Does anyone actually use the hero's journey outline for real writing?

I used to swear by that three-act structure thing everyone pushes, wrote 4 short stories last year following it beat by beat and they all felt stiff and forced. Then I tried just writing whatever scenes came to mind and stitching them together later, got way more natural dialogue and plot twists that actually surprised me. Am I missing something obvious or do other people ditch the outlines too?

3 comments

3 Comments

clairem4721d ago

Oh man, I went through the exact same thing with a novel I kept trying to force into that hero's journey mold. It turned into this lifeless mess where every character was just hitting their "beat" on cue (so boring to write). What finally clicked for me was outlining just the big emotional turning points I knew had to happen, then letting the scenes between them grow organically. Ended up with a way better ending and a subplot I never would have planned, all because I gave myself room to wander.

charlienelson21d ago

The outline's just a scaffold, not the building itself. I've found having a loose structure keeps me from writing myself into corners but the real magic happens when I ignore it and follow where the story wants to go.

jamie_smith15d ago

@charlienelson hit it right - the scaffold metaphor works but I gotta push back on one thing. Those "big emotional turning points" @clairem47 mentioned... they can actually backfire if you lock them in too early. I tried that with a story where I planned this huge betrayal scene three chapters before it happened, but when I finally got there the character's voice had shifted so much during the writing that the betrayal felt hollow and out of character. Had to go back and rework the whole arc because I'd committed to that beat in my outline. So yeah, outlines can help but sometimes they trap you into stuff that doesn't fit the actual story anymore.