A hero in an ordinary world. A turning point. A journey, an enemy, a mentor, catharsis and a triumphant return. The end.

This is the Hero’s Journey — Joseph Campbell’s concept that Hollywood turned into a blueprint for producing blockbusters. It works perfectly — or rather, it used to, until contemporary communications copied it almost word for word: The customer has a problem, our product is the sword of salvation, and transformation through it is inevitable. But when every brand stages the same epic drama about saving the world, audiences develop resistance. Not because the stories are bad, but because they feel cloned.

Literature, philosophy and cinema, however, offer other narrative formats that do not rely on artificially manufactured conflict, but instead build authority, curiosity and long-term trust. Some require only a small shift in thinking; others call for a measure of courage.

1. In Medias Res — Straight to the Point

Described by Horace in Ars Poetica, this structure is as old as Homer’s Iliad. The story skips the introduction and jumps straight into the most intense moment. Only afterwards you step back to provide the context.

The reason it works is that it eliminates unnecessary material and makes the story quick to consume. Today’s audiences decide within a fraction of a second whether to keep reading, and opening with the climax eliminates the slow “warm-ups” authors love to use to fill their pages.

Brands such as Slack and Airbnb regularly use in medias res in their practical case studies. Slack, for example, does not begin with the cliché “The company was founded in…”, but with: “When we realized our team was losing 40 hours a week to email, we made a radical decision.”

This technique is particularly well suited to crisis PR, product launches, startup/founder stories and any press release you actually want people to read.

2. The Framing Narrative — One Thousand and One Nights for Brands

Scheherazade is not simply a character in a story. She is the architect who creates the space for all the other stories. This structure places a central storyteller at the heart of the narrative, giving others the opportunity to speak — think also of The Decameron, The Canterbury Tales or The Name of the Rose.

Applied to communications, the framing narrative does something remarkably bold: it decentralizes the brand. The company stops being the only voice and becomes a platform for the voices of its customers, employees and partners.

That is precisely what Notion and Figma do. Rather than telling their own technical story, they create the framework in which users share their own micro-stories of success. The brand is almost invisible, yet it is everywhere.

In employer branding, this is an exceptionally powerful approach. Instead of the company repeatedly claiming that it is “the coolest place to work,” employees share their own experiences and the conclusion emerges naturally.

3. Kishōtenketsu — The Story Without Conflict

This is a traditional structure from classical East Asian literature consisting of Ki (introduction), Shō (development), Ten (unexpected turn) and Ketsu (conclusion, which connects the twist back to the beginning). There is no villain, no crisis and no “problem that our product immediately solves.”

The tension comes from contrast: the third part introduces something unexpected and seemingly unrelated to what came before, while the conclusion connects it back to the beginning in an unexpected way. It is precisely this intellectual surprise that holds the audience’s attention. My Neighbor Totoro by Studio Ghibli is perhaps the most frequently cited example of Kishōtenketsu.

How can this technique be applied to communications? Instead of the familiar you have a problem ➔ we have the solution formula, start with two seemingly unrelated subjects — say, art and biotechnology — and reveal at the end how they intersect.

Kishōtenketsu could work particularly well for technology companies, art projects and B2B brands that want to escape the tired language of marketing.

4. The “Rashomon Effect” — Multiple Truths

In 1950, Akira Kurosawa told the same event from the perspectives of four different witnesses. Each is convinced that they are telling the truth, yet each sees the event in a radically different way. The viewer has to piece the puzzle together.

In business communications, the “Rashomon effect” is a demonstration of maturity. It shows that you understand the complexity of objective reality and do not claim to possess the only correct point of view.

McKinsey and Harvard Business Review regularly use this structure in their analyses of AI transformation, examining change simultaneously through the eyes of the CEO, the operational employee and the end customer. That makes it particularly well suited to thought leadership content, analysis of market trends and change management topics.

When your audience is diverse and each group sees the issue from a different angle, this is the framework that leaves no one alienated.

5. The Mosaic Narrative — The Synergy of Parallel Lines

Babel, Magnolia and the films of Robert Altman are stories in which several independent plotlines unfold in parallel, apparently having nothing to do with one another — until they suddenly intersect and create a meaning that none of the individual storylines could achieve on its own.

Spotify Wrapped is perhaps the best contemporary example. The platform does not tell the story of itself. Instead, it assembles a mosaic of millions of individual listening habits that ultimately defines the year’s global music culture.

For holding companies, ESG strategies or organizations with diverse activities, the mosaic narrative is the most natural way to show both the individual parts and the whole at the same time.

6. The Rhizomatic Narrative — No Beginning, No End

Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari borrowed the term from botany: a rhizome is an underground root system without a single center, hierarchy or clear direction of growth. Applied to the art of storytelling, it describes nonlinear structures in which the audience can enter wherever it chooses and explore on its own.

Brands such as Stripe and HubSpot, for example, do not guide users through a traditional sales funnel. Instead, they build vast interactive libraries of documentation, guides and case studies. And it does not matter where you pick up the thread — you discover value without anyone dictating where you should start.

This structure requires courage because it loosens the reins of control. It does not force a conclusion; instead, it gives customers the freedom to connect the dots and arrive at the solution themselves.

7. The Fragmentary Essayistic Narrative — Montaigne on LinkedIn

Michel de Montaigne did not have a ready-made thesis, but he had observations. His essays are assembled from seemingly unrelated thoughts, personal digressions and questions without ready-made answers. His method is to think out loud without claiming to possess the final truth.

In communications, this structure is the complete opposite of the dry “3 key lessons from practice.” It is more honest, more personal and more immediate. You write not from the position of the all-knowing expert, but as a practitioner who is still searching and exploring.

The essays of Y Combinator co-founder Paul Graham and the notes of DHH from Basecamp are perfect illustrations. They never begin with cheap marketing or universal formulas for success. They write about business the way Montaigne wrote about life — through personal observations and shared doubts.

In a world crowded with ready-made answers, the courage to think out loud is a powerful differentiator. And that is precisely why millions of people read their work.

8. Tragedy — The Power of Acknowledgment

In his Poetics, Aristotle describes the elements of tragedy: hubris (pride), nemesis (consequence) and catharsis (purification). Tragedy is not simply a story about loss — it is about the insight that follows it.

Brands with the courage to use this structure do something relatively rare in the corporate world: they acknowledge their mistake and share what they have learned from it.

Patagonia has turned precisely this approach into one of its trademarks. The Don’t Buy This Jacket campaign, which urged consumers not to buy new clothes because their production harms the planet, is a classic tragic narrative. The result was a significant increase in trust and nearly a 30% increase in sales during the nine months following the campaign.

In crisis PR, this is perhaps the purest form of authenticity. Instead of the scripted “We’re sorry,” a different narrative works here: “We got it wrong. We understand where we went wrong. Here is what we are changing.”

That kind of openness builds trust and demonstrates genuine maturity.

The End

The Hero’s Journey is not wrong. It is simply overcrowded.

And alternative storytelling frameworks are not intended to tear it down, but to give storytellers the freedom to build authority without artificial drama and formulaic templates.

Because sometimes the boldest move in communications is simply to change direction.