A Writer’s Guide to the 2 Most Popular Story Archetypes
By: Thomas P Seager
Tags: Martin Luther King, Storytelling, Steve Jobs, Heros Journey, Story Archetypes

Steve Jobs (left) told three stories in his 2005 Stanford University commencement address, each employing the Hero’s Journey story archetype. Dr. Martin Luther King told just one in his famous 1963 ‘I Have a Dream’ speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC, employing the archetype The World the Way It Is/The World the Way It Could Be.

A Writer’s Guide to the 2 Most Popular Story Archetypes

Know your heroes

Although I know several great writers, I know very few great storytellers.

Because a story is a particular type of writing that emphasizes an emotional arc of challenge, personal growth, triumph or tragedy, writing a story is a different experience (for the writer) than journalism, or technical writing, or ad copy. To create an emotional arc for the characters, many writers must experience the negative emotions for themselves, and this is why great story-telling is so difficult — because it requires the storyteller to be vulnerable in ways that most writers are unwilling to experience.

Nonetheless, there’s lots of great advice for story writers and most of it you’ve heard already, whether it’s “good stories always have conflict,” or “torture your protagonist.” For example, one of the most successful group of storytellers is at the computer animation movie studio Pixar, and they’ve published ’22 Rules for Storytelling,’ in case you want to know how they do it. But none of Pixar’s rules describe the essential difference between the two most popular story archetypes.

Hero’s Journey

One of the most famous and powerful story archetypes has been described by Joseph Campbell as The Hero’s Journey. It’s the topic of several good articles on Medium, but for the sake of convenience, I’ll recap it briefly here.

There are two “worlds” in the Hero’s Journey: the familiar and the unfamiliar. The “journey” describes the Hero’s departure from the familiar world, into the unfamiliar, and back again.

In the archetype, the Hero is motivated to leave the familiar world by a Call to Adventure. According to the archetype, the Hero declines the first invitation, and the effect is to increase the attachment between the audience and the characters, and increase the dramatic tension in the story. For example, the most popular instantiation of the Hero’s Journey is Star Wars, and in particular Episode 4 — the original Star Wars movie. This is the scene that represents the Call To Adventure.

True to archetype, Luke declines the Call. In the Hero’s Journey, it is not until the stakes are raised and the Call becomes overwhelming that the Hero will commit.

In Star Wars, that moment is found here:

After Luke is separated from his adopted family by the destruction of his familiar world, he has little choice but to accept the challenge of the unfamiliar. There, he will be tested and he will despair.

According to Steven Pressfield (Nobody Wants to Read Your Sh!t, 2016) all great Heroes reach what a moment in the story he call “All is lost.”

It is the emotional nadir, at which the Hero’s failure seems certain and death is imminent.

In a great story, the Hero will receive the aid of a Mentor, overcome the trials of the unfamiliar world, and eventually return to the familiar world a changed (and better) person.

The key to the Hero’s Journey is to create a Hero who is likable and identifiable to the audience. When they identify with the Hero, they live the adventure vicariously thru him, and experience the same emotions and triumph that the Hero experiences — albeit without the possibility of existential threat.

Thus, the Hero’s Journey archetype gets its power by tempting the audience to consider that the possibility of personal growth may exist inside themselves, without actually challenging the audience to the risks that only a true Hero must take.

The World the Way It Is/The World the Way It Could Be

There is another powerful story archetype called The World the Way It Is/The World the Way it Could Be. It also creates two different worlds — one familiar by the fact that it is the current experience of the audience, and the other unfamiliar in that it springs from the imagination of the storyteller.

The most popular application of this story archetype may be Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous speech I Have A Dream.

Listen to how Dr. King describes the current condition of the American Negro “100 years later” — after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation freeing the slaves.

His description of the World the Way It Could Be for the Negro is “a lonely island of poverty in a vast ocean of prosperity… (in which) he finds himself in exile in his own land.”

In his poetic verse, “Now is the time…” he compares the World the Way It Is to the World the Way it Could be when he says, “… to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice.”

He returns to The World the Way It Is in his cadence “We can not be satisfied… as long as the Negro in Mississippi cannot vote, and the Negro in New York City believes he has nothing for which to vote.”

And finally, he completes the transitions to the The World the Way It Could Be in the most famous phrases in his speech:

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

Dr. King’s dream, there is only brief mention of the World the Way It Is (e.g., “sweltering with the heat of injustice”) in favor of his description of the World the Way It Could Be.

Who Is the Hero?

The principal difference between the two story archetypes is the position of the Hero.

The Hero’s Journey is effective when the audience identifies with the Hero, and travels the Hero’s emotional trajectory vicariously thru them.

By contrast, The World the Way It Is/The World the Way It Could Be is effective when it challenges the audience to become the Hero themselves.

Notice that Dr. King prepares his audience for his Dream by acknowledging that his audience is, at the moment, already in the unfamiliar world of Washington DC. Thus, they have already accepted the Call to Adventure. They need only return to their familiar world as changed men and women to complete the Hero’s journey.

He challenges them to do just that when he says:

Go back to Mississippi. Go back to Alabama. Go back to South Carolina. Go back to Georgia. Go back to Louisiana. Go back to the slums and ghettos of our Northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.

Autobiography and the Hero’s Journey

Contrast Dr. King’s Dream with Steve Jobs famous commencement speech at Stanford University, in which he “tells three stories from my life.”

His first story describes his separation from his biological Mother who put him up for adoption, and his rejection by the first couple who had selected him. As he describes it, his decision to drop out of Reed College was the moment he left his familiar world of the parents who eventually agreed to take him, and who supported him in his biological Mother’s mandate that he should have a college education. He emerged from his adventure a changed man, and as a consequence of his adventure, typesetting and word processing on computers were changed forever.

His second story describes the second most important rejection of his life, being fired from Apple Computer. He describes the experience as “devastating,” until “something slowly began to dawn on me.” He decided to start over, and “enter one of the most creative periods of my life.” Again, having been forced from his familiar world, he accepted the Call to Adventure to enter into the unfamiliar world of Next and Pixar, overcome the challenges there, and eventually return to the familiar world of Apple Computer a changed man. As a consequence, he (again) changed the world of computing forever.

His third story has no such triumphant return. It is an example of the Hero’s Journey in tragedy, although he doesn’t tell the story in that way. At the time of his speech Jobs was living with pancreatic cancer. Although he was convinced that he had overcome his fatal diagnosis and returned to the familiar world a changed and healthy man, the cancer killed him six years later.

Although Jobs gives direct advice to his audience when he implores them “don’t waste (your limited time) living someone else’s life… follow your heart and intuition, they somehow know what you want to become…” there is little in Jobs’ speech that suggests a Call to Adventure specific to the graduates. The story is moving, not because we have experienced his rejection, his impoverishment, or his despair. We only imagine these. And because we admire Jobs and we sense just enough of ourselves in him to identify with him, we experience the powerful emotions of his journey without having to accept his risks ourselves.

Therein lies the difference in the two most popular and powerful story archetypes. At its best, the Hero’s Journey entertains us, while The World the Way It Is/The World the Way It Could Be inspires us.