Hero's Journey

Ever notice that every blockbuster movie has the same fundamental pieces? A hero, a journey, some conflicts to muck it all up, a reward, and the hero returning home and everybody applauding his or her swag? Yeah, scholar Joseph Campbell noticed first—in 1949. He wrote The Hero with a Thousand Faces , in which he outlined the 17 stages of a mythological hero's journey.

About half a century later, Christopher Vogler condensed those stages down to 12 in an attempt to show Hollywood how every story ever written should—and, uh, does —follow Campbell's pattern. We're working with those 12 stages, so take a look. (P.S. Want more? We have an entire Online Course devoted to the hero's journey.)

Ordinary World

You might think that Joy's ordinary world would be Minnesota, but it's not. It's whenever Riley's happy. A happy Riley, with Joy at the helm in Headquarters, is the status quo; it's what Joy's used to.

Call To Adventure

When Sadness turns her first memory blue, Joy's called to adventure—more specifically, the adventure that is growing up. It's one crazy ride, and Joy wants nada to do with it, thanks.

Refusal Of The Call

Joy tries to stop Sadness from touching any more memories. First, she gives her a super-boring Mind Manual to read. On the first day of school, she draws a circle on the floor and makes Sadness stand in it. Joy wants things to stay exactly the same: namely, that Riley's happy 24/7.

Meeting The Mentor

Sadness is Joy's mentor, although neither Joy nor Sadness herself recognize it as this point in Joy's journey. Sadness create a blue Core Memory, signifying that Riley's carefree childhood is coming to an end, Joy's no longer top dog, and more complex emotions and memories are on the horizon.

Crossing The Threshold

Joy gets sucked out of HQ and lands far, far away in Long-Term Memory. Now her quest really begins. Joy needs to get herself and Sadness back to Headquarters. Doing so is going to require smarts, tenacity, and some personal growth on Joy's part. It's just as important that Sadness makes it back to HQ as it is for Joy to make it.

Tests, Allies, Enemies

Joy finds an ally in Bing Bong, who she meets in Long-Term memory. He leads Joy to the Train of Thought (after a diversion or two), and when the train gets derailed, he sacrifices himself and his beloved rocket ship to help Joy get back to Headquarters. Without Bing Bong, Joy would probably still be in the Memory Dump, and Riley would have a rotten personality.

As Joy, Sadness, and Bing Bong navigate Riley's brain terrain, they encounter a variety of challenges. They must endure the four thoroughly freaky phases of abstract thought, disrupt Riley's dreams enough to wake her up and restart the Train of Thought, and survive a treacherous trip through the dark of Riley's subconscious.

Approach To The Inmost Cave

Joy loses hope at the bottom of the Memory Dump. She tries again and again to scramble to the top, but the faded memories crumble beneath her feet. Bing Bong tells her it's no use; everybody's going to forget about them. Joy's loaded with doubts and fears, sobbing at the bottom of the dump.

The hero's ordeal is all about our facing their fears and finding a way to survive in the world around them. For Joy, that means realizing the vital role that Sadness plays in Riley's life, and that it's unrealistic for her to expect Riley to be constantly happy going forward.

She has this epiphany in the Memory Dump, when she rewinds one of her favorite happy Riley memories and finds that all the joy and celebration within took place to cheer up Riley, who was super-bummed about blowing a big goal. Joy now understands that all of Riley's emotions serve a purpose, and that no one emotion is more important than the rest. Not even her.

Reward (Seizing The Sword)

Save your trophies, ribbons, and oversized novelty checks. Joy's reward is greater knowledge of what makes her girl Riley tick. She's ready to be a team player, and that reinvigorates her, giving her the strength she needs to keep trying to escape the Memory Dump.

The Road Back

Bing Bong provides that last nudge that Joy needs to get back to the ordinary world, a.k.a. Headquarters. He finds his rocket ship and, when he realizes that they're too heavy to make it out of the Memory Dump together, he bails at the last minute, sacrificing himself for Joy's cause: his BFF Riley.

That Bing Bong is one swell guy. Er, dolphin-cat? Elephant clown? Sentient pile of cotton candy? Whatever he is, he's in the Imaginary Friend Hall of Fame for this one.

Resurrection

Despite its name, this step in the journey is really our hero's final battle. In Joy's case, that means delegating heroism. More specifically, she tells Sadness to remove the idea to run away from Riley's control panel and save the day.

Sure, Joy could do it herself, but for Joy to continue evolving and complete her quest, she needs to recognize Sadness's capability and importance in front of the rest of the team, give Sadness a caring boost of confidence, and get out of her way.

She does, and Sadness saves the day. The lightbulb's removed, Riley returns home, and everybody's like, "Whoa, Joy! How did you know that Sadness was such a boss?" Because she's evolved into a thoughtful team player, that's how.

Return With The Elixir

Instead of ordering everyone around and being in constant control, Joy shares the expanded control panel with the other emotions. She tells us, via voiceover, that all's well in her ordinary world: Riley's got a cozy house, cool friends, and a spot on the hockey team.

Tired of ads?

Logging out…, logging out....

You've been inactive for a while, logging you out in a few seconds...

W hy's T his F unny?

INSIDE OUT: Character, Archetypes and The Psychology of Revision

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

[spb_text_block pb_margin_bottom=”no” pb_border_bottom=”no” width=”1/1″ el_position=”first last”]

INSIDE OUT : Character, Archetypes and The Psychology of Revision

By jacob krueger.

[/spb_text_block] [divider type=”thin” text=”Go to top” full_width=”no” width=”1/1″ el_position=”first last”] [blank_spacer height=”30px” width=”1/1″ el_position=”first last”] [spb_text_block title=” TRANSCRIPTION ” pb_margin_bottom=”no” pb_border_bottom=”no” width=”1/1″ el_position=”first last”]

Hello! I’m Jacob Krueger and this is the Write Your Screenplay podcast. As you know, on this podcast, rather than looking at movies in terms of two thumbs up, two thumbs down, loved it or hated it, we look at movies in terms of what we can learn from them as screenwriters. We look at good movies, we look at bad movies, we look at movies we loved and movies that we hated.

Today we’re going to be looking at Inside Out . One of the exciting things about Inside Out is that the main character actually isn’t the eleven year old girl, Riley, at the center of the movie. Instead, the main character is actually an archetype inside of her head: the emotion of Joy, played by Amy Poehler.

And Joy is joined by four other archetypes: Fear, Anger, Disgust, and Sadness.

One of the most interesting things about this movie is that it’s actually based on real psychological research. In fact, they even brought in two professors of psychology (Dacher Keltner and Paul Ekman) to consult on the project.

These psychologists wanted Pixar to have a character for every emotion in the vast array of emotions that human beings experience. And Pixar made an interesting decision, which, if you’re a screenwriter, is a decision that you may want to think about as well.

Instead of heeding the researchers’ advice, Inside Out writer/director Pete Docter boiled down the multitude of emotions into these five primary characters. The reason for this was simple: the story, like most screenplays, could basically only handle five or six characters.

In 105 pages, you’ve got time to take care of five to six characters really well. You don’t have time to take care of 20 characters. So, what Docter did was boil down this myriad of emotions to five primary emotions: Anger, Disgust, Fear, Sadness, and our main character, Joy.

As we watch Inside Out , what we’re primarily doing is not just watching the story of the little girl, we’re watching the story of the archetypes inside of the little girl’s head.

Now, let’s talk about what this term “archetypes” means.

This is a term that is thrown around all the time in screenwriting. Oftentimes, in practice, these archetypes descend into becoming stereotypes. But an archetype is different from a stereotype.

The term “archetype” doesn’t come from screenwriting. It actually comes from a psychologist that many of you have heard of: Carl Jung.

Jung believed in this idea called The Collective Unconscious . The idea of The Collective Unconscious is that we are all part of a shared fabric. And though we may not be consciously aware of it, through our subconscious mind, our dreams and our fantasies, we can tap into this shared consciousness. And through that shared consciousness we can connect to symbology and types of characters and events that may transcend our own experience but that every single person in the universe can relate to.

Jung called these experiences, people, and events “archetypes.”

After Jung, a guy named Joseph Campbell came along. Campbell is the guy who came up with the idea of The Hero’s Journey, which you’ve likely heard about if you’ve studied screenwriting.

Campbell basically said: if there’s such a thing as a Collective Unconscious, then there must also be such a thing as a Collective Story: a story that would contain all stories that we can all share and connect to. And if there was a Collective Story, then there would also be characters that we could all connect to. And there would be certain kinds of moments that showed up in the structure of every journey, which he called “The Hero’s Journey” that represented these archetypical characters in these archetypal moments.

Campbell, and the people who followed Campbell (James Bonnet, Christopher Vogler, all the way to Blake Snyder and Save The Cat !) basically came up with new and interesting ways to categorize and name these archetypes. Campbell’s hero’s journey says that there are 21 steps and Blake Snyder’s Save The Cat formula says that there are 4 acts. Both of these are ways of categorizing and naming archetypes.

The problem is that when we put the focus on naming archetypes, we often cut ourselves off from accessing the archetypes.

In other words, instead of writing a Threshold Guardian , we write a “Threshold Guardian- Type .” Instead of writing a Terrible Father , we write a “Terrible Father- Type .” Instead of writing a Funny Best Friend (to use a very non-Campbellian nomenclature), we write a “Funny Best Friend- Type .”

Ironically, despite their roots in the fabric of our subconscious, these categorizations when labeled and analyzed in this way, often lead us to write from our conscious brain. They often unwittingly lead away from our real connection to our characters, and instead toward the pop-psychology and psychology 101 analysis of them.

Which flies directly in the face of what Jung actually suggested: which is the idea that if there is such a thing as a collective unconscious, then you have access to it through your own subconscious mind.

If you’re willing to surrender some degree of control and write from the subconscious mind, rather than the conscious mind, you have the ability to tap into the Collective Unconscious. And if you can actually tap into it, you don’t need to know what a Threshold Guardian or a Terrible Father is or, to use Blake Snyder’s terminology, what a “Monster in the House” movie actually is.

If you can tap into The Collective Unconscious, then all you need to do is to write the archetypes that you find there. And you will know that those archetypes are the archetypes that anyone can connect to.

This is an approach to writing that says, instead of trying to name, categorize, or follow the formula, what we can actually do is go inside our own minds, surrender a little bit of control, and bring our own personal archetypes to the surface.

You can do this through meditative writing, as Jessica Hinds teaches in her Meditative Writing Workshop . Or, as those of you who have studied with me know, you can do this by seizing onto a tangible object that your character desperately wants, and allowing the visuals, the sounds, the words of your character to materialize as they pursue it. Or you can even do this simply by finding a dominant trait that can become your North Star for the character because you relate to it.

No matter how you approach your writing, when tapping into the collective unconscious, the main goal is to accept whatever suggestion your subconscious mind gives you and run with it.

So, in this movie, the main character is Joy. And Joy is an archetype, not a stereotype. Joy is not playing a “joyful-type” character. And Anger is not playing an “angry-type” character.

In fact, there are wonderful and hilarious moments – particularly in the final credit sequence – when we get to view the myriad archetypes dwelling in all the other character’s minds. And what we find is that we all have Joy, Sadness, Fear, Anger, and Disgust, but that those archetypes in each person take a completely different form.

