Book Study Debriefing

One Last Book Study Post!

Some of Tampa Bay’s finest children’s writers gathered on Saturday, June 28, to debrief our online book study of Christopher Vogler’s THE WRITER’S JOURNEY. During the session, I shared a post from Vogler’s blog that gives a shortened version of the Hero’s Journey. Vogler’s intent was to answer an email inquiry about how to use the Hero’s Journey in short pieces such as commercials and online presentations. I think Vogler’s advance will also have meaning for those of us who write children’s books, especially picture books. You can read Vogler’s entire post at https://chrisvogler.wordpress.com/category/heros-journey/. He provides the following summary at the end of the post:

“SO…the absolute bare minimum, I would venture, is

1. An implied Ordinary World,

2. An efficient Call to Adventure,

3. A distinct Threshold Crossing,

4. A death-and-rebirth Ordeal(or Resurrection)  and

5. A Reward (or Return with the Elixir).

“In reality, almost always the other pieces are either implied or present in truncated form, and the audience will labor mightily to fill in any blanks you leave.  For example, the audience will fill in a wild night of partying if you just show a teenager sneaking into the house at 4 in the morning.”