The Journey of a Hero - Crafting a Compelling Story Plot

Join Drake and Marie as they discuss how to use the hero's journey.
 
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Transcript

And so that's what the hero's journey is. I mean, it's just it's just.

These these.

Signposts, these guardrails, these coloring lines, however you want to look at them, they're suggestions on, hey.

Looking through 10,000 years of storytelling.

These are the constant things that show up because the human brain likes these things at these times in a story. It makes.

Us it gives us exactly what we.

Need when we need it.

Releasing your inner dragon.

So, Drake, if one were to have a hero and you want to say, take the reader on a trip with this hero.

Almost like a journey.

Almost like a journey to some kind of end destination. Do you think we can just take a car?

Sure. Why wouldn't you be able to take a car? I don't know where you're going with this one you've lost me.

But what if the car breaks down?

Well, it would have to break down, wouldn't it? It's not a journey if the car doesn't break down, and then somebody's going to have to come teach him how to fix that car.

And while they're fixing the car, there's going to have to come a Flubber monster with eight tentacles, at least eight, and a beak like a parrot. And he's going to have to beat it to death with a wrench.

Tire iron. There's something.

Poetic about beating something to death with a.

Tire iron.

Maybe it's just very American.

I worry with the question.

You talk to us about why the hero's journey is important.

I mean, you know, there's a ton of podcasts out there on On Hero's Journey, and hopefully we can throw in something to this discussion different or something to make you think about things different. 80 85% of all movies are made off the hero's journey, if not more. I mean, 72% of all statistics are made up on the spot.

So at least 85% of all movies are are set off the hero's journey. Hero's Journey has been around since the dawn of time. You know, Joseph Campbell, Professor Joseph Campbell is the guy who created it.

Or.

Coined it or whatever you want to say. And he did it by just studying stories.

From thousands.

Of years ago until his time in the seventies and was like, wow, every one of the ones that are really successful have.

This here and have that.

There and have this here and have that there and have this here. So I.

Wonder if that's a pattern.

And that's really all the hero's journey is. When you get down to the to the core of it. It's a pattern taken from stories that have been successful enough to survive thousands of years of human evolution and still be impactful on modern audiences. So, you know, and I mean modern audiences, as in 2000 years ago, 1500 years ago, thousand years ago, you know, 500 years ago, it still resonated with them, whatever time zone they were.

So that's really all the hero's journey is.

It's it's looking at.

The human psyche, looking at.

How we.

As humans.

Relate to stories.

Why do they impact us the way they do? And there is, you know, as much as we love to all.

Believe, we're unique.

Snowflakes.

The reality is.

Is we're just a beast or species that is driven by.

Animal.

Instincts.

And the hero's journey plays to those.

And Strike speaks for himself, not for releasing your inner dragon.

All views expressed are the views of.

The expressor.

And.

Not necessarily of management.

No, I mean, it's just that's really what the hero's journey is. It's just looking at every story. I mean, we have we have this benefit of hindsight and we can look at because I mean.

For every Beowulf there has to be millions of stories that were told that we have never heard of.

We'll never heard of.

They've disappeared from every aspect.

Of human society.

And sure, maybe a few.

Of those were golden, but I bet the vast majority of them were stories that needed to be forgotten.

And we're probably.

A better species for having forgotten.

Them.

I wish I could say that about a few of the modern day movies and stories.

But that's really it. That's all the.

Hero's journey is. It's not like this.

It's not like this shackle.

It's not like this, you know, covenant that we have to agree to.

It's look, the human brain, when we're.

Consuming stories.

We need to.

Get to know.

The person.

To to fall in love with them, to to care about them, to want to follow them into whatever trials and tribulations they're doing. So we need an everyman moment. I mean, it's just.

It's it's it's just a title.

For this moment that we need to connect the character to to the reader. You know.

We need.

Something to come along after we kind of establish this normal world. We need something to come along and start the story. So we need an inciting insight.

So that's it.

So let's let's stop there and just talk about the everyman moment because man, this is one of the things that I feel is so poorly done in a lot of recent movies, movies and TV series. And I know that I beat this drum every time, but it's it's pacing, pacing, pacing. They, they scram through these stories. Like, you know, the accountants are happy yapping at their heels to cram as much story in as possible.

And it it's just too much. But the other thing that I actually want to highlight about the the ordinary world or the everyman moment is it's also the it is that characters ordinary world, right? So if you look at an example of Doctor Strange, the first one because the Marvel, the Marvel movies and the DC movies to an extent all follow a hero's journey.

On their origin stories. Absolutely.

In their in their origin stories, Yeah. So in our ordinary moment, our our hero, our hero's journey starts with Doctor Strange, who is shown to be an excellent neurosurgeon. We see him operating. We see him saving lives. We see him in his really expensive car with his really expensive lifestyle and his likes it. So that is not and sometimes people can make the mistake of thinking it must the character must be completely relatable at that point.

The character must be understandable in their environment and interesting enough to be followed at that point. Now it can. It helps to be relatable, obviously, and that's why most of the characters do. But Doctor Strange wasn't very relatable in that It was. I know you felt the but it.

Wasn't even likable. No arrogant douchebag.

Absolutely. But it was interesting.

Well, but it is relatable. It isn't relatable. It doesn't mean.

I can see myself as that person.

It means. Yeah, yeah. No, that's that's a real that's a real thing.

I have met people like that. I know people like that. You know, maybe I'm married to people like that or have friends that are like that. Whatever. Like.

Yeah, or maybe we are.

That person, you know?

But I'm just saying relatable.

Doesn't mean likable.

It doesn't mean exactly like you.

It means somebody that you can understand and and go, Yeah, no, I get it. I could.

I could see.

How someone can be like that.

Yes. You see him in his natural environment as he is at that point.

So the funny thing is just to kind of expand upon this for bringing my experience.

Lived.

Experience into this, it didn't happen a lot in the beginning in the publishing industry, but it started I mean, one of the reasons why I left the publishing industry is it has drifted that way. But from my.

