The Virgin's Promise: Writing Stories of Feminine Creative, Spiritual, and Sexual Awakening

by Kim Hudson, Christopher Vogler (Foreword)

The Virgin’s Promise demystifies the complexities of archetypes and clearly outlines the steps of a Virgin’s Journey to realize her dream. Audiences need to see more than brave, self-sacrificing Heroes. They need to see Virgins who bring their talents and self-fulfilling joys to life. The Virgin’s Promise describes this journey with beats that feel incredibly familiar but have not been illustrated in any other screenwriting book. It explores the yin and yang of the Virgin and Hero journeys to take up their power as individuals, and includes a practical guide to putting this new theory into action.   

Genres: Writing, Nonfiction, Mythology, Reference, Art, Adult, Psychology

180 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2010

About the author

Kim Hudson is a consultant and author of two books that, although they appear unrelated, share more in common than meets the eye. Her unique perspective comes from her varied background in many positions, including as an exploration geologist, land claims negotiator, consultant to First Nation, Territorial and Federal Governments, and film consultant.

Kim’s new book, The Bridge: Connecting the Powers of Linear and Circular Thinking, recognizes that we all have two forms of power, linear and circular, and one of them has yet to be fully realized. Kim reveals how linear power is activated by fear-based situations that must be pushed back against. Circular power understands, from a love-based perspective, how to support societal transformation, heal relationships, and foster innovations. The Bridge provides a groundbreaking framework for deciding when to use each type of power and how to navigate from one to the other.

Kim is the founder of the Two Ways of Knowing (2WK) Project conducted through Simon Fraser University Centre for Dialogue, and is proud to speak, give workshops, and consult on 2WK.

Her passion for storytelling was ignited when she studied writing for film and television at Vancouver Film School, where she was introduced to the hero archetypes. This compelled her to develop an alternative archetypal structure about discovering who you are, separate from what everyone else expects of you. She has given workshops on these topics, covered in her first book, The Virgin's Promise, in England, Sweden, Australia, Canada, and the United States, and the book is also available in Italian and Japanese.

Kim’s life revolves around two incredible places—Whitehorse and Vancouver—where she is fortunate to share her journey with her two daughters, and two grandchildren. She makes the most of all four seasons through her love of travel, paddleboarding, and skiing.

Reviews

[K.M. Weiland · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve always appreciated the Hero’s Journey and its archetypal grounding of story structure. But it’s also always bugged me in a vague way because, however prevalent and important it may be, it just never seemed to cover all it needed to. Hudson’s approach, which fleshes out the other half of the masculine journey by adding the feminine (and hints at the corresponding major arcs of middle and old age as well) rounds out the picture in a way that should have been obvious to all of us a long time ago. She gives almost as much time to the Hero’s Journey as well, which makes the book a rounded view of both of these early-life arcs. I found the book deeply moving and informative on a personal level, as well as exciting as a new tool for grounding stories in fuller archetypes.

[Lance Charnes · Rating 4 out of 5]

By now, Christopher Vogler's The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers has become part of the must-read canon for writers. It boils down Joseph Campbell's The Hero With a Thousand Faces into a form that can be used by authors and screenwriters to create a very particular story: a hero leaves his home to save it by battling evil and becoming a leader of men. It's a very masculine, external, visual kind of story and, not coincidentally, the dominant paradigm for summer blockbuster movies and thriller novels.

Author Kim Hudson thought there should be a Hero's Journey-analog for internal, "feminine" stories of self-actualization. She finally came up with one: the "Virgin's Promise," the most gawdawful name possible for what's actually a pretty good model for stories that rely on the main character's growth rather than the application of overwhelming force to solve a problem.

Despite having a title ripped from a bad bodice-ripper, The Virgin's Promise performs a valuable service in codifying every "chasing the dream" story ever written or filmed, much as The Writer's Journey provides the structure for every "quest" or "good against evil" film or novel. The tragedy of the title and some of the plot beats this model includes is that these aren't necessarily "female" stories at all, just as the Hero's Journey isn't necessarily a "masculine" story (for instance, Ripley in Alien and Joan Wilder in Romancing the Stone have Hero's Journeys). It's more useful to think of "interior" versus "exterior" plots, or "self-actualization" versus "self-sacrifice" stories.

