What is mythic fiction, and how can we write it?
Earlier this month, I shared a post about how to write mythic fiction, in which I discussed the difference between adapting inherited myths (i.e., just retelling the old symbolic stories over and over in “new” ways) versus creating our own myths. My suggestion was that truly mythic fiction is not merely a process of imitating epic structures (such as the Hero’s Journey) and populating them with a list of character archetypes (i.e., Hero, Dragon, King, Mentor).
Rather, mythic fiction is a generative creative process that arises from our deepest and most intimate journeys into the unknown wilds of imagination and intuition—from the same energetic authenticity and integrity that birthed the old myths, fairy tales, and folk tales, which continue to matter so much to our culture. Mythic fiction is something authors must discover for themselves through the integrity of their own creative processes.
But how can we actually access that same deep imaginative creativity? How do we write mythic fiction?
What Is Mythic Fiction?
Mythic fiction is not myth itself, but it shares resonance with the old myths in that both contain truths that transcend factualness. Both communicate in the language of imagination—the imaginal language; the language of image; the language of symbol, archetype, and shape.
Not least because the medium of story is itself mythic and archetypal, I believe this mythic energy is the true magic of story—no matter what genre you’re writing in. Although we may most easily think of “mythic fiction” as fantasy and magical realism, all genre stories (such as romance and mystery) are inherently archetypal and symbolic.
What Mythic Fiction Is Not
Mythic fiction captures a quality that bypasses the audience’s conscious mind to speak on a deeper level. Although archetypal symbols and story structure are certainly part of this, this mythic quality is not a formula. It is something we experience as truth through our own unique imaginal wanderings. It cannot be taught—although it can, in a sense, be learned.
Mythic fiction can sometimes have a dreamy or otherworldly quality about it; but it can also be extremely modern and plot-based. It is not defined by voice, tone, or aesthetic. A story can be “mythcore” without being mythic. Putting a dragon or a sorcerer in your story does not make it mythic. Although speculative fiction often lends itself to myth, every speculative story is not mythic.
Although some mythic stories may be very right-brained or obviously mythic in their motifs (such as James Joyce’s Ulysses), this is not a requirement. The requirement is that the author is not telling the story so much as the story is telling itself.
This does not mean authors don’t make important technical choices in order to communicate the story to their audiences. The profound skill of writing is that of somehow wrangling the wild genius of storytelling into a format accessible enough to engage the consciousness of the left brain. This is no mean feat.
What Mythic Fiction Is
Mythic stories speak truths even their authors may not have known they knew. They are stories with the depth and capacity to guide—not through “morals” or agenda-driven plots, but through the inspiration of the deep visual imagination.
To the degree any story is resonant, it is mythic.
Although many stories contain mythic qualities and elements, examples might include everything from Beloved to Once Upon in the West to The Road. Of course, we would include Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, but we can also add in everything from It’s a Wonderful Life to The Godfather to Secondhand Lions to Pride & Prejudice. Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus. Studio Ghibli. Early Pixar. Children of Men. True Grit. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Groundhog Day. Wicked.
If it moves you—if it transcends something within you—then it has touched that mythic quality that lives in all of us.
The Lost Art of Mythmaking
All of storytelling is, to some degree, an attempt at mythmaking. Although some stories are more obviously successful at reaching their mythic capacity, all stories arise from that dreamplace of what if?—from the corner of the imagination’s eye where we catch sight of parallel realities and strangers who sometimes seem more known to us than ourselves.
In a world that is both increasingly left-brained and an art form that is increasingly subject to conflation with the pressures of content creation, it is worth looking back to our ancestors—to the shamans around their campfires and the medieval bards singing their tales—and both remembering and rediscovering how we may best maintain the clarity of our connection to the archetypal imagination that is our birthright.
We don’t need the old stories retold one more time. We need stories that have a living, generative connection to deep mythic, lived, dreamed creativity. To that end, here are seven practices you can use to move your stories out of the formulas of “write what sells” and into the territory of mythmaking.
1. Practice Dreamzoning and Enter the Flow State
The mythic quality in fiction arises from the deep imagination. It is pure creativity. It is our imaginations telling us stories.
This is the flow state, from which we can encourage natural and unfiltered right-brained creativity. Writers are accustomed to accessing this deep well in many different ways—not least the tried and true daydreaming. Freewriting is another—which is one reason so many writers prefer discovery writing (or “pantsing”), in which the writing itself becomes a tool for entering the flow state.
My personal favorite tool for accessing and entering this flow state is what I call “dreamzoning.” Dreamzoning is the practice of purposeful daydreaming. I’ll put on some music and, when possible, light a fire or find some other visual to help me zone out and float away.
Outlining Your Novel (Amazon affiliate link)
As an outliner and a plotter, I like putting myself in a space where creativity can happen by itself, without my needing to write it down yet. For me, this feels like it creates less work, since I tend to write cleaner copy that doesn’t require the same amount of revision as if I were freewriting my inspiration (I do more of my freewriting in the outlining phase when I don’t have to worry about my prose making sense to others).
