: Re: Can the Hero's Journey be detrimental to the process of storywriting? When it comes to common writing advice, the Hero's Journey and Show, don't Tell, are the most common ones. The second one

@Heady158

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I suspect that the danger of following the Hero's Journey template is that you might take the name for one of its elements too literally. All of them are abstractions, named after something they have in common, or after the form that a prominent example takes. If you take the name too literally you'll be putting a whale into your story just so that the Hero can ride in its belly.
Since they are metaphors, you first identify what each of these elements does for the abstract form of the Hero's Journey, and then you identify the element in your setting that accomplishes the same purpose for your story.
There are times when you will put something into your story and then later realize that it perfectly fits the template. In one book I have out, the MC at one point is deciding whether to cross the border into enemy territory, alone, or go back to base and get better prepared. (This is all rationalization on his part; he is as ready as he will ever be.) As he temporizes, he thinks about how glad his girlfriend will be to see him safely returned. I had only thrown this in because it is something a young man in his situation would naturally think about. Later on I see that Woman as Temptress has made its way into the story without any deliberate intent on my part. This is why Campbell was able to discern the Monomyth in the first place; its elements naturally fit together to make a story which will "accomplish something and arrive somewhere", as Mark Twain put it. (Reference to Mark Twain's essay. Read it; it's a hoot.)

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