The Hero's Journey

Try and apply this to your own life.

What happens from when the Hero begins their adventure to when they end it (or when it ends them). In many cases, this is the entire story, but there might be some instances of Before It All Happened and Future Scene that tell stories in the past and future respectively, but those are usually separate from the core story.

Steps of The Hero's Journey
Once Upon A Time - We get introduced to the Hero, their allies, some secondary characters, and possibly the Villain, but not off the bat like with everyone else. We're also shown the world, local areas, and recurring locations that will be important later on.

Call To Action - After our opening is over, it's time to have the Hero and friends get into action and the journey officially begins. Something or someone gets them into traveling towards the Villain and their lair in hopes to end their reign of evil.

Threshold Crossover - This is when the Hero and their party reach the boundaries of what they know and what they don't. This can lead into an actual new world or just a new area of their planet they've never seen before. We meet the Mentor here as well as the first baddie to get in the way of the Good Guys. Note that this is the last of the familiar world we'll see until the end of the journey.

Path Of Pain - The hardships the Hero and Co. endure before meeting up with the Villain or someone similar. This is a large chunk of the story.

Preclimax - Finally, after all of the challenges the Hero and friends have went through, they're at the entryway of The Villain's Lair. Someone drops a Badass Line or delivers a Big Speech, then everybody moves forward inside. There are some final challenges while moving on, but they don't mean much now since the Hero has their Cool Weapon, Awesome Skill, or the Mentor's Power. When that's all done with, we reach what everything thus far has been leading to: the...

Climax - The Big Fight is just Mere Moments Away, but we have the Villain and the Hero have a bit of a talk first. Then we get into the fight. Since stories aren't all supposed to end the same, here is a list of possible endings.

If the Hero wins
If the Hero is the one to be victorious after the Big Fight (by far the most common outcome), we get these endings:


 * All Just A Dream
 * All Just A Dream In A Dream
 * All Just A Dream In A Nightmare
 * All Just A Story
 * Alt Happy Ending
 * Great Going, Hero
 * Happy Ending
 * Sudden Corruption, Hero Malfunction

If the Villain wins
If the Villain is the one to be victorious, we get these endings:


 * Alt Unhappy Ending
 * The Hero Gets Bussed
 * Unhappy Ending

Alternate endings
These are different endings for when neither the Hero nor Villain wins:


 * Everybody's A Loser
 * Everyone Dies
 * Third Contender Wins

Postclimax - When the Big Fight has been the Big Fought (if the Hero wins and it's a good ending), the Hero gets the Grand Prize, goes home, and celebrates with their friends, family, neighbors, and everyone else. Cue Credits.