How Not To Write Female Characters

By Lucy V. Hay

Female characters. When fifty per cent of your potential target audience is female, if you're not writing them in your screenplay or novel? You're making a BIG mistake!

But how should you approach your female characters? That's the million dollar question … After all, women in real life are complex, varied and flawed. Knowing where to start in creating three dimensional female characters for your story is extremely difficult. 

So … perhaps it's easier to figure out how NOT to write female characters?

Script editor, novelist and owner of the UK's top screenwriting blog www.bang2write.com, Lucy V Hay has spent the last fifteen years reading the slush pile. She has learned to spot the patterns, pitfalls and general mistakes writers make when writing female characters – and why.

In How Not To Write Female Characters, Lucy outlines: 

• WHO your character is & how to avoid "classic" traps and pitfalls
• WHAT mistakes writers typically make with female characters
• WHERE you can find great female characters in produced and published content
• WHEN to let go of gender politics and agendas
• WHY female characters are more important than ever

Lucy is on a mission to improve your writing, as well as enable diverse voices and characters to rise to the top of the spec pile. Plus this book is FREE, what do you have to lose???

REVIEWS FOR LUCY V'S WRITING ADVICE: 

'A timely guide to creating original characters and reinvigorating tired storylines. '

- Debbie Moon, creator and showrunner, Wolfblood (BBC) 

'Lucy V. Hay nails it'
- Stephen Volk, BAFTA-winning screenwriter: Ghostwatch, Afterlife, The Awakening 

'Packed with practical and inspirational insights'
- Karol Griffiths, development consultant and script editor, clients include ITV, BBC, Warner Brothers 

'A top-notch, cutting-edge guide to writing and selling, not just practical but inspirational. Lucy's distinctive voice infuses the entire journey. Quite brilliant. Here's the woman who'll help you make things happen.'
- Barbara Machin, award-winning writer & creator of the BBC's Waking the Dead 

'Delivers the stirring call to arms that writers must not only write, but take their work to the next level themselves, making sacrifices and taking risks if they want to see their stories on screen.'
- Chris Jones, Filmmaker, Screenwriter & Creative Director at the London Screenwriters Festival 

'Writing and Selling Thriller Screenplaysis a must-read for any writer, producer or director looking to create (or in the process of creating) a thriller production. It could also be immensely useful for those generally curious about the genre or looking to learn more.' - Film Doctor

'Lucy V Hay explains what a script reader and editor's role in filmmaking, tells you to work on your concepts and that dialogue is the last thing to work on in her new book.' - Brit Flicks

• Language: English
• Publisher: B2W books
• Release date: Aug 27, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386784401

Book preview

1

Why Female Characters Are Important

‘I hate to hear you talk about all women as if they were fine ladies instead of rational creatures. None of us want to be in calm waters all our lives.’

- Jane Austen

Introduction

Female characters are important, but probably not for the reason you first assume. If you go on Google, you’ll discover surveys consistently find women read more than men, especially fiction; surveys also note women stream more movies and TV than men. Women even use social media and the internet more than men! What’s more, far from that mythical 15-25 year old male demographic that’s bandied about by (out-of-date) producers, the MPAA has revealed the majority cinema audience in the USA is actually FEMALE!

Tides are turning. In this day and age, the outdated notion of the ‘male’ and ‘female’ story is gone. Women now watch genres and types of story traditionally associated with ‘male’ tastes such as Horror, Blockbusters, gross-out Comedies and stories full of extreme violence (even torture!). Women, just like men, want a ‘great story, well told’. In other words, whatever Women personally find entertaining! This means women are a whopping fifty per cent of your potential audience, whether you’re writing movies, short films, TV pilots, novels, or transmedia projects.

Working with writers, I like to stay up-to-date with what they’re reading and watching. This means I poll them quite frequently about the female characters they enjoy in books, TV shows and movies. Here’s some recent results from the ‘Bang2writers’, of all genders:

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Novels

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

Anne of Green Gables by LM Montgomery

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

Emma by Jane Austen

Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan

Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

Matilda by Roald Dahl

Carrie by Stephen King

The Harry Potter Books by JK Rowling

Misery by Stephen King

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TV

The Handmaid’s Tale

Homeland

Empire

The 100

Happy Valley

Brooklyn 99

Wentworth Prison

Broadchurch

Game of Thrones

Scott & Bailey

The Fall

Orange Is The New Black

Big Little Lies

House of Cards

Line of Duty

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Movies

Beauty and the Beast (both versions)

Frozen

Moana

Legally Blonde

Aliens

Panic Room

Mad Max Fury Road

Gravity

Edge