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French Author Scores with
this Aspiring Screenwriter
"La dramaturgie" by French author Yves
Lavandier was written for all scriptwriters and playwrights. The book
has recently been translated into English and cites examples from many
major works.
Here's what Carole says...
In
France, we have a stupid belief that art cannot be taught. Either
you're a genius or you're not. I've always thought genius is made of 5%
of talent and 95% of perspiration. I want to tell stories for the stage
and screen since I'm 14. I've started writing shorts when I was a
teenager. One of them was shot on video by a friend of mine and I was
pretty happy with the result. But when I moved onto writing longer
stories, plays and feature films, I found it much more difficult.
I
decided to read screenwriting manuals. Logically, I started with the
father of them all : Aristotle's "Poetics". It got me frustrated.
Aristotle's ideas and pieces of advice are great but they refer to a
limited corpus (the Greek plays of his time) and I wanted more. So I
decided to read many of the contemporary screenwriting books : Syd
Field, Linda Seger, Robert McKee, Linda Cowgill, David Howard and so
forth. It got me more frustrated. Most examples in these books are
films, most are American and most are recent. And above all, I felt the
theories were too dogmatic, too contrived.
A friend of mine recommended
a French book called "La dramaturgie" by Yves Lavandier. To be honest,
I was prejudiced. I didn't think a French author could compete with
American script experts. I had heard it was a best seller in Europe but
I thought Lavandier had just neatly summarized the American authors. I
was wrong. Lavandier is the contemporary Aristotle. His book is
incredibly thorough. What he says about dramatic irony, for instance,
or preparation or comedy, I've never read it elsewhere.
My advice is to
read it when you have a first draft. It will give you a brainstorming
and thousands of ideas on how to improve your play or screenplay. But
it's a nice read anyhow for anyone interested in understanding how
stories are told. I heard it's been translated into English. It's
called "Writing Drama". Now the American experts can start to worry.
Aristotle is resuscitated!
— Carole
O.
France
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Thanks Carole for
sharing your favorite screenwriting tool with our readers.
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