To get an idea for what exactly a "Virgin story" is, look at this list of films the author uses as examples: About a Boy, Angels in the Outfield, Bend It like Beckham, Brokeback Mountain, Shakespeare in Love, Strictly Ballroom, Wedding Crashers. It turns out that those sports films in which an underdog athlete or team struggles against internal and external obstacles to win the championship/break the record are "Virgin stories" (don't tell ESPN Films).

After trawling though a fair amount of psychology, the author explains the thirteen steps in a Virgin Story and the six archetypes the protagonist can take on during his/her character arc. Her prose is serviceable if not exactly sparkling and she tends to belabor a point, but through the use of plenty of examples from movies old and new, the author is able to lay out her ideas in a persuasive and familiar way. She includes a number of useful tables and worksheets so you can map out the beats and character archetypes for your opus, whatever it is. This is a book for writers; readers need not apply.

This is a thin volume -- 188 pages including the aforementioned tables and job aids. In case you haven't made it through Vogler's work yet, you even get a review of the Hero's Journey and helpful charts that show how it can play nicely with a Virgin's Promise. Even at this (lack of) length, though, the book still feels padded.

Despite its retrograde title, The Virgin's Promise is a good reference for authors who want to write about characters who follow their dreams rather than blowing the hell out of the bad guys. Don't worry if your main character's a dude or has been around the block a few times; it's all about being All S/He Can Be. And who doesn't want that for their characters?

[Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

While this is a great resource for writers, it is marred by the fact that apparently nobody thought to check the Kindle version. The text is riddled with weird spaces in words-- Holly wood (Hollywood), for ward (forward), These us and the Minotaur (Theseus and the Minotaur), etc. I could go on, but these errors are EVERYWHERE in the Kindle version. Very distracting from what would otherwise be a wonderful book on craft.
Five stars for content--two stars removed for shoddy e-book formatting.

[Ryan Hathaway · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fresh take on story paradigm and mythology. I happen to agree with the author here. The world of movies has for a long time struggled to articulate the heroine's journey in favor of the masculine hero who seems to better fit this visual medium of story. After all, movies are about external conflicts (i.e. things that can be photographed) where the feminine journey tends to be an internal journey (which is why the best feminine stories in the human cannon tend to manifest in novels). The author has laid out a new paradigm here to help balance this world of visual storytelling... kudos to her for this.

However, there is much to do in this realm of yin and yang. This writer/producer feels inspired, with the tools laid out here, to seek a path to expressing the feminine side of life on the screen. Bonne Chance!

[Jacob Ericksen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the (if not the) most helpful writing craft books I have ever read. Hudson provides an in-depth review of literary archetypes (based on the 12 Jungian archetypes)while at the same time keeping its information very accessible. Instead of clinging to the literary canon that so many writing crafts do, Hudson provides a wealth of very contemporary examples like Shrek, Pretty Woman, and even Aliens.

Most fiction writers are likely familiar with the "Hero's Journey", and the Hero archetype (ad nauseum). In this book, Hudson gives us other archetypes that are extremely identifiable and resonant, and at the same time encourages her readers to play with the journey steps and character development involved in the archetypes. She shows examples of taking some steps quickly, others slowly, sometimes a steps backwards are involved, and often time archetypes such as her "virgin" and the "hero" are one in the same.

To anyone interested in adding clearer masculine/feminine dynamic to their writing, I submit that this book provides an outstanding place to start developing that skill. I know it helped solve issues that I had been struggling with in my own writing for years. After the first page, I was hooked. I read the entire thing in a single sitting...and this is a craft book. Really, what Hudson has done here is outstanding!

[Emilie · Rating 5 out of 5]

My rating would really be more 4.5, mainly because of the repetition of some passages and a boatload of typos in the Kindle edition, but the information here is so valuable that I'll round up.

