T h e Writer’s Journey Mythic Structure fo for r Writers T hird Edition Q
christopher Vogler
TABLE OF CONTENTS Q
INTRODUCTION: INTR ODUCTION: Third Editio Editionn
viii
PREFACE: PREF ACE: Second Edition
ii
INTRODUCTION: INTR ODUCTION: Second Edition ~ Preparing for the Jou Journe rne BOOK ONE: Mapping the Journe
vii 1
A Practical Guide
3
The Archet Archetpes pes
23
Hero
29
Mentor:: Wise Old Man or Woman Mentor
39
Threshold Guardian
49
Herald
55
Shapeshifter
59
Shadow
65
All
71
Trickster
77
BOOK TWO: Stages of the Journe
81
Ordinar World
83
Call to Adventur Adventuree
99
Refusal Refus al of the Call
107
Meeting with the Mentor
117
Crossing the First Threshold
127
Tests, Allies, Enemies
135
Approach to the Inmost Cave
143
The Ordeal
155
Reward
175
The Road Back
187
The Res Resurrection urrection
197
Return with the Eliir
215
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EPILOGUE: Looking Back on the Journe The Writer’s Journe
231 289
APPENDICES
293
Stories Are Alive
295
Polarit
311
Catharsis
337
The Wisdom of the Bod
351
Trus rustt the Path
361
FILMOGRAPHy
367
BIBLIOGRAPHy
368
INDEx
369
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
370
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STORIES ARE ALIVE
STORIES ST ORIES ARE ALI ALIVE VE Q
“All the works of man have their origin in creative fantasy. What right have we then to de preciate imagination?” imagination?” — Jung “Pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name, But what’s puzzling you is the nature of my game.” The Rolling Stones — The — “Sympathy or the Devil” Propositio: Stories are alive a osios a respo to a eotios.
A
t one point when the Disney company was remaking itsel in the 1980s, I was called upon to review the major airy tales o world cultures, looking or potential animation subjects on the order o Walt Disney’s colorul interpretations o European olk
stories, like “Snow White” and “Cinderella” rom the Brothers Grimm and “The Sleeping Beauty” rom Perrault’s collection o French airy tales. It was a chance to re-open the mental laboratory to study old riends rom my childhood that Walt Disney had not gotten around to tackling, like Rapunzel and Rumpelstiltskin. It was also a great opportunity or me to sample many kinds o stories rom dierent cultures, identiying similarities and dierences and extracting storytelling principles rom this broad sample. In the course o my adult wanderings through what is normally considered children’’s literature, I came to a ew rm children r m conclusions about stories, these pow powerul erul and mysterious creations o the human mind. For instance, I came to believe that stories have healing power , that they can help us deal with dicult emotional situations by giving us examples o human behavior, perhaps similar in some way to
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Christopher Christo pher Vogler the struggles we are going through at some stage o lie, and which might inspire us to try a dierent strategy or living. I believe stories have survival value or value or the human species and that they were a big step in human evolution, allowing us to think metaphorically and to pass down the accumulated wisdom o the race in story orm. I believe stories are metaphors by which people measure and adjust their own lives by comparing them to those o the characters. I believe the basic metaphor o most stories is that o the journey, and that good stories show at least two journeys, outer and inner : an outer journey in which the hero tries to do something dicult or get something, and an inner journey in which the hero aces some crisis o the spirit or test o character that leads to transormation. I believe stories are orientation devices , unctioning like compasses and maps to allow us to eel oriented, centered, connected, more conscious, more aware o our identities and responsibilities and our relationship to the rest o the world. But o all my belies about stories, one that has been particularly