The Heroine's Journey

Reading The Heroine's Journey by Miss Gail Carriger, has given me a fresh perspective on the books that I've written. It is like a key that has unlocked my brain, so that I can have a deeper understanding of why my characters want to do what they do. Miss Gail does a fantastic job in comparing and contrasting the Hero's journey against the Heroine's journey, and even goes into depth about how BOTH can co-exist in the same book. THIS literally blew my mind, and I instantly recognized that this was exactly what was happening in one of my stories.

In Nuelda, Anna is going through a hero's journey, constantly going off fighting by herself for the greater good, and making the tough self-sacrificing decisions, while Radnt on the other hand is on a heroine's journey, a real general. Radnt tries to force Anna into a heroine's journey, and that is exactly where the deepest conflict lies. What Gail helped me realize was that the hero/heroine's journey has nothing to do with gender, but all about the journey the character is on.

Reading The Heroine's Journey, helped me to understand why Anna is always running off on adventures without her friends, why she struggles with delegating, and why fitting in... ie networking... is so difficult for her. She a hero, not a heroine.

Also, since I've read the book, I now look at some of my favorite movies and books through a different lens. It is becoming easier, with more practice, to spot the difference between the heroine's journey and the hero's journey. For example, I've been binge watching Grey's Anatomy. Meredith Grey is clearly on a heroine's journey, and I think that is what makes her such a believable and lovable character. If you've not yet watched all the seasons of Grey's Anatomy, then be forewarned... SPOILER ALERT... Here's how I would analyze Meredith Grey's heroine's journey...

The Descent

Precipitated by a broken familial network.

Through the course of the first few seasons, we learn that Meredith was raised by a single mother, Ellis, who divorced her husband because she was having an affair with Richard Weber, who turns out to be Meredith's new chief. Ellis has Alzheimer's and can't even recognize Meredith most days. Talk about depressing... she has NO family.

Heroine's pleas ignored and she abdicates power.

Meredith search for love in all the wrong places. She goes on a binge where she will sleep with any man that crosses her path. She is substituting sex for love, and the world is completely ignoring her cries for help. Her mother is getting sicker, and she doesn't tell anyone, not even Weber that Ellis is dying. She abdicates her roll as daughter, and leaves her mom in a home, while she starts her intern year as a surgeon.

Her withdrawal is involuntary.

At the beginning Meredith has a dark personality with a lot of skeletons in her closet. She has a house and wants to live by herself, but can't afford it, so she rents out two rooms to fellow interns. Yet, you never see her connecting with them, she just hides away in her room. Her mother and father, the only family she has since she's an only child has forsaken her.

Family offers aid but no solution.

She has no family, so there is no aid.

The Search

The heroine's loss of family yields isolation/risk

Ellis dies, and this sends Meredith down into a dark spiral that we simply don't know if she will ever make it out of.

She employs disguise/subversion and alters her identity

Meredith pretends that there's nothing wrong, and fills her life with work, saving others, and being a doctor. She refuses to look at the pain, and simply focuses on being a surgeon. She covers herself with the identity of being a surgeon.

She appeals to and forms a surrogate network (found family).

Slowly she starts to build a surrogate family... Alex = Brother, Christina = sister, George O'Malley = Brother, Izzie = Sister, Richard Weber = father, Bailey = mother. Her surrogate family starts to mold her. At a pivotal point, she starts calling Christina her "person", which signifies someone she can tell anything to, and that will always love her unconditionally, and be on her side no matter what.

She visits the underworld, aided by friends/family.

The grief of Ellis's death, and the horrible things her mother said to her before dying, finally catches up with Meredith. Meredith's underworld moment, is when she literally drowns in the ocean. She gives up, and doesn't even fight it, she just gives up. Shepperd rescues her, and takes her to the hospital, where her entire friends/family work together to save Meredith's live.

The Ascent

Success in her search results in a new or reborn familial network

Out of this, Meredith and Shepperd's love grow and blooms into a beautiful family with 3 children. Meredith does go to counseling, where she learns to face her demons, but with the support of her friends, she can now finally put aside being Ellis's protégé daughter, and simply be Meredith.

This ties to negotiation and compromise that will benefit all

Meredith is the glue that keeps everyone together. She is always trying to find the compromise that will benefit all and do the most good. This is the primary persona she takes on for many seasons afterwards, allowing subsequent characters to go through their own hero/heroine's journey.

I hope that this analysis has been insightful, and that you can see the practical application of Miss Gail's book The Heroine's Journey, put into action her.

Too da loo

Linda