The Mythic Journey Joseph Campbell so passionately explored and shared with the rest of us and Christopher Vogler so brilliantly captures by in his book Writers Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers is part of the Universal Story.
The Universal Story is the heartbeat of the universe. It's in the undercurrent of every breath you take, every story you tell yourself, and all the stories you write. The Universal Story represents the story of one man changing and evolving as part of the bigger story of all of nature and world around us undergoing constant change and evolution.
An understanding of the Universal Story helps you arrange a story or when, having written, you find yourself mired and lost or simply curious about where you are and where you are headed or, at least, the general direction in which you are moving.
Character transformation in a story mirrors the Universal Story of rebirth. Rebirth contributes to the evolution of us all and delights those who harbor a secret belief in miracles. A character reunited with a long lost part of herself speaks to the possibilities in our own lives. Our inner intelligence whispers of the timelessness of birth, growth, death, and rebirth.
Stand away from all the words of your story and reconnect with the core or heart of the story itself. Examine the themes and the deeper meaning of the story. In viewing your stories minus the words, you can see a story worth the time and attention it is going to take to get it right
As your story evolves, you'll be evolving, too...
For more about the Universal Story and writing a novel, memoir or screenplay, visit Plot Series: How Do I Plot a Novel, Memoir, Screenplay? on YouTube. A directory of all the steps to the series is to the right of this post.
Terrific comment from a writer I work with -- she thinks like in fireworks with ideas going off in all different directions. No wonder she has difficulty pinning down her story. It's as if in every writing session she embarks on yet another story. Yet, it's obvious that her themes remain consistent throughout. Based on that we begin our work.
For her, the process is not about generating scenes. For this writer, her process involves analyzing what she does have -- beginning with key scenes at energetic markers only. Since she has revealed to me all the defining traits of a classically right-hemisphere dominate writer, such a task of analyzation brings up all sorts of resistance from her.
As we work our way through the maze, her next toughest assignment is to hone in on her story and begin to commit to one route over another. She searches for assurances that the process will lead her to a publishable book in the end, which is impossible to determine until she reaches the end of the process and finds out what her story truly is all about. So, rather than commit, she continues to flit from one idea to another.
No amount of reassurances from me or anyone else about believing in and relying on the beauty of her writing brings her peace. Such a belief has to originate from inside herself. Something in her back-story seems to be preventing this. And, just like with the protagonist, as this writer writes her story, she also embarks on a personal, emotional and spiritual journey to determine how her back-story negatively affects her front story and writing life.
No wonder writing a story from the beginning all the way through to the end can take so long and become so difficult.
Even so, and setting aside her dream of publication, I still believe to my core that the process of writing and the self-discovery writing brings us is worth the time and effort. Always...
The Mythic Journey Joseph Campbell so passionately explored and shared with the rest of us and Christopher Vogler so brilliantly captures by in his book Writers Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers is part of the Universal Story.
great post! i eally liked it! thanks for sharing!