I’ve written more about the specific practice of dreamzoning here, and I’ve also created a series of Archetypal Character Guided Meditations for a more structured approach.
But really, it doesn’t matter how you access the state of creative flow, just that you find space in which to interact with the symbols and the characters that come to you, so you can watch them and feel the resonance of what they’re doing.
There’s a difference between “just imagining” (i.e., more or less consciously thinking about characters doing something interesting) versus accessing symbolism that feels personal, with meaning and depth behind it. For me, that moment always comes with a distinct physical response, a surge in my solar plexus and a tightening in my chest. It’s like everything inside me suddenly comes to attention.
2. Clear the “Shoulds” That Block Archetypal Storytelling
For most humans, and certainly most storytellers, this archetypal dreamspace is a natural habitat for us to hang out in. Sometimes learning how best to access it is mostly about learning what may block it.
Not all the voices a writer hears are actually the voices of creativity and the muse. Some of the loudest voices can be those shouting “shoulds” at us.
Get rid of the shoulds. Clear out the voices that are not, in fact, the voices of the story spirits. Clear the clutter of the voices telling you, “this is what you have to do to write a book that sells” or “somebody else has already done this idea” or “you’re not good enough.”
Giving too much credence to the inner critic is usually the heaviest block to the purity of whatever’s trying to come through. This doesn’t mean that whatever is trying to come through isn’t messy, but it does mean you’ll never find the gold in the stream if you listen too closely to the voice telling you “should” stay out of the mud.
3. Ask Questions Instead of Arriving With Answers
Writing is such a specialized skill set these days. Everyone tells us how a story is supposed to look and how we’re supposed to write one—which, inevitably, can tend to shape not just our finished products but our dreams themselves. Instead of entering the mythic dreamspace with eyes and hearts wide open, we can arrive with a preset container into which everything is supposed to neatly fit.
When I was a child, the dreamspace was my natural habitat. I didn’t arrive there with the agenda of acknowledging and harvesting only what was useful for my job as a writer. It wasn’t even that I arrived there and waited patiently to be shown something. Instead, I knew myself to be an active participant and denizen of this dreamspace. I arrived to play in that space because I was the story.
However, it’s also worth acknowledging that, however personally vivid and precious my childhood ramblings in the dreamspace may have been, they weren’t necessarily stories that would have communicated their power to anyone but me.
The great challenge and skill of being a mythic writer is the ability to slip into the right-brain as a dreamer with imagination wide open and then come back out with pieces so beautiful and clear they can be shaped into a communication others can recognize and take with them back into their own dreamspaces.
4. Study the Deeper Shape Beneath Story Structure
Although I’m trying not to, I’ve inevitably been talking about mythic fiction as if it is something different from just regular old fiction. Really, what I mean by “mythic” fiction is “bloody good” fiction.” The surest path to writing deeply mythic fiction is to understand the underlying shape and structure of story itself—its natural movement, arc, and intent.
Insofar as you can write a story that really, really works, you’re almost undoubtedly writing a story that taps the frequency of mythic resonance.
Take a peek beneath all the trappings that we associate with mythicness. Look at those old stories or at any story that particularly moves you. Take note of the shape and structure that form these stories, upon which all the characters dance their epic dance.
We so conflate the idea of story with the act of writing—with language and words—but in fact, story preexists language and words. We only use the words as a metaphor in our attempt to explain what’s underneath.
No matter how good we are with words, our words are always a step behind the primal awesomeness of story itself.
5. Study the Stories That Create Mythic Resonance
Studying the stories that create mythic resonance can be an access point to your own connection to that resonance. This isn’t so much about studying actual myths or folk tales or learning symbolism or archetypal systems. It’s about studying yourself.
It’s about studying anything that resonates with you—stories from any time. You’re looking for whatever creates a frisson of recognition. You’re looking beyond just a simple reaction of “that was entertaining” or “that was fun” or your logical, intellectual mind’s interpretation of something.
You’re looking for stories that create a visceral pull. When that happens, study it. Study where and how you’re feeling it in your body. Study what’s evoking it. These experiences hold a portal of inspiration. If you can find the doorway within someone else’s story, it can lead you down the rabbit hole to what is yours in the experience so that you can, if you choose, bring it forth and continue the cycle.
Studying stories, symbols, and archetypes can also be helpful in understanding and orienting what comes through in your own creative wanderings—so that when something wild and unexpected shows up, you have a sense of what it is and where it belongs within the larger context of story, dream, and myth.
Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card (affiliate link)
I always think of the famous line from Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card, in which Ender brilliantly wins a zero-gravity training exercise by taking control of his team and orienting them and their goalpost (the “gate”) within the spacelessness of their environment. He instructs them:
The gate is down.
