Review: 'The Heroine's Labyrinth: Archetypal Designs in Heroine-Led Fiction' by Douglas A. Burton
Pub. Date: 24/3/24
Publisher: Silent Music Press
For decades, the hero's journey has had a major influence on storytelling and story structure. Now, Douglas A. Burton presents a groundbreaking new paradigm for writers everywhere. Sourced entirely from heroine-led fiction—a stunning new narrative form takes shape with familiar archetypes in a never-before-seen outline. Burton adds something original and fascinating to the world of storytelling. Discover the dynamism of story, conflict, character development, archetypes, and heroism in an entirely new light. From myth to literature, from TV to film, The Heroine’s Labyrinth explores recurrent themes and patterns modeled by heroic women in fiction. The labyrinth model has the potential to turn conventional understanding of story structure upside down.
Inside, you’ll encounter 18 archetypal designs that form a distinctive narrative arc, each one rich with profound insights and powerful new perspectives. Discover how stories are constructed through powerful archetypes such as the Masked Minotaur, the Sacred Fire, the Beast as Ally, the Poisoned Apple, and more. Novelists, screenwriters, RPG gamers, and memoirists will gain waves of creative inspiration while reading The Heroine’s Labyrinth. You won't be able to put it down.
I have recently picked up a new creative writing project (as if I don't have enough to do) and then got stuck on a certain plot element relating to my heroine. I knew a certain thing had to happen for the plot to progress, but I did not want this thing to rob her of the agency I had established for her. Then I stumbled across The Heroine's Labyrinth on NetGalley and gave it a go. In my mind, The Heroine's Labyrinth was a writing guide which focused on crafting heroines. That is what Burton's book is. However, it is also an attempt to establish the "Heroine's Labyrinth" as a counterpart to the "Hero's Journey" since, or so he argues, Burton feels that the Hero's Journey does not really fit onto female characters. Below I will explain in more detail what the issues are that I have with this second endeavour. As a writing guide, however, I found The Heroine's Labyrinth very interesting. It gave me some useful impulses and avenues to explore, specifically with the idea of my own heroine in mind. The archetypal designs he sets up can definitely be useful, although the imagery used within the book (specifically that of tarot cards) feels a little over-the-top to me.
Burton lays out the Labyrinth as an image for the journey female characters go through. If I understood him correctly, he argues that the Hero's Journey doesn't really fit onto female characters as they are frequently restrained in their mobility, meaning they don't usually set out on grand adventures in foreign lands and rather experience their adventures within their own culture, sometimes within their own house. The labyrinth provides a metaphor for this internal journey, during which female characters confront the limitations placed upon them by their own culture and face a minotaur, who figures as someone who means to entrap them. I found the steps Burton outlined interesting, as said above, purely from a creative writing perspective. But, while I found it mostly intriguing, in the sense that I enjoyed how Burton presented his labyrinth, I did have some issues with it.
The first is, that it is slightly unclear whether he is proposing interesting writing strategies/suggestions, or indeed a whole new monomyth. He states at the beginning that he mostly wants to focus on modern texts, and this is usually films (I also feel that some of his novel quotes refer to the film adaptations instead), as many of Campbell's sources in The Hero of a Thousand Faces are old and unfamiliar to a general public. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this when crafting a writing guide. However, if you do want to make an argument for a "feminine monomyth", as Burton frequently calls his labyrinth, then you quite simply have to go deeper than cultural output of the last half century. Again, as a storytelling tool, useful and fine. As something intended to match Campbell, it is simply not deep enough. This might also come from my background in medieval literature, but the idea that you could want to say something about storytelling in general and not consider medieval material, which simply bursts with evocative and inventive takes on male and female characters, just does not pass the vibe check.
Secondly, I would have wished that he would have chosen at least one text or film which he analysed throughout the book, moment by moment, element by element. For each marker or element in his labyrinth he gives plenty of examples, often the same ones to show how one single story contains the whole journey. However, these examples do not always feel entirely fitting once I considered them within their context, i.e., the rest of the novel/film. He does mention in an afterword that he has analyses of specific films on his website, but, in my opinion, this should have been a key part of the book to show that his labyrinth stands up to scrutiny.
Thirdly, I have an issue with the word 'labyrinth'. Burton repeatedly comments about the "linear" nature of the Hero's Journey, which rankled me a little. The Hero's Journey is famously circular, in the way it is usually depicted and in the fact that the hero literally returns home. Although Burton makes it very clear (sometimes overly so) that he does not intend to take away from this monomyth, he seems to underestimate how flexible it truly is. The names of the stages, for example, are also not meant literally. In the Hero's Journey, for example, the hero descends into the "Belly of the Beast/the Whale", a moment of symbolic death from which the hero emerges with a new outlook, having faced his fears. (This is obviously inspired by the tale of Noah, whose sojourn in the whale is very much also symbolic.) Burton feels this stage does not apply to female characters, I guess, and then suggests something which feels almost exactly the same to me, in which a heroine is immobilized, faces a moment of crisis and darkness, and emerges more strongly.
The labyrinth, meanwhile, is presented by Burton as something non-linear, something flexible, that allows for multiple journeys. The thing is, labyrinths have only one correct route, which always leads to the centre. I appreciate that this journey to the centre, where his Masked Minotaur hides, was important for his structure. A maze, however, allows for multiple possible paths, some of which lead out, some of which lead to the centre. I think the idea of a maze, so similar and yet crucially different, could have worked better if he wanted to emphasise a certain flexibility in his model.
Finally, and I've saved this for last because it might just be personal, I rankled a little at this model coming from a male author. I know, men are absolutely allowed to write female characters and quite a few do so very well. However, in The Heroine's Labyrinth the tone at times feels as if Burton cannot believe that he, finally, has figured out how heroines and female characters function, that he has finally discovered one must always consider heroines as active in their own story, and not a perpetual victim. A lot of what he says feels intuitively correct to me, as a woman, and I don't know if I needed it explained to me. I also feel that the second half especially leans on ideas of "female nurturing" or the "female divine" a little too much without interrogating this. And this is again where I come up to the question of: is this a writing guide or a genuine claim to a new monomyth? Because if it is the former, almost all of the above complaints fall away. If it is the latter, however, then these concerns only become stronger. Burton's labyrinth is interesting and it definitely gave me some creative writing ideas, but it is in no way rigorous or sturdy enough to stand fully alongside Campbell's monomyth.
I give this book...
3 Universes!
In short, I am torn on The Heroine's Labyrinth. I found it useful as a way to brainstorm my own creative writing and to come up with fresh ideas. As a creative writing guide I think it can definitely add something. That is what my rating is for. As an attempt to complement Campbell's work, however, The Heroine's Labyrinth didn't stand up to scrutiny for me. For that, it simply does not draw on enough material to say anything close to definitive about storytelling and leans to heavily on ideas of the "female divine" etc.
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