The Heroine's Labyrinth: Archetypal Designs in Heroine-Led Fiction

by Douglas A. Burton

"Douglas Burton has cracked the code"—Christopher Vogler, author of 'The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers'

"[Burton] proves his thesis that Joseph Campbell missed half the story" -Matt Bird, author of 'The Secrets of Story' and 'The Secrets of Character'

The hero’s journey has been the go-to model for story structure for decades. Now, Douglas A. Burton presents a groundbreaking new paradigm for writers. Sourced entirely from heroine-led fiction—the results add new perspectives and strategies to the storytelling landscape. Take a fresh look at 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 the recurrent themes and patterns modeled by heroic women in fiction.

Inside, you’ll discover 18 archetypal designs that form a distinctive narrative arc, each one rich with profound meaning and secret wisdom. Discover the narrative power of timeless archetypes such as The Masked Minotaur, the Sacred Fire, the Beast as Ally, the Poisoned Apple, and more. Novelists, screenwriters, RPG game/dungeon masters, and memoirists will immediately benefit from the storytelling model of the Heroine’s Labyrinth.

Genres: Writing, Nonfiction, Feminism

285 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 24, 2024

About the author

Douglas A. Burton is a novelist and storyteller whose various works emphasize heroic women in fiction. Burton’s debut historical novel, Far Away Bird, brought Byzantine Empress Theodora to life through an intimate biographical account. The novel collected numerous awards including gold medals for the IBPA’s Best New Voice in Fiction, Readers’ Favorite Historical Personage, and eLit’s Best Historical Fiction eBook. Far Away Bird was also a finalist for the Montaigne Medal (Eric Hoffer Book Award) and Screencraft’s Cinematic Book competition. His articles and work on Theodora have appeared in Ms. Magazine, Focus On Women magazine, and have been cited on Wikipedia.

Burton’s newest book, The Heroine’s Labyrinth: Archetypal Designs in Heroine-Led Fiction, is a nonfiction writing craft book that boldly presents a paradigm shift for story structure. Sourced entirely from heroine-centric stories, the heroine’s labyrinth narrative model offers a completely original and groundbreaking alternative to the hero’s journey. The book has been endorsed by Hollywood and storytelling gurus such as Christopher Vogler and Matt Bird.

Burton appears regularly on the Table Talk YouTube channel to talk about pop culture, film, and storytelling. He currently lives in Austin, TX with his wonderful wife, Crystal, and two energetic boys, Jacob and Lucas.

Reviews

[Marquise · Rating 1 out of 5]

It's a bit hard for me to review this book, because on one hand I can see that it could have its uses for people who work telling stories, especially if they are men wanting to write female characters that aren't dreadful; but, on the other hand I find the premise of the book rather weak and even a tad patronising.

I mean, there already are at least two books (and written by women too!) that discuss the Hero's Journey in its feminine version, one by Gail Carriger (which I loved) and another by Maureen Murdock, that already cover this topic from a narrative and a psychological/archetypal angle respectively. Not to mention that there are female psychologists' answers to Jung and Campbell on the matter of archetypes and the Hero's Journey applied to women. So why is a book like this, written by a man who confesses to having struggled with writing realistic female characters, touted as "cracking the code" of good feminine characterisation?

That men are pretending a man has cracked the code and somehow found the feminine equivalent to the Hero's Journey is in itself problematic, as it erases the fact that women have already explained women. The Hero's Journey is a masculine archetype, it always has been, even Campbell has admitted as much, because most if not all of the classical and archetypal heroic stories are protagonised by men. Nothing wrong with that, history proves that it's always been a man's tale to be told, and we can't pretend the Hero's Journey applies to women, because there's simply no monomyth for women like there's for men. That's a fact women know, we don't need to hear that from a man that's just recently realised this fact a little while ago, millennia late.

My issues with this book started pretty early, when in the Preface the author says that the idea came from writing a historical novel about Theodora, the Empress of Byzantium, and whilst trying to fit her story into the tight Hero's Journey box, he lost the plot because it became evident that her story didn't fit the Hero's Journey mould. I was incredulous at reading that passage, very incredulous. Are you seriously telling me that you were trying to force a REAL PERSON that actually existed to follow a narrative guideline laid our for FICTIONAL people? A woman who existed in history being shoehorned into the mould of non-existent men? All because you thought women have to follow the Hero's Journey regardless of their unique situation throughout history?

I just . . . I couldn't take the rest of the book seriously after that. Burton then says that he "found the answer" in . . . archetypes. A mishmash of archetypes scattered all over myths, legends, and fairy tales, which he then calls the Feminine Monomyth, only to contradict himself in the chapters that follow and admit that these archetypes a) aren't one (thus no Monomyth exists for women), and b) they're often gender-neutral and apply to men and women. Oh, and c) he claims that the feminine heroic journey isn't linear like men's but circular, yet some of these archetypes are linear, thus no "Labyrinth" either.

I'm sorry to say, but personally I found no value in this book. I would rather recommend the books by Carriger, Murdock, von Franz, Warner, etc., over this. It might give you ideas for a plot with your female characters, but I don't think it'll go past that.