useul useul in the business o developing commercial stories or the movies is the idea that stories are somehow alive, conscious, and responsive to human emotions and wishes . wishes . I have always suspected that stories are alive. They seem to be conscious and purposeul. Like living beings, stories have an agenda, something on their minds. They want something rom you. They want to wake you up, to make you more conscious and more alive. They want to teach you a lesson disguised as entertainment. Under the guise o amusement, stories want to ediy you, build up your character just a little by showing a moral situation, a struggle, and an outcome. They seek to change you in some small way, way, to make you just a bit more human by comparing your behavior to that o the characters. The living, conscious, intentional quality o stories is here and there revealed in amiliar airy tales, like the one the Brothers Grimm collected called “Rumpelstiltskin, “R umpelstiltskin,”” the tale o the little man with his power to spin straw into gold and a mysterious desire to own a human child. The story is ound in many cultures where the little man is known by strange and unny names like Bulleribasius (Sweden), Tittelintuure (Finland), Praseidimio (Italy), Repelsteelije (Holland), and Grigrigredinmenuretin (France). This was one o the stories that posed challenging questions in the mental laboratory o my earliest childhood. Who was this little man, where did he get his powers, pow ers, and why did he want that human child? What was the lesson the girl in the
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story was supposed to learn? Later in lie, as I returned to contemplate that story as part o my work or Walt Disney animation, many o those mysteries remained, but the deep wisdom o the olk tale helped me understand that stories are alive, that they actively respond to wishes, desires, and strong emotions in the characters, and that they are a re compelled to provide experiences that teach us some lesson in lie. ThE STORy Of RumPELSTILTSkIn The well-known tale begins with a lovely young girl in a dangerous situation, an archetypal damsel in distress. She is the daughter o a miller who brags to the king that his daughter is so talented, talent ed, she can even spin straw into gold. The king, a literallit eralminded ellow, ellow, says “That’ “That’ss the kind o talent I like!” and locks her in a room in his castle containing only a spinning wheel and piles o straw, warning that he’s going to have her killed in the morning mor ning i she doesn’ doesn’t spin the straw into gold as her daddy promised. The girl doesn’t doesn’t know what to do and begins to weep. At once the door opens and a little man, or “manikin” as the tale says, comes in, asking her why she is crying so. Apparently he has been attracted by her strong emotions, as aerie olk are said to be. When she explains her predicament he says he can spin straw into gold, no problem, and asks what she can give him i he does the job or her. She hands over her necklace and he at once sits down and spins the straw straw,, whir, whir, whir, whir, into shining gold wire on a spool. In the morning mor ning the little man has vanished. The king is very ver y pleased with the gold, but being greedy, locks the girl into a bigger room with more straw, straw, and again demands that she spin it all into gold by dawn. I not, she will die. All alone in the room that night, the girl eels hopeless and weeps once more. As i summoned again by her emotions, the little man appears a second time. This time she oers o ers him a ring rom her nger to get out o her predicament. Whir, whir, whir, straw is spun into gold. The king nds bigger spools o gold wire in place o straw the next morning and is delighted, but again is greedy and locks the girl in the biggest room in the palace, stued to the ceiling with straw. I she can turn it all into gold by dawn he will marry her, but i not, she will die.
