Beyond the Hero's Journey: Crafting Powerful and Original Character Arcs for the Screen Paperback – May 1, 2022

My educational background (UCLA Professional Program, seminars, books) tends toward a Save The Cat or similar approach to screenwriting. I've repeatedly found this and the similar, hybrids I've come across and use speaks to my idea of how to develop my scripts. However, I've had misgivings about how I approach character - not that I'm uncomfortable in creating character, but that I always feel I'm working to 'fit' my characters into the plot rather than creating a character with agency. So what could I do?I had Beyond the Hero's Journey: Crafting Powerful and Original Character Arcs for the Screen recommended to me and finally took a look. By the end of the first chapter I knew there was something to this approach. It spoke to me. I appreciate the idea of looking at the major external events that create an internal choice, and how they work together to demonstrate another approach to outlining the story. I am over simplifying - I truly do not believe the author is advocating this as a specific structure, but that one can look at the example films and others and see the "structure" rather than what we often come across in western films: the heroes journey.Please forgive me, I have forgotten who said this, but I remember a quote that spoke to me: A movie is four or five moments between two people. Beyond the Hero's Journey: Crafting Powerful and Original Character Arcs for the Screen feels like that idea in action. By charting out these external moments - there are examples of 3, 4, 5,+ - with the internal choice by the protag, one can build off these four or five moments between characters and propel the story forward while creating a character arc that has meaning and makes sense within the larger arc of the story. I do not do the book justice, but it spoke to me, made sense, and I have been rethinking the three scripts I am currently editing to apply the ideas within. Yea, I like the book.

There is much that is useful in this book and Anthony Mullins certainly gives us another tool to aid our writing. He gives a little more emphasis to the character arc than earlier creative wring gurus have done.I too have found that you can’t always make stories exactly fit Christopher Vogeler’s, Robert Mcksee’s, Joseph Campbell’s and others’ theories but let’s not forget just how much effort these people have put into studying the form. And they all readily admit that they’re offering a tool not a rod for our backs.Life is a series of events. Story composes them in an artistic way just as an artist or photographer composes a picture. And it’s a composition we’re used to and expect as consumers of story.We all know “heroes” aren’t necessarily heroic but they are the central character in their stories. Mullins has not convinced me that the hero’s journey isn’t valid for all “heroes”.Mullins’ writing style irritated me at times. He uses several expressions I discourage my undergraduate from using. He would argue, would he? In which circumstances? He is actually arguing and in fact does he need to say that? Isn’t it what we would expect in a book of this nature? And what he mentioned above? Is this an apology for repetition?I found the final sections somewhat patronising. If someone is reading a book like this they are already mapping their working life out as a writer. We’ve come to this book to learn something that the other gurus haven’t already taught us. We don’t need here to be told how to find our voice. That’s for another text.Mullins certainly knows his field and much of the detail about particular films is very useful for those of us pressed for time. Again, though, I criticise my undergraduates for merely retelling the story. One should use the story to illustrate the point you’re making. I would have liked to read more of that.Even so, I have been offered food for thought and something I will no doubt bring into my own practice.