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What our customer's say!

"How to Go Blind Reading Vogler", I've read Vogler before and jumped at the new edition to read the additional chapters. Besides I've loaned my other copy out. If you actually want to read this fine book buy another edition besides THIRD because the print is the smallest I have ever seen in my life. It drives you absolutely insane. Which is why I find myself posting a review on Amazon. Content, fabulous, if I could read it.

"It was okay, but I wouldn't call it revolutionary.", I read through most of it and found it to be much like other books that I had to purchase for graduate writing courses. I was a bit disappointed.

"Writing as a journey", For beginning writers, this book could be useful. The 'journey' image is sometimes overused, but this is in part because it responds to a deep need in us. Preachers often use the image of a journey; indeed, many stories in the Bible will use the journey as part of the tale (if not the integral part of the tale). Mythological figures often have their lives and exploits told in journey images -- from times as ancient as those of Gilgamesh, through to modern times, the journey is important as a storytelling device. One can think of Gilgamesh, or Odysseus, or Aeneas in the ancient world; one can think of Moses and Martin Luther King, Jr. in search of the promised land; one can even think of Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, seeking the Emerald City, when in fact she's looking for home.

The characters along the way in the journey also represent key elements in our lives -- dangers, strengths, things to love, to hate, to avoid, to embrace. These are archetypes. As others have noted, there are other guides to these (Campbell being perhaps the best known, and perhaps the best writer of these), but Christopher Vogler's use of these mythic structures and the journey process to help beginning writers puts the framework into an interesting and accessible guide.

This is a work with a journey of its own -- as a third edition, there are stories within the making of it. Vogler relates some of these, which include some major motion pictures experiences (one of the primary storytelling vehicles of the twentieth century) in his introduction. This has developed also in part due to critique and questions Vogler has received over time. One of those is that this is formulaic. Films, television shows, songs, poems, stories -- all of these are susceptible to being formulaic, and there is a fine line between following a form and being a slave to the formula.

This guide is practical. For those with experience writing, it can be a bit of a retreat, and, in truth, a bit simple. But for those looking to break into writing and have little experience with how to craft a story, this can be a good guide. While we are surrounded by stories in our lives, many of us don't quite know how to tell them well. Vogler's book gives insight into a process for making meaning and making sense while doing so.

"Just one more map along the way (and not the best one out there).", Based on content alone, I would have considered three stars; however, I have a hard time accepting *writing* advice from a book so badly written. I realize Mr. Vogler is a story analyst, not a writer. Still, the style here is atrocious, often to the point of distraction.

As he describes various films, he frequently jumbles his characters and his actors, creating a rambling, grammatically nightmarish style: "Recurring mentors include 'The Chief' on 'Get Smart', Will Geer and Ellen Corby as the grandparents on 'The Waltons', Alfred in 'Batman', James Earl Jones' CIA official in Patriot Games and The Hunt for Red October, etc." (For the record, I typed this sentence exactly as it appears in the book, other than my inability to italicize the Jack Ryan titles. Yes, those commas are found outside the quotation marks; yes, Mr. Jones's name is made plural possessive.) This utter disregard for parallelism can be found on nearly every page. In addition, Mr. Vogler refers to some characters only by their names ("In the film The Last of the Mohicans, Major Duncan Hayward is the rival of hero Nathaniel Poe..."); he refers to still others as only the names of the actors ("James Stewart forces Kim Novak to change her hair and clothing ..."). I was left with the feeling of a first draft, as if Mr. Vogler hadn't yet looked up the names he couldn't recall.

If you can overlook these stylistic eyesores (obviously, I have a difficult time doing so), you might find something useful in these pages. Or you might not. As demonstrated by the variety of reviews, this book's usefulness really depends on the reader.

Do you have an intermediate grasp of mythology and archetypes? You'll be bored by this. Have you read Joseph Campbell's _The Hero With A Thousand Faces_? You'll probably wonder why anyone bothered to publish this, because Mr. Vogler quotes and paraphrases Mr. Campbell to a worshipful degree. Do you write with characters in your mind first, and let them "tell you what to do" in terms of plot? You'll want to approach this book as a road you can wander from, not a roller coaster track you must stick to or die. Do you have some fully developed characters you'd love to explore, but struggle with plot? This book (as well as any study of archetypes) can help you find some signposts to guide your way. Are you entirely unschooled in archetypes and mythology but would like to learn? This book isn't the best starting place available, but I doubt it's the worst.

Before you start reading, examine your writing goals and your knowledge of archetypes to decide if this one is worthwhile for you. (Oh, and examine yourself for grammatical-OCD tendencies to decide if you can endure it.)