Dipping my toe.

In the Hollywood, it has always been that to where Hollywood has.

Always raged.

Even though, you know, every one of my movie scripts that I've that I've actually submitted all that have won awards, the number one thing that I get pushed back when I do finally meet with a movie producer or an executive or whatever, they always you know, the number one thing that I'm told is, Yeah, but you got to start your story off faster.

I'm like, Yeah, no, I don't.

Like, I don't because without this.

So it's funny, I had a fan read the harn world story of mine and he's texting me and he's like, Man, I cannot wait for your next harn world story. You did such a great job with this. He had never done harn. He didn't know anything about harn. And he's like, This is fantastic.

You know, if I had a critique, I think it started.

Off a little slow. Now we're texting. So that's all I got. And then the next text that came in because I'm trying to reply to that and the next take that came in was.

Although now that I'm.

Thinking about.

It, I don't think I would have liked.

The ending as much.

If you had done the beginning different.

But that's that's the whole problem. Right. And and it's the it's the problem with I call it a sequel ized problem or an order problem. Yeah. It used to be that people would fight to get their movie made that pitch their movie and they'd fight to get it made. And so they have this like they have a whole complete story to tell and they are willing to go to bat for like fighting to keep the slow opening and the establishment and everything else.

Right? But what's happened now because of streaming and because of the amount of content required for that grist mill is instead of having people come to two studios and pitching a movie, you have studios going, I want to listen to this and I listen to this and I put a team together and none of those people are emotionally invested in the story.

So when the studio goes no start it faster. They don't have the the commitment to bat for it.

And I will I will back.

That 50% because I think that's half the.

Story.

I mean, I do I 100%.

That is factual. But I also don't think they have the training either.

The understanding they've been told their whole career start it fast, start it fast, start it fast. 100.

start it fast 100%.

I'm not I'm not saying that that that's not the case. But I think so happens even to like experienced. Yeah. I mean even people these days like like if you think of The Hobbit movie, it had massive problems and it was done by an experienced storyteller that we all trust. And you know it. He wasn't the Hobbit was not a movie he wanted to.

Make, right?

The Lord of the Rings movie he wanted to make. The Hobbit was the movie the studio ordered and paid him for. Yeah, and you can see the difference, you know. Yeah. So I agree with you on on the teaching part as well. But it is also like.

Yeah, that's what I said. I agree with you 100.

Percent, but I think it's only 50% of the story because it is also the lack of and it's not, it's not I mean that's just the way they were trained. They were trained. And that's why I said.

From.

Jump when I got into Hollywood that was always the push back, like, you know, the Phenix television show. Every time I do get to that point where I was talking to a producer on it, they were like, But you're starting off really slow. I mean, you spent a lot of time getting to know these characters.

Yeah, king of the point. But it's a dick and fart jokes show just just go into the dick, convert jokes and like they're there to it's just that we're going to take a little time and we're.

Going to get to know the characters and introduce them.

And and I'm like, Come on, I take two episodes. It's not like it's not like I'm, you know, taking a ten episode season and at the end of the ten episode, because that's.

The other thing that sometimes they'll do.

They'll go the other route and it'll.

Be a ten episode season. And really.

The only thing.

It is is you just learn the characters at the end, and at the end you get this hook of what the conflict is. And almost every time with those shows they get canceled.

And then you're like, I love these characters, and this hook is really good. It's like, But.

The studio's like, Yeah, but, but it took too long. We can't do this.

So that so, so just to get back to the ordinary world, I really do think the ordinary world is very important. Or the everyman moment, whatever you want to call it like that. That moment is really critically important to to introduce. And I mean, the other the other movie that we discussed beforehand was Wonder Woman, the first one where you have a chunk of scenes where Diana lives on this hidden paradise island, Island, little kid, she's a child.

And those scenes are important. They carry the reader into Diana's life.

Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, and and again, and now the publishing industry has gone that way, which is why I've walked away from the publishing industry as well. But, yeah, it's it and it. I do not understand it. I do not understand how they can't get that. If you don't.

Care about the characters.

You're never going to care about the show.

The story is irrelevant if I mean, you know, if you hear.

About somebody dying, if you just like, somebody in France died today, you're like, That's sad, I guess.

I mean, lots of people die in France today.

I everywhere. But when you learn.

That somebody in France was doing this heroic thing and saving all these people and it ended up costing them their lives.

Like you got.

To know the person a little bit and you got to know what they were doing and how they were contributing to humanity. And you're like, wow, that's and you learn that they're 12 years old and and, you know, all this other stuff and you're like.

That's.

Really impactful. That is really deeply sad. Can I give some money to the to the is there a go fund me for the family is there you know I mean.

That's the difference. That is literally the difference.

You know and one you're like okay someone died so versus my goodness this story is.

Is is.

Impactful to me. You know, it's.

Made me care about this.

Person that I will never meet that is in a country that that I'm not in.

That's literally who cares.

And that is what I don't get. I don't get why these these people with the money purses do not understand that if you cannot connect to the story, it doesn't matter what happens in the story doesn't matter.

Because you don't. It's just some.

Random person dying or sacrificing or or going through a hard time or like, okay, that's.

Sad. No one wants.

To see anyone else, you know, suffer.

But that great scene from the Loki TV series comes to mind. that's sad. Anyway.

Yeah. Anyway, it's just.

No absolutely. So. So I think the the ordinary world really is a good establishing shot to do What is our next step on this hero's journey?

Well, once you've established, hey, you're.

Just you know, you can relate to this person, you can you empathize with them, you care about them and you care about what they care about, then we have to have something come along and start to take them down a different path. We have to have the inciting incident, something that.

Either can completely shatter their world or and just.

Take them into a, you know, a.

Direction.

That is different than what they thought they were going to do. So in Wonder Woman, it's just been so long as I watched Wonder Woman.

Or produce.

Wonder Woman, it's probably the arrival of Steve Trevor.

Right? That's what I was going to say.

Yeah, but.