I received an ARC through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

[Meredith S. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic resource for writing stories that feature heroines. The Hero's Journey as a structural writing craft model does a great job describing a subset of heroic stories - namely journey/quest plots with high stakes. However, it isn't broad enough (nor should it be) to describe all heroic narratives. This labyrinth model is a helpful complement to Hero's Journey because it describes another subset of heroic stories - namely the conflicts and social issues commonly found in female-led fiction. The book does a great job outlining the model, describing its flexibility, and illustrating the structure through examples. It seems to ring true for a ton of stories featuring female main characters, so I think Douglas has captured a meaningful and useful story structure in this fantastic book.

[Katie Cavender · Rating 5 out of 5]

The only reason finishing this book took me as long as it did was because it inspired me to dive in to my first novel-writing journey.

I had this idea months ago, I had written and stopped and started again and what I had was barely there at all. But as I read through Burton’s archetypal structure, my story became clear.

Everything he points out was something I’d noticed before, but only subconsciously. I found myself nodding along. It all made sense. I proceeded to lay out the majority of my story beats along the Heroine’s Labyrinth, and now I feel free to just go. It all fits.

I highly recommend this book for any new writer who wants to follow a female protagonist.

[Michelle Graf · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thanks to NetGalley and Silent Music Press for the ARC.

I like the ideas for story structure here, as someone who has always struggled with that in my writing. Taking this approach to a heroine's story in a way that almost runs parallel to the hero's journey is food for thought, and he provides some good examples of the archetypes he believes are central to the heroine's labyrinth. But I would only use it as far as writing inspiration, rather than anything farther-reaching in scope. He largely uses modern books and movies as examples in order to make the concepts widely understood, and while that's great, I would have liked to see more mythological samples as well. If you're going to keep calling this the feminine monomyth, I'd expect to find examples throughout most of the history of storytelling and not just the past century or so. I also haven't seen most of the shows he mentions. They might be too recent to serve as widely understood examples. I also wish that, in the end, he would walk through one or two stories or movies and how they fit the heroine's labyrinth to bring it all together in a clear picture. I guess that's available on his website, but I would have preferred it all in one place.

There's also the nagging feeling that this is a little too reductive, coming from a man summarizing a wide swath of women's stories to fit his theory. He mentions trying to fit the life of a Byzantine empress into the hero's journey for a book he was writing, finding that it wasn't working, and decided to work on this. He also uses memoirs as examples, and I dont entirely feel comfortable with shoving real women's experiences into a narrative structure for fiction, we're so complex, of course it's not gonna fit right. There are reviews recommending writings by Gail Carriger and Maureen Murdock that cover the heroine's journey from two different perspectives. To the author's credit, he does mention both of them as part of the research he did in writing this book. If you want to dive further into the subject, or if you feel like it's missing something, those are good places to start.

[Brianna Silva · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every fiction writer needs to read this book.

Douglas A. Burton is onto something here. Ever since Campbell's The Hero With a Thousand Faces, students of storytelling, mythology, and psychology have been searching for the holy grail: the feminine alternative to the hero's journey story structure. And I do believe Burton has found it.

Granted, he's not the first to explore this topic, but he's the first to do it in a practical, useful way specifically catered to writers. He has discovered an archetypal pattern as powerful and universal as the hero's journey that I do believe many writers will soon be studying and integrating into their stories.

Hell, many of us have already been using these archetypal patterns without realizing it. Just as Campbell did not invent the hero's journey, but merely discovered its pattern, so too has Burton discovered something profound that's already been with us for centuries (and maybe longer).

Of course, the problem with Campbell's work was that it was hard for many people to understand. It wasn't until Christopher Vogler broke Campbell's ideas down in The Writer's Journey and made the hero's journey accessible for writers that it became so widespread as a story structure in Hollywood and beyond.

Burton has helpfully skipped this step. He outlines his "heroine's labyrinth" model and makes it incredibly accessible and practical for writers right out of the gate. This book is not just easy to understand, but it's fun to read, and I was sorry when it was over.

I really can't praise this book enough. It has had a deep impact on me, and I won't stop recommending it to anyone who writes stories!

P.S. Before Douglas A. Burton published this book, I had the pleasure of discussing (and sometimes challenging) its ideas with him on YouTube. You can watch his deep-dive conversations with me and several other writers on the Table Talk YouTube channel.

[Anna Drake · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Heroine's Labyrinth is a work of literary criticism that examines how female protagonists follow a different archetypal structure than the typical hero's journey scenario as described by Joseph Campbell. At first I was quite skeptical at the binary approach to literature as, while a valid direction of discussing archetypes, seemed to categorize gender neatly into two boxes, based on the summary descriptions. I also was skeptical with the opening argument that this structure ALWAYS takes place and will always take place.

