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Summary: this book limits story & mythmaking
Review: The problem with this book is that it limits story & mythmaking, ignoring the wisdom of Joseph Campbell, where the author distills lots of his theories from. Joseph Campbell's ideas leave myth wide open, and any stories generated from them. Joseph Campbell saw the call for new myth, particularly in today's world, when the old ones are getting stale and believed with much less passion.Hollywood does not need to repeat the same story over and over. Luckily not everyone does, except for maybe Disney's cartoons. They do it well sometimes, but it is still the same and starts to get boring if you watch any of their movies too close together.
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Summary: Using the intellect to bridge the islands of inspiration
Review: While being interviewed on "Inside the Actor's Studio", Mike Myers in talking about the creative of process (whether it be acting or writing) said that "the intellect should be used as the bridge between the islands of inspiration." As writers, we all have "muse fits" where an idea literally seems to write itself and then, all of a sudden we run into the metaphorical brick wall. It is at that time, when we are flattened against the wall, that we need a sense of technique, structure and purpose to find a way to continue and allow the idea to reach formation. The Writer's Journey, while not by any means a end all and be all to the writing process, helps strengthen a writer's intellectual sense to perhaps bridge the islands of inspiration. Boiling down the works of Jung, Campbell, Propp and many others (Vogler is most careful in citing his sources and inspirations), Christopher Vogler reminds the screenwriter that his/her story must speak to the audience and that there are a variety of forms and functions that achieve this purpose. Not only does this book lay out several narrative strategies (all centered around "The hero's journey"), but it also successfully deconstructs several successful films, thereby illustrating mythic structure in practice. It is not a religious tome however, and is not meant to be one. Vogler makes his point very clear, that this book only suggests mythic structure, and that successful stories come out of not simply following a formula, but rather manipulating a form in a new and original manner. All readers of this book must please keep that in mind.The fact that this book has supposedly filled the desks of so many studio exectutives scares me a little- hence the four star rating. The book is helpful as both a reference source and as a beginning point (one should go on to read first hand all the authors mentioned here) for the aspiring playwright/screenwriter. It may also serve as a needed bridge between seemingly distant islands.
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Summary: This book led to Godzilla
Review: If you were writing another Star Wars, then you might find this book interesting. There are often mythic elements involved in stories when we look back over them, but Vogler's contention that all stories must follow this hero's journey is ultimately one of the most anti-artistic and self-censoring ideas ever to take hold amongst writers of performance scripts. If I can quote from Albert Bermel's book 'Contradictory Characters', written in 1973: "It happens that the wishes and fears we recall from dreams may coalesce into fragments of myth. Joseph Campbell has vividly united diverse myths into a monomyth, an all-encompassing tale of the heroes of all mankind through the ages, compiled from a tremendous assortment of verbal and written literatures. Myth (or the monomyth) may have some bearing on the drama, but I cannot accept the easy supposition that any drama in its essence IS myth. Certain plays have mythical portions, scenes, or characterizations... Myths belong to everybody; they are men's [sic] collective inheritance, but a dream belongs to one individual. If we reduce the essential action of a play to some mythical antecedent, we have, very simply, reduced it." Why must writers, as Vogler urges, begin the reduction? The structure which Vogler provides (looking awfully 12-step) has taken a big hold on Hollywood in the last 10 years. Watch for it in any big-budget over-hyped dud like Godzilla, where the disruption of the scientist's world by a big monster (leading to no-turning back heroic 12-step blah) steered the film into stupidity. (Any kid can see the original Godzilla films and see that the manic energy of the monster and the world that created it - a symbiotic relationship - is more important to get right than whether Matthew Broderick should get the girl during the final gutting of the big lizard. Read this book in a library. YOu'll understand why Hollywood films are so bad, and how stupid most producers to even contemplate this as the monomodel. Free yourself from this rubbish, writers of the world. You have nothing to lose but Campbell's chains.
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Summary: I found it helpful
Review: A good book for helping you understand films more.
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Summary: A Visit to the Mountain
Review: Christopher Vogler has succeeded, at a relatively tender age, in imparting to the rest of us the kind of wisdom and insights for the ages that would normally be expected to emanate only from a Solomon-like sage/visionary of the distant past. One is transformed having visited this modern oracle and coming away with the secrets of the great story tellers of the classics. Critics and doubters of his genius who invariably speak of his work as simply a formula writing guide for screenwriters remind one of a rebellious teenager unwilling to sit at the foot of his wise grandfather and listen to the voice of experience; or the baseball rookie scoffing at Ted Williams's theories on how to his a baseball.
