The Billionaire Writer's Secret
BY STEVEN BARNES
During a career spanning 25
years of novel, film, and television work, I've two major
tools most valuable: the yogic “chakras” for characterization,
and Joseph Campbell’s model of the Hero’s Journey for plot
structure.
These are not random choices,
nor were they selected because of the many intelligent and
thoughtful essays on their relationship to successful film or
world myth.
Rather, they are important
because they create a connection between the inner world of
the writer, and the external world of the finished work — and
the reader.
A plot structure is nothing
more than a tool for organizing events in temporal sequence.
While there are more such structures than there are
professional writers, few of them meet what thousands of
students consider a critical test: are they actually easy to
use and apply? A simple tool, however limited, can be of
greater use than a complicated tool that requires years to
master. Remember: You will achieve real quality in your
writing only by mastering your basics.
The Hero’s Journey, extracted
from thousands of years of world mythology, has the advantage
of actually mimicking the path of life itself. The “three act
structure” does not. After all... life isn’t divided into
three, or five, or eight acts. Such divisions can be useful
tools, but they should never be mistaken for some kind of
“truth” about existence. In comparison, note this
interpretation (there are others) of the steps of the Hero’s
Journey, and to explain them, we’ll look at the first Star
Wars movie, “Episode IV, A New Hope”:
1. Hero Confronted with a
Challenge. “Come with me, Luke, learn the ways of the
Force.” This is pretty clear, right? There has to be a
challenge, or a beckoning, or the character won’t begin to
change — and all great writing is about change.
2. Hero Initially Rejects
the Challenge. “I promised Uncle Owen I’d work on the
moisture evaporators.” A real challenge, one that can provoke
real change, will be frightening and exciting. A character
will usually have some reservations.
3. Hero Accepts the
Challenge. Luke’s aunt and uncle are killed, freeing him
from his oath. If your character doesn’t accept the challenge,
there is no story — unless the story is about the consequences
of not accepting responsibility.
4. The Road of Trials.
Traveling to the desert town and cantina, getting on Han
Solo’s spaceship, traveling to other planets, etc. This is the
section where locations and sequence interact. The character
travels, learns, commits actions that force inter-action with
the environment, and the environment responds positively or
negatively, with greater and greater stakes as the story
proceeds.
5. Gaining Allies and
Powers. Luke meets Han Solo, and Chewbacca, and Obi-Wan,
and Princess Leia. He learns of the Force, and the use of
Light Sabers, and how to fly and fight and rescue princesses.
If your character doesn’t have to grow in order to resolve the
problem, you may have chosen the wrong problem or character!
6. Initial Confrontation
with Evil, and Defeat. Obi-Wan’s death. Or possibly the
disastrous attack on the Death Star. One is private and
emotional, the other spectacular and physical.
7. Dark Night of the Soul.
The moment of greatest weakness. Luke begins to believe he
cannot win, and everything he loves will die.
8. Leap of Faith.
“Trust your Feelings, Luke.” The leap of Faith is always faith
in one of three things: faith in self, faith in your
companions, or faith in a higher power. In “Star Wars” it is
all three! This may be the only time in the history of cinema
that this was true, and helps to explain why George Lucas is a
billionaire.
9. Confront Evil —
Victorious. The Death Star blows up.
10. Student Becomes the
Teacher. Luke is presented with medals, which establish
him as a role model.
The above 10 steps are not
some cookie-cutter pattern. They are the combined world wisdom
about the path of life itself, the process we go through in
achieving any worthwhile goal. There will be fear. There will
be defeat. We will need to gain new skills and friends and
partners. We must be clear on our acceptance of goals and
responsibility. We must have faith. And ultimately, if we have
struggled, and learned, and sacrificed, and moved through our
fear…we learn and grow and succeed. And then we teach others.
This is the pattern of life, and any time you organize
information and events into a pattern even vaguely reminiscent
of this, the human nervous system, worldwide, will recognize
it as story.
It is NOT some kind of
cure-all for bad story tellers. What these ten steps are is
something analogous to the eighty-eight keys of a piano.
Understand the emotional and life significance of each step,
and then “play them” as your developed instincts dictate. Make
your own kind of music. The pattern has worked for about
thirty thousand years. It will work for you, too.
NY Times Bestselling Writer
Steven Barnes has published over three million words of
fiction, and wrote the Emmy-winning "A Stitch In Time" episode
of the Outer Limits. He is the creator of
Lifewriting™, the body-mind high performance system.
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