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44 reviews for:
The Art of Dramatic Writing: Its Basis in the Creative Interpretation of Human Motives
Lajos Egri
4.07 AVERAGE
44 reviews for:
The Art of Dramatic Writing: Its Basis in the Creative Interpretation of Human Motives
Lajos Egri
4.07 AVERAGE
All my life, every advice any writer has ever given me - be it in a seminar or in a book - has always been based on instincts and feeling. That's all very well and good, but it also means inconsistency, which so many writers suffer from. This book makes clear everything that is needed to make a good film, play, novel, story, and it does so with absolute certainty.
I have been writing a screenplay, and nothing has helped me more than this book so far. Whereas I'm good with ideas, and I look at every element individually, this book gave me a totally different way to go about it, and make it whole.
I have been writing a screenplay, and nothing has helped me more than this book so far. Whereas I'm good with ideas, and I look at every element individually, this book gave me a totally different way to go about it, and make it whole.
challenging
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
informative
medium-paced
THE best book on character writing I have EVER read!!
informative
reflective
fast-paced
A nicely put together, useful book, with some biased opinion, but in this genre it's OK :)
informative
slow-paced
The author’s tone sometimes came across as pretentious, but I did find a lot of helpful tidbits in here which I am sure I’ll be using in my own writing. A lot of it was things I already knew or had learned in classes, but it really helps to have a good refresher.
After reading this incredibly insightful, incredibly lucid book, I really feel that it's a crime that (1) so few people have read this book, and (2) there are so many bad plays (novels, etc.) out there. And it's not even hard to understand! I didn't have to struggle to comprehend the advice or see why it works.
Lest you think I'm overstating the value of the work, I shall explain it to you in three easy steps.
1. What premise are you trying to prove? (This is not theme or plot summary, but the plot should be obvious from it. For example, in "Romeo and Juliet," the premise is "Great love defies even death." "Macbeth": "Ruthless ambition leads to destruction.)
2. Find characters who, because of their very nature, must inevitably be led to choices that will prove the premise. (In a delicious twist, Egri illustrates this point by asking you to imagine what would have happened if Hamlet, the brooding Dane, had fallen in love with Juliet. By the time he got done soliloquizing, she'd have been married off to Paris and all that would be left to him was still more brooding and cursing his fate. Yet in his own play, his tenacity in uncovering his father's murderer fit perfectly.)
3. Fill your plot with conflict that exposes the characters' nature, so that in the end the reader will understand your premise and your characters.
Naturally, I'm leaving a lot out that is worth reading. Egri writes in a direct, instructional style that has lost favor to conversational style, but is eminently readable. The first half of the book, on premise and character, is directly applicable to all forms of dramatic writing (novel, short story, theater, television, film, even comic book), and it doesn't matter that this book was originally entitled "How to Write a Play" and as such, takes its examples from theater. The second half, on conflict and general writing advice, is still entirely valuable and still applies to non-theater writing, but must be synthesized before it can be applied to other media where dialogue is not the primary method of communicating to the reader.
Once you've read this book, you are completely without excuse if you write something boring or nonsensical. You'll also wonder why no one's ever explained drama to you so clearly before. Then you'll wonder why you haven't heard of the book when it was first published in 1938! That's pre-WWII, people. And a lot of lousy drama has been written since then. Dont' let yours be another.
Lest you think I'm overstating the value of the work, I shall explain it to you in three easy steps.
1. What premise are you trying to prove? (This is not theme or plot summary, but the plot should be obvious from it. For example, in "Romeo and Juliet," the premise is "Great love defies even death." "Macbeth": "Ruthless ambition leads to destruction.)
2. Find characters who, because of their very nature, must inevitably be led to choices that will prove the premise. (In a delicious twist, Egri illustrates this point by asking you to imagine what would have happened if Hamlet, the brooding Dane, had fallen in love with Juliet. By the time he got done soliloquizing, she'd have been married off to Paris and all that would be left to him was still more brooding and cursing his fate. Yet in his own play, his tenacity in uncovering his father's murderer fit perfectly.)
3. Fill your plot with conflict that exposes the characters' nature, so that in the end the reader will understand your premise and your characters.
Naturally, I'm leaving a lot out that is worth reading. Egri writes in a direct, instructional style that has lost favor to conversational style, but is eminently readable. The first half of the book, on premise and character, is directly applicable to all forms of dramatic writing (novel, short story, theater, television, film, even comic book), and it doesn't matter that this book was originally entitled "How to Write a Play" and as such, takes its examples from theater. The second half, on conflict and general writing advice, is still entirely valuable and still applies to non-theater writing, but must be synthesized before it can be applied to other media where dialogue is not the primary method of communicating to the reader.
Once you've read this book, you are completely without excuse if you write something boring or nonsensical. You'll also wonder why no one's ever explained drama to you so clearly before. Then you'll wonder why you haven't heard of the book when it was first published in 1938! That's pre-WWII, people. And a lot of lousy drama has been written since then. Dont' let yours be another.
While the examples are fairly dated and all taken from plays, there is still a wealth of valid and important information here applicable to novel writing. I found the first and last few chapters particularly helpful in furthering my understanding of how to develop plot from characters.