Story for Screenwriting: Advanced Structure

This course is for anyone who writes (or wants to write) drama for film or TV and would like to know more about how and why story principles work.

We teach this Master’s-level course in groups of up to 15 people. You can book as an individual, or you can block-book a class for your team. Often production companies enrol small teams to unify their approach to telling dramatic stories.

The course is suitable if you:

• Write for TV, film, radio or stage – or would like to move into screenwriting from another form, such as novel-writing
• Have an MA in TV, Film or Writing and would like to gain practical industry-level skills
• Work as a screenwriter and would like a refresher on story structure
• Are a team developing drama, and would like to share a common vocabulary of story
• Would like to see the blueprint underlying all successful stories, and learn how to manipulate it to tell more effective stories
• Need to discover why your stories aren’t working – and how to fix them
• Would like to develop new effective writing habits and take yourself more seriously as a writer
• Need to produce a professional treatment for an idea
• Enjoy the discipline of deadlines and peer feedback
• Want to join a friendly and supportive small group of learners
• Can dedicate 5-7 hours per week for the duration of the course

This professional training allows you to:

• Acquire the key technical skills screenwriters need, from character wants and needs to effective use of scenes and fractal storytelling
• Understand story structure, including five-act structure, turning points including the midpoint, breaking a story, the roadmap of change
• Gain greater understanding of industry expectations around commissioning and audience
• Clearly identify and pursue your potential as a screenwriter
• Master techniques to help diagnose and fix problems in any story
• Get to grips with writing a professional standard treatment
• Develop the professional skills screenwriters require (eg discipline, attention to detail, ability to work to deadlines)
• Increase your professionalism in working with others
• Practise giving effective feedback to other writers and receiving critical notes
• Network with other writers and with the tutor team and industry guests
• Build greater independence, autonomy and critical judgment as you self-direct, self-manage and realise your assignments and final project to the course briefs

Session 1: Introduction to Story (1) – You’ll start by learning the grammar of storytelling and the essential elements of a story, and experiment with summing up a protagonist’s wants and needs.

Session 2: Introduction to Story (2) – We build on the basic building blocks of the archetypal story identified in Session 1, examining structural form in more detail. We’ll look at the inciting incident, the character’s journey and story endings (crisis, climax and resolution).

Session 3: Essential Story Tools – This is about ‘breaking’ a story into its component parts to see whether it’s working as well as it could. You’ll also experiment with three-act structure. By the end of this session you should be able to deconstruct any story and understand how to fix parts that don’t work.

Session 4: Five-Act Structure – Now we break down a story into five acts and look at why this is such an invaluable tool for dramatic storytellers. You’ll learn the art of identifying turning points and the all-important midpoint, and experiment with rewriting a broken story in five parts.

Session 5: Building Stories – We introduce the basic building blocks of stories – scenes – and explain why you need to get inside characters’ heads to make them work. You’ll use the knowledge you’ve gained to plan an original story in five parts.

Session 6: Top Story Tips – By now you should know how to create a story, test its elements to make sure it works, and structure it into beats, scenes and acts. This session offers simple tips that will inspire you to look at stories and scripts with a fresh eye. If you have a problem with a story, this session will provide the solution.

Session 7: Write Your Own Treatment – We look at the difference between a synopsis and a treatment, then learn the rules for writing a successful professional-standard treatment.

Submit your treatment for an original idea and receive a detailed one-to-one feedback report from your tutor.

At the end of the course you’ll have everything you need, including expert feedback, to move onto our Story for Pitch Decks course, and prepare to pitch your idea at agents and commissioners.

During this course, there will also be a Live Q&A session with a featured screenwriter.

You will need to put in around 5-7 hours each week. The deadline for posting your final assignment each week is the end of Saturday. The deadline for giving feedback to others is the end of Sunday. Other than that, you can work through the course materials each week at your own pace.

There’s no need to log in at a set time to take part – sessions open to a timetable and you have until the end of each session to work through the materials in the online classroom.

So you can read the tutor notes and listen to the podcasts, watch the videos, analyse extracts, react to prompts and work through mini-exercises at any time of day or night that’s best for you. You can also contribute to discussions on our forums 24/7, so the online classroom feels like a rich and lively shared experience.

Most people on the course fit learning around their work and caring responsibilities, which is why we teach in this non-synchronous way. It also suits those studying in another language, and offers advantages in terms of accessibility and different learning styles. We ask that you submit your final exercise in each session by the deadline, then read and critique the work of some of your peers.

If there are live Zoom sessions in your course, your moderator will let you know the timing. If you can’t make it, you can send in questions in advance and catch up with the recording afterwards. Past sessions and any recordings remain available throughout the course – and in the alumni area afterwards – so you can revisit any of the learning, revise exercises and chart your progress at any point.

Join our alumni

After your course, you can join our online alumni community where you’ll meet our growing network of past students. You’ll be able to:

• Rejoin your classmates in a private forum
• Continue to access an archived version of your course materials
• Meet alumni from other courses and share work for feedback
• Join discussions about screenwriting, script editing and the industry
• Attend live chats with guest writers and industry folk

Mentoring and one-to-one feedback

The John Yorke Story tutor team offer mentoring, script reads and reports. We are happy to quote by job or script, or to arrange a longer mentoring scheme as you work on a specific story idea. We’ll create a package to suit you, so for more information please email [email protected]

If you are a writer based in North of Tyne, you may be eligible for a bursary discount through New Writing North.

You can submit your application through this site.

This course is open to writers all over the globe. If you are based anywhere else in the world, you can buy now here.