The Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations

In honor of this book’s 100-year anniversary in the English language, The Book Tree presents this special 2016 edition. It has become essential reading for serious writers and those involved in the dramatic arts by providing a more complete understanding of the story structures involved in books and dramatic performance. Writers and storytellers of all kinds have been able to expand creative boundaries, remove writer’s block, and increase their power to deliver a compelling story. These 36 dramatic situations are not plots, but the foundational building blocks for thousands of creative plots that one can produce. Many successful writers have thanked this book for helping them bypass writer’s block—to the point of releasing their genius within. It is also useful to actors and directors, providing a new perspective of the added dimensions found in a story or script. This increases an actor’s sense of the dramatic situation at hand and its relationship to the other features connected to the overall plot. Few instructional books have stood the test of time like this one has—because in this case there is nothing more timeless than the art of storytelling. To have clearly identified 36 dramatic situations with few other alternatives was pure genius and gave this book its credibility as being, arguably, the main reference work for the entire field of storytelling. In an effort to continue the work of Carlo Gozzi, who also found 36 dramatic situations, the author studied classical Greek texts and various works from China, India, Judea, and the modern and classic works available throughout Europe at the time. In so doing, he concluded that indeed, there are 36 dramatic situations, and no more. He presents them here, with details of their workings and the emotional context with which they should be displayed. This book should be in the library of every serious student or creative purveyor of the dramatic arts.