How flexible is the Hero's Journey?

Totally flexible. You don't have to use it at all. It's just a thing some guy made up, ya know?

 

^ What Mytho said.

I've read stories that skip the first few stages, stories that skip the last few, and stories that take stages from the beginning or the middle and put them at the end. You can omit or rearrange any part of the Journey that you like and still tell a well-structured story. And supporting characters can definitely complete some of the stages -- even Star Wars, which follows the formula quite directly, gives one or two of the stages to Han Solo.

 

The Hero's Journey is a pattern that many stories follow, and a tool for analyzing works that have already been written. It's not really meant as a ruleset or proscription when creating stories.

 

Sure you could, if that was the kind of story you wanted to tell. There really is no limit to the ways you can tell a story. "The Hero's Journey" is just, as mentioned above, the pattern that one guy saw in a bunch of myths he studied. But even in the myths, whether or not they abide by the pattern is often very, very debatable, and there are tons of myths that don't follow the pattern he found. The Hero's Journey is, at best, a pattern found in SOME stories. I have no idea why you would think all stories should follow it.

 

@EccentricGentleman,

I certainly think you could, and the basis for it is already common enough. The 'elixir' from one story is the 'call to adventure' in the next (for example: The Hobbit has Bilbo brings home the ring, which is what calls Frodo to his adventure in Lord of the Rings). It wouldn't be hard to write a novel that simply starts with the hero coming home from some other adventure, and to have their spoils of war lead them into their next journey.

And ending on the 'Ordinary World' is uncommon, but it could be argued that this is how any story where the hero actually gets to retire ends (non-conditional, no 's/he misses the action' or 'going to die when they get called back for ~one final mission~). Stories where the hero isn't famous or wealthy, but they're happy with a family and genuinely enjoy their job as a farmer or whatever.

 

You can do what you want. You don't even have to use those concepts to describe your work.

No one can tell you if your story would be better if you used them all, without knowing your story quite well.

Beware being a slave to even a well respected "formula."