Into the Woods: A Five-Act Journey Into Story

“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 Structure
• Five-Act Structure
• The Importance of Change
• How We Tell Stories
• The Inciting Incident
• Putting It All Together
• Character and Characterization
• Exposition
• Subtext
• And 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.