This discussion is placed here in the sequence of chapters, because it first begins to trouble the novice after he has accepted his germ idea, and before he has succeeded in casting it into a stage story.  Indeed, at that moment even the most self-sure becomes conscious of the demands of the dramatic.  Yet this chapter will be found to overlap some that precede it and some that follow—­particularly the chapter on plot structure, of which this discussion may be considered an integral part—­as is the case in every attempt to put into formal words, principles separate in theory, but inseparable in application.

In the previous chapter, the conscious thought that precedes even the acceptance of a germ idea was insisted on—­it was “played up,” as the stage phrase terms a scene in which the emotional key is pitched high—­with the purpose of forcing upon your attention the prime necessity of thinking out—­not yet writing—­the playlet.  Emphasis was also laid on the necessity for the possession of dramatic instinct—­a gift far different from the ability to think—­by anyone who would win success in writing this most difficult of dramatic forms.  But now I wish to lay an added stress—­to pitch even higher the key of emphasis—­on one fundamental, this vital necessity:  Anyone who would write a playlet must possess in himself, as an instinct—­something that cannot be taught and cannot be acquired—­the ability to recognize and grasp the dramatic.

No matter if you master the technic by which the great dramatists have built their plays, you cannot achieve success in writing the playlet if you do not possess an innate sense of what is dramatic.  For, just as a man who is tone-deaf [1] might produce musical manuscripts which while technically faultless would play inharmoniously, so the man who is drama-blind might produce “perfect” playlet manuscripts that would play in dramatic discords.

[1] Not organically defective, as were the ears of the great composer, Beethoven, but tone-deaf, as a person may be color-blind.

1.  What Dramatic Instinct Is

When you witness a really thrilling scene in a play you find yourself sitting on the edge of your seat; you clench your hands until the nails sink into your flesh; tears roll down your cheeks at other scenes, until you are ashamed of your emotion and wipe them furtively away; and you laugh uproariously at still other scenes.  But your quickened heart-beats, your tears, and your laughter are, however, no evidence that you possess dramatic instinct—­they are a tribute to the possession of that gift in the person who wrote the play.  So do not confuse appreciation—­the ultimate result of another’s gift—­with the ability to create:  they are two very different things.

No more does comprehension of a dramatist’s methods—­a sort of detached and often cold appreciation—­indicate the possession of gifts other than those of the critic.