The Writer’s Journey by Christopher Vogler (book review)
Originally an influential memo Vogler wrote for Walt Disney Animation executives regarding The Lion King, The Writer’s Journey details a twelve-stage, myth-inspired method that has galvanized Hollywood’s treatment of cinematic storytelling. A format that once seldom deviated beyond a traditional three-act blueprint, Vogler’s comprehensive theory of story structure and character development has met with universal acclaim, and is detailed herein using examples from myths, fairy tales, and classic movies. This book has changed the face of screenwriting worldwide over the last 25 years, and continues to do so.
I've heard a lot of good things about this book over the years, so it's been a must read for me for a long time. The biggest hindrance to reading it: the length. This is a long book (500+ pages), and I worried about my attention span. I was determined, though, so I picked it up.
I have mixed feelings about this book. It has a lot of good information in it, but I'm a minimalist. For as much good info as there is in the book, there's a lot of unnecessary info (when talking about the movie Titanic, there's a break from discussing its aspects of story to talk about how the movie was made and why it was successful at the time). I found myself getting lost in many of these types of details, thereby forgetting the original point of that chapter/section.
This is definitely a writing book I would recommend to intermediate writers--those who understand the basics (character arc; plot structure) and want to make it stronger. Because there's so much information here, I might not recommend it for beginning novelists as it could easily overwhelm them.
Overall, I agree with and enjoyed the writing info and idea, but I sometimes found it hard to find the focal point of a section. Personally, not my go-to for writing, but I can see why it's endured for so many years.
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For other writing resources, check out:
The Trope Thesaurus by Jennifer Hilt
Intuitive Editing by Tiffany Yates Martin