What makes a story a great story?

             We step into the author’s life experiences regardless of whether we read fiction or non-fiction.  A story brings one experience – a life time long or a second long – that finds its way into the story being told.  What the author chooses to do with it becomes the question.        

            Within every story, from an author writing self help to a memoir to a fictional story, there is a hero role that comes into focus.  The hero isn’t perfect because that is the role of the mentor.  The reader benefits from the hero’s imperfections and the lessons being learned and gained by the hero.

            Tales as old as time have a hero and its journey.  Take the Tortoise and the Hare for example.  You can choose as to which animal is the hero and which animal fills the mentor role depending on what lesson you feel is the true lesson of the story.  The Tortoise might be the hero having learned that slow and steady is going to win the race eventually, with the Hare  being the mentor prodding the Tortoise along throughout the story.  The Hare might be the hero having learned that rushing and burning yourself out does not mean that you are going to win the race, with the Tortoise being the mentor leading by example that slow and steady energy usage is better than trying to rush through things. 

            Even looking at religious literature, Adam’s hero story of trials and lack of understanding what his mentor tried to teach is a hero’s journey of the failed variety like the
Hare.  Noah’s hero story of trials and having deep faith in what his mentor told him is a hero’s journey of the winning variety like the Tortoise.  You can pick up a Dean Graziosi book like The Underdog Advantage, and it is also has snippets of his hero’s journey that is still tracking through his life today.  You can read some of my hero’s journey within the anthologies that I became a published author within. 

            Regardless, even if you don’t believe you are on a hero’s journey, trust me in saying that you are.  Trust me saying we wouldn’t be on this planet if we weren’t all going through our own hero’s journey.  It may be that your hero story is hiding from you.  That is where the idea to use S.O.U.L. Writing comes in handy; S.O.U.L Writing is a workshop helping you to
relax into your soul’s message in your writing. Your soul knows your hero journey and knows you need some help to know with all the distractions we have in this lifetime.