{"product_id":"the-art-of-dramatic-writing-9780671213329b","title":"The Art of Dramatic Writing","description":"Amid the hundreds of \"how-to\" books that have appeared in recent years, there have been very few which attempted to analyze the mysteries of play-construction.  This book does that -- and its principles are so valid that they apply equally well to the short story, novel and screenplay.  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 behavior -- and to develop his dramatic conflict on the basis of that behavior.  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.  ","brand":"Touchstone Books","offers":[{"title":"Bargain","offer_id":42820977393744,"sku":"9780671213329B","price":13.49,"currency_code":"CAD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0592\/8173\/5760\/files\/9780671213329-l.jpg?v=1785881855","url":"https:\/\/bookoutlet.com\/en-ca\/products\/the-art-of-dramatic-writing-9780671213329b","provider":"Book Outlet","version":"1.0","type":"link"}