Many have complained that Joseph Campbell's monomyth structure is too masculine and cannot be applied to every story. I have read some attempts to discern a heroine's journey structure, but Kim Hudson's is the best I think. The Virgin's Promise is a structure more intuned to internal stories where a protagonist (usually female but not always; Hudson gives examples of both female and male protagonists who undergo this journey) finds their potential held back by society or family, and then must find a way to break free (think EVER AFTER or BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN). She contrasts this with the Hero's Journey where the protagonist (once again, not always male) must journey from home to defeat an oppressive force (think STAR WARS or THE HUNGER GAMES).

As a writer, I found this book extremely valuable and plan on going back to it during the development of my current project. I don't always take to most writing books, but this one was exceptional.

[larph raulen]

Carefully read the entire first half until it got too technical. I still did browse through the rest of the book but I don’t think I really put the remaining half of it in my heart and only picked up what I needed to know out of them. I liked reading this in a sense that I resonated with this type of story structure where it has more to do with the character’s self-discovery, internal growth, realizing their dream and challenging societal expectations.

"Meaning only comes when people feel they are living the symbolic life, that they are actors in the divine drama"

"Beauty is found in the forgotten, discarded, rustic and even obscene"

"The Virgin’s true self begins to take shape once she sheds the clothes that fit other people’s expectations of her."

"Wanders in the Wilderness is the second stage of changing beliefs, and in it, life is uncomfortable. The Virgin must emotionally separate from the world she has known and feel the essence of being alone. Her choice to move towards change in the face of hardship is the mark of a strong character and the indication that change will stand the test of time."

"She will never be able to love unconditionally if she does not understand her power and learn that she can stand on her own."

"When the Virgin realizes her dream, others are inspired to do the same"

[Janisse Ray · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kim Hudson figures out the heroine's journey, which matches to the hero's journey that Joseph Campbell wrote so beautifully about. Hudson lays out the 13 beats of the Virgin's Promise, as she calls it. That part is genius. I am very fascinated by structure in writing, and I was mesmerized by the ideas of archetypes. This book was written for screenwriters. A couple of chapters hold all the information you need from this book. The rest of it would have flourished under a good editor.

[Andrioux · Rating 5 out of 5]

My soul has a secret reading-list(hidden even from me!) that it craves to complete - and it is only through chance, or synchronicity, that these books come to my attention.

This book came to me by way of my friend, neighbor, and fellow tenant-activist: Rosalind!

She recommended it to me strongly after another one of our conversations on the Inner Life. The focus on this Inner Quest is at the core of Kim Hudson's theory of the feminine archetypal journey, which she calls The Virgin's Promise.

In thirteen steps, or "beats", Hudson shows us what this archetypal feminine journey looks like. Using popular films as examples, we are walked through the first act: 1) Introduction to the protagonist's Dependant World, 2) The Price of Conformity, 3) Opportunity to Shine, 4) Dresses the Part, and so and so forth with Act Two and Act Three.

This dramatic arc, referred to as The Virgin's Journey, represents our quest for Joy and Identity - an interior journey that leads us to our most authentic self. It is an inner journey that both men and women undergo.

Hudson juxtaposes the so-called Virgin Story with its more commonly understood masculine counterpart, The Hero's Journey. The latter is an outward journey, involving risk, adventure, and sacrifice.

This illuminating book is short and packs a punch - it will give you the language to explore your own inner journey, and help you with your own storytelling. Written as a guidebook for writers of theatre and film, it is an invaluable tool for writers looking to create strong, resonant, archetypal stories.

One of the best things that I have come across in 2025, and now one of my go-to titles to offer as gifts to friends.

[David Wimsett · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first heard of Kim Hudson and her 2010 book, The Virgin's Promise, on a radio program that was celebrating the 50th anniversary of the publication of Joseph Campbell's The Hero With a Thousand Faces. When she went to film school, she learned about the hero’s journey because it is a framework used in many movies. She was fascinated, but felt there was something missing, the female perspective. She has developed an idea called the virgin's promise which is a female compliment of the hero's journey. Instead of being called by the village to go out and stop an external evil, the virgin's promise is an inward journey in which the virgin, male or female, starts in a dependent state that lives up to the expectation of her village. The virgin goes on an inner voyage and learns to overcome the repressions holding back growth and begins to shine. The main character practices this in secret, but is discovered. Chaos comes, but when the protagonist of the story shines fully, the village accepts the changed virgin and it becomes a better place. The author gives examples from movies such as Star Wars and Billy Elliot to demonstrate both the hero's journey and the virgin's promise, and show how they can even exist in the same story.

