This is not to say that the drawing-up of a tentative scenario ought not
to be one of the playwright's first proceedings. Indeed, if he is able
to dispense with a scenario on paper, it can only be because his mind is
so clear, and so retentive of its own ideas, as to enable him to carry
in his head, always ready for reference, a more or less detailed scheme.
Go-as-you-please composition may be possible for the novelist, perhaps
even for the writer of a one-act play, a mere piece of dialogue; but in
a dramatic structure of any considerable extent, proportion, balance,
and the interconnection of parts are so essential that a scenario is
almost as indispensable to a dramatist as a set of plans to an
architect. There is one dramatist of note whom one suspects of sometimes
working without any definite scenario, and inventing as he goes along.
That dramatist, I need scarcely say, is Mr. Bernard Shaw. I have no
absolute knowledge of his method; but if he schemed out any scenario for
_Getting Married_ or _Misalliance_, he has sedulously concealed the
fact--to the detriment of the plays.
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