Vogler, Christopher. The Writer's Journey : Mythic Structure for Writers. 3rd ed. Boston, MA: Michael Wiese Productions, 2007. 215-228.

Summary

stage twelve is the return with the elixir. This is where heroes return to their starting place with a new life. Vogler goes on to say that true heroes return with the elixir from the special world (213). this elixir should change daily life to heal what ever was wrong. this is the part where the weaving of the the story comes to an end, tying together the loose strands. the end of the story can be circular in form where it returns to the starting point by seeing how far the hero went changed and how different the ordinary world is in the end. the other way of ending the story is the open ended approach where it ends with unanswered questions. this is for an author who prefers to leave a moral conclusions for the audience. some functions of the return can be like the reward. its the consequences of surviving death. this is also a good place to surprise the rease with an unexpected revelation. such would be that throughout the story you have the audience believing one thing, and at this point show a quite different outcome than expected. this may be the time when the hero gets what is coming to them, good or bad.
Vogler then goes on to talk about types of elixirs. not only is this the heroes final test but the elixir is not always physically an item. it could be the elixir of love, wisdom to change things around the hero, the ability for the hero to experience responsibility, etc.
he goes into to talk about epilogues and how some stories could put one in at this point to serve to complete the story. this stage is important one and may fall apart. make sure you resolve all subplots leaving no threads hanging. by making sure that the endings don't get ruined he recommends the KISS principle (Keep it simple stupid). as a final note he talks about ending the story the way you would end a sentence, with emotional punctuation mark. as we all already know, the journey of life is never ending, as is the stories we write.

Reaction

My reaction to these readings seem to get more and more similiar. i can not seem to watch a movie without seeing each of these stages and archtypes in them and remove myself from the audience and become a critic. the return of elixir part of Vogler's journey is well written. he explains the physical and well as possible metaphorical aspects of the elixir of every journey. my favorite part of this section is the punctuation section. i love that he compares the story like a sentence, which reminded me as to what we talked about in class the other day. this being the sentence is a short paragraph, a paragraph is a short story. it brings all the learning in the book and class discussions together and relates real life to fiction reading very clearly.

Questions

do all stories end entangled?

does open ended endings untangle the knot still?

does their have to be a sense if completion? if so even in life?

What was your last journey's elixir?