I like what you’ve written, even though I come from a book perspective myself (structural editors tend to be a lot kinder, perhaps because nature of the 1-on-1 writer/editor relationship, and that your narrative wouldn’t have been pulled from the pile if it wasn’t already 90% of the way there).

Campbell still holds great influence over my writing, even if I tend to twist the monomyth a little, for example the nature of the ‘boon’ brought back by the hero may become the question: “What changes for the protagonist and/or reader by the end of the narrative, and do they understand that it has changed?”

Sorry for the tardy response – I usually follow things up sooner, but I’ve been very much buried in a personal project for the past couple of months.

It is totally worth a look! (With regard to Aliens – and even Avatar.)

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4y2yh_xenogenesis-1978-directed-by-james_shortfilms

I think any (maybe even: every) aspiring filmmaker and screenwriter should see it.

We all tend to look at his masterpieces that came later, without seeing that Cameron `started someplace’ too… (Cameron being the most successful writer- director who ever lived, right? See the box office of his films, as writer-director. Nobody else comes close. Even if you hate his stuff, you can’t argue that the rest of the world apparently disagrees with your opinion.)

ie – Don’t try and write `True Lies’ or `Avatar’ or `Aliens’ or `Terminator’ on your first screenplay…! (Well, go ahead, write whatever you like – as most people write 10 scripts over 10 years before mastering the craft, and that is: totally normal – but to expect such a high budget project to get made – let alone – as your first film, is extremely unlikely… ie See: Xenogenesis…)

Anyway, good article, thanks for this.

Cheers

JT Velikovsky
High ROI Film/Story/Screenplay Consultant
https://storyality.wordpress.com/

I also can see why: the initial resistance to the monomyth. A lot of people react allergically to it on their first introduction. But, I think also there is something important to remember: Films are the most expensive art form. If the film you write/make doesn’t find an audience, you’re boned. It feels intuitively like movies should be an expressive art form, as they usually are experienced in a darkened cinema, with all the familiar trappings of a dream world… In dreams, anything goes, etc.

But I happen to come at it from the opposite perspective. (I’m not suggesting mine is the only way…) What Campbell did, analyzing thousands of myths and finding a pattern was the closest to scientific analysis of popular stories. What Aristotle did, was arguably, not scientific at all; he used his own opinion to make prescriptions about What a good ancient Greek play is… (Read `Poetics’ if this sounds wrong… its a surprisingly very short and quick read…)

So – we see a lot of other story systems that aren’t as empirical as what Campbell tried to do… I again just bring it back to: Yes, we all have our own tastes and preferences as to movies. We instinctively use these when writing screenplays. But: is it wise to ignore what has clearly `worked’, en masse before?

The irony is, `Structure Gives You The Freedom To Be Creative’… If you commit to a story template (be it the monomyth or whatever), then tell whatever story you want, you will find your own creativity being exercized in ways it cannot if you start writing a story with no rules/guidelines in mind… Again this is why I find Karel’s stuff is so good.

The other issue is, film financiers all have their own opinions on what makes a great story too… How are you going to combat their suggested changes? If you have at least some kind of solid underpinning, chances are your story wont be so tampered with that it shifts away from What You Wanted To Say (Themes, Subtext, Metaphors, Profound Comments on Humanity/Life, etc etc – assuming those underpin your story, some people don’t worry about that, and I guess thats valid too)

Anyway, all just my 2c – and I really enjoyed the article, thanks!

JT Velikovsky
High ROI Film/Story/Screenplay Consultant
https://storyality.wordpress.com/