It has occurred to me that when I need to distribute handouts for my classes and presentations, I can simply post them here and direct people to chrisvogler.wordpress.com so they can read, save or print them as desired. So here, and in the previous couple of posts, are my essential handouts.

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Christopher Vogler

The Hero’s Journey is a pattern of narrative identified by the American scholar Joseph Campbell that appears in drama, storytelling, myth, religious ritual, and psychological development. It describes the typical adventure of the archetype known as The Hero, the person who goes out and achieves great deeds on behalf of the group, tribe, or civilization.

Its stages are:

THE ORDINARY WORLD. The hero, uneasy, uncomfortable or unaware, is introduced sympathetically so the audience can identify with the situation or dilemma. The hero is shown against a background of environment, heredity, and personal history. Some kind of polarity in the hero’s life is pulling in different directions and causing stress.
THE CALL TO ADVENTURE. Something shakes up the situation, either from external pressures or from something rising up from deep within, so the hero must face the beginnings of change.
REFUSAL OF THE CALL. The hero feels the fear of the unknown and tries to turn away from the adventure, however briefly. Alternately, another character may express the uncertainty and danger ahead.
MEETING WITH THE MENTOR. The hero comes across a seasoned traveler of the worlds who gives him or her training, equipment, or advice that will help on the journey. Or the hero reaches within to a source of courage and wisdom.
CROSSING THE THRESHOLD. At the end of Act One, the hero commits to leaving the Ordinary World and entering a new region or condition with unfamiliar rules and values.
TESTS, ALLIES AND ENEMIES. The hero is tested and sorts out allegiances in the Special World.
APPROACH. The hero and newfound allies prepare for the major challenge in the Special world.
THE ORDEAL. Near the middle of the story, the hero enters a central space in the Special World and confronts death or faces his or her greatest fear. Out of the moment of death comes a new life.
THE REWARD. The hero takes possession of the treasure won by facing death. There may be celebration, but there is also danger of losing the treasure again.
THE ROAD BACK. About three-fourths of the way through the story, the hero is driven to complete the adventure, leaving the Special World to be sure the treasure is brought home. Often a chase scene signals the urgency and danger of the mission.
THE RESURRECTION. At the climax, the hero is severely tested once more on the threshold of home. He or she is purified by a last sacrifice, another moment of death and rebirth, but on a higher and more complete level. By the hero’s action, the polarities that were in conflict at the beginning are finally resolved.
RETURN WITH THE ELIXIR. The hero returns home or continues the journey, bearing some element of the treasure that has the power to transform the world as the hero has been transformed.

THE ARCHETYPES

ARCHETYPES are recurring patterns of human behavior, symbolized by standard types of characters in movies and stories.

HEROES

Central figures in stories. Everyone is the hero of his or her own myth.

SHADOWS

Villains and enemies, perhaps the enemy within. The dark side of the Force, the repressed possibilities of the hero, his or her potential for evil. Can be other kinds of repression, such as repressed grief, anger, frustration or creativity that is dangerous if it doesn’t have an outlet.

MENTORS

The hero’s guide or guiding principles. Yoda, Merlin, a great coach or teacher.

HERALD

One who brings the Call to Adventure. Could be a person or an event.

THRESHOLD GUARDIANS

The forces that stand in the way at important turning points, including jealous enemies, professional gatekeepers, or your own fears and doubts.

SHAPESHIFTERS

In stories, creatures like vampires or werewolves who change shape. In life, the shapeshifter represents change. The way other people (or our perceptions of them) keep changing. The opposite sex, the way people can be two-faced.

TRICKSTERS

Clowns and mischief-makers, Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, Richard Pryor and Eddie Murphy. Our own mischievous subconscious, urging us to change.

ALLIES

Characters who help the hero through the change. Sidekicks, buddies, girlfriends who advise the hero through the transitions of life.

CHARACTER ESSENTIALS

MOTIVATED. We have to know what they want, what they wish for, what drives them. On a deeper level, what do they need to complete them or heal them?

