The Anti-Hero’s Journey

Writing instructors and gurus have been obsessed and dogmatic in pushing the hero’s journey style of story telling to new writers. What if they’re wrong?

One premise of the hero’s journey style of writing is you start the story with the hero or protagonist in the normal world.

I don’t know about you, but my normal world is boring and I believe most people’s normal world is bland and boring too.

To be boring is to lose your readers. Boring is the worst thing a writer can write.

Since most stories are the hero fixing a wrong the villain has done then start the story with the villain doing the wrong. Doing bad things is exciting, interesting and not boring.

The James Bond movies did this. Some one gets killed or James Bond does something un-normal.

This means your villains have to be interesting. It also means your villains have to do things for a real reason, not just because they are crazy.

So are you going to bore me on the first page, or are you going to show me how the villain supports all his henchmen and women. How he pays for his secret lair. Show the reader why he is the hero of his own story and do it on the first page.

Stay strong, write on.     Professor Hyram Voltage