) as Orpheus and Eurydice ATU 400 Word Count: ~4000

More Quest for the Lost Bride: Sleeping Beauty in Star Wars ATU 410 Word Count: ~1700

There are some other topics I’d like to explore with relation to ATU Folktale Types, so hopefully I’ll have more to add to this in time!

[the-wip-project]

February 2

Hello writerly friends!

Here we go into the next month of chaos, I mean writing. 

If you've fallen off the writing wagon, this is your sign to get back on it. Have you seen the tip in Wednesday's post about leaving yourself notes for your next writing session? Do that. Also do that for restarting your writing project. Especially if you start by re-reading your WIP, write down notes! No, you won't remember later, write down notes for yourself!

Anyway, here's something for the back of the mind while you work through your story. If you're feeling lost or stuck and are not sure how your story will fit into common story structure, let me shake things up a bit. 

Have you ever heard of the Heroine's Journey?

See, most of us are subconsciously quite familiar with the Hero's Journey. The lonesome hero goes on a quest, saves the world, and then rides alone into the sunset. That kind of story is like a natural structure for us, because we see it so often. But a lot of stories we like and we like to write, are not at all like that. The found family, the buddy comedies, the stories about people sticking together and doing the stuff that needs to be done. These are stories that don't work with a lonesome hero. 

Enter the Heroine's Journey. 

I have a post here (https://www.tumblr.com/the960writers/774294685950803969), where I explain it some more, please check it out. But also let me point you directly to the book The Heroine's Journey by Gail Carriger (https://gailcarriger.com/books/hj/).

So, if you find yourself stuck in some weird section of your story, where you just can't quite work out what's missing, or how it's supposed to continue, maybe, just maybe, you're actually trying to cram a heroine story into a hero story? Maybe play around with the connections, give your character some new friends for their adventures and see what happens.

Tell us about your story, how it's developing and what kind of structure seems to be emerging?

@creativelyfueled @wildswrites @pheita @koiwrites @wickedwitchofthewilds @theburnedoutnerd @fontainebleau22 @illegalcerebral @incognitajones @theglitchywriterboi @sashakielman @satashiiwrites @lilliebellfanfics @jeaniefranklins @iressails @lastelle21 @sgam76 @tryingtimi @randomquadballpun @dragonnan @mclavellan @bisexualdawnsummers @hiraethwritings @523rdrebel @thebonesongs @gewhanaa @broodwolf221 @batteredrugosa @quilleth @exceedinglyfilledwithfolly @vigilskept @drowsy-quill @i-had-bucky @direquail @jacqueswriteblrlibrary @bogunicorn @bluejay-in-write

[allgirlsareprincesses]

Doing our usual deep analysis and delighted squealing as we cover this week's Acolyte episode on the pod:

💕 Manawee & Power of Two

👐 Handless Maiden

👑 Shadow Queens, Sick Kings

👶🏼 Torbin is babie

☯️ Jedi & their Missing Feminine

🌒 Healing the Wounded Masculine

🐍 Sister Snake

📖 THE SACRED TEXTS!

The Acolyte: Ep 7 Choice

Acolytes, a lesson on Choice is prepared! @allgirlsareprincesses & I will see you now.🎣🤴👸👻🐺☯️

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