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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

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Pre-order. Available 08 Jan 2026
£58.50 RRP £65.00 Website price saving £6.50 (10%)

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Description

While there are countless guides to screenwriting, few focus on one of the most challenging parts of the craft: the elusive and often problematic mid-section of a screenplay. The Heart of Your Script reveals the six key elements that are crucial for ensuring an emotionally satisfying and dramatically engaging centre to any script.

Examining recent films such as Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) Talk to Me (2022), Barbie (2023) and Dumb Money (2023) to classics such as Back to the Future (1985) and Seven Samurai (1954), as well as cult favourites like Big (1988), Fight Club (1999) and My Small Land (2022), Ted Wilkes and Phil Hughes offer useful tips and tricks to help writers uncover the narrative core of 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. Whether you are a seasoned screenwriter or just getting started, this book will help you transform the middle of your script from a narrative slump into one of its most powerful and memorable sections.

Table of Contents

1 The mechanics
2 Willing
3 Unknowing
4 Unable to believe
5 Accidental
6 Mistaken
7 Willing case study: Inside Out 2 (2024)
8 Unknowing case study: The Fall Guy (2024)
9 Unable-to-believe case study: Barbie (2023)
10 Accidental case study: Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)
11 Mistaken case study: Talk to Me (2023)
12 Character Is Structure does TV

Product details

Published 08 Jan 2026
Format Hardback
Edition 1st
Extent 208
ISBN 9781839028113
Imprint British Film Institute
Illustrations 6 bw illus
Dimensions 234 x 156 mm
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…

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