CA: So in an industry that often goes wrong with female characters, how do you go about trying to do it right?
PT: Oddly… by not being so adamant about writing them as female characters. Women and men are quite similar, really. We both have hopes, dreams, fears, etc. Girls are prettier and look better on bicycles and such, but it doesn’t mean that a woman does everything in a womanly manner. Here’s my litmus test when I’m writing, and I’m sorry it’s a little vulgar. I call it the pee test. Women and men both go to the bathroom and pee. That’s established. I can write that in a script. But the second that I write, “She went to take a pee, which she did by sitting down, because she is a woman and her genitalia are different” then I’ve let the the fact that she’s a woman intrude overmuch. Readers understand things. I don’t need to constantly shout out a gender, or an age group, or a nationality. Establish that sh*t and move on. Doing it in any other way is condescending.
Writers take note.
