Notes on The Art of Dramatic Writing by Lajos Egri (written 1945)

When you write a play do these things:

(1) Formulate a premise: a proposition antecedently supposed or proved; a basis of argument (e.g. Ruthless ambition leads to its own destruction: Macbeth). “Premise” comes from two Latin words, meaning to “put before”. The premise is the underlying /core idea of your story—the foundation that supports your entire plot. The premise usually identifies your protagonist and the central dilemma.

(2) Choose the pivotal character who will force the conflict. NOTE: Every object has three dimensions: depth, height, width. Human beings have an additional three dimensions: physiology, sociology, psychology. Without a knowledge of these three dimensions we cannot know our characters.

(3) Line up the other characters. But these characters have to be orchestrated.

(4) The unity of opposites must be binding. The stronger the unity of opposites, the more certain you can be that your characters will prove your premise.

(5) Select the correct point of attack (inciting incident). It must be the turning point in the life of one or more of your characters.

(6) Every point of attack starts with conflict. There are four kinds of conflict: static, jumping, foreshadowing, and slowly rising. You want only rising and foreshadowing conflict.

(7) No conflict can rise without perpetual exposition (transition)

(8) Rising conflict, the product of exposition and transition, will insure growth

(9) Characters who are in conflict will go from one pole to another — like hate to love — which will create crisis

(10) If growth continues in a steady rise climax will follow crisis.

(11) The aftermath of climax is the conclusion.

(12) Dialogue is as important as any other part of the play. Every word uttered should stem from the characters involved.

Additional Notes:

• A play should start at a turning point in the life of one of the characters.
• The dialogue must stem from the character not the author.
• The logline is truly an art form of its own. It’s the one or two sentence summary of your film that not only conveys your premise, but also gives the reader emotional insight into the story as a whole. purpose of Longline — to efficiently represent the story and get the potential reader interested.