I'm chiming in on the discussion of the hero's journey structure as one author responsible for publicizing the thing, in my book THE WRITER'S JOURNEY. Yes, I am the Chris Vogler who wrote that book. It was my attempt to open a discussion (exactly like this one) about Joseph Campbell's concept of the hero's journey in mythology, and how it could be adapted for movie story-telling. I'm glad some people find it useful in their writing and unbothered if some people don't. There are plenty of ways to think about writing and you can get on very well without ever considering the hero's journey idea for a second. In fact, in my own writing and consulting I use many other templates and languages, like the lingo, philosophy and structure of vaudeville, the military, engineering, animal behavior, fairy tales, pop songs, architecture, dance and psychology, without ever mentioning the hero's journey model.

It's an interesting game to ask is this or that movie a hero's journey, and look, I've been playing it since I first opened my mouth to talk about it. From day one people came up to me and said "But what about Movie X or Y?" that seemed to defy the model, challenging me to find a hero's journey in it. Not hard -- IF you are not taking "the hero's journey" literally as all twelve elements of my highly arbitrary outline in precisely the order I give them in the book. I never claimed that every movie has, or should have, every element of my outline in exactly that order, in fact I STRONGLY WARN AGAINST IT. Such a movie would be predictable and boring, since the audience knows the outline very well. It's the variations on the theme that they come to see, the surprising departures from the familiar model that make them think about it and experience it all over again.

I looked over the list of films that was put forward as a challenge to the ubiquity of the hero's journey. Seems like a tedious exercise to compare them point by point to a rigid, literal version of the outline, and where do you draw your line about when a story qualifies as an Official Hero's Journey Movie or is disqualified? How many departures from the precise outline are allowed before the buzzer sounds? If you say three strikes and you're out, then I would expect most or all of them would strike out, because an umpire could say "Aha! I don't see a Refusal of the Call there, a Mentor shows up in Act Three instead of Act One, and where's the big Ordeal in the middle of Act Two?" But that doesn't get us very far, because the hero's journey is so subjective. I could make the case that all we have shown is how flexible the hero's journey can be -- you can purposely omit or rearrange its steps and yet someone in the hero's journey frame of mind will still perceive it as a story with all the energy and feeling of a hero's journey. And someone who isn't in that frame of mind will not see a hero's journey there no matter how long they gaze at it. You're either on the bus or not.

Who cares anyway? The point (about writing) is utility. If it's useful, use it. If it's not useful, if it gets in your way, makes you feel handcuffed, confuses you, or just seems bogus to you, don't. There are plenty of other approaches. The rule of "What happens next?" is perfectly adequate for all screenwriting situations, as are the variations on "Get the hero up a tree, shake the tree, get him down again" cited by various contributors.

The hero's journey idea is a metaphor, and not, I hope, a cookbook recipe, a mathematical equation or a chemical formula. It's not the answer to every screenwriting problem. It's just another tool - a very versatile and useful one, I think -- in the story-teller's tool box.

.. although this post is about a different template, I think the main points are still relevant.

Everyone probably knows I'm not much of a tight structure writer, so here's my take on storytelling with a beat sheet outline:

If you have a good story to tell, it will naturally have a beginning, a middle and an end. It will naturally have conflict. It will naturally have a protagonist with obstacles to overcome and more obstacles to impede her/him. So by and large these elements should naturally fall where the industry expects them to fall, page wise.

If you don't have this type of story to tell at the outset, then you don't have a screenplay. You may have a novel, depending on theme, but not a script.

I find writers that have to shoehorn and spoonfeed these elements into their work at certain times and on certain pages really don't have a grip on the story they want to tell.

You wrote a 100 page screenplay in a single sitting?

WOW!  Impressive...very impressive!

I did the same search and could not find the same sources. Man, I looked everywhere.

I have watched today fantastic Hungarian Oscar winner, Son of Saul. Great storytelling, reminding of famous European film makers of 20th century but very refreshing in every way while hitting beats of Snyder's BS, much faster and grabbing than it's expected as a result.

Wow, you dug up an old post!  But since it's about the Beat Sheets, it reminded me that if you purchase Final Draft, you get Blake Snyder's Save the Cat story structure software free.  Ends tomorrow April 30th.

I'm probably going to get it.  I've been using Trelby and like it ok, but really think I'll like using Final Draft on my ipad as well.  And NO, I don't work for the company!  

I was in love with storytelling in all forms since I was aware of myself. I have watched movies from 40+ (maybe 50+) countries all over the world, with different interpretations and approaches to film making and storytelling from different cultures and mindset. What I have noticed, all of them have a lot of structural similarities, which is totally expected, and just recently European and some others around the world film makers started to follow this Hollywood guide beat by beat. People who does this aim for worldwide presentation of their films and spreading their BUSINESS worldwide and Hollywood proves every year how successful they are. Some of them still don't hitting the themes that are interesting worldwide so they stay under the radar despite all the efforts, and others simply don't want to fit in and just continue doing own thing but accepting a form and structure that is proven to bring pace and dramatic experience in more entertaining way.

I don't think any of guides or beat sheet's that so called script gurus and doctors made is limiting, it still gives you creative freedom and lot of space to improvise. I started learning about screenwriting craft something like 2 years ago and after reading books and listening interviews by/with Syd Field, Robert McKee, John Truby, Blake Snyder, Michael Hauge, Peter Russell, Richard Walter and some others on YT channel Film Courage who made their way to Hollywood, it's obvious all of them writing and talking about same thing just in their own "language". You have to follow their rules if you want to play their game. They want a fruit and you are a seed. Hollywood wants banana, Asia want rice, Europe wants orange and you need to give them a proper seed to help them grow desired fruit. But, if you are really good in planting they might hire you to adjust and improve your skills for their needs even if you gave them wrong seed.