8 Ways to Write Better for Women
Happy International Women’s Day to all our female-identifying writers, musical-theatre lovers and femme fatales! We’ve been thinking about how writers can make sure they are representing real, nuanced and well-rounded women in their work. Here are our top tips:
1. Write better character descriptions
However you decide to introduce your characters, treat them equally and fairly. If you note one character’s appearance, why not every character? What you value about different characters tells everyone from the director, to the actor, to the audience what to value as well. Think about why appearance is relevant to the story and what attributes really impact each character. Value characters as individuals over who they are in relation to others. Prove to the reader that you know who they are beyond being someone’s sister, mother or lover.
Use character descriptions to give us an insight into what excites you about each character and to deepen your understanding not just of who they are, but who they could become.
2. Write women with a past and a future
No matter what age your characters are, they are a full person with a world of memories and experiences. Younger women have a past. Older women have a future. Give every character a backstory that informs who they are at the beginning of the play. Give every character new things to experience, goals to chase, and the ability to grow and change. Showing characters who are experiencing everything for the first time, or who have stopped experiencing new things altogether, presents women as either unrealistically naive or void of desires and limits the impact they can make in the world of the play.
Empower older characters with curiosity and dreams to look forward to. Enhance younger women with past experiences and wisdom to draw from.
3. Ensure your characters are heard
Do the women in your musical have to shout to be heard? Perhaps the characters around them are taking up too much space. Find allyship within your writing. Make sure women are listened to and understood by other characters. Show them being respected. Don’t make them have to belt their feelings over the patriarchy in order to be heard.
The voices of women or marginalised characters are only going to be heard by your audience if they’re heard within the world of the play.
Sharon D. Clarke in Caroline, or Change by Jeanine Tesori & Tony Kushner
4. Let experience speak
Everyone’s experience of womanhood is completely unique. A character’s gender is not enough to define them, and cannot grant them perspective they don’t have. What are the other lived experiences that have impacted the character? What are the stories they’ve been told? How do they relate to other characters, including other women, and how do their experiences differ? Write the person, not the gender.
Give your characters diverse identities and experiences to speak from that will inform their unique perspective on the world.
5. Write women with agency, not just strength
Storytelling tropes often favour stereotypically masculine attributes to drive the main plot e.g. aggression, heroism, risk-taking. This can force characters with different attributes to have to adopt new character traits in order to make an impact on the story. How do your characters assert themselves in the narrative? Are their actions consistent with their personality?
Show characters driving action on their own terms, in their own ways.
6. Write women singing to and about other women in a positive way
We just want to see more of this, to be honest.
7. Give women time and space on stage
The one single thing that continues to limit writers from creating nuanced and complex characters is not giving women enough stage time. Throwing women or marginalised characters a token song so we can step into their world for three minutes is not enough. Spend more time showing an audience the world through their eyes.
Integrate your women characters into the scenes, and allow them the space to react, to respond, to grow and to change.
8. Write what you understand
If you are writing a part of the female experience that you don’t have, don’t guess. Do the work. Reach out, ask questions, listen, learn and collaborate*.
*This applies to any experience of identity.
If you want to find more ways to bring authenticity to your characters (from a women-led company) and give the women in your script the stories they deserve, get in touch for a script consultation.