A.J. Cattapan

Today we’re looking at part II of Joseph’s Campell’s theory of the monomyth as discussed in his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces. I discussed the first phase, separation, here.

In this post, we’ll look at the second phase: initiation.

• Road of Trials–The hero is put through a series of tests designed to measure his skill and endurance. For the ancient Greek hero Odysseus, this would be the many trials on his journey back to his homeland of Ithaca. For Luke Skywalker, this might be the tests Yoda puts him through during his training on the planet Dagobah.
• Meeting with the Goddess–Usually the hero meets with some kind of mother figure or goddess who helps him or her on her way. For Odysseus, this is meeting his mother while in the Underworld. For Harry Potter, it’s seeing his mother and father in the Mirror of Erised. For Luke, it could be meeting Princess Leia who proves herself to be useful in a fight.
• Woman as Temptress–The hero falls for a goddess who is usually a distraction. Odysseus loses plenty of time on Calypso’s island! Some people see Princess Leia as the temptress for Luke Skywalker. Ugh, yeah, let’s not go there.
• Atonement with Father–The father figure is usually an “ogre,” a bad guy. At some point, the hero is reconciled to his father. To be honest, I don’t remember this in The Odyssey at all since there’s no mention of his actual father, but it’s obvious in Star Wars, and if you don’t know why it’s obvious for Luke Skywalker, then boy are you in for a surprise when you watch the movies! 🙂
• Apotheosis–The hero sees what the gods see. The hero has perfect understanding. I think for Odysseus, this is when he realizes he made a mistake by comparing himself to the gods. For Luke Skywalker, it’s when he understands the truth about Princess Leia.
• The Ultimate Boon–The hero reaches the object of his quest. Odysseus reaches home. Luke Skywalker faces the Emperor and Vader. Percy Jackson gets the lightning bolt. You get the idea.

Part I of the Hero’s Journey can be found here and Part III can be found here.

Want more updates on my writing tips and reading suggestions?

During the summer (probably into the fall as well), I’ll be reviewing some of the 2014 Rebecca Caudill nominees. First up is a historical fiction novel that takes place during the early part of the Cold War and mixes in some mystery and fantasy.

Title: The Apothecary

Author:  Maile Meloy

Age group: upper middle grade

Genre: historical fiction

Synopsis: Fourteen-year-old Janie Scott has been told by her parents that they must suddenly move to London. The year is 1952, and fear of Communism dominates the culture, especially in the entertainment industry. As screenwriters, Janie’s parents go to London to work while Janie meets Benjamin, the fascinating son of the local apothecary. Benjamin wants to be a spy, and Janie accompanies him on a couple spying missions. Soon, they discover that Benjamin’s dad has been targeted by a local Russian spy, but before they can do anything to prevent it, the apothecary is kidnapped. Using a book of special “potions” the apothecary left behind, Janie and Benjamin set out to find the apothecary and his friends who, in turns out, are the only people who can stop an impending nuclear disaster.

This is one of those stories that made me ask, “How do people come up with these ideas?” Who would think to mix a bit of “magic” with espionage and the Cold War. This isn’t magic along the lines of Harry Potter, but more of a “what if you mixed x, y, and z, could you make this happen?”

The book is very well written. The characters are believable and likable. You do have to allow for some slightly unrealistic situations in order for the plot to develop. For example, Janie’s parents have to go away for a few nights to work on their next movie. They leave Janie home alone with only an old neighbor to check in on her. I don’t think that even in the 1950s, parents would have left an fourteen-year-old home alone overnight. However, it’s necessary for the plot so that Janie can delve into the task of finding the missing apothecary.

Overall, I think kids who like mysteries with a bit of magic will enjoy this story. The pacing is excellent, and I quickly flew through the story in a couple days.

“I’ve always tried to be aware of what I say in my films, because all of us who make motion pictures are teachers — teachers with very loud voices.” –George Lucas

As a teacher myself, one of the writing techniques I share with my students comes from Joseph Campbell’s 1949 book The Hero with a Thousand Faces. In this book, Campbell explains how he studied mythological stories and folklore from around the world and discovered that every culture has hero stories that share common elements. Campbell calls this shared structure a monomyth.

How can this information help writers? Well, it certainly helped George Lucas, creator of the Star Wars series. Lucas has admitted that he read Campbell’s work and used it to help guide revisions of his original Star Wars movie. Many modern writers have followed suit. So if you’re trying to write a good hero story, you may want to see how many elements of the monomyth you are including.

