There's nothing wrong with the Hero's Journey, as such, but I think it is overused. Campbell observed a pattern in legends, but too many people interpreted that as how a story was supposed to be told. In the Hero's Journey, the world transforms someone into a hero. The hero is basically done at the end, and focuses on a fairly narrow slice of life.
But there are other ways of telling stories. Instead of the world transforming the hero, the hero can transform the world. Take John Carter from the Barsoom books. This is a character who knows exactly who he is. If he undertook a Hero's Journey, it was in his past. The John Carter movie tried to make John Carter take the Hero's Journey, and, in my opinion, it didn't really work.
But I think that the Hero's Journey without it being predictable. You just can't be slavishly devoted to going from point A to B to C on the journey. On the other hand, predictable isn't the worst thing a book can be.
|