Into the Woods
A Five-Act Journey Into Story
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4.3 • 10 Ratings
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
“Highly recommended reading.” —Huffington Post
“Brilliant on story structure.” —Ken Follett, New York Times bestselling author
“A gripping read from beginning to end.” —Sunday Times (London)
In this exciting and wholly original book, John Yorke not only shows that there is truly a unifying shape to narrative—one that echoes the great fairytale journey into the woods, and one, like any great art, that comes from deep within—he explains why, too.
With examples ranging from The Godfather to True Detective, Mad Men to Macbeth, and fairy tales to Forbrydelsen (The Killing), Yorke utilizes Shakespearean five-act structure as a key to analyzing all storytelling in all narrative forms, from film and television to theatre and novel-writing—a big step from the usual three-act approach. Chapters here include: Three-Act StructureFive-Act StructureThe Importance of ChangeHow We Tell StoriesThe Inciting IncidentPutting It All TogetherCharacter and CharacterizationExpositionSubtextAnd much more! The idea of Into the Woods is not to supplant works by Aristotle, Lajos Egri, Robert McKee, David Mamet, or any other writers of guides for screenwriters and playwrights, but to pick up on their cues and take the reader on a historical, philosophical, scientific, and psychological journey to the heart of all storytelling.
Into the Woods is destined to sit alongside David Mamet’s Three Uses of the Knife, Robert McKee’s Story, Syd Field’s Screenplay, and Lajos Egri’s The Art of Dramatic Writing as one of the most original, useful, and inspiring books ever on dramatic writing.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Yorke, the former head of BBC Drama, has a formidable understanding of how story (really, plot) works, and a myriad of examples to back up his ideas. " With only eight notes in an octave, we don't simply run out of music, but we start to see that a very simple pattern contains within it the possibility of endless permutations." Yorke is an excellent guide to those variations in story and how they shape take dramatic form in the narratives of film, theater, and novels. He's dismissive both of screenwriting gurus who put forward simple plans for writing television shows and movies, as well as those who dismiss the idea that any kind of structure is needed. It's fitting, then, that this book is less an instructional manual than a guide, carefully exploring the possibilities and recurring ideas of story through an extended metaphor of entering then leaving a forest. All of this could be of great benefit to writers who connect to Yorke's voice and theory. Still, Yorke readily admits there is nothing new here; he points out that his ideas date back to the Greeks, and the more compelling problem remains unanswered: how to go about writing story, instead of the easier task of analyzing it in order to prove it fits one's theory.
