What is a Call to Action?

A call to action is used in storytelling as an inciting incident that gets the ball rolling. You might recognize it in terms of Christopher Vogler’s Hero’s Journey as A Call to Adventure. It’s the part where the protagonist is summoned into their journey. It gets the story going by using a catalyst, or some kind of trigger, to disrupt the character’s “Ordinary World.”

While it is in the framework of the Hero’s Journey, the call to action can take place in any type of story. It usually happens after the introduction of the character and their world. The call to adventure can even help determine the genre of the story. It gives an understanding of the central conflict of the character you’re reading about.

The Call to Action is seen as far back as in archaic Old English tales, such as Beowulf and Arthurian Legends, to modern-day memoirs like Eat Pray Love. There are different types of calls, all of which incite the character or person to leave the comfort of their ordinary life and start their path to a new one.

Common Calls to Action

Heralds – One of the most common calls to action takes form as the Herald archetype. These are the characters that issue a challenge. They present an invitation to or announce the coming of significant change. They are there to shift the balance. Not only does Harry Potter, in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, literally receive an invitation to attend Hogwarts, but Hagrid is famous for kicking down the door and announcing, “Yer a wizard, Harry.” This is Harry’s call to the Wizarding World; the calling outside of his Ordinary World and into his new life.

Inner Calling or the Subconscious – A call to action can be as simple as seeing a photo of Paris, a Battle of the Bands poster, or even a potential new lover. There is a stirring inside of the protagonist to play out in their story; a thirst for something they do not have or want to make better. It’s a desire or a want that tempts them to leave their comfort zone and head into the unknown.

Losing Someone/Something – Katniss Everdeen taking her sister’s place in the Hunger Games is her call to action. This call can range from book to book as there is a lot of things that one can lose. Think about losing a loved one, via break-up, kidnapping, or death; losing something precious like a family heirloom; even losing or comprising one’s health, like having a diagnosis of a crippling disease. All of these can spur the protagonist to start on their journey.

No Other Option – Sometimes characters don’t have a choice in the matter. They might be sucked into a tornado and transported to a magical land. This happens to Dorothy in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Maybe they’re being chased by a mythical creature called the Minotaur and have to fight them outside of a camp for demigods just to find out that they themself are a demigod, like in Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series. These calls to action quite literally force the characters outside of their normal, whether they like it or not.

Can I Put Your Call on Hold?

Calls to adventure are not always fun, or easy to grasp. Most of the time the character doesn’t respond well to leaving the comfort of their life to start their fateful adventure. Calls to action are disorienting, as the characters might not find anything wrong with their Ordinary World, or they may just not want to participate. There may even be a couple of different calls to action. Reluctant heroes have to be called repeatedly. Again, a lot of times it takes a period of denial and some pushing and prodding before the protagonist accepts their call.

Connecting Call …

Simply put, the call to action is the beginning of the story. The book begins with the protagonist and some other characters being introduced. Usually, this involves the world that surrounds them being described. Next, the call to adventure is the start of, well, their adventure. It’s not always a prophecy of fortune either, sometimes they are warnings of a doomed fate. It is always fun watching the characters try to deny or run from their call. However, the struggles prove to be real and even lead to another stage of the Hero’s Journey called the “refusal of the call”. That’s how often a character goes into denial, to the point where Vogler has to make a stage for it. The call is one of the major and most important steps to a story, but it is surely not the last. No matter how scary it may be, the call to action pushes the characters and the readers to see the world in a new way and even can inspire us to take a leap of faith and go on the adventure that calls us.