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Christopher Christo pher Vogler The girl’s girl’s weeping in the locked room attracts the little man or a third t hird time, but now she has nothing let to give him. So he asks her, “I you become queen, will you give me your rst-born child?” Thinking nothing o the uture, the girl agrees. ag rees. Whir, whir, whir, the mountain o straw is spun into gold. The king collects his gold and marries the girl as promised. A year goes by and the girl, now a queen, has a beautiul child. One day the little man comes and claims the child as his reward or saving her lie. Horried, the young queen oers him all the riches o the realm, but the little man reuses, saying “Something alive is dearer to me than all the treasures in the world.” The girl laments and cries so much that the manikin relents a little or, as we have seen, he is very sensitive to human emotions. He strikes a new bargain with her. I she can guess his name within three days, she will get to keep the child. But she will never guess it, he says condently, condently, or he has a very unusual name. The queen stays up all night thinking o every name she’s ever heard and sends out messengers ar and wide to assemble lists o unusual names. When the manikin comes to see her the rst day, she tries out all these names but none is right. On the second day she sends out more messengers to the distant corners o the kingdom to collect weir weird d names, but again the little man’s man’s name is not among them and he goes away laughing, sure he will get to keep the t he child. On the third day the queen’s most aithul, ar-traveling messenger reports that he’s struck pay dirt. In his wanderings he didn’t didn’t uncover any new names, but ar away,, atop a mountain, he did come across a little house, in ront o which a re was away blazing, and around it was dancing a ridiculous little litt le man. The messenger heard him shout a rhyme that revealed his name was Rumpelstiltskin. The little man appears once more in the queen’s queen’s room, sure she will be unable to guess his absurd name. But ater two bad guesses (“Conrad?” “Harry?”), “Harry ?”), she gets it right — Rumpelstiltskin! The tale ends abruptly as the little man, crying out that the devil must have told her his name, stamps his right oot so uriously that it goes through the foor and sticks deep in the earth. ear th. With his two hands he seizes the other oot and literally tears himsel in two! A tting end or one who has connived to take a human child rom its mother. Or is it? Who is this strange little man with his supernatural powers to enter locked rooms and spin straw into gold? Although the tale only calls him a “little man” or
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“manikin,” he is clearly one o the aerie people o worldwide olklore, perhaps an el or a gnome. The oral storytellers storyt ellers may have avoided avoided calling him what he is because the aerie olk are notoriously touchy touchy about their names and identities. But it is likely that any hearer o this tale in medieval times would instantly recognize recognize the little man as a supernatural creature rom the aerie world. Like other denizens o that world he appears when he wants to and only to certain people. Like them, he is interested in human children and attracted by strong human emotions. From early times people have associated the aerie olk with a cert ain sadness, perhaps because they lack some things that t hat human beings take or granted. According to one theory, they are unable to conceive their own young and are thereore ascinated by human children, sometimes kidnapping them in the night, as Shakespeare’s aerie queen Titania snatched an Indian princeling as her darling toy in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Sometimes the aeries steal children rom their cradles and replace them with blocks o wood or soul-less replica children called changelings. The aeries’ ability to eel emotions may be dierent rom ours, or they seem to be curious about our emotional outbursts, and are in act attracted to them. It’s as i they exist in a parallel dimension but are summoned into our world by strong human emotions, as demons and angels supposedly can be summoned by ritual ceremonies and prayers intended to ocus emotional energy. energ y. Some authorities hold that aeries do not know simple human emotions like love love or grie but are intensely curious to know what they are missing. Re-experiencing the story o “Rumpelstiltskin” as an adult, I was struck by how instantaneously the girl’s tears o despair summoned the little man. Implied in the girl’s girl’s weeping is a cry or help, a wish. I given words, words, it might be “Please, get me out o this!” It appears the inhabitants o the aerie world are attracted to human emotions especially when they are ocused into wishes. In this case, the wish is to get out o a desperate, hopeless situation. In the airy-tale logic o cause and eect, the girl’s shedding o tears is a positive action that generates a positive result. By crying, she acknowledges her powerlessness and sends out a signal to the world o spirits that surrounds us. “Isn’t there someone with the magical powers my ather claimed or me, who can get me out o this uncomortable spot?” And the story hears, and responds by sending a messenger, a supernatural creature who has the power to grant her unspoken wish to escape.
