Hero’s journey / the call to adventure

Question

For this creative task, i’m supposed to create a hero I think 2021 needs.

• An ordinary world - She is a kinda hearted ordinary girl who goes to high school and works everyday after school. Tired of repeating the same cycle day after day. She lives with her grandparents in the suburbs because her parents supposedly abandoned her when she was a child.

For the call to adventure I was thinking she could have received a letter from her parents or maybe receive a message from a stranger? not sure could u give me some ideas

Answer 1

Hi Catherine,

You're off to a great start! A message from a stranger could be a very cool Call to Adventure. But if you're not sure if it's your best bet, one thing that can be helpful is to think backwards. What is your hero going to achieve (or fail to achieve)? Then you can think of how she does it, and then what she needs to do to prepare, and then how she learns about the quest in the first place.

For instance, let's say she slays the dragon that's been devouring helpless knights. Maybe she does that by assembling a magic spear, which has had its pieces distributed in four different kingdoms. To do that, she needs to learn the location of each one, travel to impossible places, and solve the puzzles and traps that guard them. She could learn about the first one when she moves to a new town and doesn't understand why her new friends won't go near the Forbidden Cave. In this case, the friend's warning about the cave is the Call to Adventure.

I know this was a pretty generic example, but the important point was that sometimes it's easier to think backwards than forwards. Again, a message from a stranger could definitely be a great call to adventure, and you certainly *can* just make it up as you go along, but if you're hesitating, try thinking of what your best ending is and build it from there.

Answer 2

Hello, Catherine,

Despite the inference of "Ask An Expert," I am no expert at creative writing. My career in science led me astray, but I do enjoy the creativity of story-telling and felt compelled to respond with some thoughts.

The starting scenario of living with grandparents after, reporetdly, being abandoned by her parents, is a lot of grief to start a good story for me, but I wonder what might happen if she discovers she has a brother living nearby, perhaps slightly older, but one she never really knew? An early introduction to something that makes her curious would get my attention. Curiosity and hope for answers. You'll need to be creative with why the grandparents are seemingly unaware of his existence, perhaps a long-standing rift between her ancesters? Once discovered, and contacted, the two decide to learn more of their parents and come to terms with their leaving their children behind.

Perhaps one was drafted for a role in the Mid-East, such as the Air Force or CIA, and both decided to move to a dangerous area but didn't want to expose the entire family to risk. Or perhaps they both work in the CIA and had to go under cover with new identities to infiltrate a terrorist group in the US that is believed to be planning a violent attack. You'd need to decide why this prevents them form at least maintaining some contact, but if you can develop a scenario of how they can still be alive and not maintained any contact, then a story might develop around sister and brother finding them and being happily reunited.

Now you know why I'm not a creative writer. But a story that involves some degree of adventure, with potential rewards, would be a nice plot.

Bob