I was going to say our producer Monique, has forbade us from speaking about certain movies that we tend to talk about all the time. So before the show we're like.

What have we seen recently that we can use?

So yeah.

Especially follows the hero's journey because we came up with it, but we were like, Yeah, but those don't follow the hero's journey. Having said 85% of movies.

The right or just were.

Bad examples that we didn't want to use or things that that we didn't remember every detail of or.

Whatever.

But now I think it was the plane crash. That's what I was going to say. I think that's the inciting incident. Remember this? And the next thing after that, just to jump ahead is the point of no return.

Sometimes those are the same.

It's but it's also it can also be meeting the mentor.

yeah that can happen.

And and refusal of the call should ideally if you're going to if you're going to follow the hero's journey in full. Right. So if you think about Doctor Strange he would establish him then he's in that car crash. That car crash is the call to adventure.

The inciting incident.

Yeah. Sorry, It's the inciting incident. So he's. His hands are crashed and he can't do his thing anymore. He can't even handshake. He can't do the job that he was really good at.

His life.

Remarkably changed.

Yeah. And he now lashes around looking for a new thing to do. And he encounters this guy and maybe the guy who can can walk despite being lame. And that is the initial pull. Like that is the. Hey, look here, look at this thing. This can take you places. But he says no, right? He tries other things. He tries medical solutions.

It's it's not that's voodoo magic. That's you’re lying. Like. Exactly. That's dumb. Like, there is no such thing.

I'm a scientist.

I'm a doctor. This voodoo horse crap doesn't exist. So of.

Course I'm going to refuse the call on.

That, because. Why wouldn’t I? I mean, I'd.

Be insane to say.

magic. sure. Yeah, it must be magic. Let's use magic. Like, first.

Of all, not only is the refusal of the call important for the story from from just it's an element of it.

But it's a believability point. If we take our.

Character that this hard core scientist who just who somebody says.

And they're like, Yeah, magic.

That's real, let's do.

That.

There's nothing believable about that. There's nothing that's going to connect you to that. You know, he has to work through that.

And and what I like about Doctor Strange is refusal to the call, like because on on, on Diana's side the refusal to the call is less her. Her mother doesn't want her to go right. But Diana herself is key. So the refusal is slightly differently structured there. But in Doctor Strange, it's very much him refusing. And there's a whole he goes through a whole mini cycle where he goes down to his very lowest point.

He's basically lost everything. He's lost all his friends. He looks like a homeless bum, you know.

He looks like I did last week. And our.

Heart. Yeah.

Yeah. And, and he and he's he's he's absolutely, you know, he's he's shattered. Yeah. Before he in desperation accepts the call to adventure which I think is a very good illustration of that refusal and and it's kind of consequences.

100%.

The thing I'd like to expand upon and I know you're trying to go step by step, which is we need to do, but I just want to stress the one beautiful, magical thing about the hero's journey is that.

Even though.

We, you know, it's presented in an order, you know.

That.

Every man, you know, introduced the everyman, have the inciting incident, you know, introduce the mentor, refuse the call you have the point of no return are now called adventure. Have the point of no return.

Crossing.

The threshold, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. The magical thing about the hero's journey is you can create scenes that do two things at once or three things at once. I know we're not supposed to talk about it, but I'm going to anyway. In Finding Nemo, the kidnaping of the child is the inciting incident and the point of no return and the call to adventure like it literally is.

It's it triple.

Dips into so much, which is fine. You can also do things out of order. You know, the everyman moment. I mean, this is just my.

The most.

Extreme example of this. So I have to use this example. The everyman moment in The Shawshank Redemption.

Comes in the third act like nowhere.

I've never seen a story that could pull that off.

But you don't actually relate to any.

Refrain as an innocent human being.

Until that third act. You know.

He's a murderer. Like.

So like, it's just that's just breathtaking.

And then the other thing about him is you can skip part, you can.

Skip the steps. You can do steps more than once. Like, yeah, that's.

The magical thing about it. So even like when we're going through these examples, you start to see that like, well, wait a minute, that doesn't exactly follow that. No, it doesn't, because there isn't an exact I mean.

Star Wars Star Wars intro follows it literally like, which is why we use that for teaching.

But the reality is, as we've already talked about with some of these.

And it doesn't even.

Have to be the Pee-Wee character. So in Wonder Woman, as you.

Said, her mother is the refusal of the call.

She never refuse.

She'd like, I've got to go. I want to go I want to go.

And it's the same thing. And again, I know we're not going to lean on it, but in Star Wars, a new Hope, the refuse of the return, which is the refusal of the call. In the third act.

The Han Solo.

Refuses the return.

Not Luke.

Luke doesn't say, you know.

So that's the thing.

It doesn't matter where it comes from and it doesn't even.

Matter the order. It just what.

What is going to work and what is going to resonate with audiences?

Yeah, the refusal is basically it doesn't have to be the character refusing. It can be the character being prevented with it, with some kind of obstacle from joining the call to adventure.

Okay, well, one more thing. Yeah, it can even go.

Deeper than that. So we have a great example of.

The character.

Refusing the call. Did we use one of them?

I mean, a doctor.

Doctor Strange with.

Doctor Strange, Right, Right. I thought we did.

Diana's the.

Doctor.

Strange is a great example of the character doing the refusal of the call. One was a great example of another character doing the fruit of the.

Call.

In.

Lord of the Rings.

When Gandalf shows up and says, Frodo, you still got that ring? Great. There's these monsters going to be here in 3 seconds to kill you, so you need to run.

There's no he can't refuse. He can't like he's just dead if he does. Yeah. And they didn't do it as.

Well in the book. Tolkien didn't do it as well as what Peter Jackson did in the movie. But in the movie there's this breathtaking refuse of the call scene that isn't a refuse of the call scene, but it is. It does it does what it needs to do. And that's when. So they rush out of bags end and Gandalf keeps going and then he notices that Frodo isn't next.

To him and he turns around.

And.

Frodo has stopped and he's looking back at the house and Gandalf comes back.

