The hero's journey: the 12 stages, with a worked example
What each stage does and where the model came from, then all twelve stages mapped onto a real novel, chapter by chapter, and a beat sheet to fill in for yours.
The short answer
The hero's journey is a pattern for stories in which a character leaves a familiar world, is tested in an unfamiliar one, and comes home changed, often bringing something that helps the people they left. Joseph Campbell described it in The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949) as the monomyth, in seventeen stages. Christopher Vogler, a story analyst at Disney, reworked it for screenwriters in The Writer's Journey (1992). His twelve stages are the version most novelists use today:
- 1Ordinary world
- 2Call to adventure
- 3Refusal of the call
- 4Meeting the mentor
- 5Crossing the first threshold
- 6Tests, allies and enemies
- 7Approach to the inmost cave
- 8The ordeal
- 9Reward
- 10The road back
- 11Resurrection
- 12Return with the elixir
Stages 1 to 4 happen in the hero's ordinary world and stages 5 to 10 in the special world of the adventure; 11 and 12 bring the hero back. The threshold is crossed twice, going out at stage 5 and coming home at stage 11. Use the stages as questions to ask of your plot, not as boxes your book has to tick.
Where it comes from
Campbell was a scholar of comparative mythology. In The Hero with a Thousand Faces he read myths, folk tales and religious stories from many cultures side by side and argued that they share one underlying shape, which he called the monomyth, a word he took from James Joyce's Finnegans Wake. He grouped his seventeen stages into three movements: departure, initiation and return.
In the mid 1980s Vogler, then a story consultant at Walt Disney Pictures, wrote a seven page memo for his colleagues, A Practical Guide to The Hero with a Thousand Faces, which translated Campbell into the language of film development. He expanded it into The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers, first published in 1992 and revised several times since. Vogler added an explicit ordinary world at the start, merged several of Campbell's initiation stages, and gave the stages the plain names writers now use.
The model has critics. Folklorists have argued that Campbell chose the stories that fit his pattern and left out those that did not, and many working novelists find the full sequence too rigid for books that are not adventures. Both points are fair, and they shape how we suggest using it below.
The 12 stages, one by one
Each stage has a job in the story. The question under each one is the one to answer for your own book.
- 1
Ordinary world
The hero at home, before anything changes, with the lack or flaw the story is going to test. The reader needs this picture to measure the change against later.
Ask: what is missing from this life, and does the hero know it?
- 2
Call to adventure
Something disturbs the ordinary world: a message, a loss, a threat, an offer, sometimes an accident. Campbell notes the call can arrive as a mere blunder.
Ask: what event makes staying the same impossible?
- 3
Refusal of the call
The hero hesitates, out of fear, duty or doubt. The refusal shows the reader what going will cost, which is what makes the later yes mean something.
Ask: what does the hero risk by saying yes?
- 4
Meeting the mentor
Someone or something gives advice, a gift, training or nerve. Campbell called it supernatural aid. The mentor can be a person, a book, a memory or a dead parent's letter.
Ask: what does the hero receive that they could not get alone?
- 5
Crossing the first threshold
The hero commits and enters the special world, the place where the old rules no longer hold. In most novels this is the end of act one.
Ask: what is the point of no return?
- 6
Tests, allies and enemies
The hero learns how the new world works, picks up friends and makes enemies. This is usually the longest stretch of the book, and the easiest to let sag.
Ask: who joins, who opposes, and what does each test teach?
- 7
Approach to the inmost cave
The hero and any allies close in on the place, person or truth they fear most. Plans are made; doubts come back.
Ask: what is the plan, and what will it cost if it fails?
- 8
The ordeal
The central crisis. The hero faces death, real or symbolic, and survives it. Something in them has to give way for that to happen.
Ask: what does the hero face here that they have avoided all book?
- 9
Reward
Having survived, the hero takes the prize: an object, knowledge, a reconciliation, a love returned. Often there is a moment of rest before the next trouble.
Ask: what does the hero hold now that they did not before?
- 10
The road back
The hero turns toward home and the consequences of the ordeal follow. Campbell's version includes pursuit, flight and sometimes a rescue from outside.
Ask: what pulls the hero home, and what comes after them?
- 11
Resurrection
A last, hardest test on the threshold between the worlds, where the hero has to use everything they learned. The old self ends here.
