{"id":7551,"date":"2012-07-17T22:54:46","date_gmt":"2012-07-18T03:54:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/?p=7551"},"modified":"2012-07-17T22:58:09","modified_gmt":"2012-07-18T03:58:09","slug":"trope-tuesday-the-call-to-adventure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/trope-tuesday-the-call-to-adventure\/","title":{"rendered":"Trope Tuesday: The Call to Adventure"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>One of the first (and most important) stages of the hero’s journey<\/a> is the call to adventure<\/a>. \u00a0It happens when\u00a0the hero<\/a> first confronts something outside the experience of his ordinary world<\/a> that beacons him to leave it. \u00a0It overlaps closely with the inciting incident<\/a>, and marks the point at which the hero’s journey begins.<\/p>\n

However, it is not typically where the story<\/em> begins. \u00a0In order for the hero to leave the ordinary world, he must first start out there, so we know what’s at stake and what he’s leaving behind. \u00a0This is why Luke Skywalker starts out on his uncle’s homestead, and why Neo starts out as a bored and lonely employee of Metacortex. \u00a0Events outside the hero’s experience may have already put him on a trajectory to leave on the adventure, but he won’t know it until the call comes.<\/p>\n

The hero may start out in a quiet, peaceful village<\/a>, far removed from any sort of conflict–or he may start out in the middle of a crapsack world<\/a>, as is the case with dystopian fiction. \u00a0The important thing is that it’s the world he’s always known–that he hasn’t ever really made an effort to leave or change it.<\/p>\n

How he feels<\/em> about his world largely determines how he chooses to respond to the call. \u00a0In older literature, the hero typically refuses it<\/a>. \u00a0The advantage of this is that it gives the reader a sense of scope–that this adventure is not a small or a trivial thing. \u00a0It also sets up an immediate minor conflict that gives some motion to the opening chapters.<\/p>\n

In modern stories, though, it’s more common for the hero (or his friends) to jump at the call<\/a>. \u00a0There are also many advantages to this. \u00a0In Lord of the Rings<\/em>, it gives Frodo an immediate band of sidekicks. \u00a0In Harry Potter<\/em>, it plays up the sense of wonder at the magical world. \u00a0In the Chronicles of Prydain<\/em>, it highlights the impulsiveness and naivete of Terran, as he realizes later on in the story just how stupid of him it was.<\/p>\n

The call itself can take many forms. \u00a0It can come as a\u00a0fateful visitation<\/a>\u00a0from a supernatural messenger<\/a>, a mysterious request from a dying stranger<\/a>, or a sacred trust from a dying friend<\/a>. \u00a0It can also be more internal, such as an important moment of decision<\/a>, or a\u00a0desire to find some greater purpose in life<\/a>. \u00a0Whatever the case, the one thing the hero\u00a0cannot<\/em> do is ignore it<\/a>–at least, not forever<\/a>. \u00a0One way or another, the hero sets out, and the adventure begins.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the first (and most important) stages of the hero’s journey is the call to adventure. \u00a0It happens when\u00a0the hero first confronts something outside the experience of his ordinary world that beacons him to leave it. \u00a0It overlaps closely with the inciting incident, and marks the point at which the hero’s journey begins. However,… Continue reading Trope Tuesday: The Call to Adventure<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[335,379,178,692,741,700,306,363,380,740,77,641,565,626],"class_list":["post-7551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-adventure","tag-beginnings","tag-dystopian","tag-harry-potter","tag-inciting-incident","tag-lord-of-the-rings","tag-star-wars","tag-story-structure","tag-the-heros-journey","tag-the-matrix","tag-three-act-structure","tag-trope-tuesday","tag-tropes-and-cliches","tag-tvtropes","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7iXK-1XN","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7551"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7551\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7555,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7551\/revisions\/7555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}