However, after reading the analysis and examples provided, I found the work to be refreshingly interesting in its content and showing a deep appreciation for the value that female.protagonists bring to a narrative and the archetypal "labyrinthian" journey they face. The author also noted the relationship and perspective that women have toward their own worlds, whether mythological, dystopian, historical or social. The overall impression given is one of appreciation for the complexity of the narrative structure. Women's motivations, their focus on the home and transforming culture and righting injustices are illustrated via tarot cards. While tarot cards may not initially seem like an academic topic of conversation (i.e. spiritualism) the way that they are used are to illustrate how the archetypal heroine's journey can be just as powerfully depicted and meaningful as the hero's journey, which is depicted in the typical hanged man, falling tower, etc. In fact, I'd love to purchase a set of these cards if only to use them as props for teaching about storytelling.

Each chapter includes deep literary criticism from Greek mythology and contemporary films such as the Hunger Games, Alien, Star Wars, and other works of literature and film that are well-known to many. At the end of each chapter, the key arguments are summarized in bullet points and discussion prompts are provided. I can imagine a fascinating college course on this topic using this book as a primary text.

The writing style and tone was accessible and fun to read (as an English degree holder and English teacher), even though I wasn't a fan of the intrusive narrator "dear reader" approach in places (This last part is because it makes the writing feel a bit Victorian). I feel it's suitable for advanced high school classes and for freshman or sophomore year courses. But I also think it's a fun read outside of an academic setting for anyone interested in heroines as protagonists or heroine-based storytelling. I am currently writing a YA novel and I was shocked as to how many aspects of the author's archetypal structure matched my unintentional.premise, plot points and set-up. I found that the heroine's labyrinth is interesting because women engage in self-reflection and introspection as part of the plot. Their interests are both internal and external. I would recommend this as a text for creative writing and popular fiction courses or those interesting in self-publishing.

[Juli Rahel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey has left an indelible mark on popular culture, from Star Wars onwards. Campbell's work was deeply comparative, drawing on tales across centuries and continents. Despite how erudite it is, however, the Hero's Journey is not without its critics. In The Heroine's Labyrinth, Douglas Burton attempts to establish, seemingly, a female equivalent, to mixed results. Thanks to Silent Music Press and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

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.

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.

URL: https://universeinwords.blogspot.com/...

[Lily · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this fantastic exploration of storytelling techniques, story structure, and character archetypes, Douglas Burton brings a modern pop culture approach to a new paradigm focusing on female-centric and heroine-led fictional narratives. Drawing on a wide variety of texts from myths and literature to TV and film, this book focuses on the archetypal designs that form a heroine-centric narrative arc unique from other structures used to explore modern female protagonists in pop culture. Providing readers and writers with tips and strategies for approaching heroine-led fiction as viewer and creator, this new model transforms standing perspectives on female-centric media and centers these stories about unique narrative moments and challenges that women experience. With beautiful images, many relevant examples from popular culture that readers will be familiar with, and a fascinatingly engaging organizational structure, Burton’s book is a must-read for writers, feminist scholars, academics, and others interested in heroine-led narratives. Building off the more established hero’s journey and heroine’s journey from the late twentieth century, this new updated version takes many narratives and many women characters into account in the construction of this particular brand of storytelling. A brilliant, exciting, and engaging story with so many fascinating examples and activities for writers, this is a definite must-read in the world of modern heroine-led narratives.

Thanks to NetGalley, Silent Music Press, Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA), and Members' Titles for the advance copy.

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

(4.8 stars) If you ever wondered if character building shined for the female characters here’s your chance to find out. Interestingly, when I first saw the cover, I immediately thought of the Metropolis film poster for some reason. In contrast to the hero’s journey (but no less important) the heroine has her own set of world building guidelines that don’t always follow the layout that Joseph Campbell observed. In this book we deal with a new set of archetypes that represent environments/characters/abilities that the heroine may likely encounter. The world stays closer to her native culture, and all the twists and turns all lead back eventually to being close to home. It’s not a Distant Dragon she worries about, but a Masked Minotaur that is the threat. Some might consider this a dry read, as it is mostly talking about how to build a better story structure with these archetypes. Yet I really enjoyed reading about this and the various examples that are given. The expectations and the point of view of the heroine differ very much from the more warrior orientated hero going out to fight in new lands. It’s almost like a different psychology for the heroine coming from a familiar domesticity to handling challenges that are more cerebral. All the while, the heroine role is trying to find some atonement and validation at the end of this life’s labyrinth. I think both story writers and people intrigued by psychology with archetypical symbols might really enjoy this book.

*Now if you saw any of my book progress prior this on the pages you’ll notice, I did catch a couple small in story issues. Just mainly characters being named as examples, but mistakenly for others in the film or storyline (Frozen, Coco, and Othello moments). It doesn’t take away from the information, but just something to think about in continuity.

[Liz Logan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found it very thoughtful and helpful. I enjoyed it and have lots of ideas for how to apply the ideas to my writing. I loved the way the book was formatted, and really found the idea of tarot draws as chapters very interesting.

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

At the risk of sounding like someone who's just bitching for the sake of bitching, let me say this first: The info presented here is good. Really good, even. I had to stop several times to take notes on my own writing project(s), because the author did bring words to some things that are sometimes hard to identify, and gave some very useful generalized archetypes that we have seen/still see in literature that features heroines vs. heroes.