Early in the movie, there’s a wonderful scene where Dad decides to “put his foot down.” And in that scene you can see how different his archetypes are from the archetypes in Mom, as we see her dreaming of the guy she could have married instead.

The idea about archetypes (and what’s beautiful about them) is that they are not stereotypes or even types. Archetypes are something that already exist in you, the writer, just as the archetypes in Inside Out exist in Riley.

And the process of writing is the process of going inside, getting in touch with one of those archetypes, breathing life into them, and allowing them to live, breathe, and react honestly on the page.

You’ll probably notice that Joy is not always joyful in this movie. There are moments where Joy cries, when Joy has fear or experiences fear. There are moments where Joy experiences sadness. And Joy, just like the little girl whose brain she helps operate, has her own belief systems based on her experiences: because Joy also has her own archetypes, (even if we don’t get to see them). And these belief systems, based on the archetypal characters and moments in her life change the way she views her world. Just as Riley has Goofball Island and Family Island and Hockey Island, somewhere inside of Joy are belief systems and personality systems as well.

You don’t see Joy’s internal world in the movie. But it is the thing that allows us to know that Joy is a character. The definition of a character is somebody who changes and goes on a journey. And a main character is somebody who has a problem. And Joy, despite her joyfulness, has a big problem.

One of the things that we come to learn, as screenwriters, is that the best problems don’t come from outside the character. The best problems come from inside the character. And here’s what’s really interesting about Inside Out : the outside problems of this movie are extraordinarily low stakes!

The outside problem is: a little girl moves to San Francisco and is sad. That is literally the external problem. There’s a moment where she almost runs away and…that’s about it. The external problem is extremely low stakes, yet the internal problem feels incredibly high stakes. It feels like life and death watching these little low stakes moments happen!

And the reason for this is that Joy has a problem. And that problem is based on a story that she’s telling herself about who she is, who Riley is, and who Sadness is.

Joy’s problem is that she is afraid of Sadness. Joy is afraid of change. Joy is doing everything she can to lock Riley into her current islands, rather than allowing her personality to evolve. In this way, Joy represents what Jung would call “The Holdfast Ego,” the part of Riley that wants to stay the same. What does this all mean to you, as a writer?

Structure is built out of moments. Structure is built out of foundational moments – moments called “core memories” in Inside Out.

You can think of each event in your life like one of those little balls of memory from Inside Out. You can think of certain events in your life as core memories. And you can think of certain events as core events, or what Campbell would call, archetypal events in your character’s lives.

And just like in the movie, these archetypal events can become structural. But they only become structural when they are laid up against other archetypal events. And your subconscious mind starts to tell itself a story based on those events. This + This = That. This is the way that our minds work. And this is the way that story structure works.

Story structure is actually just the structure of psychology. It is the structure by which the events of our lives build the belief systems that either allow us to change or cause us not to. The structure of a film is just the structure by which we assign value to each moment.

What’s powerful about being a writer is that the value of those moments can change, just as the memory balls in Inside Out change color when Sadness touches them. So too can we change our work. We can take a plot that’s a comedy and turn it into a drama. We can take a story that’s depressing and turn it into something uplifting. We can change the meaning of the events in our own lives, our character’s lives and of our audiences lives, through our writing.

Joy’s problem is that Joy is afraid of sadness, which is wonderful because Sadness is a character in the film, which means a real relastionship can build between them!

And Sadness’s problem is that Sadness is trying to be something she’s not. And, at the end of the day, Riley, the character whose story Joy is building, can’t change until Joy learns to accept Sadness.

And you can see that this is an archetypal moment that we can all connect to. Because there is not a person in the universe who has not struggled with wanting to be happy even when we’re sad. This is a powerful archetypal event because we can all relate to it.

So, you’ve got a main character with a problem, Joy. Joy’s problem is that she’s afraid of sadness. This is causing ramifications all over the place because she’s trying to keep Riley as the joyful child that she was, even as Riley goes through a huge change.

Joy is trying to keep Riley the same, both in place and in age, because of the story that Joy is telling herself. Joy is not allowing Riley to develop new islands or develop new core memories. Joy is afraid of letting go of the past.

Writing a good movie is like living a good life. Writing a movie is about finding the structure of the events of our lives in order to tell ourselves the story of who we are. Just like living a life is making choices at this moment and this moment and this moment in order to tell ourselves the story of who we are. And changing a life is like revising a script.

Revising a script sometimes means allowing certain core memories or islands of personality or archetypal events to disappear. Sometimes, revising a script means letting go of one of our most beloved characters. In the case of Inside Out, Bing Bong, Riley’s beloved imaginary friend from her childhood, has to be forgotten and disappear.

Sometimes, revising a script is about finding that crazy line that just keeps coming back to you for no reason and figuring out how it’s structural—just like that jingle that keeps popping up in Riley’s head. Sometimes, revising a script is about allowing a different emotion to inflect an old scene, letting go of what the screenplay used to be and allowing it to evolve into the screenplay it needs to become.

As writers, we all have the same problem as Joy, which is that we want to be happy and we want to be successful and we don’t want to change, even though we need to.

So, I’d like to suggest to you that as you write your own screenplays, that you see what happens if you go a little Inside Out .

See what happens when, instead of trying to control your archetypes, you allow yourself to find them, searching inside of yourself for the answers rather than outside of yourself.

I’d like to invite you to learn to build your structure organically, not based on some formula, (which is only going to lead you to a stereotype or a cliché), but based on the way one core event in you or in your story bounces up against the next, and as your character makes choice after choice after choice in their lives.

I’d like to invite you to revise your script with a feeling of freedom, with the understanding that our scripts need to go through their childhoods just like Riley does. And though those childhoods may be joyful, ultimately in order to grow up into healthy and happy adult screenplays our movies have to go through a process by which islands of personality are destroyed and characters are lost and change happens.

In order for our characters to change, perhaps our screenplays need to change too.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this podcast. If you’d like to study more with me in NYC, Online or as part of our international screenwriting retreats, please check out my website: writeyourscreenplay.com.

[/spb_text_block]

Email: [email protected]

Call: 917.464.3594

Login / My Account

NEWSLETTER SIGN UP

Join us to receive screenwriting tips, informative newsletters, and discounts on writing classes.

As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

© 2014 - 2024 jacob krueger studio, llc | privacy & terms of use, course participant agreement.

By registering for the course, you are agreeing to the following terms, which form a legal contract between you and Jacob Krueger Studio, LLC (“ Company ”) and govern your attendance at and/or participation in Company’s course (the “ Course ”). 

  • Admittance.   Your registration entitles you to admittance to the Course.   Any and all other costs associated with your attendance (including, without limitation, any travel or accommodation expenses) shall be borne solely by you and Company shall not be liable for any such costs.
  • Media.   For good and valuable consideration, the receipt and sufficiency of which are hereby acknowledged, you grant Company the right to record, film, photograph or capture your likeness in connection with the Course, in any media now available and hereafter developed (“ Course Footage ”).   You further grant to Company in perpetuity the rights to use, license, edit, copy, distribute, publicly display and make derivative works of the Course Footage, including exploitation for marketing, advertising or merchandising related to the Course, throughout the universe.   You hereby waive any and all approval rights you may have over Company’s use of the Course Footage and acknowledge these rights are granted without any payment, including royalties or residuals, to you.
  • Conduct .   You acknowledge that Company reserves the right to request your removal from the Course if Company, in its sole discretion, considers your presence or behavior to create a disruption or to hinder the Course or the enjoyment of the Course by other attendees or speakers.
  • Payment.   The payment of the applicable fee(s) for the Course is due upon registration or per your payment plan.   If such payment is insufficient or declined for any reason, you acknowledge that Company has the right and sole discretion to refuse your admission to the Course.
  • Taxes. The fee(s) may be subject sales tax, value added tax, or any other taxes and duties which, if applicable, will be charged to you in addition to the fee(s).
  • Intellectual Property. All intellectual property rights, including trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets and patents, in and to the Course, the Course content and all materials distributed at or in connection with the Course (the “ Course Materials ”) are owned by Company. You may not use, license, copy, display, or make derivative works of the Course Materials without the prior written permission of Company.   For the avoidance of doubt, nothing in this agreement shall be deemed to vest in you any legal or beneficial right in or to any trademarks or other intellectual property rights owned or used under license by Company or grant to you any right or license to any other intellectual property rights of Company, all of which shall at all times remain the exclusive property of Company.
  • Other than to the extent required as a matter of law: (i) neither Company nor its employees, agents or affiliates (“ Company Parties ”) shall be liable for any direct, indirect, special, incidental, or consequential costs, damages or losses arising directly or indirectly from the Course or other aspect related thereto or in connection with this agreement.   The maximum aggregate liability of Company Parties for any claim in any way connected with therewith or this agreement whether in contract, tort or otherwise (including any negligent act or omission) shall be limited to the amount paid by you to Company under this agreement to attend the Course.
  • You represent and warrant that you have the full right and authority to grant Company the rights provided in this agreement and that you have made no commitments which conflict with this agreement or the rights granted herein.   You agree that your participation in the Course is entirely at your own risk and accept full responsibility for your decision to participate in the Course.   In no event shall you have the right to enjoin the development, production, exploitation or use of the Course and/or your Contributions to it. 
  • Governing Law and Venue.   This agreement shall be governed by the laws of the State of New York without regard to its conflict of laws provisions.   The parties hereto agree to submit to personal and subject matter jurisdiction in the federal or state courts located in the City and State of New York, United States of America.
  • Dispute Resolution.   All claims and disputes arising under or relating to this agreement are to be settled by binding arbitration in the state of New York or another location mutually agreeable to the parties.   The arbitration shall be conducted on a confidential basis pursuant to the Commercial Arbitration Rules of the American Arbitration Association.   Any decision or award as a result of any such arbitration proceeding shall be in writing and shall provide an explanation for all conclusions of law and fact and shall include the assessment of costs, expenses, and reasonable attorneys’ fees by the winner against the loser.   Any such arbitration shall include a written record of the arbitration hearing.   An award of arbitration may be confirmed in a court of competent jurisdiction.
  • Miscellaneous.   Company may transfer and assign this agreement or all or any of its rights or privileges hereunder to any entity or individual without restriction.   This agreement shall be binding on all of your successors-in-interest, heirs and assigns.   This agreement sets forth the entire agreement between you and the Company in relation to the Course, and you acknowledge that in entering into it, you are not relying upon any promises or statements made by anyone about the nature of the Course or your Contributions or the identity of any other participants or persons involved with the Course.   This agreement may not be altered or amended except in writing signed by both parties.

Prevention of “Zoom-Bomber” Disruptions; Unauthorized Publication of Class Videos. Company will record each class session, including your participation in the session, entitled “The Videos” . To prevent disruptions by “zoom-bombers” and provide Company and

participants the legal standing to remove unauthorized content from platforms such as YouTube and social media sites, you agree that

(1) you are prohibited from recording any portion of the Course;

(2) in exchange for the opportunity to participate in the Course, you assign to Company your verbal contributions to the session discussions.

To be clear, you assign to Company only your oral statements during recorded Course sessions. You retain all copyright to any and all written materials you submit to the class and the right to use them in any way you choose without permission from or compensation to the Company.

Welcom Back!

