The external journey is some sort of adventure. Over the course of the story, the character begins solidly in her identity and makes a gradual shift towards essence. The internal journey is a tug of war between identity and essence.

Hauge states that in a story, a character moves from identity (how the world sees her) to essence (who she really is). Chapter 3 is specifically about the internal journey.

This is the recording of a lecture that Michael Hauge and Christopher Vogler gave about the internal and external journeys of a story, and how they relate to one another. To learn how to track a hero’s internal journey across a story, I listened to Chapter 3 of the audiobook The Hero’s 2 Journeys. I took a closer look at Bob to see how the authors mapped out Livy’s internal journey towards independence over the course of the book. I knew that a character had to have an arc, but didn’t know exactly how it mapped out to the external plot points. This story has a strong coming-of-age theme, especially for Livy. Livy is determined to help Bob find his way back to his family. Livy is visiting her Gran in Australia, for the first time in five years, and finds Bob where she left him the last time she was there, even though she hardly remembers him. Bob is a small green creature who has been stuck alone in a closet for years, awaiting the return of Livy, his friend. The middle grade novel Bob is a good example.īob is a delightful collaboration between Wendy Mass and Rebecca Stead. A lot of middle grade books have a protagonist whose character arc moves towards independence over the course of the book. Books are meant to grow with them and inspire them along their journey. But then Rory tries to babysit a girl and it leads to chaos.Kids do a lot of growing up from ages 8-12. However, the main actor of the film notices Rory and is actually nice to her! Rory can’t believe her luck and the actor also ends up shooting a scene with her.

She attempts to get contacts but ends up scratching her cornea!Įventually, Rory just gives up.

She tries to shave her legs, only to shave off some skin as well. And now she is! Rory’s list of things includes: getting a phone, getting her ears pierced, getting contacts, getting a pet, and many other trivial things.Īlso, a movie is being shot at her school! Rory and her best friends are trying out as extras and they get selected! They will now be able to meet a famous movie star! Rory wants to be perfect when the crew arrives so she gets her ears pierced- only to find out that she’s allergic to gold. Rory Swenson has been waiting for forever to turn twelve! Whenever she has asked for something, her parents have said: “when you’re twelve”. This book was hilarious and most everything in this book was something I could relate to.

Finally by wendy mass summary