So I'm not bashing it, I'm just observing a few things that gave me pause.

For example, I do find it ironic that it takes a man to explain to all of us how a heroine's journey is much different than a hero's. It takes these archetypes to get it to coalesce, because we tend to just not follow a nicely-conforming circular journey, as the Hero's Journey does. And as women, we subconsciously know this already. We can look at the Hero's Journey and not necessarily resonate with it, because our stories are...different. The author acknowledges this in the introduction even: he was frustrated by trying to past the HJ onto his female characters and not having it fit. So he did some looking from outside and found these archetypes, which he brings to the writing people.

There's something about it that sets my back teeth on edge, to be honest. I'm not a big active feminist, other than in the purest form of the word, but having a dude swoop down to tell us all about ourselves and our stories through these archetypes because we don't follow the whole male journey thing...feels a little weird to me.

Moreover, I think some of the bases upon which he pulls these archetypes and images are a little iffy. The labyrinth, for instance, is explained to be the symbol -- rather than "journey" -- because it's "nonlinear". A labyrinth, however, as the image he uses for illustration, IS linear. There's one way in, one path around, and one way out. You can't get more linear. It's more contemplative and slow-moving, but it's literally a single, linear path.

It also feels, from time to time, like he's portraying his research as this gift -- like, "I went among the women's stories and I have brought this back for you. (How very Hero's Journey, actually. :D). Here is how you may understand Women. But don't worry...this won't "invalidate or take away from the Hero's Journey"". (The invalidation bit is an actual quote. I'm sort of rankled that we live in a world where this point has to be stated to avoid turning the testosterone ragers into vocal haters who claim anything said concerning women-specific experiences is somehow invalidating men. Ugh.)

(And all reviews here, btw, are women, other than the author themself, interestingly enough. So the target market, intended or not, seems to be women, which is also interesting.)

Again, it's still mostly a good reference. If you're writing a story helm-ed by a woman, I'd still recommend this for food for thought. Though I do think I'd recommend it WITH another woman-written book: The Heroine's Journey: For Writers, Readers, and Fans of Pop Culture, by Gail Carriger, or on a more meta level, Maureen Murdock's The Heroine's Journey: Woman's Quest for Wholeness. (The latter of which is more psychology than writing, but it's good for context, putting words to some of the things we know but haven't articulated, too.)

[Jamie Bee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Writing (or Playing) A Heroine with a Thousand Faces

I appreciate this book on so many levels! As a female, a writer, a voracious reader, and lover of popular culture old and new, this book spoke to me on every level. I also deeply appreciate how this book was a long time in coming as the author read, watched, and researched to puzzle out the theory of what he sees as the heroine's journey, separate from but equal to the infamous hero’s journey popularized by mythologist Joseph Campbell. So refreshing to see such dedication and personal voice in the current nonfiction wasteland becoming increasingly populated by AI “enhanced” writing!

I would agree the two “journeys” have inherently different energies and pathways. Thankfully, the author does not linger long on the hero's journey except to use it as a touchpoint, focusing instead on what he calls the heroine's labyrinth, a very different archetypal structure than the linear hero's journey. I will need to re-read this a few times to get the most from it. As both a reader and a female, I find that some aspects of this approach don't quite feel organic or truly archetypal. In places, I still get an "either/or vibe," which is a very masculine construct. To me, the best heroine-driven stories are more about how a heroine ultimately synthesizes her challenges into an outcome both reflective of her genuine, beyond-gender self and her society/world. She must be both true to herself and a member of her society/culture (whether real or imagined).

I like how the author incorporates tarot-like concepts. He explained at the beginning how someone knowledgeable of the tarot cards' meaning and their particular spreads weaves their knowledge and intuition into a coherent story as each card is pulled, integrating and shifting meaning ever so slightly to fit a particular narrative flow (“what are the cards trying to tell you?”). If you're not into the tarot, don't worry, as the author skillfully weaves the tarot-like aspects in to help both those unfamiliar with archetypes and those more familiar with them better understand through symbolism similar to it (but not exactly the same). This is important because archetypes are the foundation of monomyths, whether that’s the heroine's labyrinth, the hero's journey, or the stories humans have told themselves since time immemorial in different eras and cultures, in both “the real world” and fiction. As you work through the book, you'll discover the author has created a visual journey for the reader reminiscent of the tarot but not exactly like it. As someone who's read tarot for decades, incorporating this aspect helped me better understand what the author was getting at. The "cards" in this book are stunningly beautiful, well drawn, and well imagined. They certainly speak to the part of the mind that appreciates symbols and images, not just facts and logic. The colorful infographics incorporating words and symbols help pull it all together.

If you're a writer, someone who likes to think about books or films, or even someone who enjoys team-directed D&D-type role-playing games, this book could certainly give you greater insights into what a strong heroine is and what you can do with a strong heroine if you’re a creative or game player. The author gives you interesting “homework,” like reading books and watching movies as you ponder the details of how particular aspects of them relate to the different parts of the journey through the labyrinth. I love the archetypal synopsis at the end of each chapter.

Highly recommended.

I received a free digital copy of this book, but that did not affect my review.

