As to nomenclature, some peculiar names were regarded as acceptable in “The Comedy of Manners,” but may have become offensive today. The fashion of label-names came down from the Elizabethans, who borrowed it from the Mediaeval Moralities. Shakespeare gave us Master Slender and Justice Shallow. A slave might be called
Onesimus, meaning “useful,” or a soldier Polemon, to imply his warlike function. But it was in the Jonsonian comedy of types that the practice of advertising a “humour” or “passion” in a name (English or Italian) established itself. Examples are: Sir Epicure Mammon, Sir Amorous La Foole, Morose, Wellbred, Downright and Fastidius Brisk.

Names should be characteristic without eccentricity or punning. Farcical names are, within limits, admissible in farce, eccentric names in eccentric comedy, while soberly appropriate names are alone in place in serious plays. The appropriateness of some of Ibsen’s names may be lost upon foreign audiences.

The absence of a list of “Dramatis Personae” in some printed plays adds to the difficulty which some readers experience in picking up the threads of a play and it deprives other readers of the pleasure of anticipation. It is charming to looking down a list of names, and thinking that very soon they and their hearts will be known and some of them may be our friends forever.

The playwright’s scheme should not until the latest possible moment become so hard and fast as to allow his characters no elbow room for spontaneity, and afterthoughts about changes which may arise as the play develops. Re-adjustments may constantly have to be made if a play is shaping itself by a process of vital growth. That is why the playwright may be wise to keep his material fluid as long as he can. It is advisable to treat a dramatic theme like clay to be modeled and remodeled, rather than as wood or marble to be carved unalterably and once for all. There may be authors who can write vital plays, as Shakespeare is said to have done, without erasing a line, but the great playwright is more likely to be he who doesn’t mind to cut or change an act or two.

The dramatist should aim at being logical without seeming so, so that the play have passion, not only precision, and command out enthusiasm, not only our respect. Very early in the scheming of his play, the playwright should assure himself that his theme is capable of a satisfactory ending – not implying a “happy ending,” but one which satisfies the author as being artistic, effective, inevitable or “right.” An obviously makeshift ending can never be desirable Many excellent plays have been wrecked this way, because the “last act is weak”. It is obvious when the author has clearly been at a loss for an ending, and has simply huddled his play up in a conventional and perfunctory fashion. Some apparently promising themes are “blind-alley themes”, since they are inherently incapable of a satisfactory ending. Early on the dramatist should clearly see the end for which he is aiming, and be sure that it is an end that he actively desires, not merely one which satisfies convention, or which “will have to do.”

Some dramatists, after having mapped out the play, don’t
to start at the beginning and write it as a coherent whole, but make a
dash first at the more salient and critical scenes, or those which
specially attract their imagination. This can be good, since it certainly enhances plasticity.

Should the playwright be able to visualize the detailed scene of each act in his mind’s eye? Today props are much more important than many years ago. Most modern dramatists pay great attention to the “topography” of their scenes, and the shifting “positions” of their
characters. Again it is wise to wait till for a comparatively late stage to map out the stage-management. Even where a great deal turns on some individual object, the detailed arrangements of the scene may in most cases be taken for granted until a late stage in its working out.
Make sure that the object fits well within the physical possibilities of the stage, and that the arrangement is optically possible and effective. Few things, indeed, are impossible to the modern stage, but there are many things that are wiser not to attempt, since it may distract the audience’s attention such that they may miss the dialogue and the play may fail for them as result.

Sometimes “less is more”. Before relying on any special effects, make sure that it is, not only possible, but convenient from the practical point of view.

It is a good general rule to avoid expressions which show that the author has a stage scene, and not an episode of real life, in his mind’s eye. People of the theatre are the last to be impressed by theatrical jargon. Using lots of abbreviations for stage management directions is just confusing. Stage layouts have changed much, and some older terms no longer apply. The common-sense rule as to stage directions is keep it short, clear and to the point, impersonal and professional. Visualize and describe the room, the garden, the sea-shore, or whatever the place of action may be, not as a stage-scene, but as a room, garden, or sea-shore in the real world. Cultivating this habit may bear excellent results and is a safeguard against theatricality.

A good work method for the playwright is to the draw up a tentative scenario – a detailed scheme. In a dramatic structure of any considerable length, proportion, balance, and the interconnection of parts are so essential that a scenario is almost as indispensable to a dramatist as a set of plans to an architect. Bernard Shaw is thought to have sometimes worked without any definite scenario, and inventing as he goes along – to the detriment of plays like “Getting Married” or “Misalliance”.