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Christopher Christo pher Vogler However, How ever, as always, always, there’s there’s a catch. The price or getting out o her trouble is very high, escalating rom material treasures, like a necklace or a ring, to lie itsel. But the girl isn’t isn’t thinking about that right now. now. Having a child is a remote possibility. When she gets to that t hat point, maybe she can work something out or maybe the t he little man will just go away. Whatever the risk, she’ll agree to it to get out o that room and out o danger rom the king’s wrath. Her wish to escape, expressed by a strong burst o emotion, has called the little man and the adventure into being. ThE PO P OwER Of wIShIng I began to realize that wishing may be an underlying principle o storytelling. The hero is almost always discovered discovered in a dicult or uncomortable uncomor table situation, very oten making a wish to escape or to change the conditions. The wish is oten verbalized and is clearly stated in the rst act o many movies. Dorothy’s song, “Somewhere over the Rainbow,” in The Wizard Wizard of Oz , is a wish to escape to a land where troubles are ar behind her. In Lost in Translation, Translation , Scarlett Johansson’s character expresses the theme o the movie in a line in the rst act where she says to Bill Murray’s character, meeting in a Japanese hotel bar, “I wish I could c ould sleep,” sleep,” symbolizing a wish or spiritual and emotional peace. The expression expression o a wish, even a rivolous rivolous one, near the beginning beginning o a story has an important unction o orientation or the audience. It gives a story a strong throughline or what is called a “desire line,” organizing the orces in and around the hero to achieve a clear goal, even i that goal may later be re-examined and redened. It automatically generates generates a strong polarization polarization o the story, generating generating a confict between those orces helping the hero achieve her goal, and those trying to prevent it. I the wish is not expressed by one o the characters, it may be implied by the character’s dire situation. Audience members making strong identication with a character in trouble will make the wish themselves, desiring the hero to be happy, triumphant, or ree, and getting themselves in alignment with the orces polarizing the story. Spoken or not, the story hears the wish, seemingly attracted by the intense emotion contained in it. Carl Jung had a motto carved above his door, “Vocatus atque non vocatus, deus aderit,” aderit,” which which loosely translated means “Summoned or not,
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the god will come.” In other words, when the emotional conditions are right, when the need is great, there is an inner cry or change, a spoken or unspoken wish that calls the story and the adventure into being. The story’s response to the human wish is oten to send a messenger, sometimes a magical little man like Rumpelstiltskin, but always some kind o agent who leads the hero into a special kind o experience we call an adventure — a sequence o challenges that teach the hero, and the audience, a lesson. The story provides villains, rivals, and allies to challenge or aid the hero and impar t the lessons that are on the story’s agenda. The story sets up moral dilemmas that test the t he hero’s hero’s belies and character, and we are invited invited to measure our own behavior against that o the players in the drama. The adventure has a special quality o the unexpected. The story is tricky. It acts in the roundabout, indirect, slightly mischievous way o the aerie olk who are its requent agents, providing the hero with a series o unexpected obstacles that challenge the way the person has been doing business. It usually grants the hero’s wish but in an unexpected way, a way way that teaches the hero a lesson about lie. Many o lie’s teachings can be boiled down to “Be careul what you wish or,” which is a lesson taught by countless science-ction and antasy stories as well as love stories and stories o ambiti ambition. on. wAnTS vs. nEEdS Through the triggering device o wishes, stories seem to like arranging events so that the hero is orced to evolve to a higher level o awarenes awareness. s. Oten the hero wishes or something that she or he desperately wants at that moment, but the story teaches t eaches the wants at hero to look beyond, to what he or she really needs . A hero may think she wants to win wants to a competition or nd a treasure, but in act the story shows that she needs to learn some moral or emotional lesson: how to be a team player, how to be more fexible and orgiving, orgiving, how to stand up or hersel. hersel. In the course o granting the initial wish, the story provides hair-raising, lie-threatening incidents that challenge the hero to correct some faw in his or her character. By imposing obstacles to the hero in achieving the goal, the story may appear to be hostile to the hero’s well-being. The intention o the story may seem to be to take something away rom the hero (like lie itsel!), but in act the real aim o the