SYMPATHETIC. We should feel sorry for them, or appreciate something about their attitude or behavior.

WOUNDED. They bear the scars of old injuries, or there is a shadow hanging over them of guilt or suspicion.

CHARACTER FLAWS. They have some bad qualities, some area where they fail or make mistakes.

IDENTIFICATION. These small mistakes make us IDENTIFY with the characters. We all make mistakes and we feel sympathy for the heroes who fail. We feel they are like us, and what they feel, we feel.

CHARACTER VIRTUES. They have some good qualities that are attractive or funny.

UNIQUE. Each character has a unique combination of qualities.

CHARACTER CHANGE. The story creates pressure for the character to change behavior. The audience enjoys seeing this pressure and they like to see the moment when the character begins to change.

CHARACTER ARC. In a realistic story, characters change little by little. They probably remain true to their basic natures, but change a little in how they think or behave.

INNER AND OUTER PROBLEM. Every character should have an outer problem to solve, something physical or external. They should also have an inner problem, such as becoming a better team player, forgiving someone, learning to be more responsible, etc.

IN TV COMEDIES. Characters don’t change very much. If they do, it is for a short time and they usually return to their old behavior at the end of the show.

The audience enjoys seeing a TOUGH CHARACTER show a more sensitive side. They also like to see a WEAK or FEARFUL CHARACTER show a strong side of courage.

INTRODUCTION OF CHARACTERS. Give them a strong entrance. Tell me who the characters are by showing them doing something that expresses their basic nature.

CHOICES. The choices a character makes define the character.

HOW TO REVEAL CHARACTER. Through ACTION, DIALOGUE, COSTUME, PROPS, BODY LANGUAGE, SURROUNDINGS, WHAT PEOPLE SAY ABOUT THEM, but mostly through BEHAVIOR.

CATHARSIS. The audience enjoys seeing characters who are driven to extremes of behavior. Sometimes they have an emotional breakthrough – crying, screaming, getting very excited about something. This kind of breakthrough is called a catharsis. The audience can experience it too, through sympathy with the characters.

SOME CHARACTER QUESTIONS

What does my character want? What does he or she really need?

What makes the character laugh? Cry?

What is the character’s greatest fear?

What is the one thing he/she will not do?

Who does your character admire the most? Who does he/she hate?

What is his/her best quality? Worst quality? What are some other qualities (you need at least three to make a character seem realistic and “3-dimensional”).

What is his/her secret wish?

What is he/she hiding?

What is his/her “agon” – the one thing he/she will always have to struggle with?

CHRIS VOGLER’S ESSENTIALS OF STORY

WHAT IS A STORY:

A metaphor or comparison. Every story is taken in as a metaphor by the viewer, who thinks “In some way, this story is like my life. Maybe there is a lesson I can learn here.”

A story is also a thought device, a method of analyzing some aspect of life. Joseph Campbell said “A myth is a metaphor for a mystery beyond human comprehension.” Stories give us a sense of meaning, helping us understand difficult issues that can’t be understood by the tools of science or reason.

A story is an orientation device, like a map or a compass, that gives us hints about where we are in the journey of life and what we might expect to happen next.

WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF A STORY?

I say it must first be entertaining. (It must hold the attention of the audience.) That is the primary obligation. But then its purpose is to raise the “vibrational rate” of the audience. It tries to make them more conscious, more awake, more able to respond to their environment, more aware of their place in the world.

I believe we evolved the ability to tell stories because it has a survival advantage. We pay attention to the lessons of stories because we hope to gain some competitive advantage in the game of life.

HOW DOES A STORY WORK?

A story works on our emotions by first creating IDENTIFICATION with a sympathetic or relatable hero, protagonist or main character. We must care about the hero and feel that in some way he or she is like us. A hero is someone who has DRIVES and DESIRES, as we all do.

Early in the story, something happens to threaten the life of the hero. Either a VILLAIN attacks or there is some LACK, something missing, in the life of the hero or his world. How will the hero respond? This creates SUSPENSE, a kind of tension that keeps us hanging until the end of the story. We are HOOKED by questions. Even the shape of a question mark is like a fish-hook, isn’t it?