Ask: how does this final test prove the change?
- 12
Return with the elixir
The hero comes home changed and brings something back: a cure, a treasure, a truth, or only themselves, different. The last image answers the first.
Ask: what does home receive, and how does the ending mirror the ordinary world?
Campbell's 17 stages and Vogler's 12
If you have seen a list with seventeen stages and names like the belly of the whale or atonement with the father, that is Campbell's original. This is how the two line up:
| Campbell's part | Campbell's stages (1949) | Vogler's stages (1992) |
|---|---|---|
| Departure | The call to adventure; refusal of the call; supernatural aid; the crossing of the first threshold; the belly of the whale | 1 Ordinary world; 2 Call to adventure; 3 Refusal of the call; 4 Meeting the mentor; 5 Crossing the first threshold |
| Initiation | The road of trials; the meeting with the goddess; woman as the temptress; atonement with the father; apotheosis; the ultimate boon | 6 Tests, allies and enemies; 7 Approach to the inmost cave; 8 The ordeal; 9 Reward |
| Return | Refusal of the return; the magic flight; rescue from without; the crossing of the return threshold; master of the two worlds; freedom to live | 10 The road back; 11 Resurrection; 12 Return with the elixir |
Vogler also lays the stages over three acts: stages 1 to 5 in act one, 6 to 9 in act two, 10 to 12 in act three. If you already plan in acts, our guide to three-act structure shows where those turns usually fall.
Worked example: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
L. Frank Baum's novel, published in 1900 and in the public domain, is a clean test: a girl is carried out of her world, travels through a strange one with companions, and wants nothing but to go home. Note that this is the book, not the 1939 film; in the book the shoes are silver.
- Book
- The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, 24 chapters, about 39,000 words.
- Want
- To get back to Aunt Em and Uncle Henry in Kansas.
- Positions
- Measured by us as a share of the words in the Project Gutenberg text, so you can see where each stage really falls.
| Stage | Where | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| 1 Ordinary world | Ch. I, 0% | A grey Kansas farm. Aunt Em no longer smiles and Uncle Henry never laughs; only Toto keeps Dorothy from turning as grey as everything else. |
| 2 Call to adventure | Ch. I, 1 to 3% | A cyclone lifts the house, with Dorothy and Toto inside, and sets it down in the Land of the Munchkins. The call is an accident. |
| 3 Refusal of the call | Ch. II, 3 to 8% | Dorothy's only question is how to get home. The Munchkins tell her every way out crosses a desert. She does not refuse the adventure; she refuses to want it. |
| 4 Meeting the mentor | Ch. II, 8% | The Good Witch of the North kisses her forehead, a mark no one will dare harm, and sends her to the Wizard. She also takes the dead Witch of the East's silver shoes. |
| 5 Crossing the threshold | Ch. III, 9% | She puts on the shoes and sets out along the road of yellow brick toward the Emerald City. |
| 6 Tests, allies, enemies | Ch. III to XI, 9 to 44% | The Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman and the Cowardly Lion join her. The Kalidahs, the river, the deadly poppy field, the field mice, the Guardian of the Gates. |
| 7 Approach to the inmost cave | Ch. XI to XII, 44 to 55% | Oz will send her home only if she kills the Wicked Witch of the West. Dorothy says she does not want to kill anybody, and goes west anyway, where there is no road. |
| 8 The ordeal | Ch. XII, 55 to 62% | The Winged Monkeys scatter her friends. Dorothy becomes the Witch's servant until, in anger, she throws a bucket of water over her, and the Witch melts (62%). |
| 9 Reward | Ch. XIII to XIV, 62 to 70% | The Winkies are freed, her friends are mended, and she takes the Golden Cap, which commands the Winged Monkeys three times. |
| 10 The road back | Ch. XV to XVII, 70 to 82% | Back in the Emerald City the Wizard turns out to be a humbug. His balloon, meant to carry her home, leaves without her. |
| 11 Resurrection | Ch. XVIII to XXIII, 82 to 99% | South to Glinda: the fighting trees, the china country, the Hammer-Heads. Glinda tells her the shoes could have carried her home on the first day. |
| 12 Return with the elixir | Ch. XXIII to XXIV, 99 to 100% | She knocks her heels together three times. Home, she runs to Aunt Em and says how glad she is to be home again. |
What the example shows
- The ordeal comes early. The Witch dies at 62% of the book. Baum then spends more than a third of it getting Dorothy home. The pattern does not tell you how long each stage should be.
