The Heroine/Hero’s Journey—The Most Epic of All Storylines, featuring Laura Lentz

Jan 14, 2019

Laura Lentz

Everyone is on a hero or a heroine’s journey. The trick is to see your own journey objectively enough to find your way into and through it, and also to claim your own hero or heroine’s journey as such, which can be difficult if you are still wrestling with which story or stories are yours to tell. In this episode, Brooke and Grant examine this journey from various angles and genres, and delve into the nuances of the journey with their guest, Laura Lentz, whose new workbook on this very topic, Story-Quest, is just out this month. We hope you’ll tune in to see if you might discover new elements of your own epic journey.

ABOUT LAURA LENTZ

Laura Lentz is a writing teacher, author and developmental editor. Her workbook, Story-Quest, Make Your Story a Hero’s Journey, will be released in January 2019. Laura helps writers expand their body of work by offering challenging and thought-provoking exercises inspired by poetry, science, music, and excerpts from literature. She is the co-founder of Literati Academy, a community and school to support, encourage, and assist writers in all creative endeavors. Laura is known for her Sex on the Page writing workshop, Ancestors and Epigenetics, and her annual Poetry Room, which teaches writers how to use poetic form in all writing. Laura is also the founder of the bi-annual Speak, Kauai spoken word performances on Hawaii that showcases writers from all over the world. To learn more about Find Laura online at www.literati.academy.

Writing Action: Map Your Own Hero or Heroine’s Journey

We are using the stages of the hero/heroine’s journey as they’re mapped out in Laura’s book, Story-Quest, to invite listeners to map their own journey. Remember that you don’t have to hit every single point to be living a hero or heroine’s journey. Framing your own story this way, however, will often open up new possibilities in your personal writing, or you might discover a well-worn but never hackneyed framework for your fiction.

Here are the 12 stages of the heroine’s journey from Story-Quest:

  1. The world before
  2. Call to adventure
  3. Refusal of the call
  4. Wisdom of the guide
  5. Jumping into the portal
  6. Trials in the new world
  7. Rock bottom
  8. Accolades and honors
  9. Trouble again
  10. Resurrection and revival
  11. Returning with the magic
  12. Mastery of the two worlds

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