The Hero's Journey is the template upon which the cast majority of successful screenplays are built upon.
One quite significant benefit of the Hero's Journey is that it provides the screenwriter with a formidable structure.
Structure is critical to creative output.
Whilst many argue that structure is inhibitive, in fact the reverse is true (unless it is used to the point where it induces conformity).
There are various forms of structure:
Short term goals (incremental productivity) produce more output than a "do your best" approach. With specific regard to creative writing, writing four pages a day completes a words-on-paper first draft screenplay in one month. A "do your best" or "waiting for inspiration" approach can take months or years. Witness the untold number of people with unfinished manuscripts under their beds.
Simply being prolific improves performance and quality. The single best creative product tends to appear at that point in the career when the creator is being most prolific.
Frameworks such as the Hero's Journey reduce complex problems into their component intellectual parts. Frameworks increase output by reducing complex problems into smaller, more manageable problem solving exercises. A similar idea is that problems, no matter how daunting, can be solved by breaking them into their constituent parts.
Learn more…
The Complete 188 stage Hero’s Journey and FREE 17 stage sample and other story structure templates can be found at
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Kal Bishop, MBA
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Kal Bishop is a management consultant based in London, UK. His specialities include Knowledge Management and Creativity and Innovation Management. He has consulted in the visual media and software industries and for clients such as Toshiba and Transport for London. He has led Improv, creativity and innovation workshops, exhibited artwork in San Francisco, Los Angeles and London and written a number of screenplays. He is a passionate traveller. He can be reached at
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