Log in to access your account

Our website uses cookies to provide a better user experience. By using our site, you agree to our use of cookies. Learn more about cookies and how you can refuse them.

We will see you this Thursday! 7pm ET / 4pm PT

Check Your Email For The Link

(Don’t see it? Check your spam folder)

Donate To Our Scholarship Fund

We match every donation we receive dollar for dollar, and use the funds to offset the cost of our programs for students who otherwise could not afford to attend.

We have given away over 140,000 of scholarships in the past year.

Thank you for your support!

Other Amount? CONTACT US

Get Your Video Seminar

Where should we send it?

" * " indicates required fields

Need A Payment Plan?

We like working with artists and strive not to leave writers behind over money..

If you need a payment plan or another arrangement to participate in our programs, we are happy to help.

Chat us or give us a call at 917-464-3594 and we will figure out a plan that fits your budget.

Join the waitlist!

Fill in the form below to be placed on the waitlist. We'll let you know once a slot opens up!

  • Name * First Last

inside out hero's journey

  • Screenwriting \e607
  • Cinematography & Cameras \e605
  • Directing \e606
  • Editing & Post-Production \e602
  • Documentary \e603
  • Movies & TV \e60a
  • Producing \e608
  • Distribution & Marketing \e604
  • Fundraising & Crowdfunding \e60f
  • Festivals & Events \e611
  • Sound & Music \e601
  • Games & Transmedia \e60e
  • Grants, Contests, & Awards \e60d
  • Film School \e610
  • Marketplace & Deals \e60b
  • Off Topic \e609
  • This Site \e600

The Other Hero's Journey: The Emotional Struggle of Screenwriting

Going through emotional journeys is not only necessary for characters in screenplays, but also for the writers who create them..

Inside_out_0

What does your writing process look like? Do you work in an organized, well-decorated office, or do you throw on some jammies and mow down on chili cheese fries at your favorite dive bar? Regardless of where or how you do it, one aspect of the writing process is the same for everyone: the emotional roller coaster we all experience from Fade In to Fade Out .

In this intriguing video essay, Michael Tucker of Lessons from the Screenplay  explores the writing process of Pixar's  Inside Out — particularly how screenwriter Pete Doctor's real life experience mirrored the intense emotional journey that made the film an Oscar winner.

Tucker touches on many crucial aspects of screenwriting in the video, but perhaps one of the most important insights is that "writing what you want  to know" is better than "writing what you know." This is because the latter can actually cause you to creatively and emotionally stagnate. 

When I embark on a new screenplay, I purposely look for things I don't know much about—not just for the plot, but also to serve the emotional arc of my protagonist. Perhaps the greatest step I ever took as a screenwriter is deciding to look inward to find issues I'm currently struggling with before writing a script—something our founder  Ryan Koo inspired me to do — because I find it keeps my writing more raw, brutal, and honest.

If you already know the answers to all of the emotional questions in your script, how much of an impact can your character's search really have?

Think about it: isn't it easy to gloss over the things you've mastered? We barely have to focus when tying our shoes, making lunch, or even driving down the street to the cafe we go to every day. The same goes for things we've mastered emotionally. If you already know the answers to all of the emotional questions you raise in your script, how much of an impact can your character's search really have?

If you write what you know, that means you're sending not only your hero, but also your audience out on the narrative journey alone. But if you start your writing process off with a question you don't know the answer to, it forces you to search, to struggle, to be vulnerable in the face of uncertainty—which is exactly where your hero is going to eventually wind up.

Furthermore, you end up experiencing the very same emotional battle you expect your audience to go through in watching the movie. Inside Out  screenwriter Meg LeFauvre said it like this:

There should probably be, as a writer, a point in the process where to write this scene, you feel like you're going to throw up because it's so emotional. It's so digging into something in your psychology. In other words, you're asking the audience to have a cathartic experience—odds are you probably need to have one when you're writing.

Writing a good screenplay requires many things, including skill, cleverness, and a good sense of pacing and structure. But to write one that is honest, sincere, and authentic will most likely require a little bit of emotional upheaval on your part. It can be scary—especially given the fact that the final act can't be written until you come to your own emotional resolution. But as most heroes in cinema know, achieving the goal is ultimately worth the struggle.

Source: Lessons from the Screenplay

  • The 6 Emotional Arcs of Storytelling, Why You Should Use Them, and Which One is Best ›
  • The Hero's Journey Explained ›

Pete Ohs Rethinks How We Make Movies

“can i make a movie the way i did when i was fifteen”.

Who says making a movie requires expensive equipment, a large crew, and a script? Maybe creating a film can be a creative experiment between a couple of friends who are excited about the uncertainty of the journey that awaits. This was the realization Pete Ohs had when he recognized that the typical approach to filmmaking was not for him.

In today’s episode, No Film School’s GG Hawkins speaks with Pete Ohs, Will Madden, Frank Mosley, and Charles Watson to discuss:

  • Finding a location that is narratively inspiring and accessible
  • Thinking about the edit while directing
  • An extremely unique and collaborative way to develop characters
  • Creating a score that is not traditional to other films
  • Pete’s unique approach to creating movies
  • How Pete keeps the budget so low and why it’s important
  • Feeling excited by the challenge of the limited resources you have
  • Why the uncertainty of this style of filmmaking is exciting and magical
  • Their Slamdance Film Festival experience
  • Other festivals and what they love about them
  • Starting with what you have available

LOVE AND WORK teaser

Follow Pete on Instagram Follow Love and Work on Instagram Follow Frank on Instagram Follow Will on Instagram Follow Charles on Instagram

Slamdance Film Festival

Film Fort in Idaho

Side Walk Film Festival in Alabama

Overlook Film Fesitval American Film Festival in Poland

Pete Ohs is a multi-hyphenate filmmaker. He directs-produces-writes-shoots-edits feature films. In 2017, he made "Everything Beautiful is Far Away", a sci-fi fable starring Julia Garner and a robothead. Most recently in 2022, he made the deadpan horror-satire "Jethica" which premiered at SXSW and the BUSAN International Film Festival.

Filmography:

Jethica (2022)

Youngstown (2021)

Everything Beautiful is Far Away (2017)

Stephanie Hunt

Stephanie Hunt is an actor and a musician. Her career started on the beloved television series Friday Night Lights. She has also appeared in Glee, Californication, and Parenthood. She toured the world with Megan Mullally in their performance art vaudevillian band Nancy and Beth. She now performs under the moniker Buffalo Hunt. In 2019, Pete directed and Stephanie acted and co-wrote the witness protection comedy YOUNGSTOWN.

Selected Filmography:

Californication (2011)

Friday Night Lights (2006)

Will Madden

Known for his darkly comedic leading roles in the horror/comedy feature films The Wolf of Snow Hollow (Orion Classics) 15 Cameras (sequel to the cult classic 13 Cameras franchise), and Mean Spirited, Will Madden is an American actor whose films have premiered at Sundance, South by Southwest, and festivals around the world.

His leading role in the Sundance 2020 feature film Beast Beast (executive produced by Alec Baldwin) was well received and introduced him to many future collaborators in the independent industry.

Will's co-writing and acting collaboration with filmmaker Pete Ohs including the SXSW 2022 film Jethica garnered positive reviews in The New York Times, LA Times, The New Yorker, The Guardian, and many other film and newspaper publications.

Beast Beast (2020)

The Wolf of Snow Hollow (2020)

Frank Mosley

Frank Mosley is an actor and filmmaker from Texas now living in Los Angeles. He is an alumnus of the 2015 Berlinale Talents, the 2017 NYFF Artist Academy at Lincoln Center, and Black Factory Cinema’s 2016 Auteur Workshop led by Abbas Kiarostami in San Antonio de los Banos, Cuba. He also participated as an actor in the 2016 Austin Film Society Artist Intensive under the direction of Charles Burnett. His starring work opposite Lily Gladstone and Krisha Fairchild in Freeland (SXSW, SFFILM 2020, MUBI) was called "excellent... compellingly slippery" (The Hollywood Reporter) and that he’s “a dependably fantastic American indie mainstay" (Filmmaker Magazine).

Quantum Cowboys (2022)

Freeland (2020)

Chained for Life (2018)

Subscribe to the No Film School Podcast on:

  • Apple Podcasts

Listen to more episodes of the No Film School podcast right here:

This episode of The No Film School Podcast was produced by GG Hawkins .

What Are The Best Martial Arts Movies of All Time?

The ending of 'shutter island' explained, a closer look at the rehoused vintage lenses used on ‘dune: part two’, astera launches their new projectionlens for plutofresnel, the great contraction is here—what does it mean for your career, how much power are we giving ai in the screenwriting space, how 'vincent' finds dark comedy in fine art, sxsw announces award winners from the 2024 film & tv festival, adobe celebrates 2024 ace eddie and oscar winners and nominees, what are bottle episodes.

Get Free high-resolution PDF of How to Write a Screenplay

  • Share full article

Advertisement

Supported by

Gray Matter

The Science of ‘Inside Out’

By Dacher Keltner and Paul Ekman

  • July 3, 2015

inside out hero's journey

FIVE years ago, the writer and director Pete Docter of Pixar reached out to us to talk over an idea for a film, one that would portray how emotions work inside a person’s head and at the same time shape a person’s outer life with other people. He wanted to do this all in the mind of an 11-year-old girl as she navigated a few difficult days in her life.

As scientists who have studied emotion for decades, we were delighted to be asked. We ended up serving as scientific consultants for the movie, “Inside Out,” which was recently released.

Our conversations with Mr. Docter and his team were generally about the science related to questions at the heart of the film: How do emotions govern the stream of consciousness? How do emotions color our memories of the past? What is the emotional life of an 11-year-old girl like? (Studies find that the experience of positive emotions begins to drop precipitously in frequency and intensity at that age.)

“Inside Out” is about how five emotions — personified as the characters Anger, Disgust, Fear, Sadness and Joy — grapple for control of the mind of an 11-year-old girl named Riley during the tumult of a move from Minnesota to San Francisco. (One of us suggested that the film include the full array of emotions now studied in science, but Mr. Docter rejected this idea for the simple reason that the story could handle only five or six characters.)

Riley’s personality is principally defined by Joy, and this is fitting with what we know scientifically. Studies find that our identities are defined by specific emotions, which shape how we perceive the world, how we express ourselves and the responses we evoke in others.

But the real star of the film is Sadness, for “Inside Out” is a film about loss and what people gain when guided by feelings of sadness. Riley loses friends and her home in her move from Minnesota. Even more poignantly, she has entered the preteen years, which entails a loss of childhood.

We do have some quibbles with the portrayal of sadness in “Inside Out.” Sadness is seen as a drag, a sluggish character that Joy literally has to drag around through Riley’s mind. In fact, studies find that sadness is associated with elevated physiological arousal, activating the body to respond to loss. And in the film, Sadness is frumpy and off-putting. More often in real life, one person’s sadness pulls other people in to comfort and help.

Those quibbles aside, however, the movie’s portrayal of sadness successfully dramatizes two central insights from the science of emotion.

First, emotions organize — rather than disrupt — rational thinking. Traditionally, in the history of Western thought, the prevailing view has been that emotions are enemies of rationality and disruptive of cooperative social relations.

