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

This is one of the best books on writing ever written. However AVOID this hardcover copy at all costs. The type is so small that it's a chore to read - and annotate. A greedy publisher diminished this fine product to the point that it's virtually unreadable.More to the point - this book launched my screenwriting career. I had the chops - Lajos Egri showed me the way and opened the studio and television network gates. One wants to 'own' the knowledge imparted between these pages- take notes, underline and such. So I came back to revisit Egri decades later and ended up with this piece of crap.

The text is so small on the hardcopy that it is almost impossible to read. Had I have known this, I would have never purchased this book.I am only at the beginning of the first chapter and have eye fatigue. Really sad.

"Classic" book, apparently required reading for dramatic writing, but a poor edition. It's hard-cover, which is nice, but a very small font and, what's really unusual, is there's no indentation or space between paragraphs, making it difficult to read. I had no idea how important (and standard) those things are, and how much I missed them throughout the reading of this book. The book was originally written in 1942 (which you'll find nowhere in the book). The author writes with great authority about his theories and often strikes quite an attitude. He references a few of the same plays as examples throughout the book. Get it, read it, roll your eyes, and take what lessons you can. There are good lessons, but it's not as much the final word on things as the author's tone presumes.

There are a lot of how to write books out there, and this one is great. Egri is engaging with his writing and clear with the points he is trying to make. His writing style is very direct and clear to understand. It will give a reader a better understanding on how to craft stories with believable characters and motivations.

This is not a typical book about writing screenplays or plays which you can find almost anywhere. This book delves deeper into psychology and how you can humanize your characters and create a storyline which is way, way up in terms of excellence. Brilliant!

This is my favorite book on storytelling. It was mandatory reading for a graduate class I took at USC and it helped me write my first novel. It's about playwriting but is instrumental in any form of story telling.

I took an Introduction to Screenwriting class through a continuing education program and this was the required read. Although this is written for a play, it works perfectly for film and TV.

I've read quite a few books on writing fiction and this was one of my favorites (my number one favorite being  Story: Substance, Structure, Style and The Principles of Screenwriting ). Egri does an amazing job breaking down how to make characters drive your story, and his principles are self-evident in that you'll immediately recognize them at work in all great stories that you've read and watched.Some of the key concepts he covers in this book are...- How to create your story's PREMISE. SO many stories lack this and, as a result, feel empty and hollow (and you often don't know why).- How to craft your pivotal character--the character that will force the conflict and that makes or breaks the story. If you get this wrong, you'll lose people very quickly.- How to play your protagonist against your antagonist correctly so that the tension of the story builds steadily until the climax. This is what makes books real page-turners.- How to figure out where to open your story so it immediately grabs your reader or viewer and doesn't let him go.- What is meant by "character growth" and how to do this in a way that feels natural and inevitable. Nothing is worse than reading about or watching a story wherein the people never change or, even worse, change inexplicably and illogically.- How to create "tridimensional" characters that feel true to life at a visceral level. These are the types of characters that you never forget.- And much more.If you're a fiction writer of any kind (novels, TV, screenplays, etc.), read this book. It will forever change the way you look at storytelling.

I've given this five stars with some caveats because I now consider it an essential book in my writing library . It is heavy going and I was uneasy about the rigid use of premise in the beginning. However, putting my current novel through the thought processes outlined in this book was invaluable for clarifying the real motivations of my characters. Key points included making actions a NECESSITY and most important of all for me, was finding reasons to keep the protagonist in the room. I've read about those before, but this book really hit it home. Once I had created those reasons, a plot outline miraculously materialised for me in the space of about half an hour. I think for the first time in writing a story I felt the INEVITABILITY of the actions taken. I was able to significantly raise the pressure and conflict.This text uses literary plays as examples, most notably Ibsen's the Doll's House, but he also draws on O'Neil, Chekhov, Shakespeare et al.It gave me a much greater understanding of drama and I think it will help considerably with the writing of conflict scenes.The book would partner well with Story by Robert Mc Kee, although this work is less prescriptive and more suited to producing literary novels or plays . It makes you think deeply about human nature and produce character driven stories. From now on I intend to re-read this whenever I outline. It is worth the effort to get through it, but it isn't an easy read.

A classic by Lajos Egri which I have come to late (both for it and for me). Of course, reading in the 21st century, you have to make some allowances for a text that was first published in the 1940s - I found the mock Q & As with an anonymous earnest playwright a little reminiscent of government-sponsored information films of the 40s and 50s, and nostalgically amusing for that - and you have to ignore the ingrained sexism which is also of its time, and the general tone of top-down pedantry; but it is a mark of how good this book is that it is possible to swerve around all of these historic relics and still find a good route map to effective playwriting.I found the chapters on Premise and Character especially useful - refreshing rather than illuminating for someone who has read other guides to writing drama, but worthwhile for all that, and very practical if a mite prescriptive. The case studies too are generally well done, not least Ibsen's 'The Doll's House', a particular favourite of Egri's which he returns to frequently to illustrate points of character development and stagecraft. It's such a good example that I am now re-reading the play to study it further and enjoy it again.The subtitle of 'The Art of Dramatic Writing': Its Basis In The Creative Interpretation Of Human Motives summarises Egri's basic thesis very well - the 1940s fascination with psychology post-Freud is evident - and it more or less stands the test of time.Don't make this the only book you read if you are serious about writing plays, but by no means neglect it.Reviewer David Williams blogs regularly as Writer in the North.

Egri's view of drama tends to a preference for the highly coloured. This leads him to lack appreciate for inner conflict rather than the overt variety, and an apparent inability to value, for example, Noel Coward. (In one remarkably unprescient passage he claim's that Coward will be forgotten, unlike some other - completely obscure - dramatists he then goes on to name.) Nevertheless his ideas about dialectics as applied to drama, and his idea of the TRI-dimensional character are useful as is his insistence that conflict arises from character. This latter is, of course, now taken to be a truism but the way he locates it in his other theories gives it more weight. He assumes his readers will be familiar with the examples he gives - and any reader who is not a fan of Ibsen might find the constant references irritating - but then anyone who hopes to be any kind of serious writer, whether of plays, novels or short stories presumably has at least a degree of familiarity of most of his sources, though many are American and not so familiar to a non-USA reader. Overall the book has its periods of tedium but remains one of those books any aspiring writers will want to read with a highlighter in their hands. My Kindle edition is a veritable riot of pink, blue, yellow and orange.

This book is a goldmine of techniques on how to craft great plays. These techniques are invaluable and my mind has been expanded to discover and explore stories like never before. I have read a few books about screenwriting but this one brings another level of clarity to the art of dramatic writing.

Great product and essential reading for anyone who studies creative writing at many UK universities.