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Summary: Not Only Insightful, But Inspiring
Review: For those who already have a basic understanding of story structure, this book is the icing on the cake, the missing link that turns formulaic emptiness into meaningful character development. If only I had read this book earlier! The main thrust of this book is that the hero in any story is in a process of growth, that the most complete heroes are those who not only resolve external conflicts, but internal ones as well. The gist of this developmental process is that heroes must leave their Ordinary World (Act One) behind in search of a solution to their problems, a magic elixir which is to be found in a Special World (Act Two). Having obtained the elixir, Heroes must then return to their Ordinary World to share the elixir which they've obtained (Act Three). In so doing, heroes are transformed, reborn, with new lessons learned and new strengths acquired that benefit the Ordinary World. That's the basic thrust of the book, but the author is careful to warn the aspiring writer against being too formulaic. Whereas other books about writing often set the three-act formula into concrete, Christopher Vogler shows that the principles in the Writer's Journey are flexible and adaptable. They need not even occur in the order prescribed in the book. Furthermore, heroes need not be cookie-cutter products of the Writer's Journey formula, but that by bending and violating the rules of the Writer's Journey, heroes can help your story obtain a unique twist that conveys a special lesson or drives home more effectively a main point. One thing that really improved my understanding of Act Two was seeing the Midpoint of a story as the time when the Hero obtains the magic elixir. Other books will tell you that the midpoint is important, that it divides the story in two, that it gives structure to Act Two, etc., but those books leave you thinking that midpoint is not necessarily all that different from any other major turning point in your story. The Writer's Journey helped me understand that the midpoint is the central post which holds up the entire tent of your story. Vogler's perspective on midpoint as the event where the Hero seizes the elixir is very helpful in not getting too bogged down in Act Two. This book gives insight into what it is to be human, and why the art of storytelling can be so powerful and meaningful. The Writer's Journey is tremendous, a must have for any aspiring writer.
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Summary: Writer's Journey and StoryCraft work together perfectly
Review: I love The Writer's Journey. And one thing that makes it particularly useful to me is the fact that the same basic principles (mythological approach of Joseph Campbell) used in the book are also used in the writer's story-development software program that I use (religiously): StoryCraft Software. In short, if you believe in the mythological approach as THE fundamental approach to story creation, then The Writer's Journey and StoryCraft Software should be your "bibles."
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Summary: Mythical Method and the Screenwriter
Review: Geared specificaly to the screenwriter (Vogler was a Disney executive) this is an excellent and usable distillation of Campbell's "Hero With 1000 Faces". While less scholastic, as noted elsewhere, "The Writer's Journey" is also far more accesible. I recommend this as an overview before taking the Cambell plunge. For the screenwriter (and the moviegoer) the keys to the current "accepted formula" for "Screenwriting" are enumerated in detail. This book will not help you discover a marketable idea, but it will allow you to put your idea into a form that the marketplace, i.e., a Hollywood agent or development executive, will take seriously. While it is unfortunate that anything as boundlessly free as creativity could be defined by a set of rules, the hard truth is that show "business" is endlessly seeking a formula that will reduce the industry to a widgets and accountants dreamland. Wonder why all Hollywood movies tend to look alike? The answer is in here. Want to write, act or direct in Hollywood? Become intimately familiar with the concepts Vogler presents. The knowledge will unravel many mysteries and open many doors. As long as these concepts work (or rather as long as scripts can be crafted just well enough to plop a famous face on the screen and provide 45 seconds of great trailer & commercial time) this book and its antecedent (Cambell) will be used as a litmus test for "professionalism". It ain't called "Show Art", kids.
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Summary: Essential book . . . the Holy Grail
Review: Vogler's book was an eye-opener, and VERY simple to read and understand (with all due respect, anyone who has trouble applying this book to his/her screenwriting probably has trouble putting on their own shoes.) Having written 10 screenplays, three of which were optioned, WRITER'S JOURNEY helped answer questions that had been lingering within them. I have bought six copies as gifts, and it is one of the three essential books on the subject, the other two being ALTERNATIVE SCRIPTWRITING by Rush and Danzyger (sp); and HOW TO WRITE A SCREENPLAY THAT SELLS by Michael Hauge (sp). Read them in the order: Hauge; Vogler and Rush/Danzyger, and you can't go wrong. Buy this book and grow as a writer, movie-viewer and person!!
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Summary: Excellent approach to plotting
Review: Chris Vogler offers a clear and straight forward framework from which to build plots. Reference to archetypal structure, with the accessible examples offered by film references, sets forth the basic concepts that fill strory structure. This book will help any writer, new or established, to lay out the elements of a plot that reaches out to readers.
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