But the truth is that emotions guide our perceptions of the world, our memories of the past and even our moral judgments of right and wrong, most typically in ways that enable effective responses to the current situation. For example, studies find that when we are angry we are acutely attuned to what is unfair, which helps animate actions that remedy injustice.

We see this in “Inside Out.” Sadness gradually takes control of Riley’s thought processes about the changes she is going through. This is most evident when Sadness adds blue hues to the images of Riley’s memories of her life in Minnesota. Scientific studies find that our current emotions shape what we remember of the past. This is a vital function of Sadness in the film: It guides Riley to recognize the changes she is going through and what she has lost, which sets the stage for her to develop new facets of her identity.

Second, emotions organize — rather than disrupt — our social lives. Studies have found, for example, that emotions structure (not just color) such disparate social interactions as attachment between parents and children, sibling conflicts, flirtations between young courters and negotiations between rivals.

Other studies find that it is anger (more so than a sense of political identity) that moves social collectives to protest and remedy injustice. Research that one of us has conducted has found that expressions of embarrassment trigger others to forgive when we’ve acted in ways that momentarily violate social norms.

This insight, too, is dramatized in the movie. You might be inclined to think of sadness as a state defined by inaction and passivity — the absence of any purposeful action. But in “Inside Out,” as in real life, sadness prompts people to unite in response to loss. We see this first in an angry outburst at the dinner table that causes Riley to storm upstairs to lie alone in a dark room, leaving her dad to wonder what to do.

And toward the end of the film, it is Sadness that leads Riley to reunite with her parents, involving forms of touch and emotional sounds called “vocal bursts” — which one of us has studied in the lab — that convey the profound delights of reunion.

“Inside Out” offers a new approach to sadness. Its central insight: Embrace sadness, let it unfold, engage patiently with a preteen’s emotional struggles. Sadness will clarify what has been lost (childhood) and move the family toward what is to be gained: the foundations of new identities, for children and parents alike.

Dacher Keltner is a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley. Paul Ekman is a professor emeritus of psychology at the University of California, San Francisco.

Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter , and sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter .

Pixar is Obsessed With ‘The Odyssey’

Onward has been a disappointment at the box office , which is strange because it shares a near-identical story structure with other beloved Pixar films, including the hits Finding Nemo , Inside Out , and Up . All of these movies follow an adventure narrative that bears a distinct resemblance to the original journey story, The Odyssey .

Homer’s epic poem, a sequel to The Iliad , is about the Greek hero Odysseus (or Ulysses for the Romans), chronicling his attempt to return home to Ithaca following the Trojan War. Like Odysseus, Pixar’s protagonists often embark on a dangerous journey into the unknown in pursuit of their goal. The destination is synonymous with their objective, and it’s usually family-related for that sweet emotional payoff. Odysseus wants to see his wife and son again. Finding Nemo’ s Marlin goes out into the open ocean to find his son. Carl from Up wants to fulfill his deceased wife’s last wish. And Onward follows the elf brothers Ian and Barley as they set off to find a magical object that will resurrect their deceased father for one day.

As with most Greek heroes, Odysseus’s plight is partially self-inflicted due to his own hubris. His second stop on his travels involves a mishap with a cyclops (a creature also present in Onward ) whom he taunts. The cyclops proceeds to invoke the wrath of his father, the sea god Poseidon, and Odysseus ends up lost at sea for much longer than he’d planned. Odysseus succumbs to his own ego and pays for it. The troubles of the Pixar protagonists are likewise rooted in their own character flaws. In Inside Out , for instance, Joy’s overwhelming desire for control leads to her being sucked out of the command center along with Sadness.

In Finding Nemo , Marlin’s overbearing parenting style fosters a rebellious attitude in his son, leading to the younger fish’s kidnapping. Also, Marlin’s distrust of others and overconfidence in his own judgment leads him to persuade Dory into swimming over a trench that looks dangerous, instead of through it as they’ve been instructed. Above the trench, they encounter a colony of jellyfish that nearly ends their journey right then and there. Onward ‘s Ian suffers from a tremendous lack of confidence, which ultimately proves to be the real reason he’s unhappy in his day-to-day life.

Once the characters set off on their journey, they are beset by a variety of strange, fantastic obstacles that impede their progress to their goal. Onward ‘s Ian and Barley run a gauntlet of classic fantasy riddles and architectural puzzles straight out of Dungeons & Dragons . Then there are the aforementioned jellyfish colony and the sharks from Finding Nemo , the squad of dogs in Up , and the various regions in Riley’s consciousness that Joy and Sadness must navigate in Inside Out .

Greek mythology has its own share of weird wonder, and Odysseus struggles through his fair share of misadventures, from an island of giants to seductive songstress sirens to a witch that turns men into pigs. The key here, and it’s perhaps the reason that these movies can blur together, is these obstacles rarely have much direct impact on the core plot of the film. The heroes are trying to go from point A to point B, and all the hijinks in between are simply roadblocks, rather than, say, forks in the road that force a choice, or unexpected twists in the path.

The emotional climax of these Pixar movies is usually a falling-out between the main character and his or her unwanted companion. When pressured to choose between his house and the bird Kevin, whom Carl knows is in danger, Carl chooses the house, symbolically abandoning the new friends he’s made since the start of his journey. Joy gets a chance to make it back to the command center on her own and leave Sadness behind because she is convinced she’s more important. Ian blows up at his brother Barley for being a screw-up after their journey takes them back to where they started and he believes they’ve wasted their time.

These moments illustrate that the protagonist hasn’t really learned anything from their journey yet. For Odysseus, this moment has to be when he and his crew ignore the warnings of the blind prophet Tiresias and kill the sacred cattle of the sun god Apollo. He suffers divine punishment — a storm from Apollo’s dad, Zeus, that sinks his ship — and ends up stranded on the island of the nymph Calypso for seven years. It should be noted that this island isn’t a terrible place to be stranded. There’s food, shelter, and a gorgeous goddess who’s in love with Odysseus. But it’s not what he wants, and this moment in the story provides a lull in the action for him to reflect.

The Pixar characters go through this moment as well. Carl discovers Ellie’s scrapbook and comes to a revelation, which leads him to assist Russell in saving Kevin. Joy, trapped in the Memory Dump, undergoes a similar revelation about Sadness. After storming off from his brother, Ian reflects and realizes that his brother has given him all the love he’s ever needed and that the thing he wanted — to meet his father — isn’t really what he needs to be happy.

Odysseus’s glorious return home is punctuated with violence as he slaughters the suitors that have been vying for his wife’s hand in marriage while he’s been away. Pixar films avoid the blood and gore, opting instead for those big heartfelt moments of emotional climax that the studio is known for. The characters come together and everyone has a happy ending. It’s a cathartic conclusion that wraps everything up neatly.  Onward manages to have things both ways, as Ian uses his newfound magic powers to slay a magic dragon and also gives his brother the closure he’d never gotten with their father.

Following the structure of The Odyssey makes for nice, concise, close-ended stories with strong emotional arcs, but even the classics can wear thin after a while. Pixar has been repeating this journey structure for nearly two decades, and one can only watch so many unhappy protagonists embark on adventures with companions they dislike, braving miscellaneous and largely unimportant perils before reaching some self-realization that turns their life around before one starts to see where these things are going.

Onward is particularly egregious in this regard because Ian and Barley’s adventure is a mismatched collection of generic fantasy tropes with little to connect the dots besides some references to Dungeons & Dragons . Perhaps it is Pixar’s endless return to this blueprint that made Onward out to be one of the studio’s lesser efforts.

Related Topics: Finding Nemo , Inside Out , Onward , Pixar , The Odyssey , Up

Recommended Reading

How ‘up’ teaches us to move on from the past.

Abigail Brenner M.D.

Spirituality

Journeys: exploring your world, inside and out, leaving home to find home.

Posted March 15, 2012

If we are always arriving and departing, it is also true that we are eternally anchored. One destination is never a place, but rather, a new way of looking at things.

-Henry Miller

Journeys are one of the most powerful and literal tools for making passages or transitions because they manifest our internal drives and desires in the outside world. The journey is a deliberate effort to move beyond ourselves. We venture into unfamiliar territory to seek challenge and change, to find new answers and dimensions. Journeys free us from the bounds of our own space, allowing us to experience things in a way that is not possible in our home environment. They open us up to the unexpected and the magical. Such experiences can be consciously recognized as markers of past growth and impetus to further growth, as steps beyond limitations and into freedom, and as leaps into new aspects of one's identity .

Journeys also help us connect with the universal sense of what it means to be human. When we journey among others beyond the familiar, we have the opportunity to see what is common among all people: how we love, how we work, how we relate in family and community, what our basic needs are, and how we meet them. Journeys connect us with the pathos of the human experience, and through this teach us compassion for others. They broaden our understanding, heighten our experience of who we are, and challenge us to express our true nature more fully.

The journey may be a trip to just get away for a while, or a move to a place that becomes our new home. It could be a "call to adventure"-the hero's journey-following a deeply felt desire, an instinctive pull to a place for some purpose. Our journey may be to overcome a specific obstacle or to connect with a spiritual or historical source. Or perhaps the impetus simply resides in the knowledge that going someplace new will bring new opportunities for change. We may not know what we're looking for, but we know we're looking, and the journey helps us to find it.

There is a long history of renowned "rite of passage" journeys. In literature, the protagonists of works such as The Odyssey and Pilgrim's Progress were transformed by epic journeys that moved them through several phases of their lives. The enlightened religious masters tested their faith, strength, and resiliency, or strove toward a higher level of understanding, in solitary journeys. The Buddha left his cloistered world of privilege to witness poverty, disease, and death. Jesus journeyed into the wilderness for forty days and nights to test himself against temptations and evils. Moses climbed Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments.

Pilgrimages are another classic form of the "rite of passage" journey. According to anthropologist Victor Turner, the pilgrim hopes to have "direct experience of the sacred, invisible, or supernatural order, either in the material aspect of miraculous healing or in the immaterial aspect of inward transformation of spirit or personality ." In addition to being an obligation for the devout, more and more individuals are visiting sacred sites in order to access and enrich their spiritual lives.

In contemporary culture, the hero's journey is a widely used rite of passage. Its appeal is evident in the enormous interest in reality TV shows which depict all kinds of challenges and transformations. The key ritual elements-separation, the ordeal, and return-are present, yet instead of being positive journeys to the soulful place within, these TV journeys are typically about outdoing fellow travelers, with competition obliterating compassion. Nonetheless, this phenomenon is evidently tapping into the collective unconscious : exploration and pioneering are, once again, exciting to the human psyche. Something stirs inside us when we see human beings entering forsaken lands, carrying nothing to ensure their survival but their personal baggage. We encourage from our living rooms. We root for someone with whom we identify. We plan strategies, fantasizing how we would behave, what we would do, if we were there. Remarkably, the medium of television, which all too often dulls our awareness, seems to be activating an ancient consciousness within us. This same enthusiasm can serve us immensely if it moves us beyond spectatorship, spurring us off our couches and into the adventure of our own lives.

I've found journeys to be a great tool for making passages in my own life, and I highly recommend them to my friends and patients when feasible. Journeys may serve to give them a boost, to remove them from a difficult situation, or to help them experience new things without daily life excuses; for instance, they can gain new perspectives on their psychological life by wandering alone or speaking with strangers, they can acquire enrichment through embracing other cultures and traditions, and generally they can do things they would never do and be someone they would never be at home. The journey is often the key to moving them into new phases of their lives. Journeys are not so much about going to a certain place but about bringing the world inside oneself, and in doing so, broadening one's self-knowledge.