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Christopher Christo pher Vogler story is benevolent, to teach the hero the needed moral lesson, to ll in a missing piece in the hero’s personality or understanding o the world. The lesson is presented in a particular, ritualized way, refecting a more universal principle we might call “Not Only… But Also” (NOBA). NOBA is a rhetorical device, device, a way o presenting inormation inormation that can be ound in “ortunetelling” systems like the I Ching and the Tarot. Not Only… But Also means: Here is a truth that you know perectly well, but there is another dimension to this truth o which you may not be aware. A story might be telling you, through the actions o a character, character, that not only are your habits holding you you back but also i you keep keep going in this direction your habits will destroy you. Or it might be telling you that not only are you beset with diculties, but also these very diculties will be the means to your ultimate victory. In Lajos Egri’s amous example rom “the Scottish play,” the premise is that Macbeth’ss ruthless ambition inevitably leads to his destruction. Macbeth’ destruct ion. But Macbeth doesn doesn’t ’t see it that way, not at rst. He thinks only that ruthless ambition leads to power, to being king. But the story, summoned into lie in response to Macbeth’s thirst or power, pow er, teaches him a lesson in NOBA orm. Ambition leads le ads not only to being king, but also to Macbeth’s destruction. The words “but” and “however,” as lawyers know, are very useul or setting terms and conditions, and can be powerul powerul tools o rhetoric and storytelling. A story is like a long sentence or a paragraph, with a subject, the hero; an object, the hero’s goal; and a verb, the emotional state or physical action o the hero. “So and so wants something and does something to get it.” it.” The NOBA concept introduces the wor word d “but” or “however” into that sentence. Now it’s “So and so wants something and does something to get it, but there are unexpected consequences, orcing so and so to adapt or change in order to survive.” The aim o good storytelling is to get the audience to make make the wish along with the hero. Stories do this through the process o “identication,” by making the hero sympathetic, the victim o a misortune or an understandable error o judgment. Good storytellers invite audiences to invest themselves in the ate o the characters by making them likeable or giving them universal drives, desires, and human weaknesses. Ideally, what happens to the hero is happening, on some emotional level o connection, to the audience. The story and the hero are not the only active agents in the drama. The members o the audience are also agents in the play,
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emotionally involved, actively wishing or the hero to win, learn the lesson, survive, and thrive. They identiy with heroes in a threatened t hreatened position where it appears their wishes may not be granted and their real needs may not be met. The wishes o heroes are a strong point o identication or many people, since we all have wishes and desires that we secretly cherish. In act, that’s one o the main reasons we go to movies and watch TV and read novels — to have our wishes granted. Storytellers are, most o the time, in the wish-granting business. The Disney empire built its entire corporate identity around the belie in wishing, rom its theme song “When You Wish Upon a Star” to the wish-granting airy godmothers o Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella g rants three wishes Cinderella,, to the genie who grants in Aladdin in executives and best-selling best-sel ling novelists aim to know the secret Aladdin.. Hollywood executives wishes o their audiences and ulll them. Popular stories o recent years have granted widely held wishes to walk with the dinosaurs, trod trod the soil o alien planets, seek high adventure in mythic realms or in times gone by, and outpace the boundaries o space, time, and death itsel. So-called “reality television” grants wishes on a nightly basis, bestowing on ordinary people the thrill o being seen by millions and having a shot at stardom or riches. Politicians and advertisers play on the wishes o the public, promising to grant security, peace o mind, or comort. A good technique o Hollywood pitching pitching is to begin by asking “Did you ever wish you could —” (fy, be invisible, go back back in time to t o x your mistakes, etc.), connecting up the desires o the story’s hero with a strong wish that a lot o people might have. ThE wIShES Of ThE AudIEncE It pays to think about what audience members wish or themselves and the heroes in stories. As writers we play a tricky game with our readers and viewers. We evoke a strong wish through our characters, then spend most o the story rustrating the wish, making it seem that the characters will never get what they want or need. Usually, in the end, we grant those wishes, and show how they are achieved by struggle, by overcoming obstacles, and by reconsidering them, with the desire sometimes shiting rom what the hero thinks she wants to what she really needs. We thwart the deep wishes o the audience at our peril. Movies that deny the wishes o the audience to see the heroes ultimately happy or ullled may not perorm well at the box oce. The audience will inwardly cheer or poetic justice