[Aivee · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book reads like a man explaining to other men how to write female characters. Burton admits that this book project came about because he struggled to write a female lead in his own debut novel, and at one point, he explains that he used to judge the quality of stories based on whether they followed the hero's journey or not--it shows.

Burton has clearly struggled to arrive at the "insights" into the female experience that he presents in his book, most of which any woman could have explained to you while still a teenager. Despite this, he presents his personal opinions and realizations as deep truths that are still waiting to be discovered by the general public. The overall effect is that the book is quite patronizing, despite Burton's constant assertion that "the heroine is sovereign." In fact, Burton explains that he created this mantra primarily to remind himself to respect the heroine's intelligence and humanity even when he felt that her choices were foolish, immature, irrational and/or weak. (Burton frequently falls into accepting stereotypes that women are fundamentally innocent and nurturing above all else, and leaves little room for complex or unlikeable female protagonists.)

I could go on, but I'll stop there because even if I ignore all my frustrations with the above issues, the biggest flaw in this book is that Burton doesn't seem to know what this project is actually supposed to be. Is he explaining how to write female characters, or is he outlining a new narrative structure?

At the outset (and half-heartedly throughout) Burton claims that the heroine's labyrinth (which he quickly slips into calling "the feminine monomyth") is a narrative model that is not gender-specific. Yet, again and again, the only requirement of the examples that he relies on to prove the supposed pervasiveness of these archetypes is that they involve a biologically female character. He often volleys through examples without any real discussion of them. If you blindly accept his examples, it looks like the archetypes are substantiated by a wide range of film and literature. If you actually critically think about the examples he provides, however, you'll find that many examples are one-off scenes with female side-characters. Many come from stories with classic and well-established Hero's Journey narrative structures. As a result, Burton consistently undermines his own attempt to identify a unique narrative structure.

The key problem is that if this book is not an outline of a distinct narrative structure, then it is only a book about how to write female characters. And if you are looking for advice on how to write female characters, I would strongly recommend you find another book (preferably one written by a female author).

[Shireen · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 stars
I thoroughly enjoyed the journey I went on while reading this writers' craft book! I wasn't quite sure what to expect since I'm not a writer by trade, but Burton took me on a wild ride of exploration and self-discovery regarding feminine power, creativity, fire and strength, all in the service of helping other authors of fiction find their voice and create truly dynamic, feminine-led stories.

The book is designed to provide a fluid framework for authors wanting to create an authentic exploration of the heroine's journey storyline. But perhaps the most crucial point here is to understand that the heroine's journey is usually much more inwardly focused than the typical hero's journey away from home. Most of us are familiar with Joseph Campbell and his work on the hero myth/fable/story as it pertains to human storytelling history. But less often explored is the heroine archetype and how it differs dramatically from the typical hero model in certain, distinctive ways, i.e. personal conflict or growth via internal versus external loci of control. Burton's book seeks to remedy that historical imbalance of information, and I would argue that he does it quite well.

I feel like Burton does a big service to his audience by framing the entire book as a tarot deck reading to lay out the 'labyrinth of the heroine', so that we ourselves must follow along as it organically twists and turns in order to understand how the given narrative may come to final fruition. We experience how the narrative structure can shift, flow and bend to the author's will via the use of powerful archetypes that are explained in further detail. It is incredibly evident how much research and effort went into structuring this book, with the author providing dozens of examples of the heroine's labyrinth themes in modern books, television and movies so that a modern audience can more easily relate to and immediately understand the thematic tropes being referenced. Burton also includes an overview of various storytelling genres at the end of the book in which he speaks to how the model of the heroine's labyrinth is particularly suited to provide for compelling storylines in each of the genres.

As I said before, I am not a professional writer but I've read LOTS of books across various literary genres and feel like I know what makes a story interesting enough to grab its audience's attention. But I definitely learned a few things about the basics of effective storytelling as it relates to the mythic labyrinthine journey of the heroine, and how and why those stories can be so utterly compelling.

Thank you to NetGalley, Douglas A. Burton, and Silent Music Press for this advance digital readers copy. All opinions are my own.

[Zazine · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Heroine's Labyrinth or How I learned to unmask my bias and enjoy the journey.

I requested this book on NetGalley because it seemed to have an interesting premise. An alternative to the Hero's Journey, but from the female perspective. It's been years since I've read the famous Hero with 1000 faces, but the concept of a Hero's journey is omnipresent in today's pop-culture so I was eager to see what's different when you have a Heroine instead of a Hero.

The introduction made me skeptical, as I always am when people imply the have The Answer. The focus on contemporary references over classic ones and the use of tarot cards as placeholders for archetypal designs made me DNF the book early on. I read a couple of reviews that confirmed my bias and I kind of just forgot about it.

Flash forward to a month or so later and I was talking to a friend about Hummingbird Salamander (by Jeff VanderMeer) and how I found the book to be similar to another one of his, but the fact that this one had a female lead really didn't work for me. This made me give the Heroine's Labyrinth another go, focusing more on the story elements/archetypal events and less on the things annoying me.