And he's like, What are you doing? Do we got to go? And he goes, and photos answer is, I'm probably never going to see bags end again and Gandalf was like, Yeah, you're probably going to die now, let's go.

But that's enough to let them because what is the refuse of the call for?

It's all of these things are to make it believable. Diane's mother doesn't want her to go. That makes it believable. What is Doctor Strange.

He was saying.

Doctor Stephen Strange.

Stephen so, Stephen is a doctor. Of course he's not going to go with magic, so that's believable.

But even just that.

Moment of Frodo going, I'm a tiny little hobbit that has no combat training whatsoever, and you're want me to go out in the big world and fight dragons.

I'm probably going to die, aren't I? I just want to just want to.

Put that out there upfront that I kind of get it. And then that's that believable thing where the audience is like, Yeah.

Yeah, you probably are going to.

Die, aren't you, you little.

Guy? So just that's the big.

Point of the refusal of the call.

The refusal is, I think, also a moment of vulnerability for the character. And if you can make your character vulnerable, audiences relate more. They attach more to a character that they can see the vulnerabilities and the weaknesses. And that refusal of the call is a very vulnerable moment in the character. Okay, so now you have to meet a mentor, or you should meet the mentor on this journey.

Yeah. So these these are a couple of, of mentors actually in, in Strange. The first mentor he meets is that dude with a broken back who says to him, Go here. And that's kind of the first glimmer of hope.

And I wouldn't call it a I would I really.

See that more as a call to adventure.

Okay. Fair.

I mean.

There's an argument. I'm not I'm not saying no. There's an argument for it being a type of mentor. Yeah.

Maybe a signpost is a better. Yeah, maybe that was a signpost character. Yeah. And then and then he goes and he meets the actual mentor at Intimate, right. Where he, you know, in the house where he sleeps on the, on their door until he meets the mentor. But that meeting of the mentor doesn't mean that that is the moment when like the mentor necessarily accepts them or the person actually is in the new world.

Right.

And it is on the doorstep, but he can't see it and thrown out.

Yes.

He doesn't do like the Lion, the Witch and Wardrobe, where they actually just walk through the door and they're in Narnia. He walks into the door and the door goes, Bizarre.

Yeah.

Not interested in you, Uma. And that that is kind of also an important part of the of the hero's journey, which is crossing the threshold. Now. Crossing the threshold is the point of narrative. It's where you go like you are actually now in the adventure. And that is when, for example, Diana leaves Themyscira with Steven, defying with Steve and defying her mother's wishes and, you know, going beyond the barrier to go confront the God of war, wielding the sword of awesomeness.

Who's corrupting humanity is corrupt.

And that's the one. And and it's when Stephen finally gets into that house and starts his Yeah.

Matrix and the Matrix, it's do you want to take.

The blue pill or the red pill.

And wizard of Oz.

It's followed the yellow brick road.

Yeah.

There's your point of no return. I mean, technically you could say that the point of no return is the tornado as well. I mean, that's the other thing is really good stories, in my opinion. When you start really trying to lock them down and find things, you go, yeah, this is that.

Or is that this?

Yeah.

Or is it? Or could that that I thought was, you know, this aspect, this actually.

This other aspect. I mean I think that's really good storytelling when all the elements of the hero's journey are there, but.

You can't quite put them into a box. Yes.

Like they're kind of in the box, but they're hanging out a little bit too.

Yeah. So because.

Creative is the first word of creative writing and I think when you when you do it to where.

It's it's mostly this, but it's also a little bit of that.

The hero's journey is like, like guardrails maybe.

As a way.

That they help guide you. But that doesn't mean that you have to like, cling to them.

Or.

Instead of guardrails, because that kind of still denotes force.

They're more like the.

Lines of a coloring.

Page because, you know.

They're just right on the other side and, you know, color outside the lines and you might come up with something very beautiful by not following exactly the lines. And so.

Because guardrails.

Works, it's just that that's also a barrier. I mean, there's some physicality to the guardrails, whereas if you just kind of imagine, it's just.

I mean, it's just a.

Coloring book and you can follow the.

Lines or you can fudge.

A little bit sometimes, you know, those people that that take coloring to the next level and they do the feathering and and the blending of the two colors together. You know, normally you'd do one color on one side of the line and one on the other side. But these guys that are really good, they'll they'll feather the colors between the two and you're like.

this side's.

Red and that side's.

Blue. But it kind of mixes in the middle and looks really cool.

Like and that's what we're talking about here. That's what the hero's journey is. It's you can you can take it to that next level. Just using creativity.

Then we come to, I guess, the biggest chunk and the least well defined part of the hero's journey, which is the the trial of troubles.

The road of trials,

So this is where your character goes through troubles. They face challenges, they meet allies, they make friends, they make a few enemies, maybe, etc.. So Diana and this meets those, you know, Steve's friends and they form a little adventuring band to head off into the into the First World War trenches. Dr. Strange goes through his training and he meets Wong and the couple I can't remember everybody's names Right.

Well he get I.

Mean he gains.

The the the.

Clock against the No, no no that's after she dies and the mentor's death is a thing by itself.

Well, yeah, certainly. But I'm saying all of these things are a part of the second act.

Yeah. So, you know, there's all, all of that kind of like that. It's all tests and trials and test and trials. Then we come to Wait a minute.

Yeah. Because there is.

Something that I have found that I teach that I think makes the second act a little easier.

Because it is a.

Lot. I mean, you have everything from Atonement to the father.

Death of the mother?

Well, the width of death is one of them.

I'm trying to think of the actual Campbell terms. He used some freaky terms.

So the atonement, the father's where you come and actually get to face the bad guy for the first time. You know, somewhere in act two, you don't actually like, you know, like in Star Wars. Well, like in since we're trying to stay away from those in Doctor Strange, it's when they attacked the the place.

I mean, he's still a trainee. He can't really do anything against them.

So he this weird.

Thing happens and he barely survives because he's not trained enough to fight these guys.

