The Book’s Table of Contents

THE SCRIBBLER’S GUIDE TO THE LAND OF MYTH — TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

INTRODUCTION
PART ONE: GOING ON THE JOURNEY

Just about all the books on the Hero’s Journey and writing deal with the structure of the story. What I go into is the significance of the various elements in the journey motifs. And I’m drawing from about six different Hero’s Journey outlines, so it’s a lot of material. I think too many writers use the outlines (particularly Chris Vogler’s) as a blueprint, and overlook possibilities that might serve their stories better. I harp on flexibility a lot.

SECTION ONE: Setting Out

SECTION TWO: Quest and Conflict

SECTION THREE: Side Trips

This section actually deals with the specialty journey motifs of Grail Quests. Grail Quests are a particular type of story, with a particular type of relationship between the Hero, his Goal, and the context of the story.

SECTION FOUR: Coming Home

SECTION FIVE: The Anti-Hero’s Path

There’s not a whole lot actually written about the Anti-Hero, so I tackle that. The dynamics are slightly different than the usual story.

PART TWO: TRANSPORTATION

This actually refers to the mode of the storytelling: comedy, tragedy, and what I call the “straight through” drama.

PART THREE: TIME OF TRAVEL

I’ve yet to see very many people deal with this. Some of my research grew from reading Northrup Fry. But the rest was pieced together from many different places.

SECTION ONE: 24 Hours

SECTION TWO: The Seasons

SECTION THREE: Holidays

SECTION FOUR: Weather

PART FOUR: LOCAL RESIDENTS

This part deals with all sorts of character archetypes. ALL sorts.

SECTION ONE: Sex (or Gender)

There are some motifs that are gender specific. So I figured I’d get those out of the way first. I think we’ve tried to be so egalitarian between the sexes, that we’ve avoided some of these matters. But since they’re part of our human nature, I went for it.

SECTION TWO: Needs

Whatever you may think of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs in regards to psychology, the pyramid of needs is a useful story-building tool. So I tackled it here.

SECTION THREE: Day Laborers

The traditional seven Jungian archetypes. Yeah, I go over them again, because some of them could do some renewed attention. (I really go to town with the “Shadow” figure.)

SECTION FOUR: Professional Specialists

An additional set of character archetypes I developed to expand our mythic vocabulary. These are not just about how the character functions in the plot, but what the character is in his or her nature.

SECTION FIVE: Good Versus Evil

I’ve heard too many people complain that writing characters who are “good” is boring. And I came to the conclusion that they didn’t have very good definitions of what makes a character “good” as opposed to “evil”. So I discuss that opposition, add a couple of new character archetypes for these issues, and include a discussion of the seven deadly sins and the seven virtues.

SECTION SIX: Parents

Again, there wasn’t a whole lot of material on Father Figures or Mother Figures, so I had to analyse and construct descriptions for these. Because they are much more than “Mentor” figures. I’m really pleased with this section, because it is REALLY “all mine”.

SECTION SEVEN: Relatives

Buddy figures, doubles, and “fair” versus “dark” figures all get the run through here.

SECTION EIGHT: Community Heroes

This is all about Heroes that have special community significance. The Divine Hero (coming from outside, bringing a boon), the Outlaw Hero (cast out of society, but continuing to fight an injustice inside that society), the Sacrifice. And what I call the Band of Companions (ie, “group hero” stories).

PART FIVE: LANDSCAPE

Oh, yeah! You’d better believe landscape can be mythically important: sky versus earth, land versus sea, towers and mountains versus caves, civilization versus wilderness – it’s all here.

PART SIX: THEME PARKS

Franchise storytelling and what to consider. This includes my personally developed theory on “the Constant Jeopardy Syndrome” versus “the Incidental Jeopardy Syndrome”.

HANGERS-ON

Also known as appendices.

Notes

Journey Outlines
Hierarchies
Bibliography
Filmography
Index

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