Dear Aspiring Script Writers

Dear Aspiring Scriptwriters,

You want to know what will grab my attention? Give me a minority as a main character. Trust me, everyone writes about straight white males. Speaking as a straight white male, we are not that interesting. Just once I’d like to read a script that doesn’t chronicle the “struggles” of being someone like me. The “struggles” are boring. There’s a whole untapped market out there for stories that few seem willing to explore.

Don’t know how to write for a minority? Start by writing a good character and see where they take you.

Sincerely,

He’s a good kid but he sometimes tries too hard to be black pleasing. Sometimes he try too hard to agree of us before we even finish our thoughts. Other times he desperately tries to relate to us when are experiences are nothing alike.

However what bugs me the most is when he generalize has his own group and tries to tear himself down for being white. I can’t stress enough how much that self-hating white guilt bullshit pisses me off to no end.

Your first paragraph are questions that nobody (at least in this thread) has mentioned or referenced. I think you are misrepresenting my statement about who a person has a right to speak for.

Any person can write a story about anything and populate it with characters of any race or background, if that is what they want to do. That is not what I was referring to though.

My statement was in reference to your statement, “speaking as a straight white male, we are not that interesting”, as if being a straight white male gives you any right to speak for the collective group classed as “straight, white, males”. You can only speak for yourself, that as yourself, a person who happens to be straight, white, and male, you don’t thing straight white males are interesting. The moment you said “we”, you took on a position of speaking for an entire group, and I know many straight white males who did not agree to have you represent them.

Let me try and respond, as honestly as I am able.

I’m a script reader. I read scripts. One of the things people often try to write are “relatable” characters. Characters that readers or viewers can sympathize or empathize with because they share a lot in common. That mainly, if not exclusively, end up as straight white males. No one seems to want to try for any other identity under some misguided assumption that they’d be “sacrificing a good character”. I’m asking for some better representation because I’m sick of reading tokens and stereotypes when I read minority characters at all.

God forbid a black character could be socially awkward. God forbid a trans character could be a private investigator. God forbid a minority survives to the final act of a horror movie. It’s a little thing, but apparently a colossal task for a scriptwriter. It shouldn’t be! I want more than just straight white characters because I acknowledge that there are more than just straight white people in the world!

The other failure is when they try to write a character of a different race. This leads to characters who are bad stereotypes. And this comes from the assumption or presumption that a person has to act a specific way just because their skin is a certain color, which is blatantly racist even if people don’t recognize it as such.

However, it is more than acceptable and easy to do with an original character. I wonder if you have considered that. An oc who may be described as one race in a script, doesn’t have to stay that way. Unless the race of the character is specifically important to their ethnic identity, like an Indian prince in India (which wouldn’t make since with a race swap), the character could be of any race.

Yeah, when people try to write for a different race, it shows. It really shows. Dear God some of the sh*t I’ve read....

This is true.

Dear Aspiring Scriptwriters,

You want to know what will grab my attention? Give me a minority as a main character. Trust me, everyone writes about straight white males. Speaking as a straight white male, we are not that interesting. Just once I’d like to read a script that doesn’t chronicle the “struggles” of being someone like me. The “struggles” are boring. There’s a whole untapped market out there for stories that few seem willing to explore.

Don’t know how to write for a minority? Start by writing a good character and see where they take you.

Sincerely,

White, straight, male characters are always going to be more interesting as CHARACTERS because their problems, their struggles, and their depth doesn’t rely on skin color, sexuality, or gender. None of their issues are cliche or copy and pasted. Tell me, does Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent seem like they have any sort of similar issues? 

No. They don’t. Bruce watched his parents get murdered in front of him and it changed him on such a fundamental, basic, level that he considers himself BATMAN and not Bruce Wayne. Bruce Wayne is not who he is. Batman is who he really is. That’s his REAL name, his TRUE identity. Even with the Lasso of Truth compelling him to speak ONLY the Truth he’s asked who he is and he simply say’s that he’s Batman. Not Bruce Wayne. That one part of his character is so in depth and interesting to even think about that it transcends pretty much everything. Skin color, gender, sexuality. They are trivial. Shallow… 

What about Clark Kent? An alien orphan of a practically extinct species that was sent to Earth after his home planet and people were eradicated. While on Earth he became the adopted son of the Kent’s and struggled all his life to control what he could do, questioned who he really was, where he came from, and if his real parents were out there somewhere. Then there was the path to self discovery and the dream of becoming a beacon of hope for people all around the world respecting the law, advocating for true justice, and peace. That was NOT an easy path and yet he went along with it anyway.  