The book is excellently written in clear language, yet it is not overly simplistic and delves deeply into the craft of writing with practical advice and wisdom. Intended largely for writers of screenplays, the lessons within are applicable to anyone writing any type of fiction or poetry. I found this book very informative and helpful and highly recommend it.

[Ann Douglas · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first 75 pages or so of this book are quite good, at least in terms of introducing some innovative ideas and a refreshing alternative to the hero's journey (which is discussed ad nauseum in so many other writing books). Unfortunately, from that point on, the book goes downhill. Most of the last half of the book feels more like filler than genuinely valuable content. Add to that the fact that I didn't love the Virgin/Whore terminology and the fact there's a glaring typo on the first page of the preface (she misspells Marianne Williamson's first name, referring to her as "Marion") and you can see why I gave the book a relatively lukewarm rating. This book had so much potential, but, in the end it fell short.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great theories but the term names were a little problematic.

[LynneV]

I'm returning this book. It's definitely interesting, but I spotted so many typo's that it made the reading experience less than pleasant. Gave up at the 14% mark.

[sandeep gupta · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unconditional Five Stars!

For someone who worked nearly eight years developing ideas from a profound distinction¹ that sets Kim's work apart — a bias could come easy.

That distinction though is just one of a few literary upshifters she offers, all in one book. If you got distracted from reading it by the subtitle, you probably didn't earn it yet and in any case you'd have been disappointed at finding nothing titillating or objectionable.

It is five platinum stars even with the typos² the ebook version introduced.

One thing that the book does delightfully disappoint on is that like many books of it's ilk, it is not a book you could read in an hour, or think about once.

Inside, concepts-wise it is at least three books as deep as is the norm for books this size. In fewer pages and not a tough read.

Among the "books," within the book, is her own classification of Jungian archetypes. It is somewhat inspired by Jungian scholars I am told. Still unique and so logically related to life stages — you'd never need to memorize the archetypes list again, or even remember their names. It is almost as if Jungians were missing her thesis to simplify and make a yet more coherent presentation of archetypes.

That follows quickly after a detailed preamble which is as polite as one published in 1776, explaining why and how we are missing a perspective we didn't know we were missing. Once you see it, you can't un-see this revolution-sans-revolt. And then you would find it present or absent, and its emotional consequence in many classic or new stories and paradigms.

That for me over years would include a smattering of narrative theory esoterica, myth, locating a song's emotional note, and delightfully, in engineering processes, and in a deeper, puzzlingly³ vindicating look at the richness of category romances — letting me see afresh not just the obvious emotional depth — albeit even in layers as those heard of in a fabled Chaucerian tale I haven't read. And of course in Fairy Tales. That alone should draw the attention of writers, psychologists and real problem-solvers.

If you, like many of us also, have unresolved issues, know in advance you might also have tough moments of catharsis more than once. She hits so many human beats, honestly it is not funny.

It is regardless a paradigm of unconditional hope so if you are striving you'd love its promise and identifying its reified rungs.

Yet deeper and uncommon — note it was first published in 2010 — is more insight and as yet an unsung harbinger among her seamless movements between culturally mainstream examples and those of diverse races, ethnicities, sex orientations and gender fluidity. Love matters to her thought, only a lot more profoundly ecumenic than most of the world and arguably for us now to not unsee that perspective.

Considering all that depth you should begin to uncover, it isn't hard to begin to understand.

For absolute beginners she includes a paint by numbers starting point and an introduction to developing a story, including the Hero's Journey. Her break of the Hero's Paradigm may not be as even Vogler himself would see, and that may be a point. Or not.

Then there is the largest collection of movie synopses I recall in any one book, to help explain her paradigm. I.e., only if going by the collection at the largest library West of the Mississippi for nearly two decades.

