Process
Status Items Highlights Done See section below Claims None Questions None Output None
Highlights
Location 568
How the Hero’s Journey views femininity Feminine characters (be they gods, foils, or love interests) thwart the hero via stagnation and/or distraction. Witches (goddesses, sorceresses) when present (symbolically or otherwise) usually represent chaotic forces of nature, or civilizing forces of structure, who are attempting to stop the hero with sex or marriage or death (sometimes all three). A hero like Odysseus experiences all these elements over and over and over again. To that end, wives or daughters (even good ones like Penelope) represent civilization, which is not a positive thing for our hero. Why? Because civilization seeks to control the hero through inertia, and inertia is the hero’s ultimate enemy. If he cannot move through space and time, he cannot accomplish his quest. Feminine characters seek to pause the hero’s momentum. A hero’s quest is his whole purpose within the narrative. Attaining success, vanquishing his enemy, retrieving the boon, and enjoying the accompanying glory and acknowledgment all define him and his identity. The feminine interjected characters, therefore, subvert his very identity.
Location 681
It’s the story behind these myths that conveys a message that women in power are intrinsically dangerous as a concept, and in myth. These are the kinds of concepts your own story can convey, or work to undermine.
Location 737
This is a classic marker of most Heroine’s Journeys – the rejection of divine power (or defined social role) as a result of a familial connection being taken or severed. A key moment in any Heroine’s Journey is that precipitating fracture of family that will drive her into action.
Location 776
What does a heroine ask for when she has been wronged? A key representation of civilization – a monument to organized religion. What would a hero do? Probably chop off everyone’s heads. But I digress.
Location 787
Our heroine is good at compromise (therein lies the power of connection) and it’s a good thing for everyone that she is.
Location 963
Enraged, Inanna throws him to the demons for his disloyalty and lack of love and his unwillingness to sacrifice for her. Essentially Inanna is punishing Dumuzi for separating himself from her. For a heroine there is no greater betrayal than an act of isolation in pursuit of superiority.
Location 1053
descent at the beginning of a Heroine’s Journey is an act imposed upon our heroine involuntarily. This precipitating launch device is usually a broken familial network when a lover, friend, or family member is taken or killed. The heroine’s descent, as a result, moves her away from civilization and safety (and her seat of power) toward solitary, unacceptable risk. Remember, her strength is in her friends.
Location 1064
When in possession of political power, the heroine acts more like a military general (or a really good general manager), getting help, recognizing the strengths in others, and doling out tasks and requests for aid accordingly.
Location 1071
The heroine acts to save others.
Location 1071
Her own rape as a motivation for action not only breaks a core narrative contract with readers, but it shows a gross misunderstanding of what rape actually does to the human psyche and what it means to the victim.
Location 1078
While our hero tends to move toward objects and acquisitions of power (a supernatural sword, magic amulet, and so on), the heroine’s descent is precipitated by a rejection of divine power (or defined social role) as a result of a familial connection (or relationship network) being taken from her. This can also be seen as a loss of identity or it can manifest in a more concrete way, such as an actual disguise.
Location 1088
an element of disguise and of shifting identity in pursuit of reunification.
Location 1090
our heroine finds second family, and pursues a constant need to further a relationship network
Location 1102
remains a civilizing force as she moves within her journey.
Location 1109
positive compromise. Our heroine is good at it, and that is a good thing, because her ability to negotiate will result in an integration of power, and a positive impact on the world and civilization.
Location 1121
heroine seeks to unite with what was lost. Her definition of a successful journey, therefore, is in connection. A heroine will compromise to achieve that goal. This is not a weakness. This is the very definition of what makes her a strong protagonist within the framework of this journey. Her definition of power, therefore, is nested in information gathering and community. When you write your heroine in crisis, yes, you can absolutely subdue her enemy, but then she is more likely to turn them to her side, persuade them to give up, or trap them away than she is to kill them.
Location 1292
The final battle sequence in the series against the Volturi is particularly indicative of a Heroine’s Journey. The Volturi, in their mad need to collect all the best powers into one group, are themselves a bastardization of a heroine’s need for familial networking. This makes for an effective enemy for a heroine, as they foil Bella’s own desires in a corrupted form. In the climactic battle scene, for one thing, there turns out to be no real violence at all.
