There have been debates about whether a Christmas advert made for just £50 is better than the John Lewis £7m Christmas advert featuring Elton John. We know that budget doesn’t matter; it’s all about how you deliver story – so we’ve broken each advert down into their five acts.
We work closely with all our students, and often go through topics in detail to help them better grasp them. In this one-to-one session, the John Yorke Story team work with a screenwriter as she masters some of the core elements of five-act structure: inciting incidents, moments of hope and despair, and the point of no return.
What are the rookie structural issues new screenwriters struggle with? John Yorke Story tutor Kieran Grimes, script editor for EastEnders and story developer for the award-winning TV3/BBC police series Red Rock, explains the top structural points to master to make your script better.
Chelsea Morgan Hoffman, tutor on John Yorke’s Story for Screen online course, takes questions on 5-act structure, how to perfect a professional outline and how your themes might change dramatically throughout the writing process.
Nailing down the theme of your work is an essential component to get right early on in the process. So here, John Yorke explores the critical areas of writing theme, characters and intertwining storylines.