Turns out the book is actually good as a guide to observe or write stories. It showcases a series of recurring key points that many stories have in common. I took the time to think of examples from the books I've read and I found that a lot of the points applied to both ancients myths and modern books. Obviously, there are exceptions - I Who Have Never Known Men (by Jacqueline Harpman) or Meike Ziervogel's books didn't fit much at all, but when looking at more mainstream-focused stories I could recognize those elements.

I'm not gonna list or explain all the archetypal designs, you'll have to read the book for that. I do want to say I liked that the focus was split between the character motivators (reasons why the story is happening) and the elements that make the story compelling.
Considering the premise that these archetypes are based on stories told orally (before the invention of writing) then the only way they could pass forward the information they needed to was by being memorable.
Focusing on both the message and the medium is the right way to go.

I would've liked an analysis on how the Labyrinth framework applies to the popular "feminist retellings" of ancient stories, but I guess I'll have to do that myself.

And a few ending notes:
- about half the examples given are from Disney movies and shows, that seemed a bit too much;
- the representation of non-western stories was almost non-existent (for a book about universal human archetypes I expected more) and
- the author quotes Barbie and Nietzsche on the same page - I loved it!

[Katie · Rating 2 out of 5]

A cis man who has true talent with the pen uses the pseudoscience of tarot reading to tell the world how to write "the feminine."

Let me start with the good. Burton can write! Most of my highlights relate to his ability to weave words wonderfully. And those tarot cards! Who's the illustrator? I tried Googling but didn't get anywhere. Curious minds want to know. I also appreciate the reach of the material: the author has indulged in quite an array of media, and uses this knowledge amply and clearly, allowing even those of us who are unacquainted with particular examples to grasp the point. I also think there's much to be learned here, but perhaps not in the expected ways.

On that note, the bad ... I went into this expecting a feminist take on crafting narratives that centre feminine characters, but what I got was Stereotyping the Narrative 101. I mean, Burton starts by admitting that he never really grokked how to write women, and ends by arguing for a future filled with novels featuring mother-daughter strife as a driving narrative force. This is not feminism, man! I'm also aware that others have done this before, and better. And with more feminism. I suspect that, if I had the time and will, I could take each one of these scaffolds and find (a) many counterpoints and (b) many examples across a range of hero narratives. What really bothers me is that at a meta levelーand this is a book for writersーthe purpose is to underline that there's stories for men and there's stories for women (and maybe sometimes things are genderqueered up but also no genderqueer narrative structures apparently exist, since everything is binary here). I'm actually filled with a bit of dread at the thought that future writers may lean on this material for guidance. I also couldn't help but notice who was asked to give this book advance praise, right there in the summary ... and hence who the intended writers may be ... and given the looming presence of the patriarchy, especially in publishing, I find myself on high alert. This all more or less helped me realize just what kind of stereotypes (cis men) writers have about gender, and the steadfast urge to gender characters, as in erecting and subjecting characters to (traditional and constraining) gender roles. I'd rather do away with the whole kit and caboodle ... just because it's been done for x-number of years, doesn't mean we have to or should stick with it. Finally, the whole tarot card circumscription bit was a gimmick (albeit gorgeous).

Writers, go in with a discerning eye. This might give you ideas, including what not to do.

Thank you to NetGalley and Silent Music Press for the advance copy.

[Book Reviewer · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Heroine's Labyrinth offers a fresh and intriguing take on the archetypal journey of heroines in fiction. In contrast to the widely known Hero’s Journey, Burton explores a labyrinthine narrative in which heroines face unique challenges within their native culture rather than venturing into far-off lands. Burton’s framework introduces the concept of the heroine’s labyrinth, an intricate and symbolic gameboard that reflects the complexities of modern and mythological female characters.

One thing I really appreciated was how the author vividly presents the heroine's struggle within her native culture. Author Douglas Burton notes how labyrinths are often hidden in plain sight, representing the societal expectations and restrictions that heroines must navigate. The imagery is so impactful that it feels immediately familiar, like when he references The Shining and Wendy Torrance’s struggle within the Overlook Hotel. He likens Wendy’s journey to a labyrinthine escape. Burton’s analysis of these narrative structures was one of my favorite aspects of the book. It felt insightful and original and offered a new lens to view stories I’ve already seen a hundred times.

While I enjoyed the book, I did find myself overwhelmed at times by the volume of examples Burton uses to make his points. While they helped reinforce the ideas, the sheer number of pop culture references sometimes felt like they bogged down the flow of the book. For instance, Burton jumps from discussing The Hunger Games to Alice in Wonderland to Ex Machina so quickly that I found myself wishing he had lingered longer on each story’s nuances. However, the variety of examples demonstrates his labyrinth concept's wide applicability across different genres and mediums.

Burton’s emphasis on the psychological stakes of the heroine’s journey was something I found particularly powerful. Unlike the hero’s journey, which often revolves around external conflict, the heroine's battle is internal as much as it is external. Heroines don’t simply fight monsters. They contend with societal pressures, family expectations, and the complexities of self-actualization. I loved his interpretation of Katniss Everdeen’s struggles, showing how her journey through the dystopian Capitol is more about navigating cultural manipulation than brute survival.

