This is K.M. Wyland and you are listening to the six hundred twentieth of the Helping Writers Become Authors Podcast.

I hope you enjoy this week's episode, How Artypes Changed My Life and My Writing. my writing. Story and life are inextricably linked to write better stories, we study life and to live better lives we study stories.

There are many obvious reasons why this is so.

Stories after all are meant to be relatively accurate reflections of life.

However, the more I study story theory, the deeper the rabbit hole seems

to go. And one of the most exciting discoveries down that hole has been archetype. All of story reflects an archetype and all

archetypes contain stories. When we talk about story structure or genre or

character arc or even trope, we are contributing to a larger conversation about archetype.

By definition, an archetype may be categorized in one of three ways.

One, a typical specimen, two, an original model, and three, a

universal or recurring symbol. All three are useful for understanding story.

So, no surprise, all are also useful for understanding life.

In a few days on March 30th, I will be officially launching what has been, for me, the most personally

important book I have ever written, writing archetypal character arcs.

The book discusses the cycle of six initiatory character arcs that can be recognized in the human life, from the coming of age of the maiden to the adventurous individuation of the hero, to the leadership of the queen, to the

sacrifice of the king, to the acceptance of the crown, and to the final wisdom of the

age. Now the book goes much deeper than that, diving into 12 shadow

archetypes that create inner obstacles within each transformative arc.

It also talks about the importance of the resting archetypes that live between each

transformative period.

And it closes out with a look at the archetypal antagonists that grow with us throughout our life journeys.

It digs into why the hero's journey is such an important archetypal arc, but also offers a more rounded view of mythic stories

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