On Gail Carriger's The Heroine's Journey
Rocky!!!!!
Hello, friends!
Summer is winding down. Sad, sad, sad. I don’t know about you, but I love summer. I love the long sunny days (although sometimes I admit that it is also Too Damn Hot), and walking around eating ice cream, and going to outdoor movies, and taking weekend drives to the shore – or more realistically telling myself that I will drive to the shore next weekend, but still.
I still have one more thing to look forward to this summer, though: I’m going to the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference at the end of August. I’m really looking forward to it; I haven’t been to a conference since Viable Paradise. Also, I’m pretending it’s a vacation.
In the meantime, I’ve been spending this summer white-knuckling through novel revisions. This month I read Gail Carriger’s The Heroine’s Journey, which has been an interesting experience, because I think my current draft maps pretty cleanly onto the beats even though I didn’t set it up that way. AND, when I was outlining this novel, I started with and rejected Save the Cat!, because it just wasn’t working for me. If you are finding that some of the classic beat sheets aren’t working for you either, maybe try this?
More below:
News
My short story “Cassandra Takes the Plunge,” originally published in Shoreline of Infinity’s Science Fiction and Fairy Tales Special Issue in September 2022, will be reprinted in the first issue of Trollbreath Magazine this September.
The print issue will go live for purchase on September 1, and my story will be available to read for free online on November 8, which I will obviously tell you about here:
“Cassandra” is one of my favorite stories I’ve ever written. Shoreline of Infinity was the perfect home for it, but I’m extremely pleased that it’ll finally be free for everyone to read.
Other news bits:
My short story “St. Thomas Aquinas Administers the Turing Test” will be published in Diabolical Plots in 2024.
My essay “Nostalgia, but Make It Stressful: Fantasy Game as Pressure Valve” will be published in the British Fantasy Society Journal’s Special Issue on Fantasy and Gaming in 2024, theoretically.
My essay “‘Selfish or Annoying’: Etiquette, Gender, and Race in Oops!: The Manners Guide for Girls” will be published in An American Girl Anthology (University Press of Mississippi) in mid-2025.
Gail Carriger’s The Heroine’s Journey
Gail Carriger writes what she calls “book hugs” across a couple of different genres: sci-fi, fantasy, and romance.
I had heard a lot about her book The Heroine’s Journey as an alternative to the ubiquitous Hero’s Journey, which I have not written a newsletter about but might someday. (I taught a class for Blue Stoop on applying the Hero’s Journey to short fiction.)
Like most books that talk about story beats (e.g. Story Genius, Save the Cat! Writes a Novel), the real value of the book is in the beat sheet. Then, on top of the beat sheet, there’s a bunch of other stuff.
Here are the Heroine’s Journey beats, very generally, as laid out by Carriger:
The Descent, wherein the protagonist is forcibly broken from their family or community; this parallels the Call to Adventure of the Hero’s Journey
The Search for unity, including a Visit to the Underworld (yay, I love this sort of thing) and aid from friends and family; this parallels the Withdrawal of the Hero’s Journey
The Ascent, with a re-establishing of community, feat. negotiation and compromise; this parallels the Return of the Hero’s Journey
Carriger emphasizes that a woman can go on a Hero’s Journey (she uses the example of Wonder Woman), and a man can go on a Heroine’s Journey (she uses the example of Harry Potter). That said, the book is fiercely interested in the gendered elements of both Journeys. It would be hard not to be, in fairness, but I found myself wishing that the text didn’t use the words hero and heroine, masculine and feminine so much. Of course it has to, because Joseph Campbell (and our culture) got there first, but still, I found it a little misleading in terms of thinking about the actual story beats, which it seems are not really intended to be gendered.
Carriger also talks a great deal about the differences between the Heroine’s Journey and the Hero’s Journey, since the Hero’s Journey is so familiar to so many people. There’s a lot about the Heroine’s Journey protagonist moving toward and deriving strength from community, unlike a character on a Hero’s Journey, who moves toward and derives their strength from isolation. There’s also a lot about themes of civilization, compromise, and the like. Carriger, maybe because of her academic background (she used to be an archaeologist), is extremely interested in themes and in the societal/cultural impact/implications of various types of narrative, in a way that other beat-sheet books are not. If you find that sort of analysis helpful or interesting, you should pick up this book for sure. The ebook copy in particular is quite inexpensive.
I liked The Heroine’s Journey, and I’ve found it’s given me a new way to think about my own work – although again, the best parts can be distilled down into the beats.
But forget all that!!!!!! The REAL fun while reading this book has been realizing that lots of famous macho stories are actually HEROINE’S Journeys!!!!! For example: Rocky! The Fast & The Furious! Fight Club!
FYI, I love Rocky and this newsletter is suddenly a Rocky fan newsletter. Like:
The Descent: Rocky starts the movie all alone. He has no family; Paulie sucks, realistically; Adrian won’t give him the time of day; and Mickey, his trainer, calls him a wasted talent.
The Search: Rocky is involuntarily (this is key to Carriger’s Heroine’s Journey, the involuntary pull of the Heroine’s Journey’s inciting incident, versus the voluntary quest-starting of the Hero’s Journey) selected to fight Apollo Creed. Over the course of the rest of the movie, Rocky trains not alone, but with the help of his community. He reconciles and works with Mickey, he has a fight with Paulie but reconciles with him too, he’s supported by Adrian and the dog she buys him, and he’s unexpectedly cheered on as well by his loan shark boss.
The Ascent: Rocky goes the distance! He appears at the fight with Paulie’s meatpacking logo on his back, lololol, because community and friendship is more important to Rocky than anything else, even embarrassing yourself in front of thousands of people! At the end of the fight he howls for Adrian and she comes running! They are In Love!!!!
Even the poster shows themes of family and togetherness! Rocky isn’t about the fight with Apollo Creed! Rocky even says he doesn’t care if he wins, and in fact he doesn’t win! No, Rocky is about moving from isolation to family!
I could do this all day.
So…
What’s a dude story YOU love that could secretly be a Heroine’s Journey??? Reply to this email and tell me, or let me know in the Substack comments!
Could Fight Club also be seen as a kind of parody of Rocky?