The audience must know that the hero WANTS something. Maybe it is obvious – they just want to survive or be left alone. Or it may be something the hero says – MAKING A WISH or stating an intention or desire. We “get on board” with a story when we know what the hero wants or wishes for, and we wish for him to get it.

Often the hero WANTS something desperately, but doesn’t realize there is something else he really NEEDS much more. The story seems to exist to teach the hero about what he really needs. It may give him what he wants, too, but it will provide adventures and tests that will show the hero what is really important in life, what he really needs.

Every hero should have two journeys or problems to solve. One is the OUTER PROBLEM – how to defeat the villain, win the game, survive a storm. There should also be an INNER PROBLEM, something emotional, such as a lesson the hero has to learn or a piece that is missing from his personality. These become questions in the audience’s minds – Will the hero win? (Outer problem.) Will the hero learn the right lessons about life? (Inner problem.)

The hero should meet many OBSTACLES in the middle part of the story and there should be CONFLICT in every scene. “It’s very simple,” the old masters of story say. “You get the hero up a tree. You shake the tree. You get him down again.” The conflicts should build, becoming more and more intense with each scene. The VILLAIN should be strong and powerful, and very difficult for the hero to defeat. “The hero in a story is only as strong as the villain.”

Somewhere in the middle of the story, there should be some DARK MOMENTS when it looks like the hero has been defeated or even killed. The audience should be completely convinced that the hero has failed. Then there is a REBIRTH, when the hero comes back to life or starts to win again.

The Obstacles and Conflicts should bring about CHARACTER CHANGE in the hero. This change should be gradual, in small stages called a CHARACTER ARC. Each obstacle should teach the hero a different little lesson about life, such as be more careful in making plans, learn to work as a team, don’t celebrate a victory too early, etc.

At the end of the story there should be a CLIMAX where the SUSPENSE is at its highest point. The hero goes through one more big test, defeats the villain or restores what was LACKING from his world, and is TRANSFORMED. The hero’s appearance, way of talking, or behavior is different. This transformation symbolizes the hero’s new identity. The audience should go away with a new understanding of life, perhaps in the form of a moral lesson.

PITCHING TIPS

Know what your story is about – one word, one human quality.

Know your conflict. Point out a contradiction, a problem, a human conflict that cries out to be resolved.

Know the value of the “Not only, but also” form of presentation. N.O.B.A. Everyone knows X about the subject, but did you know Y? Everyone knows Abraham Lincoln was a great President, but did you know he was a vampire hunter?

Know your turning points. Let your listeners know where you are in the story, at least in terms of beginning, middle and end. Use three act structure to break the story down into manageable units.

Know your audience. Be aware of their attention span. Put them into your story. Somehow it’s about them.

Use questions, such as “What if…?” to HOOK your listeners.

Be specific about a few selected details to make your story real.

Be conversational. You’re telling an exciting story to a friend rather than giving a formal presentation. Smile.

Rehearse, prepare, but be ready to adapt and think on your feet.

Happy Trails!

Chris Vogler

Essence of Story

Chris Vogler’s Essence of Story Handout

October 20, 2023

Chapter One: WHAT IS A STORY?

A metaphor or comparison. Every story is taken in as a metaphor by the viewer, who thinks “In some way, this story is like my life. Maybe there is a lesson I can learn here.”

A story is an orientation device, like a map or a compass, that gives us hints about where we are in the journey of life and what we might expect to happen next.

A story is also a contract with the audience. They give you something valuable, their time and focused attention, very rare things these days. In return you must give them something of equal value, a good story that changes them or their perspective in some way.

WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF A STORY?

HOW DOES A STORY WORK?

HOW HOLLYWOOD STORY DEPARTMENTS WORK

Studios have to process thousands of stories every year that come in the form of screenplays, treatments, novels, comic books, computer games, magazine articles, etc. They have developed certain standard documents to make the process more orderly.