Location 1338
Her need to mend that breach is what drives her into motion. If you want to set your heroine into motion quickly, take someone she values away from her – lover, sister, friend, companion, child, mother, niece or nephew. Or, if it has to be an object that is taken, not a person, make certain that object has a profound familial connection – a diary, journal, photo album, family spell-book, mother’s enchanted teacup, and so forth. A quick word on this plot point. To many authors, the very idea of action happening to the main character is abhorrent. This is also roundly criticized by educators and critics (with the possible exception of situational comedy). I need to stress that being driven into action by outside elements is not the same as being passive or reactive. Even if it were, I’ve considered making the case that critics, writing workshops, and creative writing teachers have been trained into a negative perception of reactive behavior in main characters by an excessive reliance on and prioritization of the Hero’s Journey. After all, the perception of passivity as a negative is endemic to that mythos, not this one. Either way, it is possible to write your heroine without everything happening to her. Her descent may be involuntary, but the actions that result in order to reconnect her with the world, how she goes into motion from that descent onward, those are her choices and her decisions. Additionally, a heroine doesn’t refuse the call, if indeed there is one. Why? Because her family has been taken from her! She’s not going to be coy about pursuing a reunification. She isn’t a hero and that’s not her pattern.
Location 1354
Feminine characters (and again, by that I mean characters gendered feminine by the narrative, not necessarily biologically female characters) appear as foils, siblings, friends, and lovers, and they will almost always assist the heroine through motivation, emotional support, and the tendering of useful information (espionage and gossip for the win).
Location 1362
loneliness and solitary actions are dangerous.
Location 1369
multiple likable characters assisting our heroine, but also to describe her comforting physical spaces (Ron’s family home, Bella and Edward’s cabin), not to mention community building events (family dinners, friendship gatherings, weddings, childbirth, and group workplaces). Give your heroine multiple, likable friends who do not betray her. Give her the opportunity to help and provide for those friends, and for them to help her in turn. Give her the chance to shine in a group, at work, at a party, in a relationship, with her family.
Location 1382
show compromise and define that as success.
Location 1399
depict your heroine as a delegator, identifying complementary abilities and activating them in the context of creating a cohesive whole for a mutually beneficial outcome.
Location 1413
the emphasis on solitary action, self-sacrifice, and never asking for help in the Hero’s Journey is damaging to modern society (and I will talk about this more).
Location 1630
So what we have, then, is a conflation of events during the second half of the Victorian era: the rise of a popular Gothic-born genre written and read by women produced cheaply in mass quantities roundly vilified by bastions of literature, male critics, and self-proclaimed proponents of good taste for all three reasons Thus, when someone criticizes romance, I love to clap slowly and praise them for participating in two hundred years of misogyny.
Location 1681
Human Eve Our heroine, is destined to survive the story, learn the appropriate life lessons, and probably marry the hero. Innocent Eve Usually Human Eve’s sister or friend, is a tragic heroine destined to succumb or die (precious cinnamon roll, too pure for this world). Evil Eve Our sorceress, seductress, or bad queen, is a power-hungry mistress of manipulation who will either descend into madness or in some way destroy herself with ambition.
Location 1686
A manly man, will rescue Human Eve and save the day through destruction of a Villain. The Villain A corrupt and abusive tyrant, often a thinly disguised (or actual) sexual predator, is after our Human Eve (or both Eves) and represents all that is dangerous to an untried young lady of quality. He often showcases everything that can be bad about a hero from a Hero’s Journey, which is to say, he holds a great deal of power over others, doesn’t fit into civilized life, is temperamental and violent, and when we encounter him, he is (and should remain) alone.
Location 1711
the two Gothic masculine archetypes of Hero and Villain are combined into the wildly popular, tortured Byronic Hero (of which, incidentally, Marvel’s Wolverine is an excellent example). Byronic Heroes, like Gothic Villains, tend to be cunning and rather ruthless, as well as arrogant and prone to violence. However, as they are also self-aware, they yield easily to depression, usually because of the state of their own moral turpitude, and are therefore emotionally and intellectually tortured.
Location 1719
If we inject the Byronic Hero into a Heroine’s Journey, he can be saved though love and connection and a new family unit. Or, if you inject him into a Hero’s Journey and redeem him before self-sacrifice, he will tear the heartstrings of your readers.
Location 1728
The salvation of the troubled alpha male is an incredibly popular trope, and in many ways can be seen as the Heroine’s Journey interceding with and diverting the expected narrative beats of the Hero’s Journey. If allowed to continue his journey, an alpha male character ends up victorious but alone. However, if he has entered the purview of a heroine’s book (as the redeemable bad boy of a romance novel, for example, or perhaps a lovable trickster) he is now part of a Heroine’s Journey, and she will save him by pulling all his pieces back together, giving him family to love, and teaching him the art of compromise.
Location 1734
It represents the tacit victory of a Heroine’s Journey over a Hero’s.
Location 1792
special. This trope may be tired, but it will not sleep. Use it and the critics might hate you, and the older readers who have seen it a million times before might get annoyed with you, but new readers, younger readers, will fall in love with your main character and you might just have the next runaway hit on your hands.
