Regular LondonSWF contributors and crowd favourites Phil Hughes and Ted Wilkes have been promising us a book for a while now, and it has finally arrived!
Born out of their presentations to LondonSWF festivalgoers and their work with screenwriting students at Regent’s University London and LCC, Character is Structure: The Insiders’ Guide to Screenwriting is published by Bloomsbury as part of their BFI imprint.
The book offers practical, informed, and engaging guidance on how compelling characters are key to a compelling screenplay.
You can get it on Amazon now HERE
Phil and Ted have delivered world class sessions at the festival for years now, and this book is a deep dive into what these sessions illustrated.
It’s informative, succinct and extraordinarily easy to use to elevate your writing immediately.
And we of course look forward to their return to the LondonSWF stage in 2024!
Here’s the book blurb…
This book seeks to reshape the way that writers think about constructing their story, looking at the subject from the inside out. Often practitioners and theorists examine work through the separate lenses of character and/or structure and then bring them together. Within this book, authors Hughes and Wilkes argue that character is structure and one without the other makes for a dissatisfying narrative.
Through detailed case studies on films that span all genres, from mainstream franchises like The Hunger Games (2012-2015) and Shrek (2001-2010) to art house films such as Toto Le Heros (1991) and Eraserhead (1977), the authors reveal the dramatic imperative behind the central choices or dilemmas faced by every protagonist in every classic feature length narrative. They argue there is only one of five choices that any writer must make in inventing that key transition from the protagonist’s ordinary world into the adventure that will form the heart of their story.
Using the universal language of folk and fairy stories, this book gives writers and students a clear framework through which they can reference and improve their own storytelling. In doing so, it enables both the novice and experienced screenwriter to tell their story in the most authentic and impactful way, while keeping their protagonist at the heart of the narrative.
You can get it on Amazon now HERE
Posted by a member of the London Screenwriters’ Festival team.