Abigail Brenner M.D.

Abigail Brenner, M.D . , is a psychiatrist in private practice. She is the author of Transitions: How Women Embrace Change and Celebrate Life and other books.

  • Find a Therapist
  • Find a Treatment Center
  • Find a Psychiatrist
  • Find a Support Group
  • Find Teletherapy
  • United States
  • Brooklyn, NY
  • Chicago, IL
  • Houston, TX
  • Los Angeles, CA
  • New York, NY
  • Portland, OR
  • San Diego, CA
  • San Francisco, CA
  • Seattle, WA
  • Washington, DC
  • Asperger's
  • Bipolar Disorder
  • Chronic Pain
  • Eating Disorders
  • Passive Aggression
  • Personality
  • Goal Setting
  • Positive Psychology
  • Stopping Smoking
  • Low Sexual Desire
  • Relationships
  • Child Development
  • Therapy Center NEW
  • Diagnosis Dictionary
  • Types of Therapy

March 2024 magazine cover

Understanding what emotional intelligence looks like and the steps needed to improve it could light a path to a more emotionally adept world.

  • Coronavirus Disease 2019
  • Affective Forecasting
  • Neuroscience

The Write Practice

The Hero’s Journey: 12 Steps That Make Up the Universal Structure of Great Stories

by David Safford | 0 comments

At some in your writer's life, you've probably come across the term Hero's Journey. Maybe you've even studied this guide for storytelling and applied it to your own books—and yet, something about your own application felt off. You wanted to learn more, but didn't know where to start.

Maybe you needed a resource that would simplify the hero's journey steps and all the other major details instead of complicate them.

The Hero's Journey: The Ultimate Guide to the Universal Structure of Great Stories

The Hero's Journey is as old as humanity itself. And through history, this single story form has emerged over and over again. People from all cultures have seemed to favor its structure, and its familiar types of characters (archetypal hero, anyone?), symbols, relationships, and steps.

If you want to build or strengthen your writing career and win a following of many happy readers, you want this particular tool in your writer's toolbox.

Let's dive in.

Need help applying The Hero's Journey to your story outline and manuscript? Download this free Hero's Journey worksheet now!

Why I Love the Hero's Journey (And You Will, Too)

Like many, I grew up loving Star Wars. I especially loved the music and bought the soundtracks at some point in middle school. When my parents weren't home and I had the house all to myself, I'd slip one of the CDs into my stereo, crank the volume up, and blast the London Symphony Orchestra. I even pretended I was conducting the violins and timpani myself.

I know it's nerdy to admit. But we love what we love, and I love the music of great movies.

In a way, the Hero's Journey is like a soundtrack. It follows familiar beats and obeys age-old principles of human emotion. We can't necessarily explain why a piece of music is so beautiful, but we can explain what it does and simply acknowledge that most people like it.

As I've come to understand Joseph Campbell's groundbreaking monomyth theory, commonly known as the Hero's Journey, I've fallen deeper and deeper in love with it.

But it's important to make sure you know what it is, and what it isn't.

The Hero's Journey isn't a formula to simply follow, plugging in hackneyed characters into cliched situations.

It's not “selling out” and giving up your artistic integrity

The Hero's Journey is a set of steps, scenes, character types, symbols, and themes that tend to recur in stories regardless of culture or time period. Within these archetypes are nearly infinite variations and unique perspectives that are impacted by culture and period, reflecting wonderful traits of the authors and audiences.

Also, the Hero's Journey is a process that your reader expects your story to follow, whether they know it or not. This archetype is hard-wired into our D.N.A. Let's look at how to use it to make your own stories stronger.

How to Use This Hero's Journey Post

In the beginning, there were stories. These stories were told by mothers, soldiers, and performers. They were inscribed on the walls of caves, into tablets of stone, and on the first sheets of papyrus.

This is how the Hero's Journey was born.

In this post, I'll walk you through the Hero's Journey twelve steps, and teach you how to apply them into your story. I'll also share additional resources to teach you some other Hero's Journey essentials, like character archetypes, symbols, and themes. By the end of this post, you'll be able to easily apply the Hero's Journey to your story with confidence.

And don't skip out on the practice exercise at the end of the post! This will help you start to carve out the Hero's Journey for your story with a practical fifteen minute exercise—the best way to really retain how the Hero's Journey works is to apply it.

Table of Contents: The Hero's Journey Guide

What is the Hero's Journey?

Why the Hero's Journey will make you a better writer

The Twelve-Step Hero's Journey Structure

  • The Ordinary World
  • The Call to Adventure
  • The Refusal of the Call
  • Meeting the Mentor
  • Crossing the Threshold
  • Trials, Allies, and Enemies
  • The Approach
  • The Road Back
  • The Resurrection
  • Return With the Elixir

5 Essential Hero's Journey Scenes

A Guide to Structuring Your Hero's Journey

Bonus! Additional Hero's Journey Resources

  • 5 Character Archetypes
  • 5 Hero's Journey Symbols
  • 5 Hero's Journey Themes

What Is the Hero's Journey?

The Hero's Journey is the timeless combination of characters, events, symbols, and relationships frequently structured as a sequence of twelve steps. It is a storytelling structure that anyone can study and utilize to tell a story that readers will love.

First identified and defined by Joseph Campbell, the Hero's Journey was theorizied in The Hero With a Thousand Faces . Today, it has been researched and taught by great minds, some including Carl Jung and Christopher Vogler (author of The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers ).

This research has given us lengthy and helpful lists of archetypes , or story elements that tend to recur in stories from any culture at any time.

And while some archetypes are unique to a genre, they are still consistent within those genres. For example, a horror story from Japan will still contain many of the same archetypes as a horror story from Ireland. There will certainly be notable differences in how these archetypes are depicted, but the tropes will still appear.

That's the power of the Hero's Journey. It is the skeleton key of storytelling that you can use to unlock the solution to almost any writing problem you are confronted with.

Why the Monomyth Will Make You a Better Writer

The Hero's Journey is the single most powerful tool at your disposal as a writer.

But it isn't a “rule,” so to speak. It's also not a to-do list.

If anything, the Hero's Journey is diagnostic, not prescriptive. In other words, it describes a story that works, but doesn't necessarily tell you what to do.

But the reason you should use the Hero's Journey isn't because it's a great trick or tool. You should use the Hero's Journey because it is based on thousands of years of human storytelling.

It provides a way to connect with readers from all different walks of life.

This is why stories about fantastical creatures from imaginary worlds can forge deep emotional connections with audiences. Hollywood knows this, and its best studios take advantage. As an example, The Lord of the Rings, by J. R. R. Tolkien, contains mythical creatures like elves and hobbits. Yet it is Frodo's heroic journey of sacrifice and courage that draws us to him like a magnet.

Learn how to easily apply the Hero's Journey 12 Steps to your books in this post. Tweet this

Step 10: The Road Back

Another way to identify the Road Back could be the  Response to the Reward,  whether it is the Hero's response (disgust, disappointment, resolve, etc) or the Shadow's (vengeance, change-of-heart, etc). After the Hero acquires the goal, there must be a flight or return back to the Ordinary World.

The key to the Road Back is that it creates a false sense of peace, safety, and finality. Because the Hero has seemingly gotten what they wanted all along, the reader may be left with a sense of completeness, but not a deep thematic satisfaction. Some readers might even wonder why the book isn't complete yet.

Step 11: Resurrection

Everything in the Hero's Journey leads up to this climactic step: the Resurrection. In this scene, the Hero must face the story's evil in an ultimate way, often in the actual final battle (after the fake-out ending in Step 10). Then the Hero must  suffer a form a death. It may not be literal, actual death; but it must be a death, regardless. During this death, the hero is often trapped somewhere, like a dungeon or the “belly of the whale.”

Then the Hero must be resurrected. This is not easy to pull off. It requires careful planning and revision when the details don't add up exactly as you'd like. But through their own power, skill, righteousness, cleverness, or kindness to others, the Hero must earn a resurrection that brings them back into the fight.

Learn more: Hero's Journey Step #11: The Resurrection

Step 12: Return With the Elixir

The conclusion of your Hero's Journey necessitates some kind of return. This is a return to the original Ordinary World, or a return to the community of the world if it has had to relocate.

When they return, the Hero brings back gifts and blessings, an ultimate boon that usually takes physical form, like food, rain, or safety. However, it also takes spiritual form, as in hope, faith, and love. The Hero must  bring these gifts back and share them with their community. It is essential to your reader's experience of catharsis, and represents the apotheosis of the story's themes and values.

Learn more: Hero's Journey Step #12: Return With the Elixir

Inside the Steps: 5 Essential Hero's Journey Scenes

One final way to do this is by noting checkpoints as they outline and/or verify if and how the Hero's Journey works in their story.

To distill this lengthy structure into an easy checklist, writers need to learn how to plan and draft five scenes that are the building blocks of a well-written Hero's Journey. I cover each of these in their own individual post, which I highly recommend you check out:

Scene One: “Choice to Go” 

Two: “Initation” 

Scene Three: “Task” 

Four: “All Hope is Lost” 

Scene Five: “Hero Returns with the Ultimate Boon”

Structure is an extremely subjective matter to storytellers. It is the source of the schism between so-called “Planners” (those who write with a plan) and “Pantsers” (those who write by the seat of their pants ).

No matter where your preference lies, there are principles of storytelling that can benefit you on your mission to write a great story with a solid, timeless Hero's Journey at its core.

In order to help you apply the Hero's Journey Twelve Steps to your story, consider these three (practical!) principles of solid story structure:

1. Divide Your Story Into 3 Acts

How does Three-Act Structure overlap with a Twelve-Step Hero's Journey? It's actually not that complicated. Usually, the Three-Act Hero's Journey looks like this.

Act 1 = Steps 1 through 5

The Beginning of your story shows the reader the Hero's Ordinary World, their Call to Adventure and Refusal, the introduction and early work of the Mentor, and the Hero's “Choice to Go,” or Crossing of the Threshold.

Act 2 = Step 6

Yup. All of Act Two, the Middle Build, is a single Step: Trials, Allies, and Enemies. This is why it's essential to realize that this Step uses the entire twelve-step structure within itself, and must put the Hero to the test a number of times on their journey toward the final goal.

Act 3 = Steps 7 through 12

The Ending of the story begins when the Hero pauses to Approach the final Ordeal. It then proceeds to the major Ordeal, the Reward and consequential false ending, any Road Back that may be involved, the ultimate showdown resulting in Resurrection, and the Hero's triumphant Return with the Elixir.

2. Use Word Counts to Plan Your Drafting

There are benefits to generating an idea of how many words and chapters you should be writing. If that sounds like too much planning for you, consider this question: Do you like wasting time?

I don't. And I'd prefer to waste as little as possible. That's one of the great benefits of planning your writing with word counts in mind.

Knowing a rough estimate of how a Hero's Journey could break down by the numbers can help you plan, write, and edit a novel with a steady and strong pace. And simultaneously, it's likely that this road map will give you even more motivation to finish your story.

You might also consider devoting certain percentages of your time to the Beginning, Middle, and Ending of your book, which I'll cover more in a future post.