The Heroine’s Labyrinth is a must-read for writers and storytellers looking to craft nuanced female characters with depth and complexity. Burton offers a comprehensive toolkit for rethinking the traditional arc of the heroine, providing practical advice and theoretical insights.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

Brought forth in the writings of Joseph Campbell and writ large on the screen with movies like Star Wars, the hero’s journey has become the ubiquitous story of growth to maturity for young males—the male monomyth. As Burton rightly points out, this path is most often ill fitted to a woman’s journey. In this book he proposes an alternative.

Over the years I have read a number of books on the hero’s journey—some targeted specifically at writers and some not. All were comparable in their handling of the archetypes and key points of the journey. I’ve also read a few different books on the heroine’s journey. Certainly different from the hero’s journey, but also subtly different from each other. There was even a book on the virgin’s promise that itself mentions a woman’s path following concentric circles or an inward spiral.

I found Burton’s book to be well researched and appreciated his use of more recent and familiar books and movies to illustrate his defined points along the heroine’s journey. His Anatomy of an Archetype summaries were concise, and I found them useful for quick reference during the writing process. Chapter exercises help solidify familiarity with the material. The illustrations throughout the book were beautiful. The genre specific appendices were an appreciated addition.

Had this been my first book on the heroine’s journey I would have been hugely impressed. Douglas has clearly done much work to try to tease out the feminine analog of the hero’s journey. As it is, I find it to be a well explained and useful refinement of the books that came before it. And while I personally like the tarot references in naming and explaining the journey’s beats, I don’t feel this iconography will lend itself to becoming the final, ubiquitous form of the female monomyth.

I picked up this book looking for a tool to aid in writing the journeys of female characters in my stories—which this book certainly is, but I’m left pondering the journey itself. Perhaps the heroine’s journey has not yet been boiled down to a single form so easily recognizable as the hero’s journey, because, at their core, men are less complex in their actions and motivations than women. Or, perhaps, the external, outward-bound journeys of men are more straightforward than the layered and nuanced inward journeys of women. That is a question I don’t feel qualified to answer.

I received a free copy of this book and am voluntarily leaving a review.

[Kate Robinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Once I developed a working model for the heroine’s labyrinth, I realized just how many of our stories match the labyrinth model over the journey model."

Douglas A. Burton reveals the feminine perspective in this groundbreaking volume inspired by Joseph Campbell’s work on the hero’s journey and masculine archetypal themes in fiction. As Burton worked on Far Away Bird (2020), his historical novel about the Byzantine empress Theodora, he noted (along with a few other writers and academics) that the patterns, themes, and archetypal symbols in female-centered stories vary from the archetypal patterns proposed by Campbell’s hero’s journey. Burton initially worked to organize Theodora’s life into a compelling structure, turning to Campbell’s work for support. However, he found that the structure of Theodora’s life didn’t reflect the hero’s journey closely, so he sought the feminine archetypal equivalents by studying a plethora of critiques, blogs, articles, and books about women’s spiritual journeys. He soon found that very few enlightened him in the manner that Campbell’s work did about the steps of the narrative arc that appears universally in mythological tales about heroes who journey far from home to vanquish a villain or a threat. These steps resonate with people of widely different cultures because they are believed to be archetypes or archetypal symbols—primal models embedded in human consciousness. This is the reason these symbolic aspects ring true in diverse cultures.

Burton’s compelling work is presented step-by-step in chapters discussed and illustrated in a tarot card format. The gorgeous tarot card illustrations help to define the steps of the heroine’s labyrinth and bring these to vivid life. . .

Read more at The US Review of Books!
https://www.theusreview.com/reviews-1...

[James (JD) Dittes · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have written many stories and manuscripts with female characters, but I am always worried that I'm missing something. I always blamed my Y chromosome for holding me back from getting the most out of these really cool stories.

But Douglas Burton has shown me the way, and he has written The Heroine's Labyrinth to encourage writers to take their female characters on a journey that is fundamentally different from the Hero's Journey, the template that most myths follow.

To make his case, Burton provides examples for each of the 18 elements of the Labyrinth, using modern movies -- his was the first book I've read that cited the Barbie movie -- and classic tales with female heroines. This really helped me to understand in a deep way these elements, and he provides follow-up questions at the end of each section to help readers internalize the lessons he is giving.

Unlike the Hero's Journey, the Heroine's Labyrinth, as the title suggests, often begins and ends close to home, with many of the conflicts incorporating societal constraints and gender norms. Along the way, they encounter disguised villains, the "Minotaurs", and Burton even provides an explanation of the animal friends that pop up in so many Disney movies like Cinderella and Snow White.

I highly recommend this book for writers, especially those males who -- like me -- have struggled with realistic female protagonists. Thanks to Net Galley for providing me with a free copy of the text in exchange for this honest review.

[A.M. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Anyone who says a man cannot write a title on the heroine’s journey is showing their whole ass and their lack of reading comprehension; it is not based on gender or limited by it. So they need to go read the book again. Harry Potter is heroine’s journey tale FFS.

