I Took 18 Pages of Notes on "The Art of Dramatic Writing" and Put Them on Reddit - #29

I Took 18 Pages of Notes on "The Art of Dramatic Writing" and Put Them on Reddit

Hello everyone! I hope everyone is staying during these trying times. I watching that Global Citizen program on Hulu Live with Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, and Stephen Colbert and those musicians singing from their living room. I really liked it. But that's not what this essay is about, I just wanted to say I enjoyed it. This week's essay is what it says in the title. Yup, for all you aspiring writers, all you aspiring development executives, directors, novelists, actors, whomever -don't worry, you can buy me lunch when I return. Kidding! Enjoy it, I made this for my own use and thought that the r/screenwriting community on Reddit would enjoy it as well. I was thinking of being late on my next STS thread, however I did come to realize that my Reddit post, in a sense, isan essay. So below is the link to my Reddit post, my user profile, and the entire post itself. Enjoy.

My Reddit Post - r/screenwriting
My user profile - u/dnrtldg 

Hi everyone,

First off, here's the link: Art of Dramatic Writing - Notes

Note: I have no affiliation, especially not financial, with any links in this post. I'm not trying to make any money, just sharing with the community.

Quick backstory

Hope you all are staying safe during this time. I've been laid off recently from my assistant job in Los Angeles, so I got on a plane, took refuge with family out in small-town Texas, and did some writing. Anyways, my family has a printer and I remembered a really great post from u/jonathantcoleman on his notes from Aaron Sorkin's Masterclass. I immediately found the post and printed it so I can do some reference while constructing my next feature. But then thought, "Hey, if Aaron's nice enough to do a Masterclass, and jonathan's nice enough to take notes and share them with this community - hell, I can write up notes on a book I know well and share them, why the hell not." Is this procrastinating? Maybe...(okay, yes, more than likely), but it was a really great refresher on making drama and understanding story.

"What book should I pick?" I'm a huge fan of Hero of Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell. I've watched some of the PBS series he did in the late 80s with Bill Moyers, that was interesting. Poetics by Aristotle? Nah, most of you have heard of it and more than likely read it.

I also hate the "gurus" on screenplay writing that write these books that focus nothing on the essence and groove of the story and how characters feel. Admittedly, my opinion was only reinforced by John August and Craig Mazin on Scriptnotes: "Craig***:*** "What book should I read?" You can read any book you want. None of them will be as useful as reading screenplays and watching movies and thinking about story and then writing the script. That is the only basic instruction set that you need. And that works. The books are useless, I do believe." ... I'm aware of the contradiction on me taking notes on a writing book and including this quote from Craig.

Then I remembered reading a book that a retired development exec once recommended: The Art of Dramatic Writing by Lajos Egri. Off of a Seth Rogen/Evan Goldberg interview with Tim Ferriss, they recommended the same book. Apparently, Woody Allen took Lajos's class when he was young and said it's his favorite book on writing. Woody passed it onto Judd Apatow and from Judd to Evan and Seth. So I thought, "Hmm, people I admire like this book." Took it off my shelf and found all my underlined sentences and such. So I started typing them up into a Dropbox document.

Art of Dramatic Writing by Lajos Egri

Full disclosure - I originally was trying to make a "one pager." One page with all the essentials on it, but then 1 page turned to 2, 2 to 5, and I got 18. It's basically the book's 300 pages boiled down to 18, so why not. The goal was to print it and keep it next to me while constructing.

The book's main focuses are honing in on the thesis, or premise, of your story and really fleshing out characters that will naturally take you from the beginning to the conclusion without forcing the conflict. Because of the characters and your premise, Lajos's theory is that the conflict, exposition, mood, and structure will naturally arise.

There are criticisms of course. From the Tim Ferriss interview: "Evan Goldberg: If you’re a writer, 60 percent of it is useless and 40 percent of it is gold. Seth Rogen: It references a lot of plays that if you haven’t read, and you haven’t because who has, a lot of it is very referential to certain plays." And there are those that came to some of the same conclusions as Lajos through a sort of "parallel thinking". Example, Aaron Sorkin from his AMA in 2016: "Your character was born the moment the curtain goes up, the moment the movie begins, the moment the television show begins, and your character dies as soon as it's over." (Then again, Aaron started his career writing plays...)

That said, treat the book (err, my notes) the way you want treat it. Personally, I am now a believer in the theory of premise and character, those two concepts being the most important things in a story. If after reading my notes you think, "Wow, sounds like bullshit," okay, you do you.

I highly recommend reading the whole book as it does reference examples of plays quoted... (hence, I don't know what Seth Rogen is talking about in the above quote when Lajos clearly cites plays with excerpts included?) My notes may be a little murky, I get it.

Here's the book on Amazon

Use these notes however you wish. Copy-paste them, print them, condense them, you can do whatever you want.

Commenting and Discussing

If you have any questions, feel free to comment on the dropbox link or here in the comment section. I hope there's a lively discussion among us.

Thanks everyone! Stay safe!

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As for you all, thank you so much reading! I hope all you guys are staying safe. 

News.Video.Poem

1. Trump’s Entire Coronavirus Response Is Massive Political Corruption - Good article that explains in broad strokes how the Trump administration (and Trump himself) is laying the foundation for corruptive practices during this pandemic. Let's not forget the guyfired independent, non-partisan inspector generals that are overseeing pandemic operations and accountability. He fired Glenn Fine, the guy in charge of overseeing the $2 trillion stimulus plan. He fired Michael Atkinson, the guy that brought forward the July 2019 call Trump had with Ukraine's president, which led to his impeachment. You want to talk about corruption? HE DEFUNDED OUR SUPPORT TO THE W.H.O.! What kind of pseudo-dictator moron would even do that???

2. Bonobo : Cirrus [Official Video] - music video of Bonobo, a trip hop jazz electronic musician I've been into lately. Here's another crazy music video of his. I got into him after I started playing his music in my mother's art gallery. PS. Here's a Reddit broadcast I shot of my mother making a custom table with turquoise inlay. I thought that art enthusiasts on Reddit might enjoy what she does, so I showed them (16min).
For more videos, check out bit.ly/ThinkOfThis_Playlist

3. Gil Scott Heron - The Revolution Will Not Be Televised - a spoken word poem song by the great Gil Scott Heron. I listen to this song every once in a while as it harps my mind into a fresh haze only to be cleared soon after with the thought, "dang, people are getting screwed in this country." I know his intention wasn't supposed to be political - the "revolution" occurs inside you, not outside you - but I can't help but think about how any revolution that Americans take upon themselves that's involves fighting against "the man" will, most likely, end by being silenced by news outlets and social media companies. Feminism, civil rights, inequality, whatever it may be - real change would be silenced. Someday, who knows. Anyways, here's the lyrics.

Silly Sh*t

Guys, I'm on Instagram as @dnrtldg. And on it, I uploaded a two-part post on Hinge pick up lines and a new series I'm starting where I come up with humorous captions for artistic paintings (just trying to build that comedy portfolio, strengthen those funny muscles, and eat my giggle greens since I can't go to open mics). I'm also helping my friend write his computer program's training video this weekend. Also, I'm trying to get the ball rolling on an animation project with my friend who's an aspiring animator/VFX designer. With him, we're thinking of recruiting animation students from our college, but we'll see. Writing my feature "Valet Guys" still... I just need to finish it, jesus.