Yeah.

With the to that the rogue sorcerer that was played by a really good actor.

Anyway, it was actually at a.

Convention with him. He was when I was invited to Saudi Arabia Comic-Con, there was only five of us and

He was Sherlock.

Holmes too, wasn't.

He? Although.

no, no, that's Doctor Strange. Never mind. It's.

It's Mads Mikkelsen.

Mikkelsen. Thank you.

Yeah.

And we're. We were two of the five guests that were invited to the Saudi Arabia Comic-Con, so. Yeah, but that's the atonement of Father. Whatever the mother one is against them. I'm not pulling up for whatever, but there's all sorts of different things you can do in the act two. And you can do them in any order and you do it multiple times and all this stuff.

But here's the thing that I that, that I think really helps to understand Act two, because, you know, like when I'm plotting and for those that have heard us plot we always.

We.

Plot act one part one and act one or I'm sorry Act two, part one, Act two, Part two. And the big difference between them is or the easiest way to think about it is in Act One in part one of back.

To.

The character's completely reactionary. They're just reacting to everything that's being thrown at them. They're not in control or they're not actively like pursuing. They're just literally hanging on by the seat of their pants by their fingernails, from falling off the cliff, whatever you want, whatever metaphor you want to use. And then when you pass that mid act two climax, the big change is the character now starts becoming active.

They start actively working towards something. And so like we look at the Matrix all the way up till Morpheus is captured. Really, the mid act two climax in the Matrix is the oracle. So when they go see the Oracle, that's where everything changes.

So before that.

He's just like, you know, what am I doing? And am I jumping over buildings and am I fighting, you know, in kung fu and am I? What's this woman in the red and, and food and weird slop. And why does everything taste like chicken and like, we have all this weird stuff going on, but he's completely reactive, and then we, like, we got to go see the Oracle.

He goes to see the Oracle, that's your mid act two Climax. And then what happens after that? The entire story changes. It's like, Wait, no, I need to fight. I need to do so. I'm going to fight You know, Mr. Smith here in the alley, like, what are you doing? No, no, run. You got to run. And then when he gets out of there, he's like, I'm going back.

You know, I'm doing this. And so that's the thing that I think people it'll help people wrap their minds around the giant act two.

Yeah.

First half of it is reactive and the second act of it is active. If you can kind of think in those terms that will help you understand just because they're active doesn't mean they know what they're doing. So they're still learning. But there is a difference between the first half of Act two just being, you know, just being blindsided by everything versus okay something has happened in this mid act two climax.

And now we are. And it's the same thing in Wonder Woman. The mid act two climax is the trench scene. If the trench scene, Diana is still reactive, everything's just hitting her and she's just kind of doing whatever and she's just, you know, she's kind of knows that she wants.

To, to fix the world, but she doesn't really.

Understand anything enough. And you know that the plane and and going with this dude and he's taking her on this boat and like all this stuff is is more happenstance than anything. But then the trench happens and it's like, no, I'm doing something. And she does that. And then everything else from that point on, it's like, no, we're doing something.

We're going to be active in this. And so everything changes after that moment, just like it does in The Matrix. It's been so long since I’ve done Doctor Strange. What is? I can't think of what the mid act two climax is on that and where that changes. I know it does just that it's been too long.

I think that it's the attack in isn’t it the attack on New York?

I don't know for you it's.

I've only seen the movie once and I only saw it when it came out.

Yeah.

So what was that 2016. I've had cancer since then.

I've seen it twice, but I can't remember exactly where it meant to climax lies. I can remember the the beginning of the end of the movie very well. The middle is kind of a training montage and meeting Mads Mikkelsen right?

Yeah.

I have come to bargain. Will stick with me for the rest of my life.

Yeah, Yeah.

That is really good. So anyway, I just wanted to, to nail that down because a lot of people, you know, you have this sagging middle and it's because I think you just don't really understand. Like people treat Act two as this one entity. That's 50% of my story.

But it really isn’t.

I actually think like here, Wonder Woman really does shine by comparison because I remember that trench. You remember that trench? The world, that trench, you.

Can't.

Mid act to climax of any story ever.

Phenomenal. Where is I'm sitting now trying to think of what Doctor Strange is two climaxes and it's like a yeah yeah yeah that I mean like the memories.

Of feeling if we were.

I mean because.

We.

Obviously both watched Wonder Woman way sooner than you know and you look.

At that almost the same it came up 2017. yeah.

I didn't realize it was that close.

Yeah.

Yeah. No, it's a great scene.

But I mean, it's powerful.

It's powerful in every way.

It's, you know, it's, it's where I.

Got to in that movie. And in my mind, I literally said, my God, we're going to have a good DC movie.

This is going to be a good.

DC movie for the first time.

Ever.

And I was so excited to finally see DC nailed one. And then they.

Didn't stick the landing but.

A bunch victory.

Or they snatch defeat from the jaws of.

Victory.

Well, well, well. Like an equalizer isn't that bad.

This is where we disagree.

But you, you, you go. It's that bad because of the beauty of the tooth club, because it's the middle of two climates have been average May wouldn't have been as you know because the middle to climax really is like it is one of the best med act two climaxes I've ever seen in a movie.

Yeah it is I mean, really memorable.

It's definitely better than Ruth being a dude for a week.

But but we're not talking about the second one. I don't know what they were thinking. I there is no, like, nothing in that movie makes sense at all. Not the story, not the characters. Nothing.

If you took Wonder Woman out the movie.

You don't even have to change the movie.

I know. It just. It was. It. It. I don't understand. But anyway, were. But it's so. So. Yeah, but the the mid act two climax of Wonder Woman was superb. And because of that it doesn't have a sagging middle. But the but and when I'm thinking of Doctor strange as mid act two climax, it escapes me because most people don't do a mid mid act climax that is that strong because this is the one risk you have is if you then have an average ending, it feels like way less.

Because that's.

