Happy Hobbit Day!
Did you know that September 22 is officially Hobbit Day and the beginning of Tolkien Week? You can read more about it here and here and here.
To celebrate, let’s explore the hero’s journey, an essential type of plot.
The call
The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien is basically a hero’s journey plot. Is the lowly Bilbo a hero when we first meet him? Not really. But through testing and troubles, and by fights against giant spiders, a dragon, and miserable dwarves, he becomes a hero.
One important phase of the hero’s journey plot is that when the hero is called to the journey, he initially refuses. Gandalf breezes into Bilbo’s life unannounced and tells Bilbo he’s going to “send you on this adventure.”
“Sorry!” says Bilbo. “I don’t want any adventures, thank you.”
The next day, the dwarves show up. Then Gandalf steps in and explains what Bilbo’s job is to be: to help rescue the dwarves’ gold from a dragon.
Of course, Bilbo wants nothing to do with a journey, an adventure, and definitely not a gold-hoarding dragon.
The refusal
The call and then refusal of the call are important to the hero’s journey. They are essential in showing the reluctance of the hero, that he’s not frothing at the mouth to have an adventure. In this way, we identify with the poor fellow better; we develop an empathy for him.
The call and refusal look different in every story you read or movie you watch. What do they look like in the current book you are reading or the most recent movie you watched?
Now it’s your turn: Create a situation for a character in which he or she has a chance to have an adventure or is called into a situation that he or she wants to avoid. Let readers see how the character refuses the call to adventure and then how he or she finally is plunged into it.
You don’t have to write a whole story (unless you want to). Simply write as much of this call and refusal that throws your character into the story.
If writing a scene in a story is not an adventure you would like to experience, you can answer this question on paper: What do the call and the refusal look like in the current book you are reading or the most recent movie you watched?