And if you start telling men they cannot write women's stories, then it is a very small step to tell women they cannot write men’s stories, you know? Keep the gates open for everyone.

The author has made up some cool tarot kind of cards for his stages [in Midjourney? perhaps?] , and there is a very neat spiral graphic on the website, but not in the book. His numbering of paragraphs was all messed up in my copy, too.

He notes that women do not seem to refuse the call the way the hero does; women always leave home to get married. It is expected of us.

The cookie in the Matrix was a computing joke.

Like a lot of craft books it is not giving you a step by step - this is how you write it - structure, but there is a lot to think about here. And more than a few things I have to go back to; watch or read again.

3 stars

[TaniaRina Valdespino · Rating 5 out of 5]

This had me at the title and again *before* the opening page
We begin with a color visual of the three Acts of The Heroine’s Labyrinth: Orientation, Exploration, and Permutation. In the Preface, the author then explains some differences between a hero’s journey and a heroine’s – and why they exist.
While the reasons should be obvious, it’s refreshing that someone actually points out that the two are inherently wired differently. We do not think, feel, or process in the same manners and one set does not negate the other - NeuroDivergents will certainly understand this premise!


The author deepens and widens our general understanding with Tarot & other forms of spiritualities, sprinkles examples from older stories & modern films, and provides additional material at the end in the form of Appendices & Genres. Great color pics, too.

This is a well-written yet short resource – a lot of information but without overwhelming.

Now it’s time to follow the author’s model and re-visit some tales with fresh eyes.

[Andrea Wenger · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book revolutionizes storytelling by exploring the unique narrative arc of heroic women, revealing 18 powerful archetypes like the Masked Minotaur and the Sacred Fire. The author challenges conventional story structure, offering fresh insights into character development, conflict, and heroism.

This brilliant book is indispensable and career-changing. It offers novelists, screenwriters, and memoirists an exciting alternative for narratives that don’t follow the traditional hero’s journey. I’m still trying to figure out how this structure would work for romance novels without a villain (for instance, maybe the Masked Minotaur could represent society in general rather than a single character). But it’s definitely changed how I view story structure.

Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC I received. This is my honest and voluntary review.

[Nora Staal · Rating 3 out of 5]

I won a free copy of this book in a Goodreads giveaway, so in the spirit of the giveaways I feel obliged to do my part and write a review. However, I obviously didn’t read the description well when I signed up for the giveaway, because I was looking forward to a fiction novel, featuring a strong heroine who forges her way out of a literal or figurative labyrinth. That is not what this is. So, I was very disappointed and can’t honestly say I enjoyed reading it, or even that I read much of it. But that’s not the author’s fault, so I’m trying to split the difference in my review. It seems very thoroughly researched and I liked the variety of references and examples it explored. Maybe when I’m ready to try my hand at my own novel, I read it more fully. It seems interesting.

[Katherine G. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m currently on the second draft of writing my first novel and this book has been so helpful! Each of the story points were well explained of what they were and why they are important to heroine centric stories. The only thing I wish was different is I do not like tarot cards and each story point is presented as a tarot card. But the film and book examples were perfect as the author gave so many modern examples that if I happen to not know one, there were many other examples to learn from. Before reading this book, my story unknowingly hit a lot of these points and in my current editing stage this read has solidified what story points and characters need to stay in the final draft and why. This book has given me a lot of confidence as a new writer that my story is on the right track!

[Eilis Flynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this courtesy Net Galley and Silent Music Press. There are other works detailing the heroine’s journey, but this one is unique in the form in which the journey is presented. The author uses techniques that draw from sources ranging from tarot to books to TV to movies, all the way to comic books, in which archetypal heroines must make their way through their trials and tribulations, and those journeys are examined in fresh ways—in the form of a labyrinth. This work looks at the anatomy of an archetype, even includes exercises for writers to better understand the archetypal concepts that could be useful.

#TheHeroinesLabyrinth #NetGalley #HeroinesJourney #Archetypes

[Shari · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought this book at the author's launch party. The book is magnificent for writers looking for how to write stories with feminine heroines when the masculine hero's journey is not working. I love the real connections that Douglas A. Burton found in all the movie and book references. He shows how each archetype is already used in books and films. The study guides at the end of each chapter helped me to think about each archetype and understand the concept. When I watch movies now, I look for the Beast as Ally, the Fragile Power, the Masked Minotaur! It all makes sense now! I also realized that I've lived in the heroine's labyrinth and this book reflects various points of my life. Read this book to reveal the aspects of your life journey - or at least the journey of someone you know!

[Fred Fanning · Rating 4 out of 5]

A New Approach

This book provides a new approach for writing a heroine in novels. The author uses the Hero's Journey to show how his approach helps to tell the story of the heroine. The obvious work done to develop this approach must have been extreme. The author even defends his model by using heroine action in books and movies.

[Melanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Heroine's Labyrinth is a great introspection into the archetypes of the female heroine in fiction. This gives a general idea of the characters' formation and categories in novels, films, and video games.

[Dan Adiletta · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's alarming how good this is.