Composition-as–you-go may only be possible for the novelist or perhaps even for the writer of a one-act play, but hardly wise.
Sardou wrote careful and detailed scenarios, Dumas felt it is a waste of time to do so. Pailleron wrote “enormous” scenarios, Meilhac very brief ones, or none at all. Galsworthy thought that a theme becomes lifeless when you put down its skeleton on paper. Alfred Sutro says: “Before I start writing the dialogue of a play, I make sure that I shall have an absolutely free hand over the entrances and exits: in other words, that there is ample and legitimate reason for each character appearing in any particular scene, and ample motive for his leaving it.” Granville Barker says: “I plan the general scheme, and particularly the balance of the play, in my head”. Henry Arthur Jones says: “I know the leading scenes, and the general course of action in each act, before I write a line. When I have got the whole story clear, and divided into acts, I very carefully construct the first act, as a series of scenes between such and such of the characters. When the first act is written I carefully construct the second act in the same way…. I sometimes draw up twenty scenarios for an act before I can get it to go straight.”

In the transition from extempore acting regulated by a written scenario only the formal learning of parts falls within the historical period of the German stage. It seems probable that the romantic playwrights of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, both in England and in Spain, may have adopted a method not unlike that of the drama of improvisation. They may have drawn out a scheme of entrances and exits, and then let their characters discourse (on paper) as their fancy prompted. Typical modern plays are much more close-knit, in which every word has to be weighed far more carefully than it was by playwrights during the days of improvisation. Until a play has been thought out very clearly in great detail, any scheme of entrances and exits is merely provisional and may be indefinitely modified. A close interdependence exists between action, character and dialogue, which forbids a playwright to tie his hands at an early stage with a fixed and unalterable outline. It may be a powerful, logical, well-knit piece of work, but may miss flexibility, vibrancy and life. Room should be left as long as possible for unexpected developments of character.

M. François de Curel, an accomplished psychologist, mentions that during the first few days of work at a play he is “clearly conscious of creating,” but that gradually he gets “into the skin” of his characters, and appears to work by instinct. No doubt some artists are actually subject to a sort of hallucination, during which they seem rather to record than to invent the doings of their characters. Fitch was often astonished at the way in which his characters developed. He tried to make them do certain things: they did others. Sir Arthur Pinero says: “The beginning of a play to me is a little world of people. I live with them, get familiar with them, and “they” tell me the story.” He meant that the story came to him as the characters took on life in his imagination.

“Soft you; a word or two, before you go.
I have done the state some service, and they know ‘t;
No more of that. I pray you, in your letters,
When you shall these unlucky deeds relate,
Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate,
Nor set down aught in malice, then must you speak
Of one that loved not wisely but too well;
Of one not easily jealous, but, being wrought,
Perplex’d in the extreme; of one whose hand,
Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away
Richer than all his tribe; of one whose subdued eyes,
Albeit unused to the melting mood,
Drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees
Their medicinal gum. Set you down this;
And say besides, that in Aleppo once,
Where a malignant and a turban’d Turk
Beat a Venetian and traduced the state,
I took by the throat the circumcised dog,
And smote him–thus!”

Here Shakespeare has thrown his audience off guard, just as Othello has done to his captors, and replaced the expected with a sudden shock of surprise. He re-invented the incident to be crisp instead of flaccid, thus giving it specific dramatic accent, a sudden thrill of novelty and unexpectedness. He succeeded in portraying “a given thing” in absolutely the most dramatic method conceivable.

The tendency of recent theory and practice, has been to widen the meaning of the word “dramatic”, until it bursts the bonds of all definition. A movement developed in reaction against the traditional “dramatic”, correcting conventional “theatricalism” in a valuable way. It has, at some points, positively enlarged the domain of dramatic art. It helped to free art from rigid rules and definitions. A very valid definition of the dramatic is: Any representation of imaginary personages which is capable of interesting an average audience assembled in a theatre. It is expected of original genius to override the dictates of experience, and it should be encouraged. In a certain type of play – the broad picture of a social phenomenon or environment – it is preferable that no attempt should be made to depict a marked crisis. There should be just enough story to afford a plausible excuse for raising and for lowering the curtain. On the other hand, theatrical conditions often encourage a violent exaggeration of the characteristically dramatic elements in life.

If the essence of drama is crisis, it follows that nothing can be more dramatic than a momentous choice which may make or break the character as well as the fortune of the chooser and of others. There is an element of choice in all action which seems to be the product of free will; but there is a peculiar crispness of effect when two alternatives are clearly formulated, and the choice is made after a mental struggle, accentuated, perhaps, by impassioned advocacy of the conflicting interests. Those who have mastered the extremely delicate and difficult art of creating drama without the characteristically dramatic ingredients should do so by all means. Hopefully they fairly allow freedom to others for the judicious and dramatic use of these ingredients as they present themselves in life.

