The Art of Dramatic Writing
Its Basis in the Creative Interpretation of Human Motives
Touchstone · Print & ebook · February 15, 1972
Learn the basic techniques every successful playwright knows!
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- Who it’s for
- A clear-eyed craft guide starts with character, motive, and the conflict they generate.
- Themes
- Dramatic writing craft, Character and human motives, Premise and conflict
- Genres
- Playwriting, Fiction Writing, Screenwriting
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Start with this bookAbout this book
Learn the basic techniques every successful playwright knows! Amid the hundreds of "how-to" books out there, there have been very few which attempted 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.
Continue reading
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 that they do. Using examples from everything from William 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 basis 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.
Drama from Within
A clear-eyed craft guide starts with character, motive, and the conflict they generate.
Come here for
- Thinking through how human motives give dramatic writing its shape
Expect
- A direct, jargon-free framework built around premise, character, and conflict
Where it sits
| Playwriting | 92% |
|---|---|
| Screenwriting | 51% |
| Fiction Writing | 28% |
Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.
Publisher categories
- Creative Writing
- Language Arts
- Playwriting
- Authors
- Lajos Egri
- Publisher
- Touchstone
- Published
- February 15, 1972
- Format
- Print & ebook
- Theme
- Dramatic writing craft · Character and human motives · Premise and conflict
- Reading lane
- Creative Writing