is inherently good or bad. Most
contemporary dramatists, therefore, postpone the actual writing of their
dialogue until they have worked out their scenario in minute detail. They
begin by separating and grouping their narrative materials into not more
than three or four distinct pigeon-holes of time and place,--thereby
dividing their story roughly into acts. They then plan a stage-setting for
each act, employing whatever accessories may be necessary for the action.
If papers are to be burned, they introduce a fireplace; if somebody is to
throw a pistol through a window, they set the window in a convenient and
emphatic place; they determine how many chairs and tables and settees are
demanded for the narrative; if a piano or a bed is needed, they place it
here or there upon the floor-plan of their stage, according to the
prominence they wish to give it; and when all such points as these have
been determined, they draw a detailed map of the stage-setting for the act.
As their next step, most playwrights, with this map before them, and using
a set of chess-men or other convenient concrete objects to represent their
characters, move the pieces about upon the stage through the successive
scenes, determine in detail where every character is to stand or sit at
nearly every moment, and note down what he is to think and feel and talk
about at the time. Only after the entire play has been planned out thus
minutely does the average playwright turn back to the beginning and
commence to write his dialogue. He completes his primary task of
play-making before he begins his secondary task of play-writing. Many of
our established dramatists,--like the late Clyde Fitch, for example--sell
their plays when the scenario is finished, arrange for the production,
select the actors, and afterwards write the dialogue with the chosen actors
constantly in mind.

This summary statement of the usual process may seem, perhaps, to cast
excessive emphasis on the constructive phase of the playwright's problem;
and allowance must of course be made for the divergent mental habits of
individual authors. But almost any playwright will tell you that he feels
as if his task were practically finished when he arrives at the point when
he finds himself prepared to begin the writing of his dialogue. This
accounts for the otherwise unaccountable rapidity with which many of the
great plays of the world have been written. Dumas _fils_ retired to the
country and wrote