The Hatcher book is at the top of my list followed closely by The Dramatists Toolkit by Jeffrey Sweet.
Many of the playwrights I know prefer the Sweet book. They are very different in style and content. Sweet is more of a cookbook approach while Hatcher is more find you own way approach.
I save quotes from books that I want to revisit. Here is one from Marsha Norman ('night Mother)
“I’m convinced that there are absolutely unbreakable rules in the theatre, and that it doesn’t matter how good you are, you can’t break them . . . You must state the issue at the beginning of the play. The audience must know what is at stake; they must know when they will be able to go home: “This is a story about a little boy who lost his marbles.” They must know, when the little boy either gets his marbles back or finds something better than his marbles, or kills himself because he can’t live without his marbles, that the play will end and they can applaud and go home. He can’t NOT care about the marbles. He has to want them with such a passion that you are interested, that you connect to that passion. The theatre is all about wanting things that you can or can’t have or you do or do not get. Now the boy himself has to be likeable. It has to matter to you whether he gets his marbles or not.”
Doug