Christopher Vogler and The Writer's Journey

This Saturday, I spent the day with Christopher Vogler. Okay, it was me and a hundred other people but I was there, sitting in the cinema on Bainbridge Island just 35 minutes by ferry from Seattle.

If you don't know who Christopher Vogler is, you should. He's the author of The Writer's Journey and you can find out more about him, his work and the writer's journey it on his website at http://www.thewritersjourney.com . In a nutshell (hmmm, I wonder if I can do this in a nutshell?), The Writer's Journey takes the work of Joseph Campbell of the hero's journey and the hero of a 1000 faces fame and turns it into an exploration of how story works in our world.

Vogler and Campbell agree that almost all stories follow the same general pattern - that pattern being the hero's journey. Now, that's not to say that all stories are the same - because of course they're not. What it does say is that most stories follow (obviously or not so obviously) the same journey.

Vogler's is an astonishing book whether you're a writer or not. I've been using it in my own work and to teach writing for years.

What I'm going to do for the next 12 weeks is each Sunday I'm going to explore one of the 12 stages of the hero's journey (as I see and use them) on this blog. I'll include some of Vogler's highlights, but it'll mostly be a personal view of the journey. I'll also (over the 12 weeks) maintain the posts on my website. I'll give you the link to them each Sunday so if you come to this at Stage 5, you can catch up.

It'll be a journey, that's for sure, because I've never tried to do this before.

Wish me luck.

Kate