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 pitfallsWHAT mistakes writers typically make with female charactersWHERE you can find great female characters in produced and published contentWHEN to let go of gender politics and agendasWHY 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