Q&A (Part 2): Chicks Who Script (Emily Blake, Maggie F. Levin, Lauren Schacher)

Here is a terrific, new resource for the online writing community: A weekly podcast called Chicks Who Script, featuring a trio of ‘chicks’: Emily Blake, Maggie F. Levin, and Lauren Schacher. You may check out their website here.

I asked Emily if they would be willing to do a Q&A and they agreed. It’s an interview in two parts. Today in Part 2, Lauren, Maggie and Emily share advice to both women and men writers, and reflect on what the success of movies with female leads like Lucy may mean in terms of Hollywood’s conventional wisdom.

Scott: What one thing would each of you say in the way of advice for aspiring women screenwriters and TV writers?

Maggie: Make yourself valuable. To me, that means be the best on the page and in the room, and have something unique to contribute. You’re starting at a disadvantage, so the only way to come out swinging is to make sure your talents are vast, well-honed and undeniable. Which also means taking some time to screw it up, and do it wrong. I’m so grateful for the terrible little films I made that will never see the light of day — and for the space and time I’ve been given to experiment and define my voice.

Lauren: Be humbly confident. The more confidence you have in your work, the more others will have in you. Obviously, you’re hoping here that your work is actually good, but no one will know if you don’t put it out there! Find some friends who give great notes, join writers’ groups, get in online communities on twitter, but share your work. Is there a fear that someone else will take it? Yes. But no one’s going to make it, buy it, option it, whatever if you don’t put it out there to start with.

…and don’t forget the humble part. People also like working with people they like. So don’t be a dick about it.

Maggie: “Don’t be a dick” is excellent advice for writers of all genders.

Emily: I feel like that would make an excellent Ghostbusters type advertisement. “Chicks Who Script are here to tell you: DON’T BE A DICK.”

Now that I think about it, taken out of context that sounds pretty aggressively man-hating. But it is not.

Anyway, I’ll add an extension on what Maggie and Lauren said — don’t be afraid to fail. You will probably be terrible until one day you’re not. Don’t let the fear that you will be terrible stop you from learning to be great. It’s like Bruce Wayne’s dad said: “Why do we fall? So we can learn to pick ourselves up.” Every time somebody gives me shit for failing I just think “One day when I’m writing the Wonder Woman movie, you’re going to feel like a real asshole, buddy.” Will that happen? I dunno. Doesn’t matter. I believe it will and that’s what pushes me to keep going.

Scott: How about for male writers: Any words of wisdom for them about how to write more and better female characters and/or clichés they should avoid?

Emily: I think because so many of us default to male for all characters, the women tend to be utilitarian. You need a love interest or a mom or a victim, so you put in a woman, but when you need any other kind of character, it’s almost always a man. And that’s how women get to be so cliché, because they become a plot point instead of a character. I’d love to see women become minor characters too. A pizza delivery boy can be a pizza deliver girl, or a mechanic can be female or one of the bad guy’s henchmen or one of the cops in the precinct. Or hell, TWO of the cops in the precinct. There doesn’t always have to be just one woman in your story. And she doesn’t always have to be the sexy one who wears black leather.

Maggie: Yes, exactly! Write your women like humans — i.e. part of the fabric of society. One of my biggest frustrations as a script reader is when the female characters have no real personality — they’re simply there to service the story. People should talk like people, not plot devices. I’d say the easiest way to write authentic women is to listen — really listen — to the women around you.

Lauren: If there was any doubt as to the reasons I love these ladies, read above. All yes! Mags, that’s one of my biggest complaints: when the women are literally only there to service story or the male lead. Women are humans. Write humans.

To add to what Emily said, YES, doctors, mechanics, engineers can all also be women. Perhaps in the real world, you’ve never met a female engineer — and if this is the case, please email me and I will introduce you to more chick engineers than you know what to do with because that is ridiculous; but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Don’t forget who’s watching what you’re writing. At the end of this process, ideally, when your film gets made and people come to theatres to see it, or stream it from Netflix onto their TVs or *gulp* onto their phones — men, women, and children will watch it. If they don’t see women in STEM roles, you’d be surprised how drastically that affects their beliefs about women in those jobs in real life. Bad news. So let’s help each other out.