Actually a good point than I ever thought about because I find the middle act to climax in the Matrix amazing. Like literally masterfully done with the Oracle because it's exactly what Neo needed at the time. He needed to be told, No, you're not Jesus Christ.

So you do all.

Stresses off of you. You're not. It. You don't have to save the world. Stop worrying about it, because that's what he needed. He wouldn't have been able to save the world if he kept worrying about. He was the one who had to save the world. But most people, when I'm talking, when I'm teaching, writing and everything, in the end I get to that and I'm like, What is the main act you climax that I've never had anybody who was able to give me that information without me giving it to them that that hadn't gone through one of my classes or whatever.

Not one time have I had anybody go, is the Oracle is the actual climax, So you may be on to something there where it doesn't have the impact of the Middle Act to climb the trench scene from Wonder Woman.

And as I said, the problem is when you have a medic to climax that that that is that powerful, you need an ending that's even better. I think you're ending is average. After such a mid act to climax, your ending feels like it fell off a cliff.

Right.

And that's that's kind of the the yes.

You might be on to something there that that's interesting because.

From the ending the ending of of you know it's not any worse than any other soup it's not even worse than a marvel superhero movie where there's just like a big flashy fight. I mean.

Maybe I really I.

Really hate the in that movie. So I'm going to have to really try.

I know, but. But it's not actually any worse than, say, Iron Man's ending. It's it's a big flashy fight. You know, It's a big, flashy fight in Captain America.

I will I.

Will push back on that because in all of those, the flashy fight is them actually overcoming the conflict of the story that the character was dealing with. The God fight at the end of Wonder Woman has nothing to do with what her story was. And you already just said that earlier before you started.

No, I hear you. But I mean, in in execution, Right?

Right. That that's it's a.

Big flashy fight. You know, I may.

Not agree with that, but.

But the thing is that that trench scene because the trench scene wasn't. Yes. It was a big flashy fight, but it wasn't the trench scene was about hope and about courage.

And you're making my point for me.

And no, I hear you. But but but there are many, many, many superhero movies that don't have hope and courage and, you know, such.

No. Because they.

Have.

underlying thematic elements.

And so the whole Wonder Woman of them.

You know, I mean, like, it's not it's not that bad.

We're talking about the you know, the ones you just mentioned, Captain America and Iron Man. They both had deep human thematic elements underneath them in the fight. The big flashy fight at the end was dealing with that. And so with Wonder Woman, that the deep thematic element that we're playing with is Diana has to be the surrogate for humanity because we're not gods.

We're not, you know, Amazonians.

We have to.

Understand, you know, what they were going one of the big things that were playing with is.

A lot of the.

Evil that you guys.

Have comes from you. Yeah, you guys are the problem.

You guys need to look inward instead of trying to look for this external thing, you know, it's like, Aries is tipping the scales and making men evil.

Or.

Men are.

Just evil. Like.

That's kind of the thing. And the last fight with Aries no longer was dealing with that. Yeah, it was dealing with the fact that she was lied to personally and she was more than what she was told. And she's going to kick the crap out of the dude that's been lying to her. Like. So they changed, you know, you said it before we started, you know, recording.

I love the way you said it. You said they didn't fulfill what they had.

Yeah, but they had played with all of those elements. And like, I stand by it, but I think that chickened out. I think that chickened out of like. Right. Because. Because that is a weighty thing to say. You know, there is no like, evil comes from means hearts, not from some people's thoughts. Let's let's being gender inclusive women can be evil too.

Evil comes from people taught right? Not not from a god or an external force. Right. It is a powerful thing to say, but, you know, it is also like a I mean, it is a statement. And I think they backed away from it at the last second.

Yeah. And that could be so one of the peanut galleries asked, can you give an example of an ending that would have worked for Wonder Woman? And I'm not going to give just a flat out example. I'm not going to rewrite their movie. But basically it's exactly what me and Mary are saying. We're playing with the thematic element that you're blaming.

Superficial stuff for your own.

Failure. What she should have done is she should have realized that killing areas, fighting areas, finding a single point of conflict to to solve all of men's ills, man's ills. And again, I'm using man genderless-ly humanities. I'll use ain't going to fix the problem.

Yeah that,

humanity has to look at.

Itself as a species and fix the.

Problem with humanity. And since they didn't come up with an ending that allowed Diana to fail because that's really what needed to happen with there. Because you can't. She's like, there's a single point of conflict. We can fix it if we just do this thing. You know, we, we, we can we can cure the cancer in the the heart by just chopping off the hand, just chop off the hand, and that'll cure the cancer in the heart, you know.

No, no, it won't. You have to do something bigger than that. And so I think what they needed to do with that movie and that would have been a hard thing. And that's why I said, I'm not going just come up with it cause I would have to sit down and really, really put some brainpower to it.

I think that they were on the right track with Steve, sacrificed to take those weapons down.

Steve did right.

He sacrificed.

Because he was the.

Representation of the good in humanity.

Yes.

And so I think.

I think that if instead of the fight being about the fact she'd been lied to and her kicking Arya's ass and so on, maybe if like her fight had been against literally wicked men, like evil men.

I actually.

Got I do have one.

Who who, you know, were trying to get the bombs off. Steve goes to sacrifice himself and she is fighting like a whole army of villainous people to give him the time to take off.

I think another solution for that might have worked. And again, we're just spitballing here, but if.

She because because technically Steve ended.

Up being the overcome of that side of it, the humanity side of it, what's going to overcome humanity is humanity. So Steve, being a proposition, a representation of what's good, he sacrificed himself to save others.

Maybe to keep the story in. And again, just spitballing, to keep it in the Diana's perspective. Diana, you know, somehow beats off or shouldn't say it like that, somehow puts down the God of war.

Or.

Directs it and redirects him somehow or whatever. And then she goes to Steve and she takes him out of that plane at the last moment says, no, I'm here to save the good of humanity. And yes.

You should.

Sacrifice yourself for this, but humanity needs you. Humanity needs the good in humanity. And I can't let the good in humanity die fighting the bad in humanity. So I'm going to save you because I'm because you're the manifestation of what is good in humanity. So not what Diana would then be doing is saving the manifestation of what's good in humanity.

