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Obviously, many stories told fit "A Hero's Journey" - that's the whole point of it.

George Lucas was famous for explicitly making the Star Wars story based on Campbell's checklist and acknowledging that fact.

What was the first work of literature (that wasn't a Star Wars script :) which explicitly used Campbell's "A Hero's Journey" as a checklist, as acknowledged by the creator?

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  • Related: Why is the hero's journey so ubiquitous across cultures (spoiler: it's not). – user111 Jan 23 '17 at 0:05
  • The Star Wars script was already years into composition before Lucas read Campbell. The hero's journey influenced the final drafts and structure, but Lucas's later claims to have begun the script with Campbell in mind are exaggeration, contradicted by the timeline and his own other claims. – BESW Jan 23 '17 at 0:15
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    @BESW - next thing you'll tell me that 9 episodes and Midichlorians and Vader being Luke's dad weren't there from the start :( – DVK Jan 23 '17 at 0:40
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    For those who don't understand DVK's comment about Lucas's various contradictory statements, see scifi.stackexchange.com/a/17964/4918 "Weren't there originally going to be nine Star Wars films?" – b_jonas Jan 23 '17 at 18:17
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    Please provide the "checklist", so that those not familiar with Campbell can better understand the question. It would be interesting if an author wrote about using Campbell's analysis as a checklist. Chuck Palahniuk's early novels were, according to lore, said to be be based entirely on a formula taught by Tom Spanbauer. (When I lived in Portland, OR, the specific workshop was being promoted with that claim.) – DukeZhou Feb 25 '17 at 23:34

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