The monomyth (a.k.a. "the hero's journey") is an almost universal pattern description found in many narratives from around the Earth. Thoughtless use of monomyths without regard to structure is often blamed for lack of originality and clichés in popular culture.

The monomyth pattern was first described by Joseph Campbell in his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Campbell borrowed the term "monomyth" from novelist James Joyce's Finnegans Wake.

Campbell noted that important culture myths which have survived for thousands of years all share a virtually fundamental pattern with a number of stages such as:

• A call to adventure, which the hero has to accept or decline
  
• A road of trials, regarding which the hero succeeds or fails
  
• Achieving the goal or "boon", which often results in important self-knowledge
  
• A return to the ordinary world, again as to which the hero can succeed or fail

• Applying the boon, in which what the hero has gained can be used to improve the world

For example, in the television series "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century" Buck Rogers is frozen in space during a 1987 shuttle test only to awake nearly 500 years later. This would be the call to adventure. The road of trials and the achievement of the goal is when Buck Rogers must prove to the "good guys" that he is on Earth's side and is accepted by the new Earth government. A return to the ordinary world and using the "boon" is when Rogers is accepted as a member of the Earth Defense Directorate and gets involved in many diplomatic missions on behalf of Earth.