Christopher Vogler- The Writer's Journey

I have been focusing on non-liner structure for my work, though at a recent masterclass at the Scottish Documentary Institute, Arash Riahi and various other graduates of the documentary Masters course at Edinburgh College of Art discussed how they relied and learned from The Writer's Journey.

Having got the book and read through various chapters, I felt it hard to relate to. I found it difficult to categorise my story into such a limited capacity and still stay true to my original ideal... It seemed a much more complex process and didn't feel natural.

Arash T Riahi described the process of creating characters within documentary, he believes you should find the archetype which the documentary falls under to allow the character to be formed in the same way as fictional stories are formed.
By finding the archetype, the filmmaker can then categorise the characters within the documentary to give them an identity and a structure to follow. Many of the students attending the masterclass agreed with this.

This allows the stories to have a greater sense of the human condition with characters the audience can connect with as they embody a universal characteristic, with which the audience bonds.

Vogler believes there are various structures to creating archetypes for characters.
For the purpose of the Lotte Glob documentary, the archetype of The Mentor is most fitting for Lotte's character. As Lotte is the main character, she could play the role of mentoring the audience.

However, in Lotte's story, there is no extravagant ups or downs, and apart from the audience, there are no other characters, therefore for my one character to embody all elements 'required' when writing a story, seemed forced.


Vogler’s, The Writer’s Journey, is beneficial to identify key aspects of various characters and allow the filmmaker to understand how to form characters. However, to place the characters within a premeditated story is limiting and may not work within documentary.
The beauty of documentary is the story, and each story is unique in its own way. Therefore, to constrict the story to a studied structure with premeditated plot, defies the aim of the story itself.

There are many forms in which a story can be told and to limit it to one structure is naive.