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Christopher Christo pher Vogler — the hero receiving rewards proportionate to his struggle, the villain receiving punishment equivalent to the suering he has inficted on others. I that sense o poetic justice is violated, i the rewards rewards and punishments and lessons don’t don’t match up to our wishes or the characters, we sense something is wrong with the story, and go away unsatised. We have wishes or our villains as well as our heroes. I remember my mother, an astute critic o popular movies and books, muttering under her breath phrases like “I hope he dies a horrible hor rible death,” death,” when when a villain had done something particularly par ticularly heinous to one o her heroes on the screen. I the movie didn’t deliver a poetically appropriate ate or the villain, she was disappointed and that movie went down in her books as a bad one. Once in a while, the strategy o thwarting the audience’s desires is eective, to challenge the assumptions o the watchers, to refect a harsh view o reality, or to depict a tragic, doomed situation as a kind o warning to the audience. For example, in the novel and movie Remains of the Day, Day, the butler to the amily o a British lord spends his entire lie ailing to connect emotionally with other people. His wish, we might say, is to have a sense o tight control over his personal lie, one area where he does not compromise. This masks a deeper desire, the need to make an emotional and physical connection with another human being. The audience orms a strong wish or him to be happy, to seize an opportunity or intimacy that comes his way late in lie. But, true to t o his tragic character, he doesn’t doesn’t take the chance or change, and the movie ends with the eeling that though he has gotten what he wants (privacy and control), he will never get what he needs, or what we wish or him and ourselves. It plays as a cautionary tale, a warning to us — i we don’t take up the opportunities that lie oers us, we could end up rustrated and alone. In this case, our wish to see the character happy is superseded by our need to realize that we could end up in the same sad situation i we don’t open up to opportunities to love. The ocus on wishing that gives lie to many tales is but one o the verbs that activate the emotional mechanisms o story. Wishes must be translated into action, dreams must be made real, or else the story, and perhaps a person’s lie, will stagnate, stuck in an unrealistic, endless antasy o daydreaming. Wishing is important, or it is the rst step in a pyramid o mental states, the yearning o a seed to grow into something great. It orms the initial intention o a story, or the beginning o a new phase o someone’s lie. “Be careul what you wish or” applies in a multitude
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o cases, as stories show us over and over that a wish is a powerul act o the imagination. The idea is constantly armed in stories that human imagination is extremely powerul, especially when ocused into a wish, but that it is dicult to control. The wish and the imagination imaginat ion work together to create a mental image o the desired thing, person, situation, or outcome, outc ome, so vivid that it calls the adventure into being, and launches the hero in the direction o seeing how the wish will actually be ullled, usually in an unsuspected and challenging way. The image may be aint and hazy in the beginning, or detailed but highly idealized and unrealistic, a antasy o the uture uninormed by real experience. But or a story or a person’s lie to move along it is necessary to pierce the bubble o antasy, and to convert wishing into something else — doing, the next step o the pyramid. The essence o movies is the director’s command, “Action.” Do something, actors. act ors. The root o the word “actor” is “do-er,” someone who does something. Dreams and wishes must be tested in the crucible o reality reality,, in action, by doing. PROgRESSI PR OgRESSIng ng fR fROm Om wIShIng TO wILLIng Encountering conficts and obstacles can orce characters to evolve to a yet higher level on the pyramid o emotions, that o willing, which is quite a dierent mental state than mere wishing. Martial arts and classic philosophies teach people to develop a strong will, so that wishes can be transormed into int o actions, so that even when distracted or set back by obstacles, the developing personality can return quickly to the center line o its intention. Will is a wish concentrated and ocused into a rm intention to achieve a goal step by step. Wishes can evaporate at the rst setback but the will endures. Willing is a kind o lter, separating those who only wish rom those who actually take responsibility or improving themselves and pay the price o real change. With a ocused will, a character can take the blows and setbacks that lie hands out. Martial arts strengthen the will, as stories do, by delivering a series o blows and alls that toughen the student. Challenging and stressul situations are repeatedly introduced so that the developing person becomes more resilient, accustomed to confict and opposition, and determined to overcome any obstacle.