Neither of those two have anything in common really except they’re both White and Male. Yet they both have their own, interesting, in depth, issues and struggles that are completely independent from one another. 

What happens to Black Characters…? To Women? To LGBT people?

You have the same exact struggles in every single one of them. 

POC Characters = Racism 

Women = Sexism 

LGBT = Homophobia/etc. 

I’m sorry, but how are these things more interesting than issues that originate independently from trauma, philosophy, and character flaws? With Trauma, Philosophy, and character flaws there are almost infinite amounts of stories with truly in depth characters that you can make. However, with sexism, racism, and LGBT-Phobia it’s… how should I put it…? It’s basically the same bland, tasteless, flavor but with different brands. 

Tell me, how is Falcon (Sam Wilson), Finn, Lando Calrisian, Mace Windu, and many more any different from any other White Character? Are they more interesting because they’re Black? What about Wonder Woman, Captain Marvel (God I hate that character), Black Widow, and Scarlett Witch? Are they more interesting than men? Why? Are they more interesting because they’re women? 

Do you see what I mean? Characters that have issues, struggles, and problems that originate from themselves will be extremely more successful and interesting than the same old, “I’m Black. I gotta put up with these side looks from White People all the time. Racist Pigs.” Or “They think that I can’t do it because I’m a woman. I’ll show them.” 

As someone who wanted to be an author one day, it was my dream, I always shied away from writing characters of color. I am a White Military Brat that had a few Black Friends. I only met a few of their parents and got small glimpses of their home life. That was the extent of my knowledge of Black Parentage and experiences. Other than that I was blind. Therefore I always felt uncomfortable writing a character of color because I could research all I wanted but I still wouldn’t capture the essence of a colored character.

Furthermore, part of getting a script made is having people express interest in it. Actors who don’t get a lot of parts (like minorities) have a lot more opportunity to put all of their focus into a project if they want to see it get made. As it is, we field even the bland, do-nothing parts to our clients so they can have work. If a script shows up that actually offers them a role that could give them real screentime, they’ll absolutely jump in.

And writing for characters of color doesn’t always have to be about representing. Hear me out. One of the best scripts I ever read was a survival horror story. Diverse cast of characters, none of which were token or stereotypes. Because the story (in that case, surviving sand monsters) was more important than making sure the audience was aware that a character was a minority. The movie didn’t end up that great, but it was still a good script and anyone could have stepped into any role and done a great job.

Dear Aspiring Scriptwriters,

You want to know what will grab my attention? Give me a minority as a main character. Trust me, everyone writes about straight white males. Speaking as a straight white male, we are not that interesting. Just once I’d like to read a script that doesn’t chronicle the “struggles” of being someone like me. The “struggles” are boring. There’s a whole untapped market out there for stories that few seem willing to explore.

Don’t know how to write for a minority? Start by writing a good character and see where they take you.

Sincerely,

Dear Aspiring Scriptwriters,

You want to know what will grab my attention? Give me a minority as a main character. Trust me, everyone writes about straight white males. Speaking as a straight white male, we are not that interesting. Just once I’d like to read a script that doesn’t chronicle the “struggles” of being someone like me. The “struggles” are boring. There’s a whole untapped market out there for stories that few seem willing to explore.

Don’t know how to write for a minority? Start by writing a good character and see where they take you.

Sincerely,

In my collection of books I have many with a female protagonists.

Many books don’t even specify the PoV’s race at all.

I have some with protagonists being an opressed minority.

One of my favorite sci-fi books has like 50 PoV characters alone and my favorites are a mildly-Asian female detective and an eccentric African American traveler/billionaire.

There’s also a non-PoV guy who modified his body to the point he’s basically a statue-like golden cyborg…

In my own writings I have an Asian Protagonist, many unspecified protagonists and an actual demon protagonist.

What I am trying to say is…

You need to really try to not see all the pocs in the books.

You need to try even harder to automatically assume whiteness every time the matter is left open.

Dear Aspiring Scriptwriters,

You want to know what will grab my attention? Give me a minority as a main character. Trust me, everyone writes about straight white males. Speaking as a straight white male, we are not that interesting. Just once I’d like to read a script that doesn’t chronicle the “struggles” of being someone like me. The “struggles” are boring. There’s a whole untapped market out there for stories that few seem willing to explore.

