Worked examples
Plots already mapped
These are teaching copies, not spoilers-as-sport. Each story is placed on the map that fits it most naturally — then you can clone the skeleton into your workshop.
Film · 1977
Star Wars: A New Hope
A farm boy is pulled into a galactic war, learns a hidden discipline, and destroys the weapon that murdered his world.
Read on The Writer’s Journey
Film · 1999
The Matrix
A hacker is told his world is a prison, dies inside it, and returns able to see the code.
Read on The Monomyth
Film · 1939
The Wizard of Oz
A girl is blown from grey Kansas into a colored country, kills a witch she did not mean to fight, and wakes able to see home.
Read on The Monomyth
Film · 2016
Moana
A chief’s daughter restores a stolen heart, heals a wounded trickster, and returns a goddess to herself — then opens the reef.
Read on The Heroine’s Journey
Film · 2001
Legally Blonde
A dumped sorority president follows a man to Harvard and discovers she was never an accessory.
Read on The Virgin’s Promise
Film · 1988
Die Hard
A New York cop walks into his wife’s office party and spends the night barefoot, bleeding, and becoming a husband again.
Read on Save the Cat!
Television · 2008
Breaking Bad — Pilot
A chemistry teacher is told he will die, cooks meth in the desert, and cannot go back to being small.
Read on Story Circle
Novel · 1813
Pride and Prejudice
A witty woman misreads a proud man; both pay for the story they told about the other; both change enough to choose again.
Read on Story Circle