The symbolical game of chess is also a well-worn dramatic tool.

If conflict is not the essence of drama, what is? What would be the
common quality of themes, scenes, and incidents, which we recognize as specifically dramatic? Crisis. Drama may be called the art of crisis. A play is a fairly rapid developing crisis in destiny or circumstance, and a dramatic scene is a crisis within a crisis, furthering the ultimate event. Drama deals with rapid and startling changes, “peripeties,” as the Greeks called them, which actually occur in very brief spaces of time. Not every crisis is that dramatic. A serious illness, a law suit, a bankruptcy, even an ordinary prosaic marriage may be a crisis in a man’s life, without being necessarily suitable material for drama. How do we distinguish a dramatic from a non-dramatic crisis? By the fact that it can be made to naturally develop through a series of minor crises, involving emotional excitement, and the vivid manifestation of character. A well used example could be bankruptcy, following a course of gambling, generally in stocks. Here is evident opportunity for a series of crises of somewhat violent and commonplace emotion.

In American drama especially, the duels of Wall Street, the combats of bull and bear, form a very popular theme. Few American dramatists can resist the temptation of showing some masterful financier feverishly watching the “ticker” which proclaims him a millionaire or a beggar. Here the great crisis brings out vivid manifestations of character, not only in the bankrupt person himself, but in those around him, and naturally unfolding itself through a series of those lesser crises in interesting and moving scenes. Plays like “A bankruptcy” (Bjornson) and “La Doloureuse” (Maurice Donnay) pursue this theme.

Generally speaking, the dramatic way of presenting individual incidents could be described as crisp, staccato, shocking to the nerves and dealing with curiosity and surprise. People probably enjoy emotion more than pure apprehension. The most dramatic effect will therefore be created by handling an incident such as to extract the greatest variety of poignancy of emotion from it.

It seems to be true that conflict is one of the most dramatic elements in life, and that many dramas – perhaps most – do turn upon strife of one sort or another. But it is clearly an error to make conflict indispensable to drama, and especially to insist – as some of Brunetière’s followers do – that the conflict must be between will and will. A stand-up fight between will and will — such fights occur in the “Hippolytus” of Euripides, Racine’s “Andromaque”, Molière’s “Tartufe”, Ibsen’s “Pretenders’, Dumas’s “Françillon”, Sudermann’s “Heimat’, Sir Arthur Pinero’s “Gay Lord Quex”, Mr. Shaw’s “Candida”, or Mr. Galsworthy’s “Strife”. Such stand-up fights are no doubt one of the most intense forms of drama. But it is comparatively rare as the formula of a whole play. The point of some other very dramatic scenes
is not a clash, but an ecstatic concordance of wills, for example in the
death scene of Cleopatra, the Banquet scene in “Macbeth” or the Balcony scene in “Romeo and Juliet”.

The essence of human personality is found in the will, and dramatic art shows human personality raised to its highest power. A simple psychological observation would be that human nature loves a fight, whether it be with clubs or with swords, with tongues or with brains. One of the earliest forms of mediaeval drama was the “estrif” or “flyting”- the scolding match between husband and wife, or between two rustic gossips. Certainly there is nothing more gripping in drama than a piece of “cut-and-thrust” dialogue after the fashion of the ancient “stichomythia. But a scene is not less dramatic merely because it has no room for a clash of warring wills.

Though far from being universally valid, the “No obstacle, no drama” theory has a certain practical usefulness, and is worth mentioning. Many a play would have remained unwritten if the author had asked himself, “Is there a sufficient obstacle between my two lovers?” or, in more general terms, “between my characters and the realization of their will?” There is nothing more futile than a play in which we feel that there is no real obstacle to the inevitable happy ending, and that the curtain might just as well fall in the middle of the first act as at the end of the third. The author might often do well ask himself whether he could not strengthen his obstacle, and so accentuate the struggle which forms the matter of his play.

Conflict may not be essential to drama, but when you set out to portray a struggle, you may as well make it as real and intense as possible. In William Vaughn Moody’s drama, “The Great Divide”, an inadequate obstacle portrayed causes the play to be not strong enough and thus it turned out to be less lasting. If there would have been a real disharmony of character to overcome, in addition to the sordid misadventure of a violent drunken husband, which is the sole barrier between them, the play would have been much stronger.

The difference between a “live” play and a “dead” one is that in the former the characters control the plot, while in the latter the plot controls the characters. Which is not to say, of course, that there may not be clever and entertaining plays which are “dead” in this sense, and dull and unattractive plays which are “live.”