And so still, the bombs would go off. Steve would have still done his job, but then that would keep her in the story of No. What's important is not fighting Aries. What's important is encouraging and saving the good that is in Man, which is represented by Steve. So let me save him so that the.

World still has a Steve and.

And as a side effect, I don't have to roofie someone in the next.

Movie.

So I think that that that would also that would address a lot of the problems because the problem is that her defeating areas just didn't feel like like it didn't feel like anything. Yeah especially not against the scale of the First World War. I mean, one man defeated up a bit. Yeah. We're talking about one of the biggest, most devastating wars in human history.

Yeah.

Like.

Yeah.

And again, the thematic elements that we were playing with in that movie is all about the evil in man's heart, you know, human, humanity's heart. I'm trying to.

You know, just.

I'm saying, man, as a humanity.

No, no, I'm on a.

But and then you.

You.

End it with without really closing that. And I can see an argument for saying no, they did close it because Steve sacrificed himself.

But that doesn't that's a.

A different character solving Diana's problems.

Yeah.

And so that's why it failed. So it's not and again, that's why I think that when you look at Iron Man, the big flashy fight at the end is still the overcoming like, especially in Iron Man where he's like, no.

You're.

Not going to use my company for this anymore. We're not going to make weapons that kill people. We're just not going to do it. And I'm if I lose everything, it's fine and I'm going to fight you for this. And so that's still there. Same thing with Captain America. It's still there that it's the thematic elements that we play with, with the whole thing.

And now we're going to, yes, have a big flashy fight.

But it's a big.

Flashy fight that is about the thematic elements that we're playing with in the story.

You know, and I do like I do I do agree with you on on that. And we do agree that the third act is the weaker. Right. But I do also like because the because that second act climax is so high, the weakness of the third act is so apparent. Yeah.

Definitely.

I definitely puts a spotlight on it. You're 100% right on that. Yeah, there's no doubt about that. And like I said, I never even thought about that looking at like The Matrix because.

Because I.

Mean, you see code.

That the frickin.

Oracle, seeing from a code standpoint is breathtaking, even though most audience members don't even really see it as this amazing moment. And and again, that's I think that's another important aspect of the hero's journey. These stories have.

Sedately learned.

The things that really resonate with the human brain. And Joseph Campbell just went, wow, you this thing is in all of these stories that are successful. And then this thing is in all of these stories and this thing. And so he just.

Picked out.

These accidents. That's why I always feel bad about Tolkien, you know, in the mistakes that he made.

Because he was first like, he didn’t have anyone.

To look back on and go, you know, like.

Yeah, like.

One of the things that I always want to do in my entire life is just write a story where I one time they killed every P.O.V. character because I thought it would be cool. And then I read Game of Thrones and it's like, Yeah, no, I'm not doing that. That's mean. That's not good to your readers, thanks.

I mean, I can look back on history and make decisions and that's all Joseph Campbell was doing as he was just looking at these accidental mistakes that became that, that had things that resonated with people and took advantage of that.

And so that's what the hero's journey is. I mean, it's just it's just.

These these.

Signposts, these guardrails, these coloring lines, however you want to look at them, they're suggestions on, hey.

Looking through 10,000 years of storytelling.

These are the constant things that show up because the human brain likes these things at these times in a story. It makes.

Us it gives us exactly what we.

Need when we need it.

I've told this story before one time. This is ten, 12, 15 years ago. But I actually took Pulp Fiction and I put it into a video editor and I chopped.

Up every scene.

And I rearranged it to where it was in chronological.

Order.

So that the first thing that happened happened first and and so on and so forth.

It made no sense. It sucked. It was a terrible story. And yet when you watch the movie, the events are not in order. Like the first thing you see is the end of the movie. And it's not like a 12 hours earlier now is that it literally is just the end of the movie. They don't 12 hours earlier. It's just there you go.

But it's it's the everyman moment. It's it's the it's it's the you know, I don't eat pork. Pork is a filthy animal. It's the it's it literally is everything you need to know to.

Start learning these characters. It's a I love you, honey bunny and all of that.

It's everything you.

Needed to know to start to do this journey. And so when you put it in chronological order, you take the invisible layer, which is the only layer that's important.

And you jumble it.

Up and therefore and that that's just when I started realizing that the physical layer doesn't matter, that only the invisible layer matters. And that's what the hero's journey sits in. You know, it sits in the invisible layer. And so.

It's, it's just.

Why it works. That's why everything I write is on the hero's journey for, well, for two reasons. One, it works. And two, you have an unbelievable amount of flexibility with it. And so you really can never tell the same story twice if you use the exact same hero's journey structure because you're going to adjust it and change it and combine things in and not use things in certain stories or use things twice in certain stories or whatever.

And so yeah, it's just it is modern storytelling.

So this is getting quite long in the tooth. Do you want to do Act three as a second episode?

Will there be enough, do an Act three? And didn't we kind of already.

Hit a lot of act three? Well, let's.

Just run through it.

Okay, cool.

We're in an hour now, so if we go an hour and 15 minutes, I don't think it's that big of a deal.

Okay. So basically your act three is all the up building up to your climax and it goes through in Doctor Strange case, since we've discussed Wonder Woman quite extensively in Doctor Stranges case, he realizes that he has to go to New York. He has to confront that mad Mitchell's wizard and he's got to stop him bringing Dormammu into the world.

Dormammu.

I think that that the first climax, the resurrection climax, which is technically what it's called, in the heros journey is, is the battle against the is the battle against the wizard, which he wins. But Dormammu was brought partially right. And then the resurrection is when he realizes what he needs to do against Dormammu and he literally resurrects, which is fun because it's like dormammu I have come to bargain dormammu, I have come to bargain.

Yeah.

And he just keeps getting killed over and over and over and over again. Yeah, It was a great, great plot device.

