Today it's the BlogBlitz How NOT to Write Female Characters by Lucy V. Hay. It's educational non-fiction, an add-on guide for writers.
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.
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Buy How NOT to Write Female Characters
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.
There is nothing quite so hilarious as a Twitter thread on how men write female characters. Some of the examples are ludicrous, embarrassing and often downright misogynistic. When you take a closer look the hilarity then changes to disappointment and outrage. Then the cherry on top of the sundae is the fact women are writing their female characters in the same way.
How is this still happening in the 21st century? Ignorance, lack of experience, complacency or just unawareness? I think it depends on the writer, and their willingness to look more closely at the tropes the use ad infinitum.
It's quite an interesting read, mainly because Hay manages to give both readers and writers a completely different perspective on certain elements of writing female characters. At times I felt myself disagreeing, but then as she went deeper into her point I found myself understanding and agreeing.
It's an eye-opener of a read, albeit a short one. It's educational non-fiction, an add-on guide for writers. In a way it's also valuable for readers, because it isn't wrong to expect more from our literature and excursions into the world of reading pleasure.
It's written in a no nonsense and straight to the point way. Hay calls it as she sees it, which isn't often complimentary. It's a handy guide for the scribes and scribes to be, The question for me is whether readers will see female characters in a different way after this read.
Buy How NOT to write female characters at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Buy at Amazon com.
Read my review of The Other Twin, The Lynmouth Stories and Do No Harm by Lucy V. Hay.
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