Those of you in the UK will probably be aware that it's the half term holidays this week. This means I've had so much more time to sit back and read, write and doodle. Because, I've done all three of those! :P I've also had enough time to recuperate from college work which has had me more exhausted. I don't quite understand why I feel more exhaustead than I do when I'm actually working at college, but never mind!
As I stated a moment ago I've been doing a lot of reading this week. And one book I managed to get a copy of was The Writers Journey by Chirstopher Vogler, which of course is all about the similarities in the Hero's Journey theory that's explored through the book by Joseph Campbell "A Hero with a Thousand Faces".
The theory is (and do bear in mind I'm still getting my head round it, so if it's wrong then sorry!) about how myths take on a certain structure within the story telling and and the said structure is followed out through many of the different myths that are read everywhere, and of course this is now incorporated into stories from books, films, comics/any kind of story you can possibly name in this day and age.
This useful little diagram is all about the structure I'm on about and shows the different (not all of the ones as the one in the book but it's a good example anyway) parts of the storyline that the theory is saying is common in many different myths and modern stories. It's also very adament to say that it's NOT rule of storytelling, just that it's a simple structure that's common within a lot of different stories.
In my opinion, this diagram (and the one in the book, because that's not the one in the book but it gets the point over) made complete sense and now whenever I look at stories I can't help but see the structure of it there, whether it's intentional or not!
Which brings me onto Heartstones. I decided to experiment and work out if my own story was following a similar structure, and my findings were that, in a very simple way of saying it:
IT DID!
And annoyingly, I can't say anything more about the storyline because it would ruin everything for people who haven't read the script. :P
But I do find this interesting because I've unconsciously told my story in a similar way to what this theory is talking about, obviously my story isn't going to be exactly the same, as I say it's just a similar story sturcture.
What's going across my head now is thw question of why I've unconciously done that?
Is it the films and books I religously watched as a young child? Or is it me attempting to make something similar to the stories I love now?
I can't answer, I haven't found the answer just yet.
The book also talks about the idea of the hero going on this journey within the stucture I'm talking about. So I've been debating who the actual “hero” in Heartstones would be. It was a long debate inside my head, there were two characters that were the obvious candidates for the role.
Who did I decide?
You'll have to wait and see. :)
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