It was a fantastic plot of us. It's also it's interesting, I I've seen it in some some cases in software development, places where they like they put that up as like a motivational poster of like every time your code fails Dormammu I have come to bargain.

Yeah.

And basically his continual sacrifice around this, this thing that he does shows how much is changed its cements stranges journey. It puts a kind of capstone on the whole process from the selfish jerk that he was the beginning of the movie to being the master of whatever he's.

Really who's literally.

Willing to sit there every minute for the rest of time.

Be killed. Yeah.

To save others.

Yeah.

He's literally willing to just stop time and repeat the same moment over and over and over again until the end of time as he's.

Brutally murdered over.

And over and over.

Again. Like you can't get further away from.

From where he was.

Jerk at the beginning of the movie.

Yeah.

And so that's the full transformation. And that's, again, because we're playing with those. And and that is the difference between DC and Marvel. The reason why Marvel movies normally resonate deeper with audiences is because they are about the thematic elements behind the stories, and DC is about the powers, it's about the physical layer, it's about the stuff that they can do and no one resonates.

And that's why I always say there are three comic book companies, there's Marvel, there's DC and there's Batman.

Because in.

Batman.

He's got no powers.

And so they have to, you know, DC.

Always.

Had to play with the deeper thematic elements with Batman.

DC landed a couple of like DC TV series tend to land so Smallville landed really well for me and that.

The first two season after they.

Got away for the week.

Something with us.

Superman and Lois were.

Natural.

Superman and. Lois is the new one. So good. So if you have not watched that, you must watch that.

It is it avoided.

The freak of the week.

For the completely.

Yeah it is no freak. It's all just story. Story, story. Yeah. And and it really deals with right thematic elements so they TV whatever they do with a TV series does not translate to what they do with their movies. Yeah, and I don't know why, but. But yeah, the TV series Land Way Better.

I mean, it may be a case of so like when I'm.

Teaching point of view, first person and third person, you know, I always talk about author intrusion in third person because in first person you don't do it because.

You're, you have.

You're the character saying, I did this and I did that. But you're you're saying I the character did this and I the character to that as opposed to Drake did this and he did that. And so for whatever reason, even though they're the same and you absolutely could do author intrusion in first person.

You tend not.

To because it doesn't.

Feel it never.

Mentally gets you there. So maybe it's something like that that that the comic book people in the cartoon people for DC although the movies also still do the same thing so maybe this isn't right but at least with the TV you've got long enough to and they just start to feel more real, like real people and real people have real problems.

And so it starts off Freak of the Week because it starts off with the superficial stuff, and then it's like, Wait a minute, we got seven more seasons. Maybe we should talk about a relationship issue or or talk about a problem with the child or, or talk about a problem with taxes or, you know, something a little more real.

So maybe it's something like that.

And and it's it's interesting because in both Cas, both Smallville and in Superman and Lois, we're talking about the most overpowered character DC has nothing more overpowered than Superman. Yeah, because he was the first and they loaded him with everything.

He was the.

Ultimate fantasy fulfilled.

Yeah.

Yeah. You know what I want? I want to write a character. And that's going to be me. I mean, vulnerable to everything. And I'm gorgeous, and I can do anything, and I'm the best in everything. That's the character I'm going to write for me so that I can fantasy fulfill.

That's why I tell people to stop fantasy film that's not filling in your stuff, you know, It's when people are like, which character is you? And I'm like, Have you not seen how horrible I am to my characters?

I none of these people like I treat them all horrible.

Yeah, there's no fantasy fulfilling for me and my stories not happen.

But yeah, so, so anyway, so that's the, the resurrection moment. And then the, the conclusion of the hero's journey is the return with the the return with the elixir is what, you know, Joseph Campbell called it. But it's basically just where the dude comes back because that that was the you know, he returns to the life giving elixir.

But yeah so the story over.

Yeah, the story's over. The hero returns to his environment, a changed person we doctor Strange returns to the New York sanctum and he's now the supreme sorcerer. He's a completely changed man.

So in the climax.

You overcome both the villain, you know, whatever the antagonist is of the story. Plus, the antagonist is a thematic level.

Technically.

Technically, you roll credits the audience is satisfied. The return for me is, Man, I just forced my reader to go through this entire journey of emotional turmoil and I took him on highs and I took him on lows. And I you know, I gave him this high of of defeating it, but I had connected them to this this character's life.

And I think I owe them seeing this changed character now go back to their normal life. What are they like now.

After.

The storm? Nothing's going to happen. We're not going to you know, my favorite still is Finding Nemo. And the the the doctor Strange works well in the same light. But we're Finding Nemo. It opens up with. Hey, so today's first day of school. You don't have to go. You can stay in your room. You can stay safe. You can never leave the house.

You don't need to learn how to read or write or do math. You can just be an idiot and you know, it's fine. And then the final scene is, Come.

On, do get up. It's time for school. You're going to go out. You have so much fun. You're going to meet friends. You're going to have just a blast. You need to get out there, go out into the world and just have a life.

Like you that shows you this.

This changed.

Character that's that's learned all these lessons. And how is he now applying it in his life? And I think that's the reason why the return to me is so important, because it allows me to let my readers go.

Hey, I just.

Drug you through the mud. I know it was emotionally exhausting on this trip that I just took you on, but look out. Look how good it is for this character. Now, look how different he is in his life and how much better his life is now that he's gone on this this crazy journey that I took him on.

And I think that's a nice a nice moment for the audience to be able to go, Wow, yeah, maybe I should try.

And it's going to be.

Hard to change my life. It's going to be hard.

I'll have bad.

Things happen to me if I if I get out of my comfort zone, but maybe my.

Life will actually be better.

On the other side of the pain. And that's why I like the return, because I think it's that.

It's just that.

That period at the end of.

The sentence that says, you know, yeah, it was a rough ride.

But he's better. She's better for the journey. It's made their lives richer. So don't fear the darkness that you have to.

Through.

To get to the other side.

And I think that that is a good note in this episode, and we will see you for another one.

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