Aristotle remarked that the action or “muthos”, not the character or “ethos”, is the essential element in drama. He views action to be the essential element in tragedy and not merely the necessary vehicle of character. “In a play,”he says, “they do not act in order to portray the characters, they include the characters for the sake of the action. A play can exist without anything that can be called character, but not without some sort of action. A tragedy is impossible without action, but there may be one without character. This is implied in the very word “drama,” which means a doing, not a mere saying or existing. Deeds, not words, are the demonstration and test of character – therefore, historically it has been the recognized business of the theatre to exhibit character in action or the portrayal of an action … some exploit or some calamity in the career of some demigod or hero. Story or plot is thus by definition, tradition, and practical reason, the fundamental element in drama. But action ought to exist for the sake of character.

Sometimes the impulse to write a play exists in the abstract, unassociated with any particular subject, and the would-be playwright proceeds, as he thinks, to set his imagination to work, and invent a story. Care needs to be taken here, since when we think we are choosing a plot out of the void, we are very prone to be ransacking the store-house of memory and it may not be as original as we thought. The plot “which chooses us” is much more dependable to be original … the idea which comes when we least expect it, perhaps from the most unlikely quarter.

Whatever principles of conception and construction apply to the modern prose drama, apply with equal cogency to the poetic drama. For instance, we may find reason to think the soliloquy more excusable in verse than in prose. But fundamentally, the two forms are ruled by the same set of conditions, which the verse-poet, no less than the prose-poet, can’t ignore. If, in the course of his legendary, romantic, or historical reading, some character should catch his imagination and demand to be interpreted, or some episode should startle him by putting on vivid dramatic form before his mind’s eye, then let him by all means yield to the inspiration, and try to mould the theme into a drama. The real labor of creation will still lie before him, but he may face it with the hope of producing a live play.

In some plays it is evident that there was no theme that could be expressed in abstract terms, present in the author’s mind, but through a process of abstraction we can formulate a theme for plays like “As You Like It”, “The Way of the World” or for “Hedda Gabler”.

Should the dramatist first think of a theme and then build a story around it? This is a possible, but not a promising, method, since a story created to fit or illustrate a moral concept is always apt to advertise its origin, to the detriment of its illusive quality. It can work, if that intent is stated frankly – even in the title, and if it’s witty and charming, and does not pretend to be what it’s not. Examples are the French ”Proverbe” and “A Pair of Spectacles”, by Mr. Sydney Grundy. In this bright little English comedy every incident and situation bears upon the general theme, and is pleasing, not by its probability, but by being ingeniously appropriate.

A theme of temporary interest will often have a great but no less temporary success, also if it is not universal enough, as in “An Englishman’s Home”, by Major du Maurier. Though there was a good deal of clever character drawing, the theme was so evidently the source and inspiration of the play that in America, where the theme was of no interest, the play failed.

Excellent plays in which the theme, in all probability, preceded both the story and the characters in the author’s mind, are most of M. Brieux’s as well as Mr. Galsworthy’s “Strife” and “Justice”.

The theme may sometimes be an environment, a social phenomenon of one sort or another and not an idea, an abstraction or a principle. The author’s primary object in such a case is to transfer to the stage an animated picture of some broad aspect or phase of life, without concentrating the interest on any one figure or group or to portray any individual character or tell any definite story. Such tableau-plays are Ben Jonson’s “Bartholomew Fair”, Schiller’s “Wallensteins Lager”. More recent plays like Hauptmann’s “Die Weber” and Gorky’s “Nachtasyl” are perhaps the best examples of the type. It needs an exceptional amount of knowledge and dramaturgic skill to handle them successfully. It is far easier to tell a story on the stage than to paint a picture, and few playwrights can resist the temptation to foist a story upon their picture, thus marring it by an inharmonious intrusion of melodrama or farce. James A. Herne inserted into a charming idyllic
picture of rural life, by the name of “Shore Acres”, a melodramatic scene in a lighthouse, which was hopelessly out of key with the rest of the play. This was done in the belief that no play can exist, or can attract playgoers, without a definite and more or less exciting plot. It seems to be better to give a tableau play just so much of story as may naturally and inevitably fall within its limits.

If he happened to be a great man, he would inevitably, even if unconsciously, seek to expose those he mentors to his individual attitude towards life. If he were a lesser man, he would teach them only his tricks. But dramatists do not tend to take pupils or write handbooks. When they expound their principles of art, it is generally in answer to, or in anticipation of criticism. Their goal is not to help others, but to defend themselves. Beginners are therefore mostly dependent on critics, and not dramatists, to find any systematic guidance.

