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abigailfair 's review for:
The Art of Dramatic Writing
by Lajos Egri
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.