Also, please please please check to see if your female characters all fall into the Madonna/whore trap. Women are not one or the other. We can be nurturing and stern, love sex but not be “man-eating” (I hate that phrase). We are complex, just like you.

Scott: What is each of your very favorite female characters from a TV show or movie and why?

Emily: We have a feature at the end of every episode where we talk about great female characters, so you’ll get a lot of this on the show. I started with Sarah Connor, but in episode 4 I’m going to talk about Aeryn Sun (Claudia Black) from the sci-fi series Farscape. She’s probably the most inspirational character to me. She is tough as nails for the duration of the series, but she goes from being a soldier incapable of anything other than following orders to being a rebel and an outlaw who uses her warrior skills to help her friends. There’s a scene where she saves the future love of her life and star of the show, John Crichton (Ben Browder), and when the cell door flies open and she stands in the doorway holding a huge gun and telling him it’s time to get the hell out of dodge, he says to the other guy in his cell, “That is the radiant Aeryn Sun.” I love that moment. I want to be radiant while holding a huge gun and wearing my hair in what Claudia Black liked to call “the battle pony.” She’s just so complicated and I love it.

Maggie: My interest in the making of TV & film is directly caused by Lindsay Weir from “Freaks and Geeks.” She was exactly the teenaged girl that I was at the time — caught between worlds, trying desperately to be cool and just barely succeeding. She’s grounded, smart, strong, but striving, messed up and dorky in this absolutely beautiful way. I think my ultimately goal is to write a girl that someone identifies with as much as I did Lindsay. Someday on the podcast, I’ll have to talk about my adventures as a hardcore F&G fangirl in 1999. It was a good time.

Lauren: I grew up watching movies from the 1950s. Lucille Ball, Lauren Bacall, the Hepburns, and Ester Williams were my heroes. They played fleshed out characters, women who were complicated and strong. As I got older, roles similar to the ones played by the ladies above got fewer and fewer. …except for the occasional Geena Davis role like Dottie Hinson in A League of Their Own. I’m getting misty-eyed just thinking of how much that film inspired me. Dottie is both strong and vulnerable. Like a human! That was a character that made me feel as though I could do anything.

Side note: can we add Geena to our list of must-haves? Talk about someone who’s putting her words into action! Damn, woman!

Emily: OMG yes. Geena. I think I would pass out with joy.

Scott: Finally this: It appears that this weekend, Lucy, an action movie with a female lead, is going to end up as #1 in the domestic box office, besting Hercules, featuring one the most iconic masculine characters of all time. I find that both fascinating and hugely ironic. What’s your takeaway from these results and does Lucy’s performance along with that of other hit movies like The Heat, Bridesmaids, Frozen, and The Hunger Games give you hope that Hollywood may finally be compelled to admit the supposed conventional wisdom that “women leads can’t open a movie” is bull shit?

Emily: I write action scripts. When I started writing screenplays I almost always chose a female lead because that’s what I wanted to see on screen, and I can’t even tell you how many people told me I was wasting my time. I heard it over and over — “nobody wants to make action movies with a female lead.” I was actually told that I needed to write a male lead to prove that could write male leads. I wrote a couple of scripts with male leads because the story called for it, but the vast majority of my scripts continued to be female-driven action. I’m stubborn that way — I don’t listen to stupid very often. And here we are, years later, and look at the year female protagonists have had. For a while I could point to Aliens or Terminator 2 whenever anyone used that bullshit excuse about women not being able to carry an action movie. Then I could point to Salt. Now I can point to Lucy or The Hunger Games or Gravity. It’s been a great year. And now a lot of those people who told me I was wasting my time are fumbling all over themselves to write a female-driven action script.