Because there are seventeen of them, I’ll be dividing my discussion of these elements into three posts, one for each of the major divisions in Campbell’s theory: separation, initiation, and return.

In today’s post, we’ll look at the separation phase of the hero’s journey, the part that gets the hero out of his homeland and sets him on his way to do something heroic.

• Call of Adventure–Destiny calls the hero to do something dangerous and important. In Homer’s The Odyssey from ancient Greece, this would be Odysseus being called to the Trojan War. For Luke Skywalker, this is Princess Leia showing up via hologram courtesy of R2D2, pleading for Obi-Wan Kenobi’s help.
• Refusal of the Call–The hero isn’t so sure he wants to go. Odysseus tried to pretend he was going mad in order to avoid the Trojan War. After all, his son Telemachus had just been born. Luke Skywalker isn’t so sure he should go with Obi-Wan. After all, his aunt and uncle need help on the farm.
• Supernatural aid–Something or someone supernatural helps the hero out. Sometimes this is a god or goddess, like Athena helping Odysseus in The Odyssey. Other times, it’s a special power, like Luke using the Force, or an actual object, like light sabers in Star Wars or the ruby slippers in The Wizard of Oz.
• Crossing of the First Threshold–The hero must take his first real step away from his home and into a dangerous new world. Odysseus must cross the sea to leave Ithaca. Luke enters the cantina at Mos Eisley in order to find a ride off his home planet of Tatooine.
• Belly of the Whale–Yes, like the Biblical story of Jonah! The hero has some sort of near-death experience that causes a rebirth for him. I’ve heard a number of theories for when this happens for Odysseus. Some argue it’s when he escapes the Cyclops’ cave. Others say it’s leaving Calypso’s island. I think it might actually be later in the story when he enters (and manages to leave!) the Underworld. In the first Star Wars movie, Luke and his new friends get pulled into the “belly” of the Death Star by a tractor beam.

Are you already applying these elements to other hero stories you know? My students and I have a fun time comparing Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, and Dorothy from The Wizard of  Oz. (Yes, girl heroes count, too!)

I’ll be back with Part II of the monomyth next week. In the meantime, can you think of any other hero stories that fit these elements?

UPDATE: Part II of the Hero’s Journey can be found here and Part III can be found here.

Want more writing and reading updates?

Tomorrow (June 4) will be the release day for The Well, the debut novel by Stephanie Landsem. Stephanie and I first met through the American Christian Fiction Writers (ACFW). When she told me last year about The Well, she explained that she originally thought she was writing a YA novel but realized later that it best fits into the category “Biblical fiction.”

I was blessed to receive an advanced copy of The Well and am happy to share this moving story on my Monday Book Reviews. 🙂

Title: The Well

Author: Stephanie Landsem

Age group: adult (but it’s okay for teens, too)

Genre: Biblical fiction

Synopsis: The Well is based on the Gospel story of the Samaritan woman at the well. If you’re familiar with this story, you know it as the one in which Jesus tells a woman who says she has no husband, “Yes, you are right. You have five husbands.” And then he offers her living water. In this version of the story, the Samaritan woman is named Nava, but the story focuses more on her daughter Mara. Because of her mother’s sins, Mara has been shunned by most of the people in their small village. Mara must also care for her crippled younger brother since Nava is often too ill to do much else than remain in the corner of their simple home. Mara’s life changes when two men come to town: a handsome young man from Caesarea and a Jewish teacher by the name of Jesus. Their arrival sends Mara on a journey to save her mother and provide her and her brother with a future.

I really enjoyed this take on a familiar story. We have no real idea what the background was on the Samaritan woman’s five husbands, but Stephanie’s adaptation provides a richly detailed story that explains how a woman 2,000 years ago might have ended up with five husbands and what consequences that would have brought.

One of my favorite aspects of this story is that it made life in Jesus’s time very real for me. Stephanie clearly did a lot of research into clothing, food, religious beliefs, and geography. In fact, if you want to learn more about the differences between Jews and Samaritans, you can visit Stephanie’s blog, where she’s been discussing those differences lately.

My favorite part of the book was the ending, but of course I can’t give that a way. I’ll just say that at one point in the story you find out that a character is really another real-life person we know by another name. My initial reaction was “Oh, no, you mean that guy’s actually so-and-so. Ack! I know what happened to him in real life!” But that surprise twist made the ending perfect. The epilogue was a moving finale to the story.

