The Hero with a Thousand Faces
Though Gaiman's work is frequently seen as exemplifying the monomyth structure laid out in Joseph Campbell's "The Hero with a Thousand Faces", Gaiman says that he started reading "The Hero with a Thousand Faces" but refused to finish it: "I think I got about half way through "The Hero with a Thousand Faces" and found myself thinking if this is true – I don't want to know. I really would rather not know this stuff. I'd rather do it because it's true and because I accidentally wind up creating something that falls into this pattern than be told what the pattern is."