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Christopher Christo pher Vogler Like making a wish, making an act o the will calls orces into motion. A strong act o will sends out signals to the world. Here is someone who wants something and is willing to pay a high price to get it. All sorts o allies and opponents will be summoned by such a declaration, each with its lesson to teach. Like wishing, the will must be managed. A will or power can be dangerous, and an ov overly erly strong will can ov overpower erpower and victimize weaker ones. But the development o a strong will, outgrowing outgrowing the stage o simple wishing, is a necessary stage o human development. There is a connection between needs and willing. Both evolve rom the idea o wishing or wanting. Once you progress beyond wishing to knowing what your needs truly are, you can ocus your vague wishes into much more concentrated acts o the will. All the levels o your being can be aligned in the direction o achieving a clear and realistic goal. The girl in “R “Rumpelstiltskin” umpelstiltskin” starts as a passive victim, just crying her eyes out and sitting alone in a room wishing to be anywhere but there. When she is a little older and realizes she needs to protect the lie o her child, she develops a will and applies it again and again until she accomplishes her goal. The language o movies and antasy, particularly that o the Disney variety, tends to show us the magical power o wishing but oten stops short at that point, leaving the other steps o the pyramid unsaid but implied. Oten antasies are dedicated solely to exploring the mechanisms o wishing, developing the “Be careul what you wish or” concept to show that wishes might have to be rened or re-stated to adjust to reality, without necessarily evolving into the more powerul and ocused mental state o willing an outcome. Sometimes an entire story remains in the wish mode by ending not with the development o a strong will, but the orming o a new wish, simply transerring unocused desire rom one object to the next. Wishing and willing can be selsh mental states, and there are undoubtedly other possible steps higher on the pyramid o human emotional development, which might include learning to love, learning to have compassion or other beings, or in a ew highly spiritual stories, learning to transcend human desires entirely to merge with a higher orm o consciousness. But it’s it’s clear that wishing and its more evolved orm, willing, are important tools or storytellers and necessary stages o everyone’s development. Wishing in particular seems to invite a story to come to lie and consciousness, launching an adventure that may teach us valuable lessons in survival.
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And what about poor Rumpelstiltskin, tearing himsel in two because he can’t can’t have the child he wants or unknown purposes? The outcome o the story doesn’t seem air. True, he has tried to kidnap a child rom its mother, but what i he has a right to the child? The Queen has a bad record o motherhood, having bartered her child’s lie or her reedom, and the presumed ather, the King, would make a menacing role model or a child, having threatened to behead his uture wie. For all we know, the little man might have made a better parent to the child than either o them. Rumpelstiltskin loses the child because the young Queen is able to meet his seemingly impossible conditions, but what i he has a right to custody o the child, and not because o the deal he made with her that night? Ater all, what is there to do in an empty room or three nights when all the straw has been spun into gold?
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Christopher Christo pher Vogler QuESTIOnS 1. Have you you noticed examples o characters making wishes early in stories? Give an example and tell how the wish was granted g ranted (or not) by the story. 2. What has been the role o wishing in your lie? Have you learned to be careul what you wish or? Is there a story in that experience? 3. What are your short-term and long-term wishes, and how can you you convert convert them into will and action? a ction? How would that work or characters characters in your story? 4. Can you think o examples o a story stor y providing providing an unexpected unexpected answer to a charcharacter’ss wish? Write acter’ Write a story st ory around the t he idea o someone wishing or something. 5. Are there wishes expressed expressed or implied in other classic airy tales and myths? How How are the wishes granted or denied? Write a modern version o a airy tale or myth and use the concept o wishing. 6. Read a myth, myth, view a movie, read a book and analyze what universal universal wishes the story satises. What human wishes are expressed in your story? 7. Are there such things as ate ate or destiny? What do these terms ter ms mean to you? Do they have a role any more in modern moder n lie? 8. Brainstorm around the concept o wishing. Write the word word in the center o a blank page and then around it write all the things you have wished or or are now wishing or in the uture. See i some patterns emerge. Are your wishes realistic? What happens when your wishes are granted? What is keeping you rom granting your own wishes? Apply the same exercise exercise to a character. What is i s he or she wishing or? How do they convert wishing into will to achieve their goals?
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