Scan barcode
A review by msbyfield
The Heroine's Journey: For Writers, Readers, and Fans of Pop Culture by Gail Carriger
5.0
A deeply satisfying craft book, especially so because there is so little of this narrative represented in nonfiction -- being roundly in favor of the Hero's Journey as a "standard" of good stories.
The Heroine's Journey is a subversion of this standard, in many ways, with its emphasis on community and compromise as strength, rather than isolation and vengeance. (By design the book I have written is a Heroine's Journey, without having the academic framework to call it such.)
Carriger explains the devices of the Heroine's Journey, provides literary examples, and offers a strong case for its appeal to audiences. I did not find her voice meandering; in my experience it cut to the chase more readily than other craft books.
I appreciated how it's established from the beginning that the narrative hallmarks of the Heroine's Journey can apply to any gender, and the model itself isn't always exact. I thoroughly enjoyed her observations on the nature of storytelling taking shape, including describing the transference of mythological narratives throughout history as a game of Telephone.
(CW: discussion of assault)
Carriger cautions against certain messaging in writing fiction that could have a detrimental impact, and examines the author's responsibility to an audience. While this is important, a few of these examinations fell a bit short to me. The use of sexual assault, for example, is dismissed as a mistake when it's written to motivate the heroine into action. This absolutely makes sense when it's the sole inciting event of the heroine's character progression, used as a plot device. But I hoped for a mention that there do exist humanizing ways of portraying assault when it's an important part of character development within a violent culture. Sometimes assault is written to give survivors (both authors and readers) a voice and a journey into healing, and it seems invalidating to call its narrative inclusion a mistake out of hand. Similarly, in an examination of the use of the "rival lovers" trope, its potential for harm isn't discussed, and I hoped for more expansion there too.
However, taken together this is a concise and brilliantly researched primer for writers of this narrative. I'm so glad it exists and will reference it many times over.
The Heroine's Journey is a subversion of this standard, in many ways, with its emphasis on community and compromise as strength, rather than isolation and vengeance. (By design the book I have written is a Heroine's Journey, without having the academic framework to call it such.)
Carriger explains the devices of the Heroine's Journey, provides literary examples, and offers a strong case for its appeal to audiences. I did not find her voice meandering; in my experience it cut to the chase more readily than other craft books.
I appreciated how it's established from the beginning that the narrative hallmarks of the Heroine's Journey can apply to any gender, and the model itself isn't always exact. I thoroughly enjoyed her observations on the nature of storytelling taking shape, including describing the transference of mythological narratives throughout history as a game of Telephone.
(CW: discussion of assault)
Carriger cautions against certain messaging in writing fiction that could have a detrimental impact, and examines the author's responsibility to an audience. While this is important, a few of these examinations fell a bit short to me. The use of sexual assault, for example, is dismissed as a mistake when it's written to motivate the heroine into action. This absolutely makes sense when it's the sole inciting event of the heroine's character progression, used as a plot device. But I hoped for a mention that there do exist humanizing ways of portraying assault when it's an important part of character development within a violent culture. Sometimes assault is written to give survivors (both authors and readers) a voice and a journey into healing, and it seems invalidating to call its narrative inclusion a mistake out of hand. Similarly, in an examination of the use of the "rival lovers" trope, its potential for harm isn't discussed, and I hoped for more expansion there too.
However, taken together this is a concise and brilliantly researched primer for writers of this narrative. I'm so glad it exists and will reference it many times over.