Meredith Mansfield, Author

Naming one of these heroic journeys the “Hero’s Journey” has so many consequences. It implicitly devalues the other and denies the heroism of the Leader. But if you believe that Aragorn’s story is a Leader’s Journey, as I do, you have to accept that both journeys are about heroes—just different kinds of heroes. And that opens up thinking about other aspects of these journeys. Valuing or considering just one closes off some of those avenues of thought—and that’s limiting to us all.

Having the tools to recognize the Leader’s Journey as distinct from the Warrior’s enabled me to notice things—like recognizing that Aragorn’s heroic journey was fundamentally different from Frodo’s and why. It adds another dimension to some of my favorite stories. And, even an old favorite, read or watch many times, can get a new shine by noticing the signs of which journey (if any) is being enacted.

It shouldn’t be surprising at this point that stories that involve a team (heists, buddy cop, super hero teams) are usually Leader’s Journeys for the team. That doesn’t mean, of course, that all of the characters are on a Leader’s Journey. It’s interesting (to me, at least) to notice which characters fit nicely into the team. And which find it more difficult, but manage in the end. And which just can’t function as part of a team. (I’m looking at you Tony Stark/Iron Man.)

More, understanding this has made me realize that a number of my stories are actually about Leaders, not Warriors. And that I screwed up. Not in the stories themselves, although I hope to be able to write this journey better now that I have a better grounding in it. More mindfully. But I erred by not telegraphing the correct journey to the readers—in the covers, in the blurbs, in the early chapters. Because if the reader understands what kind of story they’re going to get they are better able to choose and also more likely to be satisfied readers. So that’s definitely something I can learn to do better.

I certainly don’t want to mislead readers about the story they’ll get in one of my books. On the other hand, since I can’t expect readers to know about the Leader’s Journey, even if I call it the Heroine’s Journey (maybe especially then), I’ll have to find another way to set their expectations. Kind of like reader expectations of epic fantasy, but that’s another line of thought. Maybe I’ll blog about that next.