Location 1809
In other words, your main character is best able to change her mind, change her movement through space and time, or change her feelings about someone or something because of conversation, sex, or intimacy. If you are at a crossroads, stagnated, or facing writer’s block, and you’re writing a Heroine’s Journey? Introduce a new character or bring back an old one who has an emotional interaction with your main character, and see if that shakes things up a bit.
Location 1844
Just as we should be careful about whom we make weak in our stories, we must be particularly wary of in whom and how villainy appears, in terms of appearance, gender, disability, neurodiversity, sexuality, and race.
Location 2082
An alpha hero in pursuit of a heroine, when that hero is written closely to the bones of the Hero’s Journey, is simultaneously attractive to her as a prospective powerful ally and lover, and dangerous to her in that his objectives are, by their very nature, contrary to hers.
✏️ Or perfect villain 🔗 Location 2082
Location 2155
A buddy comedy, for example, Men in Black (1997), usually features a hard-bitten, sarcastic hero (like Agent K) and a new, enthusiastic heroine (like Agent J). Since it’s a comedy, it should come as no surprise that Men in Black is a Heroine’s Journey, where Agent K sacrifices himself to defeat the bug at the end, as any hero would, but is redeemed by losing his memory and going back to the woman he loves (relations, connection) because he is after all a hero in a Heroine’s Journey. While Agent J, our heroine, compromises for position with a new partner (new buddy) and continues to perpetuate a civilizing force.
Location 2179
Captain Marvel (2019), which was (much to my delight and surprise) a buddy cop comedy origin story operating on a Heroine’s Journey chassis. The ending sequence is particularly fascinating as she leads a whole group of aliens to their new home (very heroine) and yet she is out in front of them, alone (very hero). Meanwhile, her sidekick gets his reward from a cat alien.
Location 2198
Cats often act like tiny, complaining hero sidekicks or tricksters, while dogs and horses are usually depicted with more heroine attitudes.
Location 2228
Sam loses Frodo, which is against his nature, but we leave him settled full circle within the embrace of his hobbit community. Frodo, of course, has the classic bittersweet Greek hero’s end. Broken down by his quest and no longer fit to occupy the very world he managed to save, Frodo must move on to the next. In the end, both characters have engaged in successful versions of their respective journeys.
Location 2269
When there are multiple heroes and heroines in one group: Heroes are more likely to have different or conflicting goals. Heroines are more likely to have different or conflicting approaches to the same goal.
Location 2291
“Art for art’s sake,” and “I’m only doing this to please myself; I don’t have to take the opinions of others into account,” is a cry that has been used for a very long time, mostly by the powerful elite as a reason why they (who have the largest platform and biggest audience) do not need to take minority voices into account. It has given us the same type of writer – old, white, straight, and male – writing the same type of story for generations.
✏️ If that’s the case.. then write a diary. When you write for others, you enter into an agreement that they can own and critique and expect certain things from your story. 🔗 Location 2291
Location 2371
If you’re writing a Hero’s Journey and you’re up against a wall? Your hero probably needs to make a decision that gets him into motion and isolated. That is the only way he is going to accomplish something narratively meaningful. He needs a goal, a quest, and he needs a powerful ability that defines him as the only one able to accomplish this task. Or you can throw a temptation at him – a seductress, or a dangerous situation. Put him in a crowd with a bomb about to go off. Have his enemy try to trap him (AKA keep him still). Or you can go back to the words of emotion at the beginning of this section, and revisit what readers hunt for in this journey: excitement.
Location 2378
Got your heroine stuck somewhere? Introduce a helpful new character, make a new friend, throw on a disguise, have the main character start portioning out tasks to friends, have your character consult an expert, give her a new familiar or sidekick (or kink, heh heh), introduce a hero to help or to hinder her journey, since his objectives will naturally cause tension with hers. Just take a look at where you are in her journey (Descent, Search, Ascent?) and go back to the basics. Look at the myths – they will guide you and offer (to my mind) seemingly endless options. Divide your love interest into fourteen parts and scatter him over the Nile Valley… metaphorically speaking, of course. A fake phallus, new baby, and resurrection of a dead body works wonders for any plot, if you ask me. Not to mention a hungry fish.
Location 2506
Heroine’s Journey beats The Descent Broken familial network. Pleas ignored and abdication of power. Involuntary withdrawal. Offers of aid but no solution. The Search Loss means isolation/risk. Disguise/subversion. Formation of surrogate network. Visit to the underworld, aided by companions. The Ascent Success means new/reborn familial network. She excels at delegating, networking, communicating, and portioning out tasks and achievement. Her negotiation and compromise benefits all. Revenge and glory are not important.
