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. How Not To Write Female Characters
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. How Not To Write Female Characters
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.
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 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 Screenplays is 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
'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 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 Screenplays is 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
Author Bio –
Lucy V. Hay is an author, script editor and blogger who helps writers via her Bang2write consultancy. Lucy is the producer of two Brit Thrillers, DEVIATION (2012) and ASSASSIN (2015), as well as the script editor and advisor on numerous other features and shorts. Lucy's also the author of WRITING AND SELLING THRILLER SCREENPLAYS for Kamera Books' "Creative Essentials" range, as well as its follow ups on DRAMA SCREENPLAYS and DIVERSE CHARACTERS.
Social Media Links –
www.facebook.com/groups/Bang2writersMy Review
From the title, it isn't immediately evident that this book is primarily about writing characters for screen. As a novelist, there is some useful information that can equally apply to fiction writing but for the most part, the references to many of the films given as examples were ones with which I am not familiar.
I found the tone a little evangelical at times - it is clear that the author is on a mission - and whilst I am in total agreement with the cause, I found the constant references to her own website annoying after a while. That said, there are some really eye-opening ideas which really make you think about the way that women are portrayed on screen and in books and if that goes some way towards the creation of more realistic female roles in the future then she will have done her job. There is a particularly useful checklist at the end which I would encourage every writer, male or female to keep by their writing space as a reminder.
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