3. Specifically Plan Your Steps

Once you've made upon a rough word count estimate, you can plan your steps quite deliberately. As you complete this process, you can alter your estimate as well.

With this kind of plan in place, you can determine when it's time to move on to the next step as you draft. This isn't to “follow the rules,” but to stay attuned to the kind of stories that readers love and have loved for thousands of years.

With this in mind, you'll be able to use the Hero's Journey as a guide that provides a massive canvas for you to freely paint upon—and one that will come in extreme convenience as you study and apply the Twelve-Step Hero's Journey.

Hero's Journey Examples

Learning these concepts one-by-one is certainly useful, but might not help you see the power in a well-told, well-structured Hero's Journey story.

In order to really master the Hero's Journey, you can explore popular books and films that use these steps and archetypes with expert artistry.

These three examples were a turning point in my writing career while studying the Hero's Journey:

Example #1: Star Wars

Perhaps the most obvious Hero's Journey example, Star Wars  contains a feast of archetypes and structural choices that will help us see Campbell's work in action.

As an appetizer, I explore some Hero's Journey essentials in Star Wars in its own post. In it, I discuss topics like the ways Luke Skywalker is an ideal Hero,  and how on his journey, Luke faces the villainous Darth Vader, the story's Shadow . And who could forget the mysterious supernatural aid: Luke's Mentor , Obi-wan?

Whether you love or hate George Lucas's space opus (and/or what Disney has done with it since 2012), the films of the Star Wars  universe are excellent examples to study and learn from.

Learn more: Discover ALL the ways  Star Wars  uses archetypes here!

Example #2: Toy Story

Few Hollywood studios regularly utilize the Hero's Journey to incredible effect more than Pixar. In its first outing, Toy Story,  Pixar successfully told two  Hero's Journeys for both Sheriff Woody and Buzz Lightyear. In subsequent sequels, it would recapture the magic, taking its cowboy protagonist along a sequence of heroic steps that resonant with the human experience.

For example, Woody begins in an Ordinary World  in which he comfortably runs Andy's bedroom; he's Called to Adventure  when a new toy arrives and challenges him for the role of Andy's favorite toy; and he Refuses the Call  by choosing a crooked path, in which he attempts to have Buzz knocked into a corner where Andy won't find him.

As you can imagine, the story continues from there, with Woody and Buzz split between two worlds, and our heroes choices seem to perfectly follow the Hero's Journey as they attempt to reunite with Andy and forge a relationship that isn't purely antagonistic.

Beloved by generations of audiences, Toy Story  is an ideal work to focus on as we study Campbell's work.

I ‘ll breakdown the Hero's Journey Twelve Steps in this iconic film in a future post. 

Example #3: The Hunger Games

The dystopian genre is filled with unlucky heroes who realize that their worlds are broken, only to rise up against invincible forces. In one of the most popular of these stories, Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games,  follows a dirt-poor girl on a quest to unseat a tyrant and bring justice to Panem. As you certainly expected, The Hunger Games  is a perfect case study of the power of myth to bring a fantastic world into stark reality.

For example, Katniss Everdeen, the story's hero, follows in the footsteps of many other protagonists by bearing a Magic Weapon,  or object that seems to heighten the hero's powers and reveal his/her greatness.

Once out of her comfort zone, she endures numerous Tests and Trials,  including the lengthy Task  of surviving the Hunger Games themselves. Along the way she enters a Belly of the Beast,  or cave, where she must nurse her partner Peta back to health. And in the story's gripping conclusion, Katniss must survive an onslaught of Creatures of Nightmare  as the “Mutts” swarm the Cornucopia where she and Peta must make their last stand.

These situations, symbols, and more appear all throughout the Hunger Games trilogy, and I'll share exactly how these Hero's Journey essentials apply in a future post. 

Additional Examples of The Hero's Journey

These three stories are by no means the only examples of the monomyth executed to perfection. Some other stories great for analyzing the Hero's Journey could include:

  • The Lord of the Rings,  by J.R.R. Tolkien
  • Harry Potter,  by J.K. Rowling
  • Pixar's Ratatouille
  • Pixar's WALL-E
  • Back to the Future
  • The Great Gatsby
  • Pride and Prejudice,  by Jane Austen
  • Alien and Aliens  (directed by Ridley Scott and James Cameron, respectively)

BONUS! Additional Hero's Journey Resources

Applying the Hero's Journey steps to your story will connect with readers on a human level. However, that's not the only insight you can learn from the Hero's Journey. If you're up for it, learn more about why the Hero's Journey touches readers with these bonus essentials.

Hero's Journey Character Archetypes

Every story begins with great characters, and the Hero's Journey is the study of recurring character types , known as archetypes.

A character archetype is a character type that serves a specific role in a story and tends to reoccur in myths, legends, and stories across genres, cultures, and time periods.

In order to be properly utilized, a character archetype must fulfill its set purpose while exhibiting new, innovative traits. There are several important character archetypes used in heroic storylines—especially these five: hero, shadow, loyal retainer, mentor, and threshold guardians.

Learn more: Hero's Journey Character archetypes that will make your story awesome

5 Hero's Journey Symbols to Use

A Hero's Journey Symbol, also known as a symbolic archetype , is an object, location, or image in a story that contains more than one functional meaning. It has both a physical meaning in the story world and a thematic meaning for the reader to interpret.

Within your Hero's Journey scenes and relationships, you can use objects and small events to add even more thematic significance to your story.

Read more about five effective Hero's Journey symbols here:

1. “Light vs. Darkness” Symbol

2. “Magic Weapon” Symbol

3. “Underworld” Symbol

4. “Castle” Symbol

5. “Unhealable Wound” Symbol

5 Hero's Journey Themes to Explore

A Hero's Journey Theme is a relationship between two opposite ideas or elements. Throughout the story, the pros and cons of each idea/element are explored, with the Hero making high stakes choices in the context of this conflict-filled relationship. The conclusions the reader comes to about this relationship are its themes.

Read about five favored Hero's Journey themes in these posts:

1.   “Good vs. Evil” Thematic Relationship

2. “ Have n vs. Wildnerness” Thematic Relationship

3. “Nature vs. Machine” Thematic Relationship

4. “Father vs. Son” Thematic Relationship

5. “Sibling vs. Sibling” Thematic Relationship

It's Time to Tell Your Hero's Journey

Star Wars, Toy Story,  and The Hunger Games  are just three members of a near-limitless collection of stories, new and old, that use the Hero's Journey structure and archetypes to thrill readers.

The next, I hope, will be written by you!

Use the Hero's Journey Twelve Steps to outline, write, and/or edit your book—and touch all your readers on a human level.

Have you applied the Hero's Journey to your stories  before? How did it go?  Let us know in the comments .

There's no way to write a full Hero's Journey novel in just fifteen minutes. But you  can plot out your next story according to the Hero's Journey, which is what I encourage you to do.

For today, spend fifteen minutes writing a story premise that (1) you're eager to write, and (2) you can use to outline the Hero's Journey. Then, if you're up for it, journal about how the twelve steps in the Hero's Journey could apply to this story idea.

Write your ideas in the Pro Practice Workshop here . When you're done, leave some feedback for your fellow writers, as well!

' src=

David Safford

You deserve a great book. That's why David Safford writes adventure stories that you won't be able to put down. Read his latest story at his website. David is a Language Arts teacher, novelist, blogger, hiker, Legend of Zelda fanatic, puzzle-doer, husband, and father of two awesome children.

Writing Prompt: Send Your Characters Back to School

Join over 450,000 readers who are saying YES to practice. You’ll also get a free copy of our eBook 14 Prompts :

Popular Resources

Book Writing Tips & Guides Creativity & Inspiration Tips Writing Prompts Grammar & Vocab Resources Best Book Writing Software ProWritingAid Review Writing Teacher Resources Publisher Rocket Review Scrivener Review Gifts for Writers

Books By Our Writers

The Girl Who Broke the Dark

You've got it! Just us where to send your guide.

Enter your email to get our free 10-step guide to becoming a writer.

You've got it! Just us where to send your book.

Enter your first name and email to get our free book, 14 Prompts.

Want to Get Published?

Enter your email to get our free interactive checklist to writing and publishing a book.

Screen Rant

Pixar's inside out originally paired joy with another emotion (not sadness).

Inside Out is one of Pixar's greatest hits, but it almost looked completely different, with Joy being paired with another emotion during her journey.

  • Inside Out almost had a different pairing of emotions, with Joy originally being teamed up with Fear instead of Sadness.
  • The creative team behind Inside Out spent years creating and editing the movie in storyboard form before finalizing the story.
  • Sadness ended up being the key to the movie, teaching viewers that sad moments are just as important as happy ones in a complete life.

Pixar's Inside Out is one of the studio's most popular animated features, with a sequel finally on the way, but it almost looked completely different due to Joy originally being paired with another emotion instead of Sadness. Released in 2015, Inside Out has joined the lineup of sensational Pixar films that warm the hearts of viewers no matter how many times they watch them. Given how visually stunning and how carefully crafted each Pixar movie is, it's no surprise that lots of changes are made to them along the way.

Inside Out , in particular, went through quite a journey before it became the movie that viewers know and love. The movie is known for its beautiful juxtaposition of emotions that eventually come together to give their host, Riley, a meaningful life. The main pairing, Joy and Sadness, almost didn't happen, though, as the former nearly went on a journey with a different one of the core characters.

Related: Everything We Know About Inside Out 2

Joy Was Almost Paired With Fear On Her Inside Out Journey

Inside Out presents a raw and honest take on the tumultuous nature of emotions. The movie almost looked very different, however. According to The Hollywood Reporter , there was originally no big move that was making things tough for Riley. Instead, she was gearing up for middle school, and Joy was trying to hold on to the childhood version of Riley. Joy was having a hard time allowing Riley to grow up, and when Riley embarrassed herself on her first day of school it was Joy's fault. Ultimately, when it came time to go on the big, heroic journey, it was Joy and Fear who were the ones to go.

Related: 20 Best Inside Out Quotes

Sadness was not a key part of the Inside Out story until it came time for the "brain trust." Because Pixar prides itself on creating out-of-this-world pieces of work, the creative team actually can spend years creating and editing a movie in storyboard form before it ever gets animated. The different storyboard ideas get shown to Pixar's "brain trust", which is a group of creative leaders that help to shape the final story.

Inside Out 's editor, Kevin Nolting, and director, Peter Docter, realized that the story was struggling as the team was preparing for the important "brain trust" meeting. While on a walk, Docter had a light-bulb moment that changed the trajectory of the movie. He realized that Sadness having a more pivotal role was the answer to making the story click for viewers, and the rest is history.

Related: Meet The Little Voices Inside Your Head - 10 Behind-The-Scenes Facts About Inside Out

Why Sadness Was Ultimately The Key To the Movie

Although seeing Joy and Fear as the main duo of Inside Out would have been interesting, Sadness was ultimately the key to the movie. Sadness is the reason that one of the movie's main messages, and arguably the most important one, was able to resonate with viewers. Sadness teaches audiences that the sad moments are as vital to a complete life as the happy ones. It taught Joy, and viewers, that expecting Riley to be happy 24/7 is unrealistic. Hardships are an inevitable part of life and make the happy moments meaningful.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

Key Release Dates

Inside out 2.