You would think her work is new. Ten years and in a way it is mysteriously as new as it is suddenly profound. And yet, while she references Bob McKee and Chris Vogler's work herself it says something in how congruently it also fits with Mike Hauge's deeply thought out six stages of character arc development. So it's like you are never trading away a thought, just growing yours.

In short — read. Must read.

I'd love to read comments from those who read it and see what I see, or differ.

If you have not read it and you write, think, or otherwise for any reason human journeys are your thing too, get it ASAP.

_______

¹ I feel the difference is comparable to the upshift from Newtonian to Einsteinian in physics.

² This book could have been scrawled on a phone book or newsprint and it would still be as epic an arrival as the introduction of the notion of 'beat,' to theater and film. Why it has not been widely noticed is a mystery to me.

³ Being a boy reading these for the first time moving into my 50s and since.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

I got a lot out of this book. It's more broadly applicable than its title suggests. That is, it applies to male characters as much as female characters, and the author consistently demonstrates that with examples. So if you're thinking, "But my MC is a guy," that's not a reason to skip past this book, which provides a thought-provoking analogue to the hero's journey.

I have a couple issues with the book that made that fifth star flicker on and off in my head while I was reading:
1. It _did_ bog down a bit for me in the middle, when there was a lot of what, at the time, I considered rehashing of the hero's journey. Candidly, I wondered if the author had just run out of new things to say and very nearly put the book on my DNF pile. Persevering through that, however, I found that it was setup for very insightful comparison of the virgin and hero archetypes. I'm not 100% convinced it was all necessary background--I question how many people picking this up are unfamiliar with the hero archetype, but it _would_ be critical for those readers, I suppose, and ultimately, it was harmless (though a "just trust me for this next bit" may have kept me from almost putting it down).

2. I read the Kindle version, so I can't speak to the print version, but wow--the typos. I've never seen so many in a published work. However, I'm not inclined to blame the author. They were all of the same sort, which makes me think there may have been a conversion issue in producing the Kindle file. All of them were of the form: break the correct word into two pieces, or join two correct words into one incorrect one. For example: in _many_ places "a new" was rendered as "anew", "often" was rendered as "of ten", or the amusing "femme fatale" becoming "femme fat ale". This happened at a rate of about every few pages, so it became somewhat distracting. It didn't exclusively produce valid words: for example: "service" sometimes became "ser vice" or "form" became "for m". It has the feel of a machine-produced error rather than a human one, so I'm hopeful that readers of the print version weren't subjected to this distraction.

Those two issues would have been enough to knock my rating down to 4 stars. However, I reserve 5 stars for those books that I believe will have a significant and lasting impact on me, and this book absolutely will, making the issues trivial compared to the benefit I received from reading this book.

[Courtney Kleefeld · Rating 4 out of 5]

I actually read this book a year or two ago but wasn't sure I wanted to document it on Goodreads, but recently I've been thinking about the things the book had taught me about the feminine story structure, and I began searching for this book again because I couldn't remember what it was called.

Note: I don't remember why I had not initially documented the book except that it's written from a secular perspective and said a few strange things. I want to reread the book to see if my perspective on it has changed, and I'm going to be looking for other books on this topic to see if I can find a better one out there, but what I did learn from this book has stayed with me.

I've been seeing the "feminine" story structure in different places now and it is a beautiful kind of story--if the Hero's Journey was about the external journey, the Heroine's Journey is about the internal journey and awakening of personal identity and significance. The Hero's Journey is driven by external conflict, while the Heroine's Journey is driven by discovery and character growth.
Something this book points out is that while the Hero's Journey is called masculine and the Heroine's Journey is called feminine, they're more used in mythological terms rather than literal terms. For instance, there are stories that follow the Hero's Journey but have a female main character who goes on that journey, and vice versa, there are stories that follow the Heroine's Journey story structure that have a male main character going on the internal journey.

I read this book more for the information about the different story structure and gleaned some gems from it.

[Lisa Reads & Reviews · Rating 4 out of 5]

John Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces describes the hero myth story pattern as:

"A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man."

While I've enjoyed many novels and movies utilizing this pattern, I understood heroes to be rare, and doubted I would have the honor of any such undertaking. The entertainment and vicarious lessons learned were appreciated, of course.

