ColGray
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Aug 9, 2023
- Messages
- 460
Campbell is fun and useful but he did a LOT of shoehorning to get stories to fit into his understanding of structure. His claims of, every epic story, from Homer to Gilgamesh to Taliesin and Cu Chulain all fit into this nice structure, are nearly as mythical as the stories he analyzed. It's loose. It's useful. It's a method of looking at universality in humans, but the beats he outlines are by no means universal.
Campbell also really falls down with multi-POV (though, so do a lot of story plotting/template devices).
I'm a gardener who zealously tracks his data, so full disclosure, outlining is not my native language, but the two things I've found most helpful are the Harmon Story Circle (DEEPLY single POV tool) and Story Grid (multi-POV curious, if not multi-POV friendly). (Save the Cat is also a classic).
I find Story Grid's underlying mechanic most helpful because it's basic: Genre isn't a dirty word, it is shorthand for audience expectation. People that read a Thriller have certain expectations that X scenes/beats will happen--so if you're writing a Thriller, you need to have them. Subvert them. Twist them. Hit those beats in new and creative ways--but don't say you're "above them" or your story is "too good" for a genre trope (e.g. hero at the mercy of the villain) bc it's not. Silence of the Lambs is a masterpiece and it has every Thriller genre story beat in it--but it hits them all in new and creative ways.
And here is a Harmon Story Circle. It gives a solid outline of the story beats to tell a complete, single POV story that begins and ends with the protagonist in the same position, but changed due to the story.
Campbell also really falls down with multi-POV (though, so do a lot of story plotting/template devices).
I'm a gardener who zealously tracks his data, so full disclosure, outlining is not my native language, but the two things I've found most helpful are the Harmon Story Circle (DEEPLY single POV tool) and Story Grid (multi-POV curious, if not multi-POV friendly). (Save the Cat is also a classic).
I find Story Grid's underlying mechanic most helpful because it's basic: Genre isn't a dirty word, it is shorthand for audience expectation. People that read a Thriller have certain expectations that X scenes/beats will happen--so if you're writing a Thriller, you need to have them. Subvert them. Twist them. Hit those beats in new and creative ways--but don't say you're "above them" or your story is "too good" for a genre trope (e.g. hero at the mercy of the villain) bc it's not. Silence of the Lambs is a masterpiece and it has every Thriller genre story beat in it--but it hits them all in new and creative ways.
And here is a Harmon Story Circle. It gives a solid outline of the story beats to tell a complete, single POV story that begins and ends with the protagonist in the same position, but changed due to the story.
