John Yorke’s ‘Into the Woods: How Stories Work and Why We Tell Them’’ is a powerful work on storytelling, consisting of analysing a multitude of story structures. From the deeply loved traditional structures of Aristotle and Shakespeare to the more contemporary works of screenwriting geniuses, Robert McKee, and Blake Snyder.
About the Author
John Yorke is a Script Editor, a Television Producer and an English Language and Literature lecturer. He has also previously worked as an Executive Producer and Commissioning Editor. John has made his own mark in British Television, working on the BAFTA-award winning soap, EastEnders, for sixteen years.
The title ‘Into the Woods’ reflects a fairy-tale journey, seen across classic fairy-tale stories such as, Little Red Riding Hood and Hansel and Gretel. It is a universal storytelling form, where it begins at ‘Once upon a time…’ then the story introduces the protagonist(s) and their allies.
Then enters the obstacles they must overcome and the equally or if not more powerful antagonist (a monster of some sort) is introduced. Along comes a magical helper, object, or an antidote to help them outwit the monster, to then live happily ever after.
It is about how old age fairy-tales are adapted in story form to the modern films seen in cinemas. From the various storytelling structures of three acts to the five-act structure – the history of storytelling is both unravelled and discovered.
The Book
The book is cleverly sectioned into acts, like the act structures seen in narrative storytelling structures. Each section has an act-themed title – starting at ‘Home’, the next section is entering the journey ‘into the woods’, otherwise known as the ‘inciting incident’ of a story.
The next stage ‘describes the forest’ and enjoying the road back until ‘Home Again’, where the protagonist has returned home but in a new changed and transformed state. With the last section focusing on the act structure of popular films – ranging from Hamlet to The Godfather.
Into the Woods begins explaining the universal question of ‘What is a story?’ The first chapter delves into archetypal stories, central characters, and their problems – everything the writer needs to know, starting from the very beginning of the story.
However, the book often jumps from one thing to the next without sometimes pausing to fully explain the concept before moving on. Although, it runs like a mini storytelling bible with factual information backed up with succinct researched examples. Behind this is the intellectual narrator voice of John Yorke. It works as an extremely note-taking worthy ‘research’ novel, which finds itself delving deeper and deeper into the world of storytelling – from basic story elements to dissecting the various elements which make up the different act structures.
The book bases itself on popular film works so the reader can not only relate to Yorke’s words but analyse the films they have already seen many times before. It works the writer on what they already know and then enhances the writer’s knowledge from there. It utilises writing terminology, analyses story structure and links it back to film references. These references expand across genre and time.
It can be both a learning resource of ‘story’ and a work which develops and advances writers at all stages and experiences. Whether writing their first story, writing their one hundredth screenplay, or creating a television pilot – there’s something for everyone to learn and take away.
References a Wide Scope of Cinema
Interestingly, Yorke analyses and compares works from a wide scope of cinema and shows the contrast between older and more contemporary character journeys. The changing nature of the James Bond franchise is used as an effective example.
From Russia With Love (1963) is compared with Casino Royale (2006), suggesting the latter film delves into greater depth behind the character that makes James Bond. The reasoning is particularly effective at analysing and unravelling Bond’s emotional side and how his love for Vesper Lynd makes him reflect on why he does what he does.
Diagrams visually label in a clear and concise manner how the three-act structure and the five-act structure works. It draws from screenwriting gurus that have come before such as Syd Field’s three-act structure and Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat! Story beats.
The only thing that could use improvement, is the layout of the book. Often one argument can be strewn into another point. To earn its extra half a star, maybe clear signposts in ‘subtitles’, ‘headings’ or ‘subheadings’ can help separate points to make them clearer.
At other times, it can be due to the font itself – a mixture between requiring more sub-headings to separate text into defined sections to increasing the size of the font. As the Into the Woods’ publisher is Penguin, it comes with their traditional small font. Although not the fault of the author, with so much important information to absorb, the layout makes it much harder to learn.
Overall
Overall, if the writer can look past the layout and focus more on the content of the book, it will be both an exciting learning experience and an informative read. It can be used as a guide across a wide range of mediums – from novel writing, playwriting, to screenwriting and television writing.
The absolute and complete mini bible which analyses the art of storytelling and the universal story structures. ‘Into the Woods’ earns its rightful place on the bookshelf and is a keeper as something which can be re-read for many years of happily ever afters’…
Into the Woods can be found in WHSmith here, Waterstones here and Amazon here.
John Yorke’s website can be found here.
Hannah is an English graduate and freelance writer. She enjoys writing short stories, fiction, screenplays, and blog posts. Her favourite category of films is the Horror genre, and you’ll always find her reading.