Heroes Wiki

-Welcome to the Hero/Protagonist wiki! If you can help us with this wiki please sign up and help us! Thanks! -M-NUva

Heroes Wiki

  • Cartoon Heroes
  • Movie Heroes
  • Sensational Six Heroes
  • Superorganism
  • Lawful Good
  • Control Freaks
  • Hope Bringer
  • Voice of Reason
  • Bond Creators
  • Anthropomorphic
  • Crossover Heroes
  • Book Heroes
  • Contradictory
  • Sophisticated
  • Charismatic
  • Thrill-Seekers
  • Protector of Innocence
  • Extravagant
  • Master Orator
  • Pragmatists
  • Thought-Forms
  • Determinators
  • Theatrical Heroes
  • Comedy Heroes

Joy (Inside Out)

  • View history

Stop hand

Joy is the main protagonist of Pixar's 15th full-length animated feature film Inside Out and its upcoming 2024 sequel Inside Out 2 .

She is the emotion of Happiness and one of the five emotions inside the mind of Riley Andersen. As her name implies, she is eternally optimistic and appears to be happy all the time and thus could be the leader or enthusiast of the group.

She is voiced by Amy Poehler , who also portrayed Leslie Knope in Parks and Recreation and did the voice of Snow White from Shrek the Third , Bessie Higgenbottom from The Mighty B , Eleanor from Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel and Chipwrecked , Jenny from Free Birds , and Duncan Harris from Duncanville , and by Kate Higgins in all other media appearances. In the Japanese dub from the movie, she is voiced by the late Yuko Takeuchi .

  • 2 Inside Out 2
  • 3 Personality
  • 6 External Links
  • 7 Navigation

History [ ]

Joy was the first emotion introduced inside Riley's mind shortly after her birth. As Riley grows up, she meets the other emotions ( Sadness , Disgust , Anger , and Fear ) and they work together, influencing Riley's actions and creating her memories. Eventually, Riley moves to San Francisco and Joy is struggling to keep Riley happy. This also leads to her having run ins with Sadness, whom she has always conflicted with. Sadness causes Riley to cry on her first day of her new school and creates a sad core memory. Joy, in a panic, ends up getting both her and Sadness ejected from HQ, leaving Riley unable to be happy.

While trying to find a way back to HQ, she and Sadness get introduced to an imaginary character named Bing Bong who is good at helping her and Sadness. She, along with Sadness and Bing Bong, takes the Train of Thought to get back to HQ but is halted when Riley falls asleep. She, along with Sadness and Bing Bong, go to Dream Productions to wake up Riley. However, Bing Bong and the Core Memories are taken to Riley's Subconscious, where her deepest fears are kept, where they lead Jangles the Clown to Dream Productions and manage to wake up Riley and restart the Train of Thought. The train is destroyed when Honesty Island destroys the track and Joy learns why. Riley is attempting to run away and stole money from her mom, destroying Honesty Island.

When Family Island starts to crumble, she abandons Sadness and Bing Bong and uses a recall tube to get back into HQ. Family Island crumbles, further destroying the tube and sending her, along with Bing Bong, falling into the memory dump. Joy ends up breaking down into tears over the situation but notices that a sad memory became a happy one when Riley's sadness earned her sympathy and comfort from her friends and parents. This leads her to finally realize Sadness' purpose. She and Bing Bong search for his wagon which had fallen into the dump earlier and use it to return to the surface of the mind. After two failed attempts, Joy manages to succeed in reaching the surface after Bing Bong sacrifices himself to lighten the weight of the wagon so that it manages to return to the surface. As Bing Bong fades out of existence and is forgotten, Joy tracks down Sadness and manages to reach HQ. She allows Sadness to remove the idea for Riley to run away. Riley returns home and releases her inner stress to her parents who comfort her, creating a new core memory that is a combination of Joy and Sadness (melancholy) restoring Family Island to a new and improved state. Later after Riley has fully adjusted to life in San Francisco, Joy and the other emotions finally accept Sadness and work together to ensure a bright future for Riley.

Inside Out 2 [ ]

Personality [ ].

Being the personification of happiness, Joy is a happy, bubbly, and optimistic leader of the Emotions. She is very protective and loving of Riley, wanting to keep her happy all of the time. However, in doing so she can come off as selfish and a control freak. This is made most apparent with Sadness, whom she (albeit unwittingly) frequently ends up abusing. She often fails to listen to others' ideas, believing hers to be better, showing an arrogant side as well. Despite this Joy is a very kind and well-meaning individual who, despite some questionable actions and traits, will never intentionally harm someone and will do her best to cheer someone up, even if happiness is not appropriate for the situation. After realizing Sadness' purpose and realizing her selfishness she becomes good friends with Sadness and becomes more open-minded. Also, despite being the personification of Joy, she is not immune to feeling other Emotions as seem when she bursts into tears in the Memory Dump.

Gallery [ ]

Joy (Inside Out)

  • Joy is the second Pixar movie female protagonist, the first being Princess Merida .
  • Joy is the only emotion to have a different hair color.

External Links [ ]

  • Joy on the Near Pure Good Wiki
  • Joy on the Disney Wiki
  • Joy on the Pixar Wiki
  • Joy on the Inside Out Wiki

Navigation [ ]

  • 1 Mariko Toda
  • 2 Zhen (Kung Fu Panda)
  • 3 Yoshi Toranaga

Overblog

Hero's Journey

Welcome to the largest online archive of media storytelling outlines. Here I describe the milestones of film and series' structures in order to identify similarities for research purposes. Work here is not set in stone and is open to feedback.

Inside Out (2015)

Inside Out (2015)

After young Riley is uprooted from her Midwest life and moved to San Francisco, her emotions - Joy, Fear, Anger, Disgust and Sadness - conflict on how best to navigate a new city, house and school.

Main Characters:

  • JOY - (hero)
  • SADNESS and BING BONG - (ally)
  • ANGER, FEAR and DISGUST - (ally)

​ Milestones (FIRST ACT):

  • Ordinary World : Riley has her emotions controlled mostly by Joy.
  • Making Ally : Sadness, Anger, Fear and Disgust share the control room of Riley with Joy during her life.
  • Call for Adventure: Joy and Sadness are sucked to the Long Memory Land when they try to save the Core Memories.

Milestones (SECOND ACT):

  • Set of Trial: Sadness knows the way back but she doesn't has the energy to do it. She guides Joy.
  • Making Ally: They meet Bing Bong - Riley's imaginary friend who takes them a short cut through Imaginary Land.
  • Set of Trial: They cross Imaginary Land and see that Riley's personality is falling apart. They must hurry up. They take the train but it is not working because Riley is not awake. They try to wake her up in the Dream Studios but Bing Bong is taken to the subconscious prison. They go after him, rescue him and use one of Riley's fear to wake her up.
  • Crossing the Second Threshold: When the train is back on working and going to the headquarter, the track starts to fall apart because of the lack of another personality structure. Joy and Bing Bong fall in the forgotten zone.
  • Belly of the Whale: In there Joy starts to understand that Riley should not be happy everytime. She sees that sadness is a step to reach happiness.
  • Set of Trials : Bing Bong and Joy try to use the imaginary car to get out of there. They fail multiple times.
  • Love in the Underworld: Bing Bong understands he is overweight in the car and he has to sacrifice himself to Riley has a chance to be happy again.

Milestones (THIRD ACT):

  • Approaching the Inmost Cave: Joy leaves the Forgotten Zone with the Core Memories and looks for Sadness who is depressed for being useless to Riley. Joy is able to send Sadness in a cloud headed to the Headquarter and follow her just after. At this moment Riley has left home and is inside a bus back to Minnesota.
  • Resurrection with Elixir: Inside the Headquarter Joy convinces Sadness that she is the only one able to take the running away idea from Riley's head, that Riley must have sad moments as well. Sadness gets courage and does just that. However, Sadness sees that Joy misses the to be in control and she invites her to move Riley together. Riley starts to produce memories that are happy and sad at the same time.
  • Freedom to Live : Riley is a happy girl, adapted to new city, with friends and hobbies. A new control board arrives, much more complex, ready for puberty. Now Riley has many more personality lands and memory cores.
  • See the profile of Eric Bitencourt on the Overblog portal
  • Create your blog with Overblog
  • Report abuse
  • Terms of service
  • Royalties Partnership Program
  • Premium plans
  • Cookies and personal data
  • Cookies preferences
  • Mental Health

Want to Give Your Life More Meaning? Think of It As a ‘Hero’s Journey’

inside out hero's journey

Y ou might not think you have much in common with Luke Skywalker, Harry Potter, or Katniss Everdeen. But imagining yourself as the main character of a heroic adventure could help you achieve a more meaningful life.

Research published earlier this year in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology touts the benefits of reframing your life as a Hero’s Journey—a common story structure popularized by the mythologist Joseph Campbell that provides a template for ancient myths and recent blockbusters. In his 1949 book The Hero with a Thousand Faces , Campbell details the structure of the journey, which he describes as a monomyth. In its most elementary form, a hero goes on an adventure, emerges victorious from a defining crisis, and then returns home changed for the better.

“The idea is that there’s a hero of some sort who experiences a change of setting, which could mean being sent off to a magical realm or entering a new thing they’re not used to,” says study author Benjamin A. Rogers, an assistant professor of management and organization at Boston College. “That sets them off on a quest where they encounter friends and mentors, face challenges, and return home to benefit their community with what they’ve learned.”

According to Rogers’ findings, perceiving your life as a Hero’s Journey is associated with psychological benefits such as enhanced well-being, greater life satisfaction, feeling like you’re flourishing, and reduced depression. “The way that people tell their life story shapes how meaningful their lives feel,” he says. “And you don’t have to live a super heroic life or be a person of adventure—virtually anyone can rewrite their story as a Hero’s Journey.”

More From TIME

The human brain is wired for stories, Rogers notes, and we respond to them in powerful ways. Previous research suggests that by the time we’re in our early 20s, most of us have constructed a narrative identity—an internalized and evolving life story—that explains how we became the person we are, and where our life might go in the future. “This is how we've been communicating and understanding ourselves for thousands of years,” he says. Rogers’ research suggests that if people view their own story as following a Hero’s Journey trajectory, it increases meaning regardless of how they initially perceived their lives; even those who thought their lives had little meaning are able to benefit.

While Rogers describes a “re-storying intervention” in his research, some psychologists have used the Hero’s Journey structure as part of their practice for years. Lou Ursa, a licensed psychotherapist in California, attended Pacifica Graduate Institute, which is the only doctoral program in the country focused on mythology. The university even, she notes, houses Campbell’s personal library. As a result, mythology was heavily integrated into her psychology grad program. In addition to reflecting on what the Hero’s Journey means to her personally, she often brings it up with clients. “The way I talk about it is almost like an eagle-eye view versus a snake-eye view of our lives,” she says. “So often we’re just seeing what’s in front of us. I think that connecting with a myth or a story, whether it’s the Hero’s Journey or something else, can help us see the whole picture, especially when we’re feeling lost or stuck.”

As Rogers’ research suggests, changing the way you think about the events of your life can help you move toward a more positive attitude. With that in mind, we asked experts how to start reframing your life story as a Hero’s Journey.

