Too Early for Inciting Incident?

[Poppy]

Just to say, I wasn't planning to get wrapped up in one particular discussion.

Will probably move on.

Easy y'all.

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

Here's the last post on page one from the OP:

Can I just add that I love the level of respect that everyone has for each other on this forum. It isn't like that everywhere else. Good opinions all around. I greatly respect my writing elders!

Let's keep in mind that the point of posting to this thread is to help Mr. Earls. Regardless of what academic terms and writing theories are supported by which famous author, we are all offering opinions to help this author.

Stories have been told for thousands of years, or possibly millions--who knows what those early toolmakers were saying, long before the cave-painters finally started writing stuff down? I can only conclude that there is more than one way to tell a story, and I think the best way to help the OP is the share what works well for you!


EDIT - I started writing before you posted, Poppy. Thanks for deciding to move on!

 

[Steerpike]

Lolita is easily a monomyth. You have the father figure who provokes the child who grows up. Just like in Star Wars you have a father figure who provokes the child to grow up. And that's just looking at it from a million miles away.

Easy to say, but of course there is much more to the monomyth idea than that. I picked Lolita because it is actually on a list associated with the videos you linked. I expected the response would be one that looked at the story solely as being that of Dolores (which is understandable, as she is the titular character). I think, however, it is also Humbert Humbert's story. At the least, there are two stories here. Humbert's story centers around Lolita, but it is not her story. I expect that finding "supernatural" aid in the story will be problematic as well, unless you stretch the word "supernatural" to the point that is has no meaning.

At some point, it gets to be like numerology. You can see what you want to see. The whole idea of the monomyth because somewhat meaningless, in my mind, if you try to apply it to each and every story in existence. It gets stretched so thin as to have no substance. The more appropriate, and I believe accurate, view is that there are certain types of stories that are remarkably common across cultures that follow the monomyth.

I've read a little of Frazer and Graves, and I don't recall either of them saying EVERY story fit this pattern. I know Campbell didn't - in fact, he said they did not. And all three of them made sweeping generalizations and discounted, out of hand, instances that didn't fit into their theoretical framework. It is all very interesting and I think it gets us to some truth at the level of myth, but if you try and take it beyond that point, it becomes problematic. If you have citations to Frazer or Graves saying the monomyth set forth in the videos you posted occurs in each and every story, I'd be interested in seeing them. From what I've read of Frazer, at least, he never makes any such solid conclusion. Maybe Graves tries to make such an absolute statement, I don't know.

Even Bashir, whose videos you posted, seems to qualify his analysis by saying all "successful" stories use it, which is convenient because if you encounter a story that doesn't follow it you can just say the story doesn't work.