麻豆约拍

鈥淛ane is simultaneously beautiful yet plain, assertive yet vulnerable, and strangely charismatic for a woman who has very little to say.鈥�

鈥淭ara is a gently hysterical, workaholic drone 鈥� a highly intelligent woman held back by nothing except an exceptionally plain face.鈥�

鈥淓rica is surprisingly attractive considering she is in her mid-40s and has recently had half of her thin, but not too thin, body torn apart by a werewolf.鈥�

These are a few examples of the way female characters are described in many of the scripts sent in to the听writersroom that we, as script readers, get to read. They are frequently derogatory, incongruous and judgemental, and range from the hilarious to the horrific - sometimes within one sentence. In many instances they focus heavily on physical appearance in a way that is neither useful to know nor possible to film.听

You may be disappointed (or relieved) to learn that I made up Jane, Tara and Erica. Much as I would like to, I can鈥檛 show you real female character descriptions submitted by real writers. These can only be viewed by trained readers wearing industry standard protective goggles. Instead, I have created some far less extreme imitations to a) demonstrate what the problem is and b) gently encourage those who need encouragement to write women in a more insightful way.

During the last sift - where we read 1780 scripts - a few of us readers copied the most bizarre female character descriptions we came across onto post-it notes and stuck them on the wall (see the picture above). Some descriptions of male characters also worked their way in. The latter tended to go something like this:

鈥淒ave is an everyday bloke with no sense of fashion, but a cracking sense of humour. He is likable slacker, neither attractive nor unattractive, but very good at writing.鈥�

Dave is a familiar figure to us. He often appears in sitcoms. Often he is called Dave. Sometimes it鈥檚 Steve.

The female characters on the post-its - women like Jane, Tara and Erica - were described less sympathetically with a combination of reverence and disgust. They were good looking but thick, glamorous but old, hot but vain. However, worst of all, they inevitably ended up dating Dave.

If all of the above sounds like predictable male fantasy stuff to you, that鈥檚 because a lot of it is. Using equal opportunity forms, we can estimate that two thirds of the writers who submitted scripts to the last Script Room were male - and although not all of the dubious female character descriptions were written by men, a lot were. 听

You might ask whether it really matters how a character is described. Isn鈥檛 it what they do and how they behave that counts? Yes, but a nonsensical and hackneyed character description invariably leads to a nonsensical and hackneyed character 鈥� one that is underdeveloped and difficult to care about and understand. Characters that are defined predominantly by their looks are not interesting to spend time with. What might fulfil the needs of a magazine shoot is unlikely to sustain a ten-part television series.

An ideal character description is probably simply a short summary of need-to-know information. For instance, by Gwyneth Hughes contains one that goes like this: 鈥淗is wife ALMA brings him a final dirty cup as he finishes his perfect clearing up routine. She is 61, small, bright, determined, unglamorous, and English.鈥� What Alma does is more important than what she looks like. Indeed, most of the scripts in the听 choose to show the characters in action rather than describe them at all.

Writing recently about the excellent second series of Danish TV show Borgen (which has just finished airing on 麻豆约拍 Four), The Sunday Times鈥� AA Gill said:

听 鈥淭he female characters are strong, attractive, independent, flawed, both sexual and听听 businesslike. But they鈥檙e not exceptional: they鈥檙e simply equal, which is surprising, and reminds us how stereotypical most English-language drama still is.鈥�

If English-language drama is stereotypical (and is it?), can writers be blamed for copying what they see in comedies, dramas and films that get made? It鈥檚 true - you don鈥檛 have to do more than turn on your TV or visit your nearest cinema to find clunky, predictable depictions of women worse than any I could make up. Yet creating your own versions of these won鈥檛 make them to go away. The world isn鈥檛 perfect and neither is every script ever produced. Rather than emulate mediocrity, why not aim to get rid of it?听听

There are interesting female characters out there 鈥� and Scandinavian dramas, such as , and , are currently a great place to find them, as is the . If you think, like me, that there should be more 鈥� and your imagination isn鈥檛 filled with a giant 鈥榟ot or not鈥� list, but believable women with interesting stories 鈥� perhaps you could write about them for the next ? The window for submissions opens today.

An extended version of this post (with quiz!) is available

*Sally is unable to respond to queries听about specfic scripts sent to 麻豆约拍 writersroom.

Script Room is open for submissions of original scripts from writers from 14th February 2013 -听until 5pm, 28th March 2013.听 For more information on how to send us your script and to download the coversheet, visit the of the writersroom website.