The Zero’s Journey
A lesser-known Hollywood story structure
1. Ordinary world.
This is where you introduce the Zero, the story’s protagonist, before he undertakes his journey. Here, you establish the world (parent’s basement) the Zero lives in and set the stage for the adventure to come.
2. The call to adventure.
Now that you’ve established the Zero’s world (parent’s basement), it’s time to get him to leave it. At 36 years of age, the Zero has spent most of his life avoiding employment, so you have to write him a believable motivation to get a job.
3. Refusal of the call.
At this point, you edit out the part of the story with the Zero’s weekly allowance. You’d think now that the Zero can’t afford to buy weed and Nerds Ropes, he’ll decide to get a job so he can finally move out, right? Wrong.
4. Refusal of the call, again.
Ok, don’t freak out, but the Zero is still refusing to look for a job fearing the many perils ahead, like taxes. As a result, there’s been no progress in your story even though you’ve told your friends that you’re working on a novel. In this story stage, the Zero tries to convince you that the time he’d spend writing resumes is better spent penning his debut fantasy novel, “The Sword of Leaves.” However, every time you ask to hear the premise, the Zero refuses to share it on account that, “you wouldn’t get it, dude.” You assure him that you would get it because you’re a writer. You’re literally writing this story. The Zero sarcastically asks what you’ve written lately, which pisses you off because you can’t finish writing this story until your lazy man-child protagonist gets a job and finally moves out. You give the Zero an ultimatum: finish the first draft of “The Sword of Leaves” in a week or start interviewing.
5. Meet the mentor.
As expected, the Zero missed the deadline and now he must get a job. However, the Zero has no real-world skills to list on his CV, nor the people skills to sustain an adult conversation. That’s why, at this point in the Zero’s journey, he needs a mentor to prepare him for the challenges ahead. You offer to step in as a mentor; after all, you’re a writer, so you know a thing or two about working a part-time job. The Zero tells you that he can do it himself. After Googling for, like, five minutes, the Zero finds his mentor: a 23-year-old graduate student named Sebastian with a YouTube channel called “Who Da Boss?” You can see this going horribly wrong, but you let it happen because you think the Zero needs to learn a hard lesson about life.
6. Road of trials.
Armed with his new-found knowledge, the Zero starts interviewing at some local businesses. Like a knight wields his sword, the Zero wields his newly acquired interview tools like “dominate the conversation” and “demand your worth.” The Zero religiously follows everything he learned from Sebastian’s online class and aggressively points out everything the businesses are doing wrong. When pressed for ideas on how to fix the problems, he quotes passages from Sun Tzu’s “The Art Of War”. He doesn’t get a job.
7. The ordeal.
At this point of the story, you’ve had enough. Instead of thinking of a logical motivation for the Zero, you force him out of his room with lazy plot devices. Unhappy with your storytelling, he runs away. “Where do you think you’re going?” you ask. “Moving in with Mitch Baker”, grumbles the Zero. “Good luck with that stoner loser”, you retort. The Zero tells you to fuck off. Ok, there’s no pretty way to say this, but at this point in the story, you totally lose your shit.
8. The aftermath.
Moving in with Mitch Baker? This isn’t how you wanted the Zero’s adventure to happen. You wanted the his journey to be uplifting, like something from a fairytale book. You wanted the Zero to conquer his fears and slay his foes…. but then it dawns on you. You’re the enemy. You’re the one that’s been holding the Zero back. You’re the one who wrote the first passage about the Zero, a boy hungry for adventure, and then you left the story unfinished for years — what chance did he have to succeed?
9. The revelation.
At this stage, you try to overcome writer’s block with good writing habits. You remind yourself that it’s ok to fall short sometimes because the important thing is showing up every day. You even join a writing club, which is a huge step for you since you’ve never put your work out there for others to read before. In this part of the story, you come to understand that every one of your characters reflects aspects of yourself beyond your immediate awareness. In other words, you realize that the Zero’s journey and your journey are one and the same.
10. The adventure begins.
You return to your desk and write this passage:
“The Zero lies awake on the couch. His loser stoner friend Mitch Baker is asleep on a floor mattress, holding a giant bag of money. The Zero gets up and goes to the bathroom. He washes his face, and gurgles water in his mouth, then walks out of the bathroom, finds his clothes and puts them on. He stands over the sleeping Mitch Baker and gently lifts Mitch’s arm. The Zero takes the bag and heads for the door. He takes one last look at Mitch and then disappears.”
You show your draft to your writing club, and another student, Janine, says it’s rip-off of the movie Trainspotting, but you don’t care because the important thing is that you finally figured out how your story begins.
