1. Base your female characters on someone you know

The women you actually know aren’t anything like the women in the movies. The writer who spurred me to write this based one of his female characters on his teenage niece and BOOM – out came this totally quirky and unique character.

Your fantasies are boring to everyone else but you. Let’s set them aside for a moment. Who are the women in your life? What if your action hero was based on your mom? Your sister? Your aunt, cousin, next door neighbor. What do these women actually look like, and how funny/poignant/interesting/unexpected would it be to find them in one of your fictional scenarios?

The real women, in your real life, are likely to be a goldmine of yet-untapped source of inspiration, and your writing will be super interesting if you place them in situations where you’d never expect them. You’ll also find that they’re writing themselves; your stories will flow out easily.

2. Give your female character something to want, other than a guy

I tell my writing students this all the time: fleshing out a character doesn’t mean stuffing your script with more details about them. What brings a character to life is a high-stakes want. If the character wants something badly, the stakes are high, and the obstacles are insurmountable, we will be in your character’s shoes and at the edge of our seat.

If your female character doesn’t want anything, all that badly, you’ll be vulnerable to falling into a vortex of sexist clichés.

That said: ask what your female character wants for herself. Avoid wants like: she wants her guy to be happy, or she wants the two men in her life to stop fighting and be friends again.

Your female character can be a minor character in your story. She doesn’t have to occupy the lead to want something. The most interesting minor characters have exciting, unattainable, high-stakes wants.

3. Give your female character another female character to talk to

This will help you steer clear of writing women whose existence is all about serving men. She doesn’t need another woman to talk to about her inner most feelings, the other woman could be the gas station attendant, or the detective, or a competing bounty hunter. But you’d be surprised at how different your writing will be if your female characters talks to another woman (see video on the bechdel test: )

4. Give your strong female character a flaw that has no impact on men (so like, betrayal and nagging aren’t what I’m talking about)

The flaws you see time and again in female characters stem from misogynistic nonsense: we’re either betraying a guy who innocently trusted us, or we’re a nagging and overbearing mother or wife. Most often we’re that super cute thing in the bar who rejects our hapless male hero (waaaaah, so sad).

Turns out we can have other flaws that have nothing to do with how good a job we’re doing at being nurturing mothers or sex toys. You could make your writing fresh by giving your female characters the same flaws that you yourself struggle with: she’s insecure; she’s feeling guilty; she’s too shy to talk to people; she’s feeling hopeless and discouraged; she isolates herself; she’s mistrusting and doesn’t want to work with other people; she’s a jobless slob; she doesn’t believe in herself, etc. What are the issues that you’re dealing with yourself?

Your female characters are the same as all your characters, because when they’re well written, they too are a reflection of your own personality.

5. Give your strong female character bodily functions

Within sexist fantasies, women are plastic objects. We don’t sweat, burp, get paper cuts, and our make-up helps us keep that fresh-from-the-factory look even as we roll out of bed in the morning.

What if your female character has something stuck in her teeth that she tries to get at during dinner, or her stomach hurts (gas! can’t go wrong with gas!) Or what if she’s sweaty ‘cause she’s super nervous, or she’s shaking with fear as she acts with courage?

6. Turn your male character into a woman

This one is my favorite. Actress Olivia Wilde gave a talk recently where she described a reading she did of “American Pie” where the women played the roles written for men, and vice-versa. She says:

 “The men who joined us to sit on stage started squirming rather uncomfortably and got really bored because they weren’t used to being the supporting cast …It was fascinating to feel their discomfort [and] to discuss it with them afterwards, when they said, ‘It’s boring to play the girl role!’ And I said, ‘Yeah. Yeah. You think?! Welcome to our world!” Meanwhile, the audience was just as entertained.

Look at the males that you wrote, and randomly turn one or more of them into a woman, keeping them exactly as you wrote them. It’s a very fun exercise, and it’s amazing what it’ll do to your script.

Salt (Angelina Jolie), Alien (Sigourney Weaver), Identity Theft (Melissa McCarthy), were lead roles written for men. The women who brilliantly played these roles made them their own.