Every story considered by a studio has a report written about it, called a COVERAGE REPORT or just COVERAGE. This has three parts:

The LOG LINE which is a short description of the story in one to three sentences,
The SYNOPSIS which retells the story in a few paragraphs
And the COMMENT which is an evaluation of the story, giving the reader’s reactions to it and recommendations. Each studio has a staff of ten or twelve readers or STORY ANALYSTS who write these reports.

The Log Line can be useful for writers too, as a short way of telling your story. The Log Line for Titanic would be: An adventure-loving young man, JACK, wins a ticket on the Titanic and falls in love with ROSE, a young woman who is being forced to marry a selfish RICH MAN. When the Rich Man discovers they are in love, he tries to hurt them but just then the ship hits an iceberg and begins to sink. Jack helps Rose survive and sacrifices himself for her, after making her promise to live her life for the both of them.

You should practice turning your story into a Log Line so you can “pitch” it quickly when people ask what your story is about.

DEVELOPMENT NOTES are more elaborate documents written when a story has been purchased by the studio. Each time a new draft is submitted by the writers, notes are written by several readers and executives and combined into a document that helps the writers improve the story. There may be many cycles of drafts and development notes before a script gets “the green light” and is ready for production, and even then, there may be more notes and revisions throughout the shooting and editing process.

EXERCISE: Write a LOG LINE for a story – maybe a movie you like, or a story you are writing. Tell the story in three sentences – beginning, middle and end; Act One, Act Two, Act Three.

Chapter Two: BASIC STORY STRUCTURE

To be an effective work of art, a story needs a quality of UNITY. We should feel it is about one thing – a person, an event, an idea, a human problem. The screenwriter of BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID and THE PRINCESS BRIDE, William Goldman, said the story needs a spine, a single idea running through the whole thing. Everything in the story has to relate to that spine, or it doesn’t belong in the story.

Your THEME is a one-word description of what your story is about. It’s usually some human emotion or human quality, like Trust, Friendship, Jealousy, Revenge, Ambition, Idealism, Love, Betrayal, or Suspicion. Just ask yourself, if I only had one word to describe my story, what would that be?

A PREMISE is an expansion of that one word into a sentence. It’s not enough to tell a story about Love or any of those human emotions. They are too big, and need to be modified somehow. What kind of love? What kind of ambition? What is your viewpoint about that quality? The premise can be stated like a mathematical formula: X behavior leads to Y consequences. Blind love leads to disappointment. Passionate love overcomes all obstacles and leads to happiness. The premise should reflect your world-view, and your opinion about the human quality you are studying in your story.

The idea of premise comes from a book called The Art of Dramatic Writing by Lajos Egri. He gives an example from Shakespeare’s play “MacBeth”. He says in effect the theme of “MacBeth” is AMBITION, and the premise is “Ruthless (heartless, merciless) ambition leads inevitably to destruction.” The premise is like a theory that is proven by the actions of the play.

POLARITY and CONFLICT

A story is almost always POLARIZED, that is, it shows us a struggle between two forces, two ideas about life, two divisions within a society. This is essence of CONFLICT and drama – two people want different things. This is automatically attractive to the audience. They can’t look away. They are hooked. When we see people or nations fighting, we can’t look away.

Even if people are not fighting or yelling at each other, there can be CONTRAST to attract the eyes of the audience. Artists say the human eye is attracted to areas of high contrast in any scene, and they will try to create high contrast in every drawing or painting. Characters should be very different from one another so we can enjoy this contrast. Walt Disney used this principle in his work, creating contrast between Mickey Mouse and his friend Goofy, or between Mickey and his friend Donald Duck. The musical sequences in FANTASIA provide a lot of contrast. One musical piece is slow and dreamy, while the next one is quick and funny, so the viewer never gets bored with the same thing.

GREEK CONCEPT OF AGON

The English words “PROTAGONIST” and “ANTAGONIST” mean the characters you are for or against in the conflict. Usually they mean the hero and the villain, but it might also be the hero and whoever he or she is struggling with. The antagonist could even be a friend or lover who disagrees with the hero about how to do something.