Practice reflective journaling

Campbell described more than a dozen key elements of a Hero’s Journey, seven of which Rogers explored in his research: protagonist, shift, quest, allies, challenge, transformation, and legacy. He says reflecting on these aspects of your story—even if it’s just writing a few sentences down—can be an ideal first step to reframe your circumstances. Rogers offers a handful of prompts that relate back to the seven key elements of a Hero’s Journey. To drill in on “protagonist,” for example, ask yourself: What makes you you ? Spend time reflecting on your identity, personality, and core values. When you turn to “shift,” consider: What change or new experience prompted your journey to become who you are today? Then ponder what challenges stand in your way, and which allies can support or help you in your journey. You can also meditate on the legacy your journey might leave.

Ask yourself who would star in the movie of your life

One way to assess your inner voice is to figure out who would star in a movie about your life, says Nancy Irwin, a clinical psychologist in Los Angeles who employs the Hero’s Journey concept personally and professionally. Doing so can help us “sufficiently dissociate and see ourselves objectively rather than subjectively,” she says. Pay attention to what appeals to you about that person: What traits do they embody that you identify with? You might, for example, admire the person’s passion, resilience, or commitment to excellence. “They inspire us because there’s some quality that we identify with,” Irwin says. “Remember, you chose them because you have that quality yourself.” Keeping that in mind can help you begin to see yourself as the hero of your own story.

Go on more heroic adventures—or just try something new

In classic Hero’s Journey stories, the protagonist starts off afraid and refuses a call to adventure before overcoming his fears and committing to the journey. Think of Odysseus being called to fight the Trojans, but refusing the call because he doesn’t want to leave his family. Or consider Rocky Balboa: When he was given the chance to fight the world’s reigning heavyweight champion, he immediately said no—before ultimately, of course, accepting the challenge. The narrative has proven timeless because it “reflects the values of society,” Rogers says. “We like people who have new experiences and grow from their challenges.” 

He suggests asking yourself: “If I want to have a more meaningful life, what are the kinds of things I could do?” One possible avenue is seeking out novelty, whether that’s as simple as driving a new way home from work or as dramatic as finally selling your car entirely and committing to public transportation.

Be open to redirection

The Hero’s Journey typically starts with a mission, which prompts the protagonist to set off on a quest. “But often the road isn’t linear,” says Kristal DeSantis, a licensed marriage and family therapist in Austin. “There are twists, turns, unexpected obstacles, and side quests that get in the way. The lesson is to be open to possibility.”

That perspective can also help you flip the way you see obstacles. Say you’re going through a tough time: You just got laid off, or you were diagnosed with a chronic illness. Instead of dwelling on how unfortunate these hurdles are, consider them opportunities for growth and learning. Think to yourself: What would Harry do? Reframe the challenges you encounter as a chance to develop resilience and perseverance, and to be the hero of your own story.

When you need a boost, map out where you are on your journey

Once you find a narrative hero you can relate to, keep their journey in mind as you face new challenges. “If you feel stuck or lost, you can look to that story and be like, ‘Which part do I feel like I’m in right now?’” Ursa says. Maybe you’re in the midst of a test that feels so awful that you’ve lost perspective on its overall importance—i.e., the fact that it’s only part of your journey. (See: When Katniss was upset about the costume that Snow forced her to wear—before she then had to go fight off a pack of ferocious wolves to save her life.) Referencing a familiar story “can help you have that eagle-eye view of what might be next for you, or what you should be paying attention to,” Ursa says. “Stories become this map that we can always turn to.” Think of them as reassurance that a new chapter almost certainly awaits.

More Must-Reads From TIME

  • Why We're Spending So Much Money Now
  • The Fight to Free Evan Gershkovich
  • Meet the 2024 Women of the Year
  • John Kerry's Next Move
  • The Quiet Work Trees Do for the Planet
  • Breaker Sunny Choi Is Heading to Paris
  • Column: The Internet Made Romantic Betrayal Even More Devastating
  • Want Weekly Recs on What to Watch, Read, and More? Sign Up for Worth Your Time

Contact us at [email protected]

You May Also Like

VIDEO

  1. Hero inside the end

  2. Inside Out 2: A New Emotion

  3. Inside out part 10

  4. Inside out part 8

  5. Inside out part 9

  6. Inside out part 6

COMMENTS

  1. Inside Out Hero's Journey

    As Joy, Sadness, and Bing Bong navigate Riley's brain terrain, they encounter a variety of challenges. They must endure the four thoroughly freaky phases of abstract thought, disrupt Riley's dreams enough to wake her up and restart the Train of Thought, and survive a treacherous trip through the dark of Riley's subconscious.

  2. Inside Out: Hero's Journey

    Refusal Of The Call. Joy tries to stop Sadness from touching any more memories. First, she gives her a super-boring Mind Manual to read. On the first day of school, she draws a circle on the floor and makes Sadness stand in it. Joy wants things to stay exactly the same: namely, that Riley's happy 24/7.

  3. Inside Out A Hero's Journey Flashcards

    Stage 1: Ordinary World. Riley's (hero) ordinary world is the headquarters in Riley's brain. Headquarters is a location inside Riley's mind and is the home of 5 emotions which guide Riley throughout her life. The five emotions are Joy, Sadness, Anger (trickster), Fear (trickster), and Disgust (trickster). Stage 2: Call To Adventure.

  4. The Perfect Humanity of Pixar's Inside Out

    Inside Out feels like a more complete end-to-end story, a hero's journey that involves Joy and Sadness becoming lost in the deep recesses of Riley's mind, having to find a way back to Mission ...

  5. INSIDE OUT: Character, Archetypes and The Psychology of Revision

    Instead, the main character is actually an archetype inside of her head: the emotion of Joy, played by Amy Poehler. And Joy is joined by four other archetypes: Fear, Anger, Disgust, and Sadness. One of the most interesting things about this movie is that it's actually based on real psychological research.

  6. The Other Hero's Journey: The Emotional Struggle of Screenwriting

    In this intriguing video essay, Michael Tucker of Lessons from the Screenplay explores the writing process of Pixar's Inside Out — particularly how screenwriter Pete Doctor's real life experience mirrored the intense emotional journey that made the film an Oscar winner. Tucker touches on many crucial aspects of screenwriting in the video, but ...

  7. Inside out- The Hero's Journey by Mary Grace Carr on Prezi

    The story takes place in a girls head. 5 emotions - Joy, Sadness, Fear, Anger and Disgust control how the girl, Riley, feels. 2 main emotions, Joy and Sadness are launched out of Headquarters, leaving the other 3 alone in a difficult time. The adventure begins when Joy and Sadness are unwillingly sucked into a memory- recall tube, out of ...

  8. Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey: Worksheet & Examples

    If you want to innovate, you first need to understand the source material—the 17 steps in the hero's journey—inside out. For starters, here's a simple definition of the hero's journey: The hero's journey or the monomyth is a universal pattern followed by the main character (hero) in a book or a movie.

  9. Opinion

    More often in real life, one person's sadness pulls other people in to comfort and help. "Inside Out" features five characters based on human emotions. From left: Anger, Disgust, Joy, Fear and ...

  10. The Hero's Journey: How to Write the Resurrection

    The Hero's Journey is a well-known and oft-used mythological storytelling structure. ... Inside Out. After an embarrassing moment at her new school in San Francisco, Riley loses her ability to feel both joy and sadness. This is partially because her emotional cores, Joy and Sadness, have been swept into Riley's long-term memory and cannot get ...

  11. Pixar is Obsessed With 'The Odyssey'

    The hero's journey takes place on a hero's journey. By Hans Qu · Published on March 18th, 2020 Onward has been a disappointment at the box office, ... In Inside Out, ...

  12. Hero's Journey- Inside Out by Olivia Brown on Prezi

    Joy and Sadness work the console together, creating a new core memory that combines their emotions and creating a new island forms representing Riley's acceptance of her new life in San Francisco. This shows Riley making her transition back into her old life. When Joy and Bing Bong attempt to use the magic wagon to get out of the forgotten ...

  13. Hero's Journey

    Inside Out approach the innermost cave pt 2 When it seems like Joy will make it back to HQ she must face her biggest fear and allow Riley's core memories to turn sad. She tries to control things and abandon Sadness and falls into the memory dump.

  14. The Hero's Journey and Three Types of Metaphor in Pixar Animation

    Based on the box office data, I selected "Inside Out" (2015) and "Coco" (2017). Their box ... Key work in which Campbell's hero's journey was consciously applied are discussed, and criticisms ...

  15. Journeys: Exploring Your World, Inside and Out

    The journey may be a trip to just get away for a while, or a move to a place that becomes our new home. It could be a "call to adventure"-the hero's journey-following a deeply felt desire, an ...

  16. The Hero's Journey: 12 Steps That Make Up the Universal Structure of

    Step 7: Approach to the Inmost Cave. Eventually the Hero must arrive at the destination, and that destination is frequently a fortress, cave, or dungeon crawling with monsters, enemies, or traps. This will lead to the story's climax, but the best heroic journeys include a step before the big fight.

  17. Pixar's Inside Out Originally Paired Joy With Another Emotion (Not Sadness)

    Summary. Inside Out almost had a different pairing of emotions, with Joy originally being teamed up with Fear instead of Sadness. The creative team behind Inside Out spent years creating and editing the movie in storyboard form before finalizing the story. Sadness ended up being the key to the movie, teaching viewers that sad moments are just ...

  18. Joy (Inside Out)

    Joy is the main protagonist of Pixar's 15th full-length animated feature film Inside Out and its upcoming 2024 sequel Inside Out 2.. She is the emotion of Happiness and one of the five emotions inside the mind of Riley Andersen. As her name implies, she is eternally optimistic and appears to be happy all the time and thus could be the leader or enthusiast of the group.

  19. The 12 Steps of the Hero's Journey, WIth Example

    The fundamental steps include: The call to adventure, where the hero is presented with a challenge or opportunity that sets them on their path; the crossing of the threshold, leaving behind the known world and venturing into the unknown; various tests, trials, and allies that help the hero overcome obstacles along the way; a confrontation with ...

  20. Hero's journey

    Illustration of the hero's journey. In narratology and comparative mythology, the hero's journey, also known as the monomyth, is the common template of stories that involve a hero who goes on an adventure, is victorious in a decisive crisis, and comes home changed or transformed.. Earlier figures had proposed similar concepts, including psychoanalyst Otto Rank and amateur anthropologist Lord ...

  21. Inside Out (2015)

    A new control board arrives, much more complex, ready for puberty. Now Riley has many more personality lands and memory cores. Directed by Pete Docter and Ronaldo Del Carmen Written by Pete Docter, Ronaldo Del Carmen, Meg LeFauve and Josh Cooley Storyline: After young Riley is uprooted from her Midwest life and moved to San Francisco, her ...

  22. The Psychological Value of Applying the Hero's Journey to Your Life

    Campbell described more than a dozen key elements of a Hero's Journey, seven of which Rogers explored in his research: protagonist, shift, quest, allies, challenge, transformation, and legacy ...

  23. Inside Out Hero's Journey

    Inside Out Hero's Journey Thursday 3 November 2016. Inside Out Hero's Journey. Blurb: After young Riley is uprooted from her Midwest life and moved to San Francisco, her emotions - Joy, Fear, Anger, Disgust and Sadness - conflict on how best to navigate a new city, house and school.