Real problem-solving doesn't happen overnight. Far from it. Crowdsourcing may speed things up, but there’s no circumnavigating the process. No real shortcuts.  The same is true of a really good story -- the subject of your pursuit for the Sweet Story Challenge.

In the spirit of grand stories and heroic adventure, we’d like to introduce (or remind) all you storytellers to the concept of a Hero’s Journey. Also known as the “Monomyth,” the Hero’s Journey consists of fundamental components found in nearly all...heroic...stories.

Whether it’s Ulysses or Rogue One, there are approximately 17 stages in the journey.

Now, you may be asking yourself: how does my story fit?

Maybe you haven’t literally crossed a threshold in the search of a magic elixir (or sweetness.) You may have not found yourself in the belly of a whale, or battling an actual dragon. But then again, what figurative dragons have you faced? From which metaphoric whales have you had to escape?

It might be easy to glaze over some of the details. We are often told to downplay achievements and to hide our failures. This is not the time to do so, however. We’d like you to look at the details in the Hero’s Journey and see that truly epic stories do not hold back. They do not gloss over. They don’t keep it light, or make sound easy.  They don’t cover their scars. The failures and struggles are grand, and the victory is even greater. This is your chance to craft a modern legend.

Now that you have this tool to get you started, begin your new quest toward creating a very Sweet Story!