The Greek word “agon” is buried in the middle of those words. Agon means a struggle, a contest, a competition or a conflict. It was also the name of a god, imagined by the Greeks to be in charge of contests and conflicts. Athletes at the Olympic Games offered sacrifices to the god Agon in hope of winning the god’s help in the contest.

The English word “agony” means a great pain or torment, often for an extended period of time. This is because an agon can be a long struggle, perhaps life-long.

To the Greeks, an “Agon” was any contest or test of skill. They would say our TV and movie awards shows, the Oscars and so on, are modern-day Agons, as are competitive reality shows on TV, and our various sports competitions. But it also meant a personal struggle, perhaps a life-long inner conflict or the struggle to deal with a weakness in character. How a person handles his or her personal agon is a big test of character.

We look for clues and answers about our personal agons in the conflicts between protagonists and antagonists in stories. We always think the story is about us, somehow.

EVERYTHING IN THE STORY (AND IN HOLLYWOOD) MUST BE EARNED

The world of stories operates by some rules from the world of economics. There are only so many resources, such as time, the attention of the audience, and the budget. They must be used carefully and thoughtfully. Everything in a script (dialogue, description, action) should be done economically, with as few words as possible.

Everything in a script must be earned. Everything must be paid for. Heroes should earn their rewards by hard efforts. They should not be given greater rewards than they deserve. They should not be cheated, either. The audience will not be happy if the hero does not get a good reward, equal to the suffering or sacrifice he has experienced.

It is also true in the movie and TV business that everything must be earned, especially respect and power. No one will give you the respect you deserve. You must earn it by repeated success.

POETIC JUSTICE

This term means there should be some proper relationship between punishment and the crime, or between the reward and the hero’s positive actions. A villain should be punished in a way that reflects his crimes. If he has been cruel and unfair to women, then he should be punished by being humiliated by women. If he has taken away someone’s life or freedom, he should lose his own life or freedom.

There should be poetic justice about the hero, too. If he has sacrificed his money or his safety for someone else, then perhaps that person repays him in a similar way, rewarding him with money or safety.

ARISTOTLE AND WHY HE IS IMPORTANT TO SCREENWRITERS When I went to film school, there were no screenwriting textbooks. There was only a book about play writing, THE ART OF DRAMATIC WRITING by Lajos Egri, and a little book written over two thousand years ago by a wise man in Greece, THE POETICS by the philosopher Aristotle.

My great teacher at the University of Southern California cinema school was Professor Irwin Blacker. He introduced us to The Poetics and made us read it even though it is difficult to understand and not always clear.

In THE POETICS, Aristotle was looking at Greek drama, a form of storytelling that was still evolving before his eyes. Every culture has some kind of theatre or drama, but something special was happening in Greece, and the writing of plays was rising to a high level of art, especially in the art of tragedy.

Aristotle was the first person to think scientifically about drama. He laid down a few simple rules that are still useful for us today.

It seems obvious, but Aristotle was the first to say that a drama should have a beginning, a middle and an end. By saying it, he created three-act structure.

Aristotle observed that plays took the audience through several levels of excitement that we might call Aristotle’s Plot Curve. He noticed that a few important events had to be present to keep the audience’s attention. An ESTABLISHING SITUATION told the audience about the protagonist and his world, the CATALYST hooked the audience with some problem for the hero to solve, the CRISIS developed the hero’s problems with more conflicts and obstacles, the CATASTROPHE brought a reversal of the hero’s situation and a big downfall, and the CLIMAX brought the tension to its highest point.

REVERSAL or Peripety is an important Aristotle idea. He believed that sudden changes in the luck of the hero were very dramatic for audience and caused them to feel shock and surprise.

