Available Formats
The Heart of Your Script: The Insiders Guide to Writing the Difficult Middle Section of a Screenplay
By (Author) Ted Wilkes
By (author) Phil Hughes
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
BFI Publishing
5th February 2026
United Kingdom
Tertiary Education
Non Fiction
Film scripts and screenplays
Filmmaking and production: technical and background skills
Film guides and reviews
Paperback
240
Width 156mm, Height 234mm
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), Jennifers 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.
Ted Wilkes is Senior Lecturer in Screenwriting at University for the Creative Arts, UK.
Phil Hughes is Senior Lecturer and course leader in Film & Screen at Regent's University London, UK.