The Heart of Your Script

The Insider’s Guide to Writing the Difficult Middle Section of a Screenplay

The Heart of Your Script cover

The Heart of Your Script

The Insider’s Guide to Writing the Difficult Middle Section of a Screenplay

Quantity
Pre-order. Available 11 Dec 2025
$32.39 RRP $40.49 Website price saving $8.10 (20%)

Payment for this pre-order will be taken when the item becomes available

Description

While there are many guides to screenwriting, none of them tackle the specific difficulties of writing the tricky mid-section of the screenplay. The Heart of Your Script reveals the six key elements that are crucial for ensuring an emotionally satisfying and dramatically engaging center to any script.

Using a broad range of concise case studies, including contemporary films such as Aftersun (2022), The Whale (2022), Shoplifters (2018), Talk to Me (2022), Barbie (2023) and Oppenheimer (2023), canonical texts such as Back to the Future (1985), Seven Samurai (1954) and There Will Be Blood (2007) and cult classics like Swiss Army Man, (2016), Jennifer's Body (2009) and Heathers (1988), Ted Wilkes and Phil Hughes provide helpful tips and tricks to assist writers in finding out what is at the heart of the story they want to tell and how to ensure that it is coming through in their stories. Refusing any single method for structuring this central portion, Wilkes and Hughes offer a character-centred study, which allows aspiring screenwriters to map their dramatic journey from the inside out.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. The Mechanics (Exploring The Dark Forest)
The Path
Off The Path
The Gate
The Key
The Wolf
The Suit Of Armour
3. The Pathways
4. Case Studies
Become A Swan – Free Guy, Matt Lieberman, Zak Penn, 2021
Unknowing – Top Gun: Maverick, Jim Cash, Jack Epps Jr, Peter Craig, 2022
Willing – Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan, Kai Bird, Martin Sherwin, 2023
Accidental – Aftersun, Charlotte Wells, 2022
Mistaken – Talk To Me, Danny Philippou, Bill Hinzman, Daley Pearson, 2022
5.Taking The Paradigm Into Other Mediums
6. Breaking The Paradigm

Product details

Published 11 Dec 2025
Format Ebook (Epub & Mobi)
Edition 1st
Extent 240
ISBN 9781839028120
Imprint British Film Institute
Illustrations 6 bw illus
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing

About the contributors

Author

Ted Wilkes

Ted Wilkes is lecturer in Screenwriting and Film &…

Author

Phil Hughes

Phil Hughes is senior lecturer and course leader i…

Related Titles

Get 30% off in the May sale - for one week only

Environment: Staging