Aristotle also tells about something called CATHARSIS. This is a kind of explosion of the emotions, similar to a physical reaction in the body like shivering from cold, sneezing, or being sick when we don’t feel well. He says the purpose of drama to is to stimulate an emotional catharsis, by stirring up our emotions in a struggle between characters or ideas, until we can no longer resist with our minds, and have an involuntary reaction, to cry in sympathy with the hero, to laugh at his bad luck or stupidity, or to shudder in fear if he is in danger. Aristotle believed it was healthy to experience these emotions, and that it had a cleansing effect. Drama was good medicine for the whole society. It cleaned up the negative emotions that naturally accumulate in us from the pressures of living in the world with other people.

We should always look for ways to trigger these reactions in the bodies of the audience. We want people to FEEL something – really feel it in the organs of their bodies.

Aristotle also gave us the idea of UNITY – he said a story must be about one subject. After his time, people expanded this idea to say a story should be set in one location and take place in a single day, but we break these rules all the time in the movies. However, Aristotle is right that a story should be about one big idea.

Aristotle has many other useful ideas for screenwriter, urging them to use their imaginations. “…the poet should keep the scene before his eyes as far as possible…seeing everything as vividly as he were an actual spectator…he should work out the action even down to gestures…he must be able to enter into the emotions of his characters through sharing in their nature…Poetry requires either a natural talent or an enthusiasm that borders on madness!”

SYD FIELD AND MODERN HOLLYWOOD STRUCTURE

Syd Field was a Hollywood executive who read about two thousand screenplays and then wrote an important book, called SCREENPLAY. He was a pioneer, the first to write down the “unwritten rules” of Hollywood. All the ideas in his book were already part of Hollywood thinking and language, but he was the first to write them down. Mr. Field, we salute you and thank you!

Syd agreed with Aristotle about the need for a beginning, middle and end. He calls his ideas about story structure the three-act story “paradigm” or model.

Syd says the classic Hollywood story form has three parts. The first part is the SET-UP, where the audience meets the hero, sees the hero’s world, and understands what the hero wants and what stands in his way. This is about one quarter of the story, about 30 minutes in a two-hour movie. The second part, the middle, is called the CONFRONTATION, where the hero struggles against a villain or some opposing force like nature or society. This is about half of the story, sixty minutes. The third part is the RESOLUTION, where the problems of the hero are solved, or (in the case of tragedy) the hero fails to solve them. This is the last quarter of the script, about thirty pages.

Obviously the middle part is quite long, and it needs to be broken into two smaller pieces. Syd says there is often a big event in the middle of the script, called the MID-POINT, that marks the division between the two parts of the middle. So in fact, even though it is called three-act structure, it is realy four-act structure. We will see in future lectures that this agrees with my Hero’s Journey model which also has four parts.

Syd identified several other important pieces of the story structure. One is an INCITING INCIDENT, early in Act One. This is a surprising event that changes the fortunes of the hero and hooks the attention of the audience. It corresponds to the CALL TO ADVENTURE in my Hero’s Journey model.

Then Syd identified two other important moments, PLOT POINT ONE and PLOT POINT TWO. P.P. One comes at the end of Act One, and is in effect the CLIMAX or highest point of tension in that section. Syd says it is a new event that “spins” the story in a different direction.

The MIDPOINT is another such event, and Plot Point Two is yet another. P.P. Two comes at the end of the long Act Two, and is the Climax or highest point of tension in that part.

Two final pieces complete Syd’s design. One is the grand CLIMAX of the whole story, which happens just before the end of the movie. This is the highest point of tension in the whole design, a final test of everything the hero has learned in the story.

The last piece is called “the denouement”, a French term that means “untying the knot.” This is a short section that follows the climax, and it is dedicated to settling any final questions and bringing complete resolution to the story. All the “loose ends” can be tied up here. We might find out the final fate of each person in the story, or we might learn what moral lesson the hero learned from the story. Sometimes we get a glimpse of what the hero might be facing in the future, after the story is over.

Syd Field’s paradigm, and the linear structure diagram, are very popular in Hollywood and his terms are widely used to discuss stories. It is a sort of basic language that we all speak. Everything else is built on this foundation.

Chapter Three: CHARACTER ESSENTIALS