It is important to understand that if any part of the dramatist’s art can be taught, it is only a comparatively mechanical and formal part: the art of structure. One may learn how to tell a story in good dramatic form, how to develop and direct it in such a way as best seize and retain the interest of a theatrical audience. But no teaching or study can enable a man to choose or invent a good story, and much less to do that which alone lends dignity to dramatic story-telling – to observe and portray human character, which is the aim and end of all serious drama.

Even the greatest genius needs competent craftsmanship to enable his creations to live and breathe upon the stage. The profoundest insight into human nature and destiny can’t be validly expressed through the medium of the theatre without some understanding of the peculiar art of dramatic construction. Some people are born with such an instinct for this art, and master it with little practice.

To tell a story with impact to a theatre audience is an art and is necessarily relative to the audience to whom the story is to be told. One must assume an audience with certain characteristics before one can rationally discuss the best methods of appealing to its intelligence and its sympathies.

Theatrical art owes much to voluntary organizations of playgoers, who have combined to provide themselves with forms of drama which specially interest them, and do not necessarily attract the great public. Molière was popular with the ordinary people of his day, and his plays have endured for over two centuries, and are still doing very well.

A playwright should be able to “disburden his soul” within the three hours’ limit, which is imposed simply by the physical endurance and power of sustained attention that can be demanded of human beings assembled in a theatre. There is a large class of playgoers which is capable of appreciating work of a high intellectual order, if only the fundamental conditions of theatrical presentation are not ignored, as doing so will be to the detriment, not only of his popularity and profits, but of the artistic quality of his work. Why should the dramatist concern himself about his audience, if he is a true artist? If he declares his goal to be mere self-expression and he writes to please himself, without thinking to take into account the audience – intellectual or not – he may stultify himself in that very phrase. It is by obeying, not by ignoring, the fundamental conditions of his craft that the dramatist may hope to lead his audience upward to the highest intellectual level which he himself can attain. The painter may paint, the sculptor model, the lyric poet sing, simply to please himself, but drama has no meaning except in relation to an audience. It is a portrayal of life by means of a mechanism devised to bring it home in an immediate way to a considerable number of people assembled in a given place. The public constitutes the theatre. The real difference between the dramatist and other artists, is that they can be their own audience, in a sense in which he can’t.

This guide is aimed at students of play writing who sincerely desire to do sound, artistic work under the conditions and limitations of the actual, living playhouse. This does not mean, of course, that they ought always to be studying “what the public wants”. The dramatist should give the public what he himself wants, but in such form as to make it comprehensible and interesting in a theatre.

No absolute rules exist for writing a play – much of the writing guidelines are just common sense. It would be easier to make a list of dangers to avoid – some are obvious, and others are perhaps questionable, but doing so may be too much of a negative approach. For example, the play should not be too lengthy in duration, and characters should rather not be narrating their circumstances or expounding their motives in speeches addressed to the audience or to themselves. Some dramatic openings, however, remain so striking and timeless, like Richard Plantagenet limping down the empty stage to say:

“Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York;
And all the clouds that lour’d upon our house
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried”

Aristotle did draw some guidelines from the practices of the Attic dramatists, as did Horace from the Alexandrians. There seem to be a constant demand for textbooks on the subject of the art and craft of creating a drama. Ironically, many of the authors of such books have never written a play themselves, but are eager to tell others how. Stranger still, is that so many potential writers want to learn from these authors since they are convinced that the fine art of dramatic fiction can and need to be taught.

Drama differs from novel writing in the sense that it needs to run through the highly complex mechanism of the theatre before it can have it’s intended impact on the audience. To fledgling playwrights this world represents a fascinating mystery. Fairly few had the privilege or opportunity to closely get to know or experiment with this new environment. The obvious solution to gain knowledge is to “read up” on the subject. They may feel an inward conviction of their ability to eventually master this mysterious world, but often has neither developed an instinctive sense about the theatre, nor an understanding of the technical difficulties, limitations or possibilities inherent to an on stage presentation. The functionality of theoretical instruction is often overrated, and the novice playwright may find him or herself in a confusing tug of war between theoretical pedantic principles that may be out of touch with the practical realities of today’s theatre, and practices aimed solely at the benefit at the box-office, therefore sacrificing knowledge, quality and often cutting corners in many ways.

The challenge therefore is to expose the novice just enough to the practical theatre life to learn enough about the conditions, mechanisms and possibilities, but to avoid over exposure to the conventional theatrical trade in order to preserve his or her originality of vision, creativity and individuality of method.

Why don’t the textbook writers write more dramatic plays themselves?