The Factual TV course was fantastic. I really feel like I’ve learned so much about crafting effective and emotive storylines. The feedback from John Yorke and Peter Dale alone is invaluable. I would recommend this to anyone interested in understanding narratives and who would benefit from industry advice.

The Factual TV course with John Yorke and Peter Dale has been a wonderful experience on all fronts, and I feel so lucky to have shared it with such a talented and motivated group of people — they inspired me with each and every post.

The Factual TV course with John Yorke and Peter Dale has been truly transformative to the way that I frame and structure my stories. I have been really touched by the genuinely supportive and encouraging atmosphere on the forums from fellow learners and tutors.

Last night was probably the 15th time I’ve watched Aliens — and yet with John Yorke’s five story stages firmly planted in my head I watched it with a fresh pair of eyes. And the film followed these points to a tee. I just wanted to point out the obvious: just how much John and…

I’m a journalist and documentary-maker so I have quite a lot of experience with pitching. However, I had never never thought about my pitches in terms of story elements, story structure — I’ve always just done them on instinct and judging them on whether they read well. So I’m finding John and Peter’s Factual TV…

The course has made me aware that there’s now a whole thing called brand storytelling that often isn’t storytelling at all. I also liked the helpful critique, support and conversations that came from the community aspect of the course.

The course has such a wealth of useful, practical examples from business and film to help really bring the theory to life. It is hard to pin down one greatest learning from all this; perhaps it is that great stories are about fighting something — injustice, character flaws, baddies — and that it is also…

When it comes to business writing, the point about passive protagonists is very helpful, because so many business briefs can be unambitious, and would benefit from being challenged a bit. This course gives a good framework for making those challenges.

I have already started applying what I have learned on the course. In particular, when we have a potential new client and have to pull together a proposal. Identifying what they need, what they specifically want and what the forces of antagonism are has been really useful.

I’ve really enjoyed this course and its well-balanced mix of film and business-focused tasks. While it’s simple enough to recognise a successful business story, I’ve realised it’s another thing entirely to pinpoint the reasons for its success and understand how to recreate that in your work.

I couldn’t recommend PWA [and] Faber Academy highly enough. Not only have they taught me how to improve my writing, but the supportive community of fellow writers and the feedback they give is absolutely amazing.

I really appreciate the support and guidance from [the tutor] and the group. This course keeps me opening the laptop.