Don’t know how to write for a minority? Start by writing a good character and see where they take you.

Sincerely,

If someone can’t write a good script it’s not because of their race/sex/genderwhatever,

They’re just a bad writer

Part of the point I’m trying to make is that we have over 78 clients, more than 50 of whom are non-white actors. Yet almost every script that gets written has all white characters. And with so many of the same characters in every script, I pass on a lot. Give me a script that has some parts available for minority actors, and we could actually start sending them to our clients, who, having finally gotten a chance at a gig that’s not playing a Gas Station Attendant, are much more willing to commit to the role and invest time and energy into getting it made.

Dear Aspiring Scriptwriters,

You want to know what will grab my attention? Give me a minority as a main character. Trust me, everyone writes about straight white males. Speaking as a straight white male, we are not that interesting. Just once I’d like to read a script that doesn’t chronicle the “struggles” of being someone like me. The “struggles” are boring. There’s a whole untapped market out there for stories that few seem willing to explore.

Don’t know how to write for a minority? Start by writing a good character and see where they take you.

Sincerely,

Doing that. Have a horror web serial where the main character is a gay woman. There was a scene in the opening chapter where she thought another girl was cute. Was accused of writing porn with one hand. I asked if the scene would still be ‘porn’ if either of the characters were involved were men. Got no answer.

I could have avoided that mess entirely if I’d made the main character a straight male.

Further, how does this jive with the increasing push that writers shouldn’t write character that are not like them? This is becoming more and more prevalent, even to the point that in the young adult circles, a non-white woman was pushed out of writing because she wrote characters that didn’t match her ethnicity and didn’t have the appropriate “cultural context”. Then, an author who was part of the mob against her was himself targeted for the very same reason.

So, which is it? Should writers start including more non-straight white males as protagonists, or should all races and genders ‘stay in their lane’? If a script writer submits a work with straight male protagonists, perhaps they are attempting to do just that and not write characters outside their ‘cultural context’. If that principle is important enough that non-white authors and creators are harassed enough to pull their works for publication for violating it, then why should white writers do it?

It’s safer to write a straight white male.

I can’t speak for writer’s circles, but Hollywood says yes to a lot of movies that are a lot worse. You honestly would not believe some of the sh*t that gets made.

Dear Aspiring Scriptwriters,

You want to know what will grab my attention? Give me a minority as a main character. Trust me, everyone writes about straight white males. Speaking as a straight white male, we are not that interesting. Just once I’d like to read a script that doesn’t chronicle the “struggles” of being someone like me. The “struggles” are boring. There’s a whole untapped market out there for stories that few seem willing to explore.

Don’t know how to write for a minority? Start by writing a good character and see where they take you.

Sincerely,

Fuck off, I’ll write whatever the fuck I want to write.

Sincerely,

That said, if you want a script to get made by a production company, you need to submit it. And hope they like it.

We have over 78 clients. More than 50 of them aren’t white people. And script after script there’s either no role for them or a role that is just insulting. You wanna know how to get a script made? Get people interested in it. You know who has a lot of time and interest to devote to something? Clients that can’t find work.

Dear Aspiring Scriptwriters,

You want to know what will grab my attention? Give me a minority as a main character. Trust me, everyone writes about straight white males. Speaking as a straight white male, we are not that interesting. Just once I’d like to read a script that doesn’t chronicle the “struggles” of being someone like me. The “struggles” are boring. There’s a whole untapped market out there for stories that few seem willing to explore.

Don’t know how to write for a minority? Start by writing a good character and see where they take you.

Sincerely,

Fuck off, I’ll write whatever the fuck I want to write.

Sincerely,

That said, if you want a script to get made by a production company, you need to submit it. And hope they like it.

We have over 78 clients. More than 50 of them aren’t white people. And script after script there’s either no role for them or a role that is just insulting. You wanna know how to get a script made? Get people interested in it. You know who has a lot of time and interest to devote to something? Clients that can’t find work.

Dear Aspiring Scriptwriters,

You want to know what will grab my attention? Give me a minority as a main character. Trust me, everyone writes about straight white males. Speaking as a straight white male, we are not that interesting. Just once I’d like to read a script that doesn’t chronicle the “struggles” of being someone like me. The “struggles” are boring. There’s a whole untapped market out there for stories that few seem willing to explore.

Don’t know how to write for a minority? Start by writing a good character and see where they take you.

