Show ABOUT the peculiar methods pursued by jerome K M jerome the If ardest hut but most moat interesting part of the dramatists work wherein the humorist differs from other makers of plays playa you ask me how I 1 write a play and I 1 know that my iny answer is to be published and widely circulated and in oil all probability commented upon severely in the press under these circumstances writes writer jerome K X jerome to the editor of the pall mall budget I 1 am in doubt whether my better policy is to be smart or truthful the latter hatter course comes more natural to me however and I 1 therefore adopt it in the beginning an idea occurs to me that seems to me to promise drama it may come to me out of a book or from a scrap of overheard conversation or from an nf after ter dinner anecdote or a b human u history near to me in ninety nine cases boses out of a hundred the idea fades from my memory and I 1 spend days trying to recall it but cannot it is always the best ideals that escape the other idea the very weakest of the hundred remains to me and roots itself secerel securely y in in my thoughts and grows there in some mysterious way of its own accord so that I 1 find myself unconsciously pondering upon it and arguing with myself about it then if I 1 have nothing else better to occupy myself with at the time I 1 decide to set seriously to work and make a play out of it and I 1 seek among the people I 1 have met or dreamt of for characters that will carry out the drama I 1 now have pi etty clearly sketched out in my mind this is the wron wrong way to write a play I 1 know I 1 ought to conceive the characters first and evolve the drama out of them all the great dramatists work accord according hig to this in method ethod I 1 appear to be the only one who does not with the characters and the skeleton of the story in my hands I 1 proceed to co construct or in other words to arrange my story in the acts and scenes through which it can best be told this I 1 find both the hardest and the most interesting part of the work one ca recast and casts again one da day y bjur p etli seems to lie plain and clear clea r before you to the end by the next impassable rocks have arisen across your path and you can JEROME K H JEROME see noway no way out you follow one road half the distance then finding it winds too much go back and start upon another with practice maybe a man oan can judge quickly his best course just as an experienced trapper will scent by instinct his route through a ne new w country but a young author will sometimes sketch his play out in at least a dozen different forms before he feels that he has achieved the best of which ho he is capable the structure decided upon and the characters clear before your eyes I 1 the writing of the dialogue is tolerably simple all that you have faveto to remember i is that every word must be to the point that every sentence must be interesting in itself and at the same time fit and proper to the character into whose mouth it is put that every speech must be opposite apposite to 1 the one that has gone before it and preparatory to the one to fonow follow that your conversation must ba be witty crisp and humorous or your public will go to sleep over lt it philosophical and deep or your earnest student will ill rise up in wrath t it natural and aad also brilliant or your cr antic tic will have none of it I 1 would that those writers who spend so large a proportion of their threescore years and ten upon this earth in sneering at the drama and all connected therewith could be made now and again to sit down and write a play if it did no other good it would at all events teach them to check chech their verbosity when all is done it remains to persuade a nia manager nager against liis his better judgment to accept the play and to add ten years to your life by a months rehearsals then if your work gr agrati alti fies tale gal gallery lery boy who lias paid for hi his seat and likewise o satisfied I 1 the he t yearnings of the superior person who has come in with an order if it plea pleases es the middle class party in the pit and the smart contingent in the stalls f fascinates the new school of playgoers play goers and does not offend the old you may inay hope to escape from a hooting and the critic may earn a five pound note by picking out and parading every fault the piece contains |