August

august (adj.)

"inspiring reverence and admiration, solemnly grand," 1660s, from Latin augustus "venerable, majestic, magnificent, noble," perhaps originally "consecrated by the augurs, with favorable auguries" (see augur (n.)); or else [de Vaan] "that which is increased" (see augment).

What advice do you have for the magicians out there who have a story to tell and want to storm the reality studio?

GM : Tell a different story. 

Tell a fresh story that speaks to its times and the people around you. 

A story that offers possibilities, exit strategies, rather than apocalypse and ruin. I can’t see that there’s anything else…

In the Wonder Woman book I’m doing, for instance, I’ve actively avoided writing the boy hero story that’s so ubiquitous as to seem inescapable —  the familiar story of the One, The Champion, The Joseph Campbell monomyth thing that drives so many Hollywood movies and YA stories. We’ve seen it. 

The Lion King. The callow youth loses mom or dad, or his comfortable place in the tribe, and he has to fight his way back to Save The Kingdom from its Corrupt Old Leader, before claiming The Captive Princess and becoming The New King and… ad infinitum. 

The Circle of Life if it only applied to boys. 

I thought, 

“Where is 

The Mythic Heroine’s Story?” 

In Ishtar Rising, Wilson talks about the myth of Inanna, and how she goes down into Hell and has to give up Everything of Herself to gain The Wisdom and Experience she can bring back to Her Tribe. 

Privileging The Network 

rather than 

The Sovereign Individual.

And so, as I thought about the differences between The Hero’s and The Heroine’s Journey, it gave me a bunch of different modes to work in. 

Finding ways to avoid telling the boy hero story again was quite liberating. It just gave me a bunch of new ideas, an interesting new way of telling stories that didn’t rely on the framework of The Hero’s Journey that Campbell talks about.”