Heart of Your Script

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.

Phil Hughes is Senior Lecturer and course leader in Film & Screen at Regent's University London, UK. Alongside Ted Wilkes, he is the author of Character Is Structure: The Insider’s Guide to Screenwriting (2023). He has written numerous scripts for film and television including Thunderpants (2002) and I Want Candy (2007). He has developed scripts with major producers, broadcasters and studios both in Europe and the USA.

Ted Wilkes is Senior Lecturer in Screenwriting at University for the Creative Arts, UK. He is co-founder of the production company BottleRocket Film and his work has been exhibited at the Dublin Sci-Fi Film Festival, the Miami Sci-Fi Film Festival and the Southampton International Film Festival.