My only slight problem with the story was that I’m terrible with names, and so I had a hard time keeping characters with names like Mechola, Uziel, Zevulun, Moshe, Abahu, Amram, Noach, and Enosh straight. I could’ve used a list of character names and brief descriptions. Or even a family tree–when a woman has five husbands, it’s hard to keep track! 🙂

Even with the slight name confusion, I still really enjoyed the book and would highly recommend it to adults and teens who might be interested in this imaginative view of a familiar story.

You can visit Stephanie Landsem online here, check out her Twitter here, or like her Facebook page here.

Congratulations, Stephanie, on your debut! I look forward to your next book.

On the eighth season finale of How I Met Your Mother, they finally revealed “the mother,” the girl Ted Mosby will marry. The show has only one season left, and we’d been promised for a while that we’d meet Ted’s future wife at the end of this season. If you missed it, we were given only a very short scene and one line from her (“Hi, one ticket for Farhamption, please”).

As soon as the episode ended, I took to Twitter to see what people were saying over at #HIMYM. The reviews were mixed:

• She’s pretty.
• She’s ugly.
• I recognize that actress from 30 Rock. She’s hilarious!
• I still want Ted to marry Robin.

And then it hit me. Not only do the writers have to manage to get Ted to fall in love with her in one season, they have to get the audience to fall in love with her in one season! This is going to be the ultimate challenge in character development for the writers of the show. We’ve had eight seasons to get to know Ted, Barney, Robin, Marshall and Lily. In only one season, Ted’s future wife has to so endear us to herself that Ted (and the viewers!) forget all about his broken heart over Robin and Barney’s wedding.

How will they do this? There’s been lots of rumors online about how this final season will be quite different from the rest. The writers have admitted they will be playing with time, so expect flashbacks (near misses between Ted and his future wife?) and probably some flashforwards.

As a writer, I’m thinking this is going to be quite the monumental task. The future Mrs. Mosby has to show that she’s . . .

• as ridiculously a hopeless romantic as Ted
• a better fit for Ted than any of the other girls he’s dated
• someone who gets along well with Ted’s friends (and apparently share shoes with Lily)
• able to laugh at Ted’s corny jokes
• supportive of Ted’s career no matter how many ups and downs it has
• capable of handling Barney’s crude comments
• confident enough to deal with the fact that Ted is friends with one of his ex-girlfriends

Basically, she needs to wipe the floor with all the other girls Ted’s dated.

How do you do that within one season? I look forward to finding out how the writers handle this.

Are you a fan of How I Met Your Mother? What did you think of “the mother”? What qualities do you think she’ll need to display to win over Ted–and the audience?

An infinitive is the basic form of a verb. In English, we express it as “to + the verb.” For example, to give, to run, to sleep, to travel, to speak.

An infinitive is “split” when an adverb is placed between the word to and the verb. The most famous example is from the opening of the original Star Trek episodes. (I have four brothers; go easy on the nerd jokes.)

“to boldly go where no man has gone before”

Notice the adverb boldly between to and go.

So who cares if you put an adverb in the middle of an infinitive? The truth: Not too many people. Writers, grammarians, editors–sure, we might care. But most people won’t even notice them.

If most people glance right over them, why do writers, grammarians, editors, and the ilk get our their red pens for split infinitives? Technically, when you split an infinitive, you are splitting something that is meant to be treated as one word. I’m no linguist, but in the few languages I’ve studied, infinitives are generally expressed in one word, not two like they are in English. For example, “to speak” is only one word in Italian (parlare), German (sprechen), and Spanish (hablar).

Stylistically, I think most purists just feel that sentences flow better when the infinitive is not split, but honestly, I’ve rewritten sentences to get rid of split infinitives and decided I actually liked the split version better!

So should you care? If you’re writing to impress someone who might be a stickler, avoid it. Otherwise, write on! Most people won’t even notice. Grammar Girl even refers to it as an “imaginary grammar rule.”

Do you speak another language? How do you say “to speak” in that language? Can you express it in one word or do you need two?

Yes and no.

I did correctly predict the YA winner: Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein.

Not too hard to do given the fact that it’s well written, has some great twists, and covers a popular topic (World War II) through an interesting perspective (female spies).

I did not correctly predict the juvenile winner: The Quick Fix by Jack D. Ferraiolo. Unfortunately, despite checking multiple libraries and trying to order the book online, I was unable to get my hands on a copy. So I think I get a free pass for not picking this one as the winner!

Congratulations to all the Edgar winners. You can see the complete list here.