Story Structure – The Hero's Ordinary World
The Hero's Journey is the template upon which the vast majority of successful stories and Hollywood blockbusters are based upon. Understanding this template is a priority for story or screenwriters.
The Hero's Journey:
Attempts to tap into unconscious expectations the audience has regarding what a story is and how it should be told.
Gives the writer more structural elements than simply three or four acts, plot points, mid point and so on.
Interpreted metaphorically, laterally and symbolically, allows an infinite number of varied stories to be created.
By understanding exactly what elements make up each major stage of the Hero's Journey, screenwriters can easily build a screenplay from the ground up.
A critical element of the Call to Adventure is the Hero's in his Ordinary World. This is important as The Ordinary World is a form of benchmark – we can measure the hero's transformation from one form to another by comparing his world (albeit unconsciously) before and after.
In War of the Worlds (2005) , we meet Ray Ferrier at work and at home. He travels and ends up in a different world from that which he started in, albeit another part of the US .
In Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) , Indiana 's Ordinary World is the university and lecturing, which is the polar opposite to the Worlds he enters as adventurer.
In Gladiator (2100) , doing battle is Maximus' Ordinary World – but the story begins in Germania , shifts to a desert country and ends in Rome .