The Art of Dramatic  Writing
By Lajos Egri
A Touchstone Book
Published by Simon & Schuster
New York
ISBN 0-671-21332-6

Learn the basic techniques every playwright knows…

Among the many "how to" playwrighting books that have appeared over the years, there have been few that attempt to analyze the mysteries of play construction. Lajos Egri's classic The Art of Dramatic  Writing, does just that, with instruction that can be applied equally well to a short story, novel, or screenplay.

Examining a play from the inside out, Egri starts with the heart of any drama: its characters. All good dramatic writing hinges on people and their relationships, which serve to move the story forward and give it life, as well as an understanding of human motives – why people act the way they do. Using examples from everything from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet to Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, Egri shows how it is essential for the author to have a basic premise – a thesis, demonstrated in terms of human behavior – and to develop the dramatic conflict on the basic of that behavior.

Using Egri’s ABCs of premise, character, and conflict, The Art of Dramatic  Writing is a direct, jargon free approach to the problem of achieving truth in writing.

Rather than force your characters to fit a structure, Egri’s idea is that characters behavior is governed by the premise and as long as you the writer stick to that concept each of your characters will display a ‘character arc’ of development as he or she takes the dramatic journey through the story. The conclusion of any dramatic work is the result of the characters behavior in response to a given premise. If a character behaves differently or permitted to make his or her own decisions of how to act, which is not related to the main story premise, then the writer will be deviating away from the premise or story concept. In other words, your characters motivations, their decisions, behavior how they react is directly related and bound by the story’s premise.

This is a great book which explores the concept of dramatic writing for the theatre but the ideas are equally relevant towards writing for the screen. The concept of character is exposed as creative interpretation of human motives and why characters behave the way they do in relation to a given story premise - this knowledge is nothing more than a revelation. If you get the chance to read this book you’ll discover a wealth of understanding of why your characters act they way they do based upon their environment because this is the very thing of a premise, they are bound to act a certain way because the premise dictates choices, leads to action and finally resolution..

Excellent book, maybe a tad complex, but well worth the read..

A premise, a thesis ... like writing an essay.

A DOLL'S HOUSE, you say?

What was the premise of that one?  The thesis ...

Hmm ... if I recall, it's an important story about trying to find not necessarily equal rights, but a balance -- your own compromise with the world ... could that be the premise?  Maybe ... I guess I'll think about what hapenned, to see if it is ...

Hmm ... in the end, Nora leaves her husband Torvald, with a slam of the door, because she wanted to find her own opinions. As Nora was growing up, her father told her his opinions so often that Nora adopted her father's opinions, to keep the peace, and whenever she disagreed, she kept silent. She unthinkingly adopted her father's opinions about everything -- and when someone would ask her something, she'd reply with her father's opinions, because she never took time to think things over for herself ... partly because she was punished when she did. Then her father handed her to her husband Torvald who ALSO treated her like an object -- like a little animal to play with, a little pet to amuse him, a little doll to dress, a rat in a maze looking for cheese that sometimes he'd withhold until she begs -- and she'd finally gotten sick of being more a plaything for her husband than a mother to her children who knew their nannies better than they knew her -- she finally got sick of being treated as if she was more a toy than a person, and she left her husband with a slam of the door.

But that's the end. Within the meat of the play is a spider metaphor in the form of a dance called The Tarantella, which Nora's supposed to be practicing to perform at a party. This play is 130 years old. In that time, a play like this would climax with her dance going successfully during the recall of the letter which could change her life forever. Then Torvald would continue treating Nora as if she was nothing more than a plaything, and that return to the status quo would be considered an average happy ending 130 years ago.

But this play was different. The letter which revealed that Nora forged her father's signature in order to borrow money which saved her husband Torvald's life was not recalled from the household's mailbox -- a mailbox which the wife of the household isn't even allowed to open -- and Torvald read the letter. Nora was hoping for a miracle. She hoped Torvald would realise she saved his life, and that he'd do the honorable thing which -- in that situation -- would be to take the blame for his wife's forgery, and that they'd suffer minor consequences as a result, and then get on with her life.

But instead, Torvald yelled at her, revealing that he was not willing to make an honorable sacrifice for his wife, so his wife did the right thing and left the jerk.

In the dance The Tarantella, and in reality, Nora was being pulled in many different directions, like the eight legs of a spider. She did the dance violently, perfectly, because she actually was being pulled in so many directions.

Torvald treated her like a little animal. Every time he called her his "little squirrel", his "little lark", his "little song-bird", or "his" anything, his stupidity is apparent. But closer to the end, as his insensitivity was catching up to him, in the form of an inevitable metaphorical kick in the face ... as that punishment drew ever nearer, the play feels like the action falls rather than rises ... then rather than falling at the end, it bounces.  Maybe it just felt that way to me. Torvald's line "There is a chasm between us" was the only realistic insight to emit from his big mouth in the entire play.

Nora wasn't allowed to have candy unless Torvald rewarded her with it. The fact that she complied with his whims was quite suffocating.

The character with whom I identified the most was Doctor Rank. He was the guy who loved her for as long as he'd known her.  He was the guy who I hope he got his happy ending ... especially this close to valentine's day.  I hope that Nora went to Doctor Rank directly after the ending of the play. She probably didn't.  Ibsen left that part of the story to the imagination.  Ibsen was probably depressed by the catharsis of valentine's day.

Nora even had to hide from her husband -- and from their children -- the fact that she had a job for a while. She trusts Doctor Rank with more information than she even trusts her husband with.

The ending was good. Nora left her husband, which is exactly what she should have done -- it was a bittersweet, well-deserved kick in the ass for that jerk. Doctor Rank and Nora might have formed a plan and gotten together -- the black cross on his note could have implied that he was faking his death and she was escaping with him out of town ... we can only hope they had a happy valentine's day.

Why follow rules? Just  write in your order.

They're not rules, this is a mistake to see his ideas as such..

His ideas are all about ploughing your own field rather than your neighbor's..

Read the book, sounds like it might help you develop some insight about writing..

I definitely think this is one of the better books I have read on the craft.  Parts of it are so simple (i.e. premise) that I think we writers often lose sight of them.  

The pieces on conflict are pretty complex.  It is through this complexity, however, that I think Egri tells us how involved writing can be.  I still have yet to really get all of it, but it's a very useful manual nonetheless.