There’s a bit of a backstory with how I discovered this book. First, I’m currently in the process of making a short animated film so I’ve been attending various industry events to get advice from professionals in animation.
One of the events I attended last year was the World Animation Summit located in Los Angeles, CA. It was a wonderful event with lots of panel discussions from well know people in the industry and also some up and coming folks. I learned so much.
At the summit, I was able to meet Chris Appelhans who is the co-director of the hit Netflix film, Kpop Demon Hunters. He was so nice about giving me advice. I asked what books he read to help him in his writing journey and he recommended The Art of Dramatic Writing by Lajos Egri. Chris mentioned that even though the book is meant for plays, the concepts of characters and their relationships can be used in animation storytelling as well. I look forward to reading it and using it to build my characters.
Unfortunately, I was not able to meet Maggie Kang, but I’m very grateful to have gotten this book recommendation from Chris Appelhans. Also, congrats to Chris and Maggie for their recent Oscar win and for the announcement of a Kpop Demon Hunters sequel!
Here’s the info on the Chris Appelhans book recommendation:
TITLE: The Art of Dramatic Writing
AUTHOR: Lejos Egri
PUBLISHER: Touchstone
RELEASE DATE: February 15, 1972
GENRE: Writing, Non-Fiction, Film, Theatre
ABOUT:
Learn the basic techniques every successful playwright knows! Amid the hundreds of “how-to” books out there, there have been very few which attempted to analyze the mysteries of play construction. Lajos Egri’s classic, The Art of Dramatic Writing, does just that, with instruction that can be applied equally well to a short story, novel, or screenplay.
Examining a play from the inside out, Egri starts with the heart of any drama: its characters. All good dramatic writing hinges on people and their relationships, which serve to move the story forward and give it life, as well as an understanding of human motives—why people act the way that they do. Using examples from everything from William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet to Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, Egri shows how it is essential for the author to have a basic premise—a thesis, demonstrated in terms of human behavior—and to develop the dramatic conflict on the basis of that behavior.
Using Egri’s ABCs of premise, character, and conflict, The Art of Dramatic Writing is a direct, jargon-free approach to the problem of achieving truth in writing. (Description from Amazon)
Also, I decided that when I read this book, I’ll use a Kpop Demon Hunters art print as the book mark! I believe I got this at the Los Angeles Comic Con convention last year.
Stories Unfolded 