"A via negativa?", As a teacher my interest in the book was not so much in the hopes I would learn how to write a smashing new hit for Hollywood as how I could better see the patterns in narrative and relate them to my students. Certainly Campbell will remain a first choice in that regard but this suggests some interesting new facets as well. Perhaps a problem with contemporary story telling is the need to shock. Understanding the patterns that have traditionally worked may not help directly in a postmodern world that has seen the death of art though they may still be useful as a via negativa. Congratulations to those who have succeeded in their writing careers despite having read the book.

Read this reviews before You buy...

"Brilliant", This book was highly recommended to me from a professor, and it arrived in wonderful time and condition.

"Must Have", This is a must have for any story teller.
It tells you about all those aspects that good writer's know intuitively but lays it all out there.
It's also a great read for the personal aspect.. it's almost a self-help book. It's a definite reframe on life. Puts me in mind of the theraputic aspects of writing.

"Great Book!!! So much useful information, so much stuff to think about . . . ", _The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers, 3rd Edition_, by Christopher Vogler, is the result of the author spending decades studying what makes stories "work". And it is a very good book.

As he describes in the Introduction (actually, the introduction to the second edition, which he has reprinted in this book), Vogler worked as a story analyst for Hollywood studios and then encountered Joseph Campbell's Joseph Campbell's _The Hero with a Thousand Faces_ while attending USC film school. The work that would ultimately become _The Writer's Journey_ started out over twenty years ago as a seven-page memo titled "A Practical Guide to _The Hero with a Thousand Faces_" and Vogler has been field-testing, revising and updating his theories ever since. While some of his story elements are not quite the same as Campbell's, his way of dissecting stories is based on Campbell's and he refers back to Campbell's story elements often.

In _The Writer's Journey_ 3rd Edition, Vogler presents the various archetypal stages and characters that appear along a hero's journey in almost every story. And the hero in question doesn't have to be a knight going on a quest -- the hero is whoever the protagonist (male or female) is in a story, and their journey can be something as normal as a lonely person trying to find love, or an adult son or daughter learning how to deal with a demanding parent.

The hero can even be a writer trying to craft and publish a good story. As Vogler quietly points out in a number of places, the common themes and settings and characters that occur in almost all stories do so because they are encountered by almost everyone in real life. Just as the hero of any story has a backstory, a mentor in either the past or present whose advice is needed, and an adversary they have to face before they can complete their journey, all those things apply to all of us in real life as well. We all encounter mentors, threshold guardians, friends, messengers, and other elements in our lives, and Vogler's book can be seen also as a guide for readers to start evaluating their own lives and pursuing their own dreams.

The book includes the following sections:
+ Introduction: Third Edition
+ Preface: Second Edition
+ Introduction: Second Edition - Preparing for the Journey
+ Book One: Mapping the Journey
- A Practical Guide
- The Archetypes
- Hero
- Mentor: Wise Old Man or Woman
- Threshold Guardian
- Herald
- Shapeshifter
- Shadow
- Ally
- Trickster
+ Book Two: Stages of the Journey
- Ordinary World
- Call to Adventure
- Refusal of the Call
- Meeting with the Mentor
- Crossing the First Threshold
- Tests, Allies, Enemies
- Approach to the Inmost Cave
- The Ordeal
- Reward
- The Road Back
- The Resurrection
- Return with the Elixir
+ Epilogue: Looking Back on the Journey
+ Appendices
- Stories are Alive
- Polarity
- Catharis
- The Wisdom of the Body
- Trust the Path
+ Filmography
+ Bibliography
+ Index
+ About the Author

Since Vogler's background is in film, he often uses various movies to illustrate elements he is talking about. There are also exercises to identify elements of the journey in popular films and novels and in the reader's own life at the end of each section in Books One & Two, so _The Writer's Journey_ could be used as a textbook for a story-writing class or study group.

Overall, a very fascinating and thought-provoking book. Definitely a five-star read.


"Not outstanding", Mr. Vogler correctly asserts that there are 12 critical steps to building a heroic lead character that an audience can care about. That he needs nearly 400 pages to assert that fact is silly.

The key to writing is brevity, an element Vogler clearly hasn't mastered.

The writing is very academic in nature and repetitive as Vogler repeats what one hero or another does or what one writer or another does to construct the hero's journey. Very little of the information is synthesized; more often than not it is simply regurgitated.

"Writing for Writers", Great stories contain common elements. Christopher Vogler at the beginning of The Writers Journey calls upon the psychological writings by Carl Jung and the myth making philosophy of Joseph Campbell to explain why certain scenarios sell. In doing so, he prepares a blueprint for creating mythic stories.

Now in its Third edition, The Writer's Journey describes the models common in the hero's journey. In the book's first section, Vogler describes different kinds of characters who appear in stories. In the second, he discusses the stages of the journey through which the hero generally passes. The final, supplementary portion of the book explains how films like Titanic and The Full Monty follow these patterns.

Vogler is thought-provoking and insightful. Combine the lessons in this book with those from Rust Hills' Writing in General and the Short Story in Particular and you have the literary foundation for penning saleable stories.