Hudson's work pointed out that the hero's journey is masculine in nature. She felt the need to note and describe a feminine version, also making use of archetypes that would be inherently recognizable (and present) to everyone. The transformation focuses on forgoing the world on which you depend in order to pursue your true talent and joy. Following that dream then transforms and inspires the world for the greater good.

While The Virgin's Promise doesn't have the academic heft of Campbell's work, it is presented in a clear and logical manner, with insights well worth the read. Initially I wasn't sold on the beats of the journey as the titles felt contrived or awkward. Considering the process of inner transformation as a whole, however, I can see the pattern in many stories that I have identified with more deeply than the mythical hero. In summary, this is an interesting read if you're curious about narrative structures and why they resonate and endure through the generations.

[Jay Sprenkle · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderful discussion of the mirror universe version of the Hero's journey. If you're learning the craft of writing you shouldn't miss this discussion of the Heroine's journey. The author provides many examples from current movies and literature to illustrate her points.

My only complaint is she is inconsistent with labels for the structure she's building. I found myself flipping back and forth to confirm what was being discussed.

I recommend this book to writers. Also recommended in the newsletter by the ever excellent K.M. Weiland.

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing book. Loads of brilliant insights into women's life journeys. Highly readable and informative. Like all of the best writing craft books, The Virgin's Promise has me torn between a desire to read it again, and to pick up my pen and get writing. In the case of this particular book, there's one more desire - to watch some of the contemporary virgin's promise/hero's journey movies that I have missed and that Hudson discusses.

[Sonia Bellhouse · Rating 5 out of 5]

I didn't know how much I needed this book until I read it. Trying to fit a female story into the heroes journey concept has always felt wrong to me and now I know why. The stories may intertwine but are immensely different. I found myself nodding in agreement as the various points were raised. It was like finally finding the missing piece to jigsaw- everything finally made sense. As I had a submission to complete I used these concepts and found it incredibly satisfying.

[Emma Jackson · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting look at the different archetypes in story-telling over and above the hero’s journey. It’s very clear and easy to recognise, with excellent popular examples. Some sections towards the end feel repetitive but it’s unavoidable when showing how different beats in different character journey’s differ or overlap. A great reference book, which I’m sure will help me with initial plotting.

[Maryanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great read.
I did struggle with the sexualised archetypes for women - why can't we be magicians etc? Yes, I know, these terms are meant to be non-gender specific and the author gives plenty of male examples of 'virgin' and other archetypes - but it still made me cranky!
If you can get past that, its a very interesting craft book.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading this book, and took copious notes for use when I start working on my next series of books. I found the plethora of examples tedious. I know they were needed in order to help the reader understand the point. They are probably necessary and good but I ended up skimming over many of them.

[Olivia · Rating 4 out of 5]

review to come, but generally: check this out, it has a great take on feminine archetypes and the feminine complement to the hero's journey. also an argument for why emotional journeys are just as moving and essential as stories where the hero levels up physically.

[Lucas Lanza · Rating 4 out of 5]

Uma ferramenta de escrita interessantíssima que ajuda a compreender, pensar e construir narrativas que não se enquadram na "Jornada do Herói". Recomendado para quem se aventura pela escrita criativa e busca diferentes maneiras de pensar estrutura e progressão dramática.

[Judy Shank · Rating 5 out of 5]

A new writer's tool

Reconsider your story's hero and the reward after the challenge...a brimming, illuminating guide that adds and moves beyond the hero's journey by including soul and changing the world around us, in story and in your own life

[Reeds]

KMW "a feminine partner arc to the Hero’s Journey. In the book, she also reaffirmed Clarissa Pinkola Estés’s point, above, about the Maiden and the Hero being the youthful journeys, which should, in a mature life, be followed by the journeys of adulthood and elderhood."

[Carrie Nelson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is alright. I didn't find it particularly insightful and I think I disagree with some of the author's points (or at least, am not convinced by them), but it does offer some story insight that might "click" with some readers.

[C.H. Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic reference and counterpoint to Christopher Vogler's work on the hero's journey. A must read for writers.

[Tim Lorge · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic structure concepts. A must read for any writer to give depth and breadth to your stories.