I’m No Longer Writing Heroines

By Stacey Simmons

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been in writing classes, seminars, workshops, or retreats where a well-meaning instructor, professor, or writing guru has directed me to use The Hero’s Journey (THJ) to structure my story. Whether writing fiction, memoir, or non-fiction, I have been redirected to this pattern more times than I can count. At first, I tried to do this with literary aspirations and a full heart. It fell flat every time. I couldn’t make my heroines fit the steps of THJ. In a memoir, in fictional female characters, and even in non-fiction, I kept trying to fit the contours of the hero or heroine. Without fail, I came short each time.

I couldn’t connect. I couldn’t make my story work with the tools that EVERYONE knows are the standard structures of good writing. I believed it was a lack of talent and skill on my part.

I gave up.

Indeed, I gave up writing all together.

I went back to graduate school to become a therapist. (That’s a whole book in and of itself.)

I was required to submit an original thesis at the conclusion of the program, one of the few psychotherapy master’s degrees that still mandate this effort of scholarship. The program had taken a lot out of me, and I thought it would be great to enjoy this last step. So, I wrote about what I loved, animation. I originally wanted to examine how women had been represented in the Disney Animation canon from the first movie, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 to the present. My professor thought this was too much for a master’s thesis and encouraged me to keep it small and manageable. Admitting the need for a smaller scale, I examined women’s representation in two recent (at the time) Disney films, Frozen and Maleficent.

I discovered that both films had an identical story structure. Two women, one magical, the other not, are set on a path. They appear to be at odds with one another, but they are on the same journey, and encounter the same obstacles. The journey the women were on was not a Hero’s Journey, because she wasn’t trying to find the “elixir of life” to return with “the boon,” She was on a quest to free herself. Whether from a curse, from a marriage, from a tyrant, the woman was always stuck in a role that was too narrow. To free herself she had to become more, not bigger, not more accomplished, just more… of herself. More woman, less role.

I wrote up my thesis, turned it in, graduated, and looked forward to the future- time to move forward and build a clinical practice. Only… the story pattern kept haunting me. I saw it everywhere. I saw it every time I watched a television show with a woman character. I saw it in my own history of trying to climb corporate ladders. And I saw it with my clients. Woman after woman would come into therapy and tell me the same story: Once Upon a Time, and then some sort of curse, then a period of blindness… in the end, she usually got stuck. She tried to make a Happily Ever After for herself, but it almost always fell flat. What was happening?

I set out to write out the steps. In doing so I realized that I was describing an experience, a path, that was archetypally what almost all of my women clients (and some men) were experiencing. I looked for it in scripture, novels, and ancient mythology. Importantly, my clients’ individual journeys didn’t reflect the Hero or Heroine’s journey. Each patient was on a journey like that of Greek Mythology’s Atalanta. In this myth, Atalanta is a far better soldier, hunter, and fighter than her male counterparts. But when she saves the city of Calydon from a rampaging boar, the other hunters don’t hail her as a hero. They kill each other arguing whether or not a woman can HOLD the title, even when she’s earned it. 

As I dug deeper, I saw similarities with the hero’s journey, but the similarities were surface level. A woman doesn’t leave the “ordinary” world, rather she has a moment of “Once Upon a Time.” A hero has an encounter with a teacher or helper, a woman almost always has an encounter with a sister-self, a mirror image of her Divided Self. A woman doesn’t have to go on a quest, her experience often happens in the same familiar world she has always inhabited. And most importantly, she always has a moment of being rendered or cleaved into one of two tracks that basically breaks down into “traditional girl” or “non-traditional girl,” both of which were actually traps to keep her from achieving sovereignty over herself. Women experience the journey differently. They are on a unique path to sovereignty, which men have before the quest even entreats them to begin.

To take a mythic journey, each woman (and woman character) is bound by the same archetypal experience. She is not free. Someone owns her freedom- a job, a husband, a family. Every woman knows this experience. She longs to “belong” because belonging is safety. The game of popularity in school is a practice run at the steps to becoming an acceptable woman. As women, we are taught that belonging is life or death. 

