What one writer considers a full-fledged germ idea, may be to another but the first faint evidence that an idea may possibly be there. The skilled playlet-writer will certainly grasp a germ idea, and appraise its worth quicker than the novice can. In the eager acceptance of half-formed ideas that speciously glitter, lies the pitfall which entraps many a beginner. Therefore, engrave on the tablets of your resolution this determination and single standard:

Never accept a subject as a germ idea and begin to write a playlet
until you have turned its theme over in your mind a sufficient
length of time to establish its worth beyond question. Consider
it from every angle in the light of the suggestions in this
chapter, and make its characters and its action as familiar to
you as is the location of every article in your own room. Then,
when your instinct for the dramatic tells you there is no doubt
that here is the germ idea of a playlet, state it in one short
sentence, and consider that statement as a problem that must be
solved logically, clearly and conclusively, within the requirements
of the playlet form.

With the germ idea the entire playlet may flood into the writer's mind, or come in little waves that rise continually, like the ever advancing tide, to the flood that touches high-water mark. But, however complete the germ idea may be, it depends upon the writer alone whether he struggles like a novice to keep his dramatic head above water, or strikes out with the bold, free strokes of the practised swimmer.

CHAPTER XIII

THE DRAMATIC--THE VITAL ELEMENT OF PLOT

What the dramatic is--no matter whether it be serious or comic in tone--requires some consideration in a volume such as this, even though but a brief discussion is possible and only a line of thought may be pointed out.

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.