- Some stages are faint. The refusal is a wish to go back, not a refusal to go, and the resurrection is more travel rather than one last test. The book works anyway, because Dorothy's want is clear from the second chapter.
- The change is spread across the cast. The Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman and the Lion each get the brains, heart and courage they showed all along. Dorothy changes less than they do. A hero's journey describes events; it does not promise an inner arc.
- The elixir can be small. Dorothy brings back nothing but herself, and for Aunt Em that is enough.
Hero's journey beat sheet template
All twelve stages with the questions above, a line for the chapter, and prompts for the inner change. Copy it, or download it as a Markdown file that opens in Word, Google Docs or Feldar.
THE HERO
Name and one line about them:
What they want (outside):
What they need (inside):
1. ORDINARY WORLD
Chapter or rough position:
What is missing from this life, and do they know it?
2. CALL TO ADVENTURE
What event makes staying the same impossible?
When not to use it
- Your protagonist never leaves. A novel of manners, a family saga or a love story set in one town has no special world to cross into. Three-act structure or the Save the Cat beat sheet fits better.
- The book is a puzzle. In a mystery the shape comes from the investigation: clues, false solutions and the reveal. Plan those first.
- You have several protagonists. Give each point of view character their own arc and do not force them all through twelve stages at the same pace.
- The ending is a tragedy. If the hero does not come back, or comes back unchanged, the return stages work against you. Use the shape knowingly, or drop it.
- The stages are writing the book. A mentor who exists because the chart needs one, or a resurrection bolted onto an ending that was already finished, is worse than no stage at all.
Planning a hero's journey in Feldar
Put each stage you plan to use on the Canvas as a Plot card and link them with relations such as Causes. With a card selected, Branch and Next plot beat proposes the card that follows from it; you keep it or delete it. The mentor and the threshold guardian go on Character cards, the special world on Location cards, and Feldar reads those cards when it suggests scenes or text.
When you reach a chapter, its page has an Outline of scenes. Type the scenes yourself, or describe the next beats and Generate scenes proposes them; Draft Page then writes the page from those scenes. If you need a premise to begin with, try the free plot generator or story generator, and our guide on how to outline a novel takes the stages down to scene cards.
Act 2
Questions
What are the 12 steps of the hero's journey?
In Christopher Vogler's version: ordinary world, call to adventure, refusal of the call, meeting the mentor, crossing the first threshold, tests, allies and enemies, approach to the inmost cave, the ordeal, reward, the road back, resurrection, and return with the elixir.
Who created the hero's journey?
Joseph Campbell described it as the monomyth in The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949), with seventeen stages. Christopher Vogler adapted it for screenwriters as twelve stages in The Writer's Journey (1992), the version most writers use.
Does every story follow the hero's journey?
No. Many quest and coming of age stories fit it loosely, but plenty of good novels, especially ones set in a single place or built around a mystery, do not. Folklorists have also criticised Campbell for choosing the myths that fit his pattern.
Is the hero's journey the same as three-act structure?
No, but they fit together. The hero's journey names what happens to the hero; three acts describe proportions. Vogler places stages 1 to 5 in act one, 6 to 9 in act two and 10 to 12 in act three.
Do I need all twelve stages?
No. Campbell noted that many stories dwell on a few stages and skip or reorder others. Start with the threshold, the ordeal and the return, and add others where your plot really has them.
What is a good public domain example of the hero's journey?
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900) is mapped stage by stage above. The Odyssey and Treasure Island are other common examples.
Sources
Checked on November 6, 2026.
- Campbell
- The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Pantheon, Bollingen Series XVII, 1949; Joseph Campbell Foundation on the hero's journey
- Vogler
- The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers, Michael Wiese Productions, first published 1992; Vogler on writing the Disney memo
- Stage names
- Hero's journey, Wikipedia (Campbell's seventeen stages and Vogler's twelve side by side; criticism)
- The novel
- L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, 1900, Project Gutenberg eBook #55. Positions are word counts through this text, measured by us.