✏️ Just an outline.. can skip or rearrange. Networking and asking for help is key 🔗 Location 2506
Location 2555
The lens of the POV hero character becomes focused on the sexual gratification they can get from any given relationship. Contrary to this, the focus of the heroine on any relationship, sexual or not, will be: “What are the strengths and weaknesses of my friend and how can we help each other?”
Location 2562
Back-stabbing is used as a means to isolate a heroine, but it comes from a hero’s perspective, with an idea toward the hero thriving in isolation. It also says something profoundly damaging to the reader about your heroine main character: This heroine cannot trust her own judgment in terms of networking. This concept attacks the very core of a heroine’s identity and motivation – communication and networking is her strength. In the context of the Heroine’s Journey, a betrayal from a friend, especially a feminine friend or sisterhood, diminishes and trivializes the heroine’s own identity.
Location 2632
I often wonder if Dumbledore is there to represent the Hero’s Journey mentor, as he keeps trying to put Harry on the path of hero, with himself in the mentor role.
✏️ This is interesting thought. grab characters from hero journey into heroine journey.. Not just hero but mentor or so on. 🔗 Location 2632
Location 2637
The hero on a Hero’s Journey within the context of a Heroine’s Journey is a danger to himself and others, and probably a threat to the heroine. His presence in her narrative is complicated and fraught with danger for both characters. He can end up being a good, complicated love interest – if the heroine can redeem him by teaching him the ways of her journey and diverting him to her narrative of love, compassion, compromise, and networking. He can also be a useful friend.
Location 2648
the true hero also makes a wonderful villain – his course of solitary action and victory through violence is the antithesis of a heroine’s course. Remember, the best bad guys think they’re doing it (whatever it is) for good reason. Sometimes they even have good reasons. They are just taking it too far in the wrong direction – wrong, in this context, will be anything that is diametrically opposed to the themes of the Heroine’s Journey. Obsession makes for wonderful enemies. A well written bad guy behaves like a hero in the wrong journey, using people for his own concept of victory, rather than activating and supporting them as a network. He may even be aligned with the heroine’s needs… for a time.
Location 2658
A heroine can also be corrupted in that she is doing the right thing for the wrong reasons, or the wrong thing for the right reasons – kidnapping a child in pursuit of connection, for example. A heroine can be driven insane by having her networks broken, and she then may attempt to steal someone else’s as a result. She hungers for connection so much that she takes that which belongs to others (lover, child, family, friend). If she builds networks, only to sever them at the tiniest hint of betrayal, she’s a great villain. If she sees her power in ruling over others and telling them what to do, or manipulating them into it, rather than asking them because she understands their strengths and delegates accordingly – she’s a villain. The same beats that make a heroine can be used to build a heroine as villain. Plus, this makes for an interesting foil. Readers will sympathize with and understand her motives, because she is a reflection of what the heroine could become, had she a slightly different personality. Again, I am using gendered pronouns here, not referring to biological sex. A heroine corrupted can be male, female, nonbinary, or from an alien race with five genders, just like the heroine herself. Any step a heroine takes on her journey for the right reason, a villain can take for the wrong one.
Location 2672
If the main character is driven into action not because she needs to repair what was broken, but because of revenge, a prevailing feeling that what has been done is hers to suffer alone, she is descending for the wrong reasons. If she responds to offers of aid by turning away, by isolating herself further, this will drive her toward evil. If her ultimate need is for dominance rather than solidarity, if her disguises and her manipulations are for solitary power and glory rather than for compromise and connection, she is a great enemy for our heroine.
Location 2705
If you want to drive change toward a more inclusive narrative in general, and in the context of your universe in particular, these characters are key. Think very very very carefully about putting straight white able-bodied males into these power roles. Why do I call this the show me your doctor moment? We often, sadly, reach for the wise, grey-haired, avuncular Caucasian man when we write a doctor. This constantly puts only one type of person into a position of authority and knowledge (which is power, particularly for a heroine) in our books. The subtlety of checking our own instincts when portraying authority is vital.
Location 2780
“Nice to be bi.” “Easy to be invisible. Not quite the same thing.”
✏️ Good example of protraying other was while sharing thoughts on bisexual erasure 🔗 Location 2780
Location 2935
For example, if the Hero’s Journey defines what it means to be strong because we’ve decided, culturally, that readers enjoy that journey more and have been trained to see it everywhere, our societal concept of a powerful female character becomes a biological woman behaving in a hyper-heroic way (e.g. violent, isolated, physically powerful). What I hope you have learned from this book more than anything else, is to question that bias. To realize, in fact, that it is not our idea of what it means to be female that should be critically examined under these circumstances, but instead, our idea of what it means to be strong.