The Anti-Monomyth

What sort of story would you get if you did the opposite of Joseph Campbell's monomyth? Of course, you would take measures to create a compelling story, but let's see what we can accomplish by setting up plot points that fly in the face of the monomyth.

 

Let's look at each point of the Hero's Journey and do the opposite of what it entails.

1. Call To Adventure - The opposite of starting our hero's journey is to have the quest start in media res. You could say that the true opposite would be starting the story at the middle or end of the hero's journey. The sheriff from No Country For Old Men comes to mind.

Also, just to add one last bit of contrariness, the protagonist will be a woman, just because. So we have a woman who has faced her destiny in her life's battle, and that battle is either in the middle or possibly even almost at an end. And her name could be Erinnella Isabella Sharona Coachella, because short names like "Luke" and "Neo" are all about the namelessness of a nothing child growing up and achieving great things and great names, and this is opposite day.

2. Refusal of the Call - nah, she's been doing this for years and jumps at the cry for help, like Batman responding to the Bat signal.

3. Supernatural Aid - Pshaw. She fixes situations with her own two hands. Those two hands may pull the trigger of a gun, or punch a bad guy, or even write a scathing report like Lois Lane destroying Lexcorp's reputation with an article in the Daily Planet. Just make sure that guns, or writing, or even her own skills are not given "magical" properties. I don't mean that literally, I mean don't ascribe her set of skills as something esoteric and unattainable. If you aren't careful, even her willpower can be supernaturalized (a la Green Lantern). What she does, others can do. She's good at the right things, but never the greatest in the world at any of them, and never should people be in awe of any one skill.

4. Crossing the First Threshold and 5. Belly of the Whale - It's a moot point. If she's in the thick of things, why does she need a push out the door? What would change her? (Oh, I'm sure something could change her, but let's not worry about that just yet.)


6. Road of Trials - Let's not get this confused with mere conflict within a story. Sure, there's conflict - let's say, a cabal of international terrorists brought together to overcome the constant threat of our heroine's heroics. She might win, she might lose, but she's not going to discover a new inner strength in the process.

7. Meeting With the Goddess - Obviously this can take on a religious or spiritual quality, though it can also be represented by the higher goals or morality or state. Let's just say our heroine knows exactly what she's doing and why she's doing it.

8. Woman as the Temptress - Here the male focus of the monomyth is revealed. Skip it, unless we want Fernando to swoop in and seduce her. Whatever.

9. Atonement With The Father - Nah. Any large, foreboding father figures will just be dealt with. "You faked your death and manipulated me from the shadows? Oh well. Just going to continue on my mission, screw you like everyone else."

10. Apotheosis and 11. The Ultimate Boon - If the heroine is some sort of international spy like we are painting her to be, we have to realize that the good guys help others - that's just what they do. Giving boons to society is so broad. Jeez, Joe. Now do-gooding is under the umbrella of the monomyth. What's next, montages?

12. Refusal of the Return - Like we mentioned before, she has no family and is generally unattached.

13. The Magic Flight - Are you saying that thrilling getaways are now part of the monomyth?

14. Rescue From Without and 15. Crossing of the Return Threshold - Nah, the story is already about self-reliance.

16. Master of Two Worlds - Again, stages of discovery are moot in a story about a well-versed protagonist.

17. Freedom To Live - I thought the monomyth had consumed everything. I was wrong. IT ATE FREEDOM ITSELF.

So, from this, we have an experienced heroine (say, an international spy) who is in the thick of her career and jumps into the fray at any call for help. She does not have esoteric powers of any sort, just her own skill. She is the same, scene to scene - she has no huge character growth, and is generally unattached. She is confident in what she is doing. In spite of Campbell trying to greedily swallow the concepts whole, she a) is good and fights evil, b) makes thrilling getaways after accomplishing her goals, and c) lives freely outside of the yoke of ignorance.


We have created Erin, the Esurance Girl.

The sweet spot of worldbuilding

Worldbuilding is a hobby done by writers and RPG game masters where they create an entire world from scratch. They create continents, oceans, weather patterns, civilizations, cities, languages, races, even natural laws. Most of the time, this is for someone to run a homebrew roleplaying game in. You could say that the JRR Tolkien was the greatest worldbuilder of all time, and the greatest inspiration to those of us today. He spent his whole life forming the universe that contained Middle Earth, and is the reason his stories are so full of perceived historical depth and age.

