Who is Baba Yaga in your Story?
26 June 2026 · 2 min read
The most misunderstood character in mythology might be a child-eating witch in a hut with chicken legs.
Baba Yaga isn't really the monster we think she is. She lives at the edge of the forest. A boundary. Between who you were and who you could become.
And that's exactly where transformation happens.
Where mythology meets story and reflects the human condition.
Here's what resonates about her stories, for scripts and our lives...
She lives on a threshold. Cross it, and you can't go back the same person.
She never gives wisdom for free. Only through riddles, tests, absurd tasks that change you while you do them.
To the arrogant she's terrifying. To the foolish, dangerous. To the courageous, a teacher. To the prepared, a guide.
She doesn't reveal who she is. She reveals who YOU are.
In Vasilisa the Beautiful, the girl who does the work walks out of the woods with the coveted ember. The ones who don't, end up feeding the oven.
And isn't that exactly our characters work, and of course how our minds work too?
The moment you try to become someone new, the old you resists. Doubt shows up. Fear shows up. Confusion shows up.
That doesn't mean you're going the wrong way.
It means you're standing at the threshold. The place where one version of you has to die so the next one can step forward. As in our stories, so in life.
We've all stood at the edge of that forest. The script we're scared to write. The film we keep planning instead of shooting.
Baba Yaga was never guarding the forest. The blank page. Or the green light.
She was guarding transformation from those not brave enough to take the leap.
So. Will you turn back, or will you cross the threshold?
What's YOUR forest and will YOU enter?
#Screenwriting #Filmmaking #Storytelling #CreativeCourage #Mythology
Written by
Chris JonesPassionate about all things film, I have spent my life watching movies, making movies and helping others make their movies too. Most recently I have been directing Splinter Unit on 'Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning', parts 1 and 2 for Paramount. I also executive-produced 'The Enfield Poltergeist' for Apple TV+. Deeper into my past, my early major projects include action thriller 'The Runner', serial killer thriller 'White Angel' and paranormal horror 'Urban Ghost Story'. I co-created and authored The Guerilla Film Makers Handbook series, published by Bloomsbury. There are now eight books in the series. More recently I have run a series of London-based festivals, kicking off with the London Screenwriters Festival which attracts over 1,000 professional screenwriters from around the globe annually. I also set up and run TEDxEaling, an annual TEDx conference on storytelling and human communication. In 2009, I made the multi-award-winning and Oscar-shortlisted 'Gone Fishing', the whole process being heavily documented on my blog. In 2014 I completed my fourth feature film, the crowd-created 50 Kisses which entered the Guinness Book Of Records for most screenwriters on a feature film. Following this success, I founded Create50 to continue the idea of crowd-created projects. Twisted50, our first book, was published on Halloween 2016 and immediately toppled Stephen King from the top spot on Amazon. Five books have followed in the Twisted50 series and we are working on the sixth now. During the summer of 2016 I trained to become a master Firewalk instructor and now regularly take people across the hot coals for charity. Late 2017 I directed the short film 'Seeing Him' which collected a ton of awards too. Over the following years I continued to make award-winning shorts, such as Meet The Nativity and Never Too Late. In the summer of 2022 I premiered Impact 50, the second feature-length movie from Create50. This time I directed the segment at the start of the film, with Olivia Williams as the President, and written by Joe Eszterhas. In the summer of 2022, I also joined the Mission: Impossible 7 and 8 productions as Splinter Unit director. At Halloween 2023, the Apple TV+ show that I co-executive-produced, 'The Enfield Poltergeist', premiered. I run regular filmmaking workshops for filmmakers both online and in person. Some people ask how I began making films? Like most filmmakers of my generation, it was with a Super 8mm camera, summertime and school friends, usually after watching a behind-the-scenes TV programme on a Hollywood movie like Star Wars. My first film was a zombie horror called Necronomicon, heavily influenced by John Carpenter's The Fog. And I was hooked for life. Contact me at Ealing Film Studios, Ealing Green, London, W5 5EP, UK