Exactly because our most vivid story dreams often feel like they are coming through us rather than from us, it can be helpful to have some preexisting archetypal catalogue by which to orient. In other words, to help us know “the gate is down.”
Nowhere is this more true than when venturing into mythic shadows…
6. Be Fearless Enough to Enter the Shadows by Recognizing Mythic Fiction as Transformational and Initiatory
True myth-making is equally capable of venturing into the shadows as it is of rising with the sun. What makes it so powerful and so healing is its ability to access all the many states of being human.
Our forays into mythic territory will only be as bold and as true as our own courage in facing whatever truths we are shown. Creativity and catharsis go hand in hand.
There’s a sequence in the movie King Arthur: Legend of the Sword that I’ve always felt beautifully illustrates shadow work. In it, Arthur is unable to master the intensity of repressed childhood memories that flood back whenever he grasps the fated sword Excalibur. He is sent to the Darklands to try to master himself, and when he returns, the mage asks him:
Mage: Did you look away? You want to know why you still can’t use [the sword].
Arthur: Why don’t you tell me?
Mage: I think you know the answer. You will face it when it’s worth it to you. Don’t get me wrong, I look away. We all look away. But that is the difference between a man and a king.
Arthur confronting the memories bound up in Excalibur—an allegory of mythic shadow work. (King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (2017), Warner Bros.)
Deep connection with one’s own mythic interiors can be a fearsome thing. If we embrace it fully, it can take us anywhere—but sometimes to get to the really good stuff, we have to be willing to let it take us through Darklands first.
All humans have the capacity to access this level of storytelling (although the skill of the telling is its own rite of passage). However, I think those who are truly in service to it and are able to make it their life’s work by accessing it consistently are those who are willing to follow wherever it takes them.
Archetype is initiation. It changes us. It burns us down and raises us back up.
7. Approach Archetypal Storytelling With Humility and Responsibility
There needs to be a certain level of humility in doing this work, especially since we don’t always recognize the profound power it carries. Although we usually enter these realms as a playground—a place to relax and have fun and perhaps to heal—the imaginal realm is the gateway to one of the most powerful interfaces of the human experience. The work of the storyteller is magical work. As part of that process, there needs to be humility and respect for the archetypes themselves.
If nothing else, I don’t think we can ever truly understand what we’re writing or exactly how it will affect others. It’s always possible to write something that has the opposite of our intended effect. To the degree we’re too egoic or try too hard to control what we’re trying to do, we can not only make it less powerful and symbolic, but also potentially more harmful.
Mythic fiction matters because it taps an aliveness that (ironically) transcends realism. At its strongest, it is shared from the author’s symbolic brain to the audience’s in a way that feels less like communication and more like revelation. The magic in these stories does more than just entertain audiences or convey an idea; it touches us on a subconscious level that may stay with us forever, even if we can never explain just why or how.
The only way to write stories of such dimensionality is to learn how to “imagine better”—to learn how to find the mythic and symbolic pathways within ourselves and how best to channel them into stories that feel strong and true on every level—from our rawest inspiration all the way down to the finest points of technique.
Want More?
One of the reasons I care so deeply about mythic fiction is because I don’t believe powerful stories emerge just from isolated craft techniques. Truly resonant stories feel unified at every level. In these stories, plot, character arc, theme, symbolism, setting, and emotional movement all belong to the same deeper pattern because everything connects.
This is why I created my class Alchemizing Plot, Character, and Theme, which I originally taught last year as part of the WorldShift Speculative Fiction Writers’ Summit and am now making available independently through my Story School.
Although the class ventures into archetypal and philosophical territory, it is an extremely practical discussion about craft. We explore how plot, character, and theme function not as isolated craft categories, but as interconnected expressions of the same deeper narrative movement. We talk about why some stories feel fragmented even when they are structurally sound, how theme naturally emerges from character arc, how external plot movement mirrors inner transformation, and how greater cohesion creates greater emotional resonance.
In many ways, the class is about the deeper architecture underneath mythic storytelling—the connective tissue that allows stories to feel meaningful, psychologically true, and creatively alive. If today’s post resonated with you and you want a more concrete framework for how to actually construct stories that honor these mythic principles, this class was designed to help writers do exactly that.
The class is pre-recorded and will premiere June 24, 2026, at 1PM EDT. I’ll be live in the chat during the showing, with time afterward for freeform Q&A and discussion. And if you can’t attend live, the replay will remain available in your account afterward.
You can read more and register here!
Wordplayers, tell me your opinions! What practices have helped you learn how to write mythic fiction or access deeper mythic storytelling in your own work? Tell me in the comments!
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The post How to Write Mythic Fiction: 7 Practices to Reconnect With the Lost Art of Mythmaking appeared first on Helping Writers Become Authors.
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Author: K.M. Weiland | @KMWeiland