Most worldbuilders today are in direct descendance from Tolkien. Dungeons and Dragons - created by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson - spawned from the Lord of the Rings' popularity, the modern roleplaying genre spawned from D&D's success, and most worldbuilders, whether roleplayers, writers, movie makers, or artists, are very much influenced by RPGs. Even further, I'd say that RPG's are so normalized in today's society that almost no one is untouched by their indirect influence.

I drew this link to Tolkien to illustrate how D&D uses shorthand to describe the fantasy medieval world. Before Tolkien, would we have known that an "elf" was comparable to human height, shooting arrows and being condescending? Or would we have thought of small creatures who use magic and delight in helping others, like Santa Claus' elves, which are more in line with European mythologies?

Likewise, many medieval worldbuilders have the standard magic use, dragons, and feudal kings found in everything since Tolkien, each trope reinforcing the genre.

The tropes are so omnipresent that deviations from them form the description of the world. A friend of mine once created a steampunk society for a novel he was writing. Some of his first words were, "Instead of magic, there is..." I know of other people who, though enamoured with roleplaying and worldbuilding, rail against the Tolkienization of it, mostly due to high fantasy burnout. They created completely new worlds with new natural laws, but in doing so created something so strange as to be unplayable as a game, unreadable as a novel. They had unpronounceable names, unintuitive customs, unfathomable moralities, all in the name of originality.

So that brings me to the title of my post - there is a sweet spot of worldbuilding, at least when it comes to fantasy. Something that will, admittedly, unavoidably, be influenced by Tolkien, yet at the same time be original enough to not only be a breath of fresh air, but also something that can inspire. Tolkien created a genre, could I not do the same? I often think, and I feel as if others think the same thing. But like I said, it is a sweet spot - creating differences for the sake of differences is like Mad Libs for worldbuilding. (There once was a ______, who was a type of ______, who thought that all humans were ______.)

Studying Tolkien (and his influences) improves upon the act of worldbuilding...and writing itself. Knowing that he was white, and male, and a Christian, and eschewed allegory, and created the world for the purpose of a linguistic what-if, all goes towards why what he created became huge, and how it could be done again.

I know enough, in the creation of my world, that it is very derivative, but I think I have learned from it. Seeing as how I shall be running a simple D&D 5th edition dungeon crawl, I don't need it to be more expansive than it already is. I've taken the usual influences; set in a D&D world, elves will be tall and haughty once again, orcs are bad guys, and there will be kings instead of presidents. But true to the conceit of this entry, I have knowingly taken lesser known Tolkien influences; place names can be based upon history, sometimes changing or mutating, and I have tried to create original areas that are not too out of this world. I've taken the history of the world (the 3.5e game that I used to run, based in the same world), fast-forwarded 800 years, and worked out what happened in that time. If I was doing a deep, involved game and not a dungeon crawl, or I was writing a novel, I would have taken more liberties with the common influences. However, I think this is a case of working smarter, not harder.

RP for YT

No one in my RP group wants to do the videotaped tabletop game. Sure, I could put out an ad at the local gaming stores for players, but that's always a risk. It's gaming with a group and hiring an employee and doing a casting call for someone entertaining on camera.

Oh well, I have enough to keep me busy for the moment.

Phirst Post

Why this blog? Because LJ is blocked at work (and old as heck), FB and Twitter isn't the right format. I even made my own website from scratch, but I've gotten lazy and don't want to update the website for each blog entry.

There's tons of everything in life I need to keep track of. The public stuff is the fun and creative projects.

- Dread the game (Jenga) - if the Jenga tower falls, your RP character dies.
- D&D Next campaign - basic dungeon crawls, but long-term campaign in homebuilt world, Airath. Minimal high drama.
- Ferris Wheel - the fiancee's 80's cover band
- Videotaped tabletop game - If I run a game, tape the fun, then put it on Youtube, would it garner views? Hm.

All this on top of planning a wedding, and work of course. And keeping the woman happy. Fun times.