Sincerely,

White, straight, male characters are always going to be more interesting as CHARACTERS because their problems, their struggles, and their depth doesn’t rely on skin color, sexuality, or gender. None of their issues are cliche or copy and pasted. Tell me, does Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent seem like they have any sort of similar issues? 

No. They don’t. Bruce watched his parents get murdered in front of him and it changed him on such a fundamental, basic, level that he considers himself BATMAN and not Bruce Wayne. Bruce Wayne is not who he is. Batman is who he really is. That’s his REAL name, his TRUE identity. Even with the Lasso of Truth compelling him to speak ONLY the Truth he’s asked who he is and he simply say’s that he’s Batman. Not Bruce Wayne. That one part of his character is so in depth and interesting to even think about that it transcends pretty much everything. Skin color, gender, sexuality. They are trivial. Shallow… 

What about Clark Kent? An alien orphan of a practically extinct species that was sent to Earth after his home planet and people were eradicated. While on Earth he became the adopted son of the Kent’s and struggled all his life to control what he could do, questioned who he really was, where he came from, and if his real parents were out there somewhere. Then there was the path to self discovery and the dream of becoming a beacon of hope for people all around the world respecting the law, advocating for true justice, and peace. That was NOT an easy path and yet he went along with it anyway.  

Neither of those two have anything in common really except they’re both White and Male. Yet they both have their own, interesting, in depth, issues and struggles that are completely independent from one another. 

What happens to Black Characters…? To Women? To LGBT people?

You have the same exact struggles in every single one of them. 

POC Characters = Racism 

Women = Sexism 

LGBT = Homophobia/etc. 

I’m sorry, but how are these things more interesting than issues that originate independently from trauma, philosophy, and character flaws? With Trauma, Philosophy, and character flaws there are almost infinite amounts of stories with truly in depth characters that you can make. However, with sexism, racism, and LGBT-Phobia it’s… how should I put it…? It’s basically the same bland, tasteless, flavor but with different brands. 

Tell me, how is Falcon (Sam Wilson), Finn, Lando Calrisian, Mace Windu, and many more any different from any other White Character? Are they more interesting because they’re Black? What about Wonder Woman, Captain Marvel (God I hate that character), Black Widow, and Scarlett Witch? Are they more interesting than men? Why? Are they more interesting because they’re women? 

Do you see what I mean? Characters that have issues, struggles, and problems that originate from themselves will be extremely more successful and interesting than the same old, “I’m Black. I gotta put up with these side looks from White People all the time. Racist Pigs.” Or “They think that I can’t do it because I’m a woman. I’ll show them.” 

Dear Aspiring Scriptwriters,

You want to know what will grab my attention? Give me a minority as a main character. Trust me, everyone writes about straight white males. Speaking as a straight white male, we are not that interesting. Just once I’d like to read a script that doesn’t chronicle the “struggles” of being someone like me. The “struggles” are boring. There’s a whole untapped market out there for stories that few seem willing to explore.

Don’t know how to write for a minority? Start by writing a good character and see where they take you.

Sincerely,

R is black, male, in his 50s, libertarian, a veteran, and he grew up poor. And he portrays a Templar for living history.

Dear Aspiring Scriptwriters,

You want to know what will grab my attention? Give me a minority as a main character. Trust me, everyone writes about straight white males. Speaking as a straight white male, we are not that interesting. Just once I’d like to read a script that doesn’t chronicle the “struggles” of being someone like me. The “struggles” are boring. There’s a whole untapped market out there for stories that few seem willing to explore.

Don’t know how to write for a minority? Start by writing a good character and see where they take you.

Sincerely,

He’s a good kid but he sometimes tries too hard to be black pleasing. Sometimes he try too hard to agree of us before we even finish our thoughts. Other times he desperately tries to relate to us when are experiences are nothing alike.

However what bugs me the most is when he generalize has his own group and tries to tear himself down for being white. I can’t stress enough how much that self-hating white guilt bullshit pisses me off to no end.

Your first paragraph are questions that nobody (at least in this thread) has mentioned or referenced. I think you are misrepresenting my statement about who a person has a right to speak for.

Any person can write a story about anything and populate it with characters of any race or background, if that is what they want to do. That is not what I was referring to though.

My statement was in reference to your statement, “speaking as a straight white male, we are not that interesting”, as if being a straight white male gives you any right to speak for the collective group classed as “straight, white, males”. You can only speak for yourself, that as yourself, a person who happens to be straight, white, and male, you don’t thing straight white males are interesting. The moment you said “we”, you took on a position of speaking for an entire group, and I know many straight white males who did not agree to have you represent them.

