Joseph Campbell: “Where you stumble, there lies your treasure”

On Monday, I wrote the first in a series of posts this week on Joseph Campbell, using as a centerpiece one of his quotes:

“What each must seek in his life never was on land or sea. It is something out of his own unique potentiality for experience, something that never has been and never could have been experienced by anyone else.”

Yesterday I followed up with a second post featuring another Campbell quote:

“Every myth is psychologically symbolic. Its narratives and images are to be read, therefore, not literally, but as metaphors.”

My point in this has been to try to reclaim the ideas of Joseph Campbell from the tyranny of “formulaic” and “flat” writing that can derive from a flawed take on his idea of The Hero’s Journey. Reducing it to a twelve step screenplay paradigm captures a surface-level understanding of the much broader meaning Campbell has for myth, metaphor and the transformational power of story.

So today I continue my quixotic effort by starting with another Campbell quote:

“It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life. Where you stumble, there lies your treasure.”

Within the context of the Story Universe, there is a pretty obvious point of applicability to narrative: At some point, a Protagonist needs to confront their deepest, darkest fears. The value of this type of dynamic is vast:

* It means that the character must have an active interior life where emotions, feelings, passions, memories and experiences lurk unseen — at first — in the External World of action and dialogue.

* It implies that the character has a built-in inner conflict which cries out to be resolved.

* It requires dramatic moments whereby the character must confront the darkest aspects of who they are.

* It helps to create a character with which the general audience can relate because the universality of human experience of the divided self.

On and on the reasons go, ending with perhaps the most important one: When the inner conflicts a character has tie into the external conflicts they face in the course of the unfolding plot, it imbues the narrative with multiple layers of meaning and emotional resonance.

That’s all within the context of the story universe itself. But what about that other perspective we, as writers, bring to the story-crafting process, where we stand outside the story universe, that existential relationship we have with the Story: I and Thou?

This is where I see The Hero’s Journey going off the rails and straight into formula. Why? Because from this vantage point, we have a powerful instinct to figure out the story, get from FADE IN to FADE OUT as quickly as possible, finish the script and send it out to the world with hopes it sells for a zillion dollars. That’s a strong drive that can translate into lots of energy.

Now let me say, there is nothing inherently wrong with that impulse. Indeed it’s that motor combined with other psychological dynamics such as persistence that help us to finish our scripts. Indeed in some cases, where a writer is immersed in their story, it’s hugely helpful to spew out a ‘vomit draft’ as quickly as possible. Get into a flow and go.

But when we are not immersed in the story and we have not done the due diligence we need in terms of character development, plotting and all the rest, where the image in our heads is not one of writing the best possible script, but simply to get the script done, it’s that instinct left unbridled where we run into trouble. When we fix our gaze on something like The Hero’s Journey, clamp onto it like our story savior, cram a patchwork of plot points together to match the supposed 12 stages of the ‘paradigm,’ and knock off a script, that’s where “formulaic” and “flat” scripts derive.

I propose we flip the dynamic. Instead of looking at The Hero’s Journey as some sort of map to create this story out there, some sort of quantifiable plot wrapped inside a 100 or so script pages, consider it as a guide for each of us as writers to go inside ourselves.

Every story is about your Self. If it isn’t about your Self, then it’s unlikely to have much in the way of resonance to other people.

What is perhaps the best way to avoid “formulaic” and “flat” scripts? Dig into and create dynamic, vibrant characters who have free will. People do surprising things. So, too, do ‘alive’ characters. And plots that emerge from characters are much more likely to have twists and turns reflective of their dynamism.

So if you write a script to which the response of readers is, it feels “flat” or “formulaic,” that is you stumbling. It’s a bummer to hear that response, no doubt. But it’s also an opportunity because it is pointing you in the direction of your treasure: The Internal World.

The Internal World of your story.

The Internal World of your Self.

Tomorrow: More Joseph Campbell.

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