Moving Beyond the Hero's Journey

In this article, game writer Sande Chen delves into the audience shift from the Hero's Journey to the collective journey.

I've just finished listening to the June 3, 2020 StoryFit Webinar, "Character Research for the New Age of Storytelling: Using Data and Media Psychology to Make Meaningful Stories," and I've never been so excited to report on a panel. Many thanks to Juliana Loh for pointing me towards this fascinating story research panel.

I have heard of the collective journey before but the way Jeff Gomez of Starlight Runner Entertainment expressed his points made this evolution of storytelling so relevant to today's outlook and environment. Plus, research shows that programming following the collective journey framework has done far better with audiences than narratives based on the Hero's Journey, forcing companies to see how they can retune their story properties.

According to Gomez, audiences are moving away from stories about a singular hero who can save the world. Instead, they care about a collective journey, one that reflects multiple perspectives. The Hero's Journey, already criticized for its masculine leanings and focus on external conflicts, just doesn't reflect modern sensibilities. Nowadays and especially with the ongoing protests, people are more keyed into communities. They don't need to search for a wise, old mentor. They can just reach out and find mentors on social media. In a collective journey, as Gomez says, "No one is coming to save us. We have to save ourselves."

What does this mean for our narratives? Instead of thinking of one strand of story, we can think about story worlds, or networked stories. Our game worlds can be and often are story worlds. The collective journey encompasses all of those stories. Gomez pointed to the film Arrival as an excellent example of the collective journey.

The StoryFit panel as a whole provided story research about character networks and explained why character relationships are a crucial component in getting audiences to care about characters.  

Sande Chen is a writer and game designer whose work has spanned 10 years in the industry. Her credits include 1999 IGF winner Terminus, 2007 PC RPG of the Year The Witcher, and Wizard 101. She is one of the founding members of the IGDA Game Design SIG.