More important than the steps of patriarchal acceptance, society has reproduced the story of a journey to personal sovereignty for 6,000 years. From the first epic poem ever written Inanna, Lady of Largest Heart, written in ancient Sumer, to Greta Gerwig’s 2023 Barbie. The story of the steps to owning yourself are found everywhere, because the archetypal path lives deep within us, whether we are aware of it or not. To find your own sovereignty, or that of your woman characters, follow the steps along the Queen’s Path: 

Once Upon A Time – her arrival in the world and her invitation to the Queen’s Path is announced

Cursed & Marked – she receives a curse, and a mark of that curse.

Blind- she can’t see what’s coming, even when it’s obvious.

Cleaved- she is separated from herself, and finds herself on the track of either the Maiden In Search of Relationship (MISOR) or Magical Isolated Powerful & Enchanted (MIPE).

Mirror- She faces the part of herself she has been divided from, either in herself or symbolically in someone else.

Commit- She commits to her role, trying to fit the expectations of everyone around her. 

The Hunt- She is chased, sometimes towards marriage or sex. Sometimes she is the one doing the hunting- a job, a marriage, a goal. It keeps her in a state of stress.

Abjection- She denies the parts of herself that can make her a full human being. If she gets a Happily Ever After the story ends here. It can also end in her choosing ambition over everything else.

Choice- She has to confront the danger of the Abjection choice. She must choose to allow the lost sister self. 

Embodiment- She realizes that her power and identity are BECAUSE she is a woman. She finds power in her body and its capacities.

Claim the Territory- She stakes a claim on those things that are unique hers. Her gifts, land, powers, values- these are the combination of qualities regardless of whether anyone agrees or not that are unique to her. 

Gather the Tribe- She gathers like-minded women (and men) around her. She realizes that her world is made up of people she loves, and who love her. 

Crowned- She takes the crown, the throne, the symbol of her sovereignty. She owns herself. 

 

A character, or a real, live woman can navigate these steps to her own sovereignty. When she does, the world around her shifts for the better. How many queens do you know and/or admire?  Write your own story placing important scenes from your history or that of your characters into this structure. If you’d like the full color, story map you can get it for free at staceysimmonsphd.com. How will you define your sovereignty, or that of your characters? 

When a woman tries to be a hero before becoming a queen it doesn’t work out so great for her, just look at Atalanta’s story. A MISOR who is the dutiful, passive woman is not going to risk the world of the quest. And a MIPE will automatically be shunned for daring to enter the domain of men. If a woman can reach sovereignty first, then the path of the heroine is much easier for her. She has already achieved sovereignty, now she’s just trying to achieve a goal for her people. Before she can work for them, she must first be free. 

This was true for me not only as a writer, but as a woman. The more I worked the steps of the Queen’s Path, both as a writer and a therapist, the more I achieved my sovereignty. The words flowed, and the work made sense. The steps became clear, even when they were challenging and painful. Had I not had the map, I couldn’t have seen that each time I was banging my head against the wall I was likely either stuck in a loop on the path, or trying to force myself into the hero’s role where I wasn’t wanted. 

Archetypal models are not inventions. If they are “real” then they are discoveries, ancient patterns that have informed our understanding for centuries at least. In this one, I hope you will find your own unique path to sovereignty. It is worth the journey. I’m much happier as a Queen than I ever could have been as a heroine. 

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Stacey Simmons, MA, PhD, LMFT is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Certified Psychedelic Therapist. Her clinical practice focuses on helping creative professionals with everything from early trauma to creative blocks. After a debilitating few years being haunted by nightmares, Stacey left a career in entertainment to become a psychotherapist. She is a clinical supervisor at Hope Therapy Center in Burbank, California. Stacey is a leader in women’s spirituality, having co-founded a church for Wiccans in her native New Orleans. She engages with spiritual seekers on Tik Tok as The Witch Mom @WitchDaily, where she has over 300,000 followers. She is a volunteer researcher with The Integrative Psychiatry Clinic at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA, as well as an affiliate researcher with the TranceScience Research Institute in Paris, France. She holds a PhD from the University of New Orleans and a master’s degree from Pacifica Graduate Institute in Santa Barbara, California.

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Category: Contemporary Women Writers, How To and Tips