I would also suggest writing female characters over the age of thirty.

Fascinating. I've personally tried to avoid the more blatant, physical only introduction in my own stuff. Or think I do. In the interest of full disclosure,, here are every female intro Iv'e written in the last two years: "ALICE, the perfect image of a successful businesswoman." "MARINA FUTURA, a buxom scandal-monger for a futuristic Fox News-like show, preps herself for camera." "[OTS as] a WOMAN enters the apartment, keys in hand... ...She is the Boxer's Ex-Girlfriend." "ALLISON the waitress stops by, coffee urn in hand. She's quite pretty in a just-approaching-the-hill kind of way. A few more years and she'll need a stronger bra, a lot thicker make-up and more sensible knickers. For now though, she's the belle of this grimy little ball. "DARLENE. She's older, maybe a little wiser but still just a waitress and will always be a waitress in low-end food joints like Danny's." Doing OK, I think. Marina Futura is a deliberate. tongue-in-cheek OTT parody of certain tabloid news reporters, so her physical looks and effect on the male libido is both her defining feature and her ace-in-the-hole. Shes not stupid, she just knows men are become stupid when presented with large boobs. She deliberately skews interactions with men to her advantage. Woman/Ex-Girlfriend; only one person is named in this entire script, deliberately so. I was experimenting with giving the actors a much greater freedom to own their character. Allison's looks have a direct bearing on the script, in that mis-placed vanity is her flaw and downfall. Well, thats' the defense I'm sticking with...

Thanks for this, Scott. It was very helpful. I have been guilty of centering my female characters' descriptions around their attractiveness too often. But, thanks to posts like this, I am more aware and prepared to improve this aspect of my writing.

Absolutely. So many great actresses 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, even 70s. There is an audience for them as long as the roles are compelling and the movies are good.

Conor, those feel in the pocket. Any physical description I use is either (A) the character's physicality is a key to their capabilities in action and therefore necessary or (B) their physicality conveys something of their personality. There are probably a few other reasons, but those are the two main ones. BTW it's entirely okay, as you have done in some of your intros, to 'comment' on the character when you introduce them. In fact, I'd say it's even pretty much expected nowadays, this to help the reader get a fix on each character, especially as they try to sort out the roster of individuals in Act One.

Great to hear, Adam. Out of curiosity, I went back to some of my early screenplays to check out how I introduced female characters and sure enough, some of them were more focused on physical attributes. But so were the guys. I think what happened is at some point, I figured out providing more of an insight into a character's personality when describing them the first time was more important and better than their appearance.

Agreed. I try to give an interpretation, I guess you'd call it, rather than a description. My current anti-hero is: "THE FIXER, a short shit-stain of a man, worms his way through the crowd". That, for me, is way way better than "GONZER (43), a life-long street rat who's tight with the mob but always failed to make it big, worms his way through the crowd." I almost never give ages in brackets, except for children.

I'm afraid I'm going to have to read more scripts, because it looks like I did it wrong. Not because I described my female lead in terms of her hotness -- I deliberately avoided that -- but because I assumed I couldn't put her backstory or a description of her personality into what are supposed to be Action lines. I assumed that was cheating, because the viewer can't see any of that information. I assumed that character should be revealed through dialogue, their actions, and yes, what sort of clothing they wear, because that's what a viewer could see or hear. If this is the industry practice, though, that certainly makes my job easier! Off to Scrivener then.

I have a question that applies to both male and female character introductions. How do you introduce a trickster character who appears to be one way but will turn out to be different? Do you mislead the reader and preserve the surprise or hint at their hidden nature and potentially ruin the surprise? Consider, for example, the captain in LA Confidential or Max Van Sydow in Minority Report. Similarly, how do you introduce a character whose core essence is meant to be mysterious at the outset?

Much more helpful to give good examples, as opposed to just ridicule. The confusing thing for me, is that as a writer, I've been taught not to write things that can't be seen and to let the character's actions and words dictate their personality instead of describing them as gentle, tough, etc. f Are we gonna scrap all those rules now to appease feminist sensibilities?

I was taught that character introductions are the ONE time where you can, and should break the rule. I think it's definitely something to be aware of, but if someone like Ross is rejecting writers and scripts who make the mistake, then that's just sad on his part. The screenwriting business is hard enough. It's best to educate, then move on. Creating more rules doesn't solve anything. You're right. Ridicule doesn't solve anything either. And although I like what Ross is doing, he doesn't provide any examples of what to do. So all it does is create more negativity towards writers by humiliating them.

Danbo, by all means, read scripts! There are over 150 movie scripts - free and legal - hosted on this site. You can download PDFs here. I have been LITERALLY in the last half-hour having an email exchange with a Hollywood writer, who wrote me this about the issue: "But for me, the solution is ALWAYS: READ MORE PRO SCRIPTS." See how the pros write character introductions. You CAN comment on a character's personality, you just have to be judicious about it.

bookworm, if you want to trick the reader, then by all means, you SHROUD the Trickster's deceitful persona. Think Verbal Kint in The Usual Suspects who we didn't realize was Keyser Soze until THE VERY LAST SCENE. There may be occasions where you WANT the reader to know a Trickster's true identity BEFORE key characters in the story. That creates an opportunity for dramatic irony, where we know something a character doesn't.

And that's what I'm trying to do with this exercise. I'll be going through more Black List scripts and my goal is to put together 20-25 examples of GOOD female character introductions. As to Script Jumper's point: I have a 15 part series on so-called screenwriting rules -- in fact, there are NO RULES because there is no RULE BOOK -- and you can go here for links to those posts. Check out #7 which is on what is known as 'unfilmables'. Again the key here is to READ PRO SCRIPTS! You will see that for every so-called rule, there are dozens and dozens of examples whereby writers break them. You just have to be smart how you approach conventions, expectations. Bottom line as Orange Pop suggests, when you introduce a character, you have the RIGHT to comment on their personality. As I said in the OP, provide a thumbnail sketch of the character's core essence.