Let me try and respond, as honestly as I am able.

I’m a script reader. I read scripts. One of the things people often try to write are “relatable” characters. Characters that readers or viewers can sympathize or empathize with because they share a lot in common. That mainly, if not exclusively, end up as straight white males. No one seems to want to try for any other identity under some misguided assumption that they’d be “sacrificing a good character”. I’m asking for some better representation because I’m sick of reading tokens and stereotypes when I read minority characters at all.

God forbid a black character could be socially awkward. God forbid a trans character could be a private investigator. God forbid a minority survives to the final act of a horror movie. It’s a little thing, but apparently a colossal task for a scriptwriter. It shouldn’t be! I want more than just straight white characters because I acknowledge that there are more than just straight white people in the world!

Dear Aspiring Scriptwriters,

You want to know what will grab my attention? Give me a minority as a main character. Trust me, everyone writes about straight white males. Speaking as a straight white male, we are not that interesting. Just once I’d like to read a script that doesn’t chronicle the “struggles” of being someone like me. The “struggles” are boring. There’s a whole untapped market out there for stories that few seem willing to explore.

Don’t know how to write for a minority? Start by writing a good character and see where they take you.

Sincerely,

Fuck off, I’ll write whatever the fuck I want to write.

Sincerely,

That said, if you want a script to get made by a production company, you need to submit it. And hope they like it.

Dear Aspiring Scriptwriters,

You want to know what will grab my attention? Give me a minority as a main character. Trust me, everyone writes about straight white males. Speaking as a straight white male, we are not that interesting. Just once I’d like to read a script that doesn’t chronicle the “struggles” of being someone like me. The “struggles” are boring. There’s a whole untapped market out there for stories that few seem willing to explore.

Don’t know how to write for a minority? Start by writing a good character and see where they take you.

Sincerely,

In my collection of books I have many with a female protagonists.

Many books don’t even specify the PoV’s race at all.

I have some with protagonists being an opressed minority.

One of my favorite sci-fi books has like 50 PoV characters alone and my favorites are a mildly-Asian female detective and an eccentric African American traveler/billionaire.

There’s also a non-PoV guy who modified his body to the point he’s basically a statue-like golden cyborg…

In my own writings I have an Asian Protagonist, many unspecified protagonists and an actual demon protagonist.

What I am trying to say is…

You need to really try to not see all the pocs in the books.

You need to try even harder to automatically assume whiteness every time the matter is left open.

Dear Aspiring Scriptwriters,

You want to know what will grab my attention? Give me a minority as a main character. Trust me, everyone writes about straight white males. Speaking as a straight white male, we are not that interesting. Just once I’d like to read a script that doesn’t chronicle the “struggles” of being someone like me. The “struggles” are boring. There’s a whole untapped market out there for stories that few seem willing to explore.

Don’t know how to write for a minority? Start by writing a good character and see where they take you.

Sincerely,

In my collection of books I have many with a female protagonists.

Many books don’t even specify the PoV’s race at all.

I have some with protagonists being an opressed minority.

One of my favorite sci-fi books has like 50 PoV characters alone and my favorites are a mildly-Asian female detective and an eccentric African American traveler/billionaire.

There’s also a non-PoV guy who modified his body to the point he’s basically a statue-like golden cyborg…

In my own writings I have an Asian Protagonist, many unspecified protagonists and an actual demon protagonist.

What I am trying to say is…

You need to really try to not see all the pocs in the books.

You need to try even harder to automatically assume whiteness every time the matter is left open.

Dear Aspiring Scriptwriters,

You want to know what will grab my attention? Give me a minority as a main character. Trust me, everyone writes about straight white males. Speaking as a straight white male, we are not that interesting. Just once I’d like to read a script that doesn’t chronicle the “struggles” of being someone like me. The “struggles” are boring. There’s a whole untapped market out there for stories that few seem willing to explore.

Don’t know how to write for a minority? Start by writing a good character and see where they take you.

Sincerely,

Dear Aspiring Scriptwriters,

You want to know what will grab my attention? Give me a minority as a main character. Trust me, everyone writes about straight white males. Speaking as a straight white male, we are not that interesting. Just once I’d like to read a script that doesn’t chronicle the “struggles” of being someone like me. The “struggles” are boring. There’s a whole untapped market out there for stories that few seem willing to explore.

Don’t know how to write for a minority? Start by writing a good character and see where they take you.

Sincerely,