Of the hundreds of "how-to guides" that have appeared in recent years, very few have attempted to analyze the secrets of the play's creation. The Art of Drama is about just that, and its principles are so powerful that they apply equally to short stories, novels, and TV screenplays. Lajos Egri explores the play in motion as if from the inside, starting from the heart of any drama - its characters. It is the people - their characters and relationships - that provide the development of the plot and fill it with life. The good work of a playwright always relies on a knowledge of the motives of human actions. Why do people act this way and not otherwise? What makes a coward a hero and a hero a coward? What predetermined the sad fate of Shakespeare's hero Romeo? Why is Nora forced to leave her husband at the end of A Doll's House? These are just a few of the most interesting questions Egri asks. He explains how important it is for the author to formulate the main idea - the thesis revealed in the behavior of the character - and build a dramatic conflict on the basis of this behavior. Idea, hero, conflict - this is Egri's alphabet. His book is a direct examination of the problem of recreating the truth of life in a literary work, written in a simple and understandable language.