Maggie: Yeah! Even if the results weren’t screaming that message quite as loud, as a chick starting out in this scene, you’ve gotta have hope that change is coming. And if it isn’t coming fast enough — well, jump in and help, right? There’s a great Dan Bern song from the 90s called “Rolling Away,” where he says “I see beautiful actresses, with terrible scripts — and I wanna write em all a great one!” That silly little line has always been a big motivator for me. But it’s happening, man! Slowly but surely, people are stepping up to the challenge. Every time I see one of the long roster of incredible American actresses at the helm of a film that rocks — and that film just slaughters at the box office and makes ALL the money…it just boosts my own resolve that this is actually a great time to enter the rat race. We can all be the change.

Lauren: I think it’s fucking awesome. First of all, OF COURSE Lucy is killing Hercules! Lucy is new, fresh, exciting, and fierce. We’ve seen Hercules a hundred different ways. Not that old stories can’t be new, but I think that it’s safe to say, generally speaking, that we’re ready for new ones. Franchises have their place as do remakes, but nothing’s more satisfying than a well-done original tale. I couldn’t be more thrilled at how well Lucy is doing. I do wonder if studios will continue to ignore the money these films make and tote the old — now disproven — “female films don’t sell tickets” theory. That’s wrong. We all know it’s wrong at this point. There are many info-graphics all over the net showing exactly how much money female-driven films bring in. We just have to keep screaming until they can no longer deny it. GO LUCY GO. I’ve got hope for change. It’s coming.

We three have a date to see Lucy this week, ey ladies?

Emily: We do indeed. And that’s been an added bonus of this whole thing — I made new friends. Not just these two, who are amazing, but the guests we’ve had on already. We’re becoming part of a larger community in our personal lives too, or at least I am. And that’s also really exciting. I’m just super excited about everything all the time, really.

For Part 1 of the interview, go here.

Emily Blake

Emily Blake enjoys writing fight scenes with accurate tactics. She’s written more screenplays than she can remember, all action or action comedy. She was a finalist in the TrackingB contest in 2011 and is currently repped at APA. She cowrote and is executive producing a short film about Doctor Who fans called Tenspotting, which will star Chloe Dykstra. She’s a message board moderator, an amateur dog trainer, a former high school teacher, and an experienced Twitterer. In a zombie apocalypse, she’d probably be okay. She believes Terminator 2 is the finest movie ever made, although Galaxy Quest is a close second.

Maggie F. Levin

Maggie F. Levin is a film & theatre artist with rock n’ roll roots. Since arriving in Los Angeles, she has worked as a director & concept artist for music videos, a script doctor for indie producers, and a pop music reviewer for MXDWN.com — in addition to her ‘regular’ work as a screenwriter, fit model and script reader. Maggie writes fractured fairy tales in movie form — so obviously she thinks Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is the greatest thing ever. Besides Prince. Prince is actually the greatest thing ever.

Lauren Schacher

Lauren Schacher is an actor/writer combo. …don’t worry if you haven’t heard of that. It’s a totally new thing. Yup. She’s got degrees in Biochemistry and Italian Literature, has performed on stage at Lincoln Center and on screen opposite some of the world’s greatest movie stars, has seen the inside of the human body (dude. it’s SO BEAUTIFUL) and is in development on her first feature film. She was one of three (all female) Big Vision Empty Wallet Screenwriting Fellows in 2013 in addition to having been a semi-finalist for the Sundance Screenwriter’s Lab with her psychological thriller, Dream Catcher. Lauren’s focus as a writer is on human relationships, most often in terms of sexuality. Films like Short Term 12 and Rachel Getting Married make her coo. …then cry.

Website
Facebook
Twitter: @CWSPodcast
Emily: @Bambookiller
Maggie: @MaggieLevin
Lauren: @LaurenSchacher

The Chicks Who Script podcast is also available on iTunes.

It’s folks like Maggie, Lauren and Emily, along with each of us, who are going to drag Hollywood kicking and screaming into the 21st century. As @MysteryExec would say: “Be the change.” I hope Chicks Who Script can become a leading voice in that movement, as well as providing insight, information and entertainment for all creatives, regardless of gender, along the way.

So check out the podcast and spread the word, folks!

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