Most writing advice will eventually point you toward the Hero’s Journey. But there’s another, older structure, and it doesn’t center on conquest. Its center is transformation. It comes from anthropology and ritual theory, and it pairs really well with shamanic thinking.

Now here’s the disclaimer, I’m not a shaman, of course. It’s a long road to become one, and most of us weren’t born with the right cultural context to even walk that path. But I love reading about it, because it provides a wonderful framework to make sense of so many things. I hope that I’m learning from wisdom and not trying to appropriate a gift that was not in my heritage.

If you’re writing a novel about hidden truths, shifting identities, or magical revelation, this framework might feel more natural: 

  • Van Gennep’s three-part ritual structure: separation, liminality, incorporation
  • Victor Turner’s expansion: liminality as a space of ambiguity, anti-structure, and communitas
  • Shamanic cosmology: upper world, middle world, lower world

Together, they offer a useful way to think about narrative as an initiation rather than as a quest. (Quest are great too. I love a good quest. But not all stories are about quests.)

As Victor Turner expanded Van Gannep’s work, he highlighted that the middle phase, liminality, is key. It is a space of “betwixt and between,” where identity dissolves, hierarchy collapses, and new possibilities emerge. In this space, characters (and people) may experience communitas, a raw, equalizing connection that transcends normal structure. 

The Three Worlds as Narrative Space

Shamanic traditions describe reality as layered into three interconnected realms: 

  • Lower World – descent, instinct, memory, transformation
  • Middle World – ordinary reality, relationships, lived experience
  • Upper World – insight, meaning, vision, transcendence

These worlds are not separate locations so much as modes of perception. The shaman moves between them to bring back knowledge, healing, or power. 

So can the main character in your book.

Mapping the Three Worlds onto Ritual Narrative

Instead of mapping plot beats, think in terms of ritual movement through worlds. 

I. Separation: Leaving the Middle World

Every story begins with a break from the ordinary, which is why you start with the ordinary world that the character is familiar with. It doesn’t have to be good. But it’s working one way or another. (It might be that your identity is defined by someone else, you’re miserable, etc., but you’re used to it. The boat might be sad but not rocking.)

In ritual terms, separation removes the initiate from this structure. They are stripped of certainty, often through loss, disruption, or invitation. In the three-act structure, this is the inciting event.

II. Liminality: Descent and Ascent (Lower and Upper Worlds)

This is the heart of your novel. Turner describes liminality as a state of ambiguity where old identities dissolve and new ones have not yet formed. It is unstable, disorienting, and creative. In shamanic terms, this phase often involves movement between the Lower and Upper Worlds: 

The Lower World: Descent into the Hidden is where the protagonist descends. It’s not “hell,” it’s the realm of instinct, memory, trauma, animal knowing, and transformation. 3

In a story, it’s when you have to confront your shadow. You might even literally enter into an underworld. You’ll probably have to face buried truths. The Lower World strips away illusion. It is where the character encounters what has been hidden by others or by themselves. 

The Upper World is the ascent into meaning. After you deal with your shadow work (there’s a lot of psychology going in in here in case you didn’t notice), comes ascent to the upper world. This is where you find vision, insight, reframing, and contact with something larger like ancestors or Truth.

This is the place where you can see the patterns at last, where it makes sense, where you are heading for the “You have no power over me” kind of climax.

Liminality as Anti-Structure

During this middle phase, normal rules break down. 

Turner calls this anti-structure—a suspension of hierarchy and order where new forms can emerge. 

In your novel, this might look like Social roles reversing, or outsiders becoming guides, or the power is just shifting unpredictably.

This is also where communitas can form: unexpected bonds between characters who meet outside the constraints of ordinary identity. These relationships often feel more real than those in the “normal” world, and they are key to transformation. 

III. Incorporation: Returning to the Middle World

In the hero’s journey there is a victory before the hero returns to the community. In ritual, it’s much more about the change, and often there is no physical victory. Who you are, how you see the world is different. Van Gennep calls this reaggregation, re-entering society with a new status. 

The world may look the same, but it is not. You have different knowledge (power, truth, etc.), and you can’t go back to your earlier life. The difference is when the theme is about hidden identities (changelings, shapeshifters), secret truths and revelations, psychological or spiritual descent, nonlinear or dreamlike storytelling. So much more internal than external. I mean, in Campbell, there’s an internal too, but the plot and the action drive the story forward. Here, we have gates or thresholds that move us from one phase of the story to the next.

Because the story is about liminality, it’s a great structure if you want any ambiguity, instability, or multiplicity of self.

The Writer as Shaman

In this model, the writer is guiding a ritual. Think about it, you lead the reader out of the ordinary, hold them in ambiguity, and then bring them back changed. Together, you move between worlds.