This CPD training is for anyone who wants to develop their talent in the industry and create richer player experiences. It’s suitable if you:

• Are a game writer or narrative designer looking to build on your skills
• Are new to game writing and want to understand what a development team needs from a writer and how to structure your work
• Work in other areas of game development and publishing, be it as a designer, producer, programmer or artist etc.

Our alumni include a former Lead Writer at Telltale, the Lead Level Designer at Mediatonic (Fall Guys), the Lead Story Editor at Ubisoft, and a BAFTA Breakthrough producer from Ustwo (Monument Valley II).

This professional training allows you to:

• Gain the narrative skills to better integrate story into the production process, ensure story is heard within a development team, and resolve problems where game design requirements feel at odds with story needs
• Master story structure, and ways to use the principles of narrative to produce more effective stories, and diagnose and fix story problems
• Refresh your skills and understand decisions you’ve always made using instinct
• Gain a more specific narrative vocabulary for communicating within a team
• Distill your thoughts at the planning stage, and exert greater control over drama as you work on games
• Gain greater understanding of industry expectations and processes within development teams
• Clearly identify and pursue your potential
• Develop the professional skills required to create games (eg discipline, attention to detail, ability to work to deadlines)
• Increase your professionalism in working with others
• Practise giving effective feedback and receiving critical notes
• Network with others in the industry, and with the tutor team and special guests
• Build greater independence, autonomy and critical judgment as you self-direct, self-manage and realise your assignments and final pitches to the course briefs.

Each course is divided into sessions. These sessions are released one by one (weekly or fortnightly, depending on the course). 

There’s no need to log on at a set time. You can work through the learning materials whenever suits you, day or night, wherever you are in the world. Just complete the assignments and join forum discussions by the session deadline. 

Our teaching method is based on the science of active learning: you read/listen/watch, try out, share and reflect. It’s a social experience – you become part of a small group, feeding back on each other’s writing to build a supportive bunch of readers you trust. Find out more here.

Session 1: The Protagonist and The Player –We start with an in-depth analysis of what a protagonist is, their desire and their relationship to the player. You’ll learn about good characterisation and how the identification process works.

Session 2: Key Elements of Story – In addition to a protagonist and a desire, every story needs an antagonist, an inciting incident, a journey, a crisis, a climax and a resolution. We’ll analyse all these elements in detail and how they work in games. At the end of this session you’ll have the chance to ask John your questions.

Session 3: Understanding Story Structure – We’ll focus on the ten questions you need to ask to make sure your story isn’t broken, and how you can structure it in three and five acts. By the end of the session, you’ll be able to deconstruct any story.

Session 4: Merging Story and Gameplay –The key challenge in game writing is to make story and gameplay work together. For this, you need to know your verbs, understand agency, choice, pacing and much more. At the end of this session you’ll have the chance to ask Caroline your questions.

Session 5: Storytelling Tips for Games –How you tell your story is as important as what the story is. A great story told badly is worse than an okay story told elegantly. Find out how to perfect your storytelling with 15 essential tips.

Session 6: Writing in a Development Team – In this final session you’ll learn what a development team needs from a writer — how you can contribute to, improve and make an impact on the quality of the final experience. This session will last two weeks.

At the end of the course you’ll use what you’ve learned to write a treatment for your own game story idea, which you can submit to receive written feedback notes from your tutors.

Join our alumni

After your course, you can join our online alumni community where you’ll meet our growing network of past students. You’ll be able to.

• Rejoin your classmates in a private forum
• Continue to access an archived version of your course materials
• Meet alumni from other courses and share work for feedback
• Join discussions about games writing, script editing and the industry
• Attend live chats with guest writers and industry folk

Mentoring and one-to-one feedback

The John Yorke Story tutor team offer mentoring, script reads and reports. We are happy to quote by job or script, or to arrange a longer mentoring scheme as you work on a specific story idea. We’ll create a package to suit you, so for more information please email [email protected]

Taking things further

If you’d like to take another John Yorke Story course, we’ll give you a discount. Please get in touch for more details.

Women in Games Bursary

The games industry needs more women and we’re committed to helping encourage more female talent on the scene.

The bursary covers 25% of the regular course price and is available to one female applicant for each iteration of this course. To apply, email John Yorke Story and tell the team how you’d benefit.

As this counts as CPD training, you may also be able to get funding from your employer to do it. See here for all John Yorke Story’s latest bursary and funding opportunities.