John Yorke's 'Trip to the Moon' Offers Storytelling Tips but Falls Short on Editing
Creative writing handbooks have become a thriving industry, with countless titles promising to reveal the secrets of storytelling for fledgling authors, dramatists, and screenwriters. While these guides hold limited value for literary fiction, where plot takes a backseat, they can prove invaluable for those crafting screenplays, stage plays, or genre fiction. Commercial, plot-driven storytelling is inherently formulaic, making a solid grasp of narrative structure essential for any aspiring writer.
Exploring the Five-Act Framework and Its Emotional Impact
In his bestselling 2014 work, Into the Woods, John Yorke highlighted the pervasive use of the five-act structure—exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and denouement—across popular movies, plays, and television dramas. His new book, Trip to the Moon, revisits this theme, beginning with an extensive discussion on plot architecture. Yorke argues that the five-act framework elegantly facilitates an emotionally compelling journey, often featuring a protagonist's transformative revelation at the story's midpoint. He illustrates this with examples from hit TV shows like I May Destroy You and blockbuster films such as Star Wars and Terminator 2.
Broadening the Scope: Storytelling in Society and Politics
Yorke expands his analysis to consider the wider social significance of story structure, touching on politics, philosophy, and spirituality. He notes that revanchist populist rhetoric often hinges on a deceptive promise of renewal, citing Donald Trump's "Make America Great Again" slogan as a "masterclass in condensed narrative." Similarly, the success of Netflix's Squid Game demonstrates how tapping into viewers' subconscious grievances and offering a path to healing can unlock powerful narrative potential. Themes of healing and reinvention also echo in the rhetoric of groups like the Church of Scientology and Alcoholics Anonymous, which promise redemption through submission to a higher power. Yorke posits that stories fill a "god-shaped hole" in humanity, addressing a deep-seated yearning for meaning and transcendence.
Conflict as the Core of Narrative and Human Existence
At the heart of a good story lies conflict, which Yorke defines broadly as "dissonance, of any size, of any shape, or any form." Drawing from his experience as a former producer on EastEnders and a one-time head of drama at Channel 4, he suggests that story structure mirrors the essence of human life: "Equilibrium, disruption, recognition of the disruption, repair of the disruption, new equilibrium." In simpler terms, he encapsulates it as: "We exist, we observe, we change." These insights provide thought-provoking lessons for novice screenwriters, occasionally addressed in a pedagogical second-person tone.
Criticisms: Verbal Incontinence and Political Digressions
Despite its merits, Trip to the Moon is undermined by verbal incontinence, which contradicts its emphasis on audience engagement. When delving into politics, Yorke's authorial voice shifts from an avuncular mentor to a pontificating pub bore, taking aim at "social justice warriors," anti-racism activists, and far-right conspiracy theorists alike. He makes numerous disparaging references to Jeremy Corbyn, even comparing the internal politics of "Corbynite Labour" to China's Cultural Revolution, Russian pogroms, and McCarthyite purges of the 1950s. In another instance, he credits a journalist's flattering book about Mao Zedong in the 1930s with contributing to 80 million deaths under communism. These passages, marked by triteness and hyperbole, detract from Yorke's credibility as a thinker. To underscore his point on ideological purity, he misquotes Yeats: "The rigid binary is God-like: a rough beast slouching towards democratic consensus, with violence on its mind."
Overall Assessment: An Undercooked and Repetitive Effort
While offering moments of insight, Trip to the Moon—named after an early French sci-fi film—feels distinctly undercooked. Yorke's exposition becomes wearisomely repetitious as the book progresses, and the prose often lapses into sloppy casualness, with an over-reliance on intensifiers like "incredibly" that mask diminishing intellectual returns. In one section, the word "incredibly" appears five times within six short paragraphs. Yorke admits in the acknowledgements, "I never intended to write a second book," and unfortunately, this lack of intention shows. Trip to the Moon: Understanding the True Power of Story by John Yorke is published by Particular at £25.
