Art Of Dramatic Writing: Its Basis in the Creative Interpretation of Human Motives

(Paperback)

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Lajos Egri examines a play from the inside out, starting with the heart of any drama: its characters. For it is people - their private natures and their inter-relationships - that move a story and give it life. All good dramatic writing depends upon an understanding of human motives. Why do people act as they do What forces transform a coward into a hero, a hero into a coward What is it that Romeo does early in Shakespeare's play that makes his later suicide seem inevitable Why must Nora leave her husband at the end of A Doll's House These are a few of the fascinating problems which Egri analyzes. He shows how it is essential for the author to have a basic premise - a thesis, demonstrated in terms of human behaviour - and to develop his dramatic conflict on the basis of that behaviour. Premise, character, conflict: this is Egri's ABC. His book is a direct, jargon-free approach to the problem of achieving truth in a literary creation.

Reviews

Moss Hart I found Lajos Egri's book enormously interesting -- one of the best I have ever read.

Author Bio

Lajos Egri was born in the city of Eger, Hungary, and wrote his first three-act play at the age of ten. For more than thirty-five years he has written and directed plays in Europe and the United States. He was director of the Egri School of Writing in New York City for many years.