For this post I’m asking some questions of Lucy V Hay – a novelist, script editor, screenwriter and blogger who helps writers. A trained teacher, script reader and script editor with ten years’ experience, Lucy is also one of the organisers of London Screenwriters’ Festival where she is the Head Reader & Educational Director for its many contests and initiatives.
Her book, “Writing & Selling Thriller Screenplays” is available for pre-order now, here. German speakers can order her debut YA novel, “BAUCH-ENTSHEIDUNG” (Gut Decision) published by Rowohlt, Berlin from Amazon, here.
Her script editing credits include Brit Thrillers Deviation and Act of Grace, as well as The Fingerspellers and Hands Solo.
Lucy, you have written for the screen, produced, and worked extensively as a script consultant, not to mention presenting and organising for film events and writing your own novel. Does “Writer” still fit you as a label, or are you unwilling to be placed in one pigeonhole?
Just a writer? No way, I am a GODDESS. No really: I am a writer, at heart. And writing novels is what I truly luuuuuurve. All the other stuff is great; I love to be involved in the industry and help writers and make movies and all that. I’m so lucky to enjoy my work. But novels is where it’s at for me.
You have some favourite mistakes that blow a script in the first ten pages: what’s the most overused one?
Cliched openers. Nothing makes me lose interest faster than a script that opens with a cliche. ‘Cos your script can be ANYTHING — so why do something we’ve seen before?
You mentioned a few times that writing your novel was hard work – was it harder than you expected? Or was it harder in different ways to the challenges of screen writing and script reporting?
Writing a novel was hard for me for two reasons. The first was the sheer size: you end up writing three, four times as much as a feature script. The second was the raw emotion because novels are driven by the psychological. That’s not to say screenwriting can’t be emotional ‘cos it totally can, but for me getting right in a novel character’s head really affected me and not always in a good way. One chapter really upset me to write; I wasn’t right for about 4 weeks.
How has writing for a different medium affected you as a writer? Should all writers try different media to shake things up?
I think it depends. I’m a better script editor I think because I no longer tend to write screenplays. I like the partition between my editing brain and my writing brain. But others like to mix it up – and why not? I believe you should say yes to everything, as long as you have a strategy and make it work for you.
Women in film is a big subject at the moment – Felicia Day included a piece on her blog that started as a review of the latest Star Trek but became a …well, rant, about the lack of visible female characters in the movie and then in the movies in general. You’ve made your views about female action heroes clear in the past – what’s the ideal for women in film? How do you have a female lead who’s engaging to the male audience and still a woman?
Let’s be frank. A good female character should be a good character who just so happens to be a woman. That’s it. There is no big secret. Yet we see female characters in so few roles, our perceptions have become skewed as to what female characterisation even means – so whenever we see a female character who’s not what we expect, people analyse it to death. We need to let this go. We need to move forwards and forget about “strong women” or archetypes or whatever and just write GREAT characters – who happen to be female – who are not defined by their bodies; the men in their lives or their kids. Women are people, not representations of “issues”. Boom. Done.
Finally, if they make a movie of your book, how involved would you want to be?
6) I’ll do whatever these mythical people making my novel into a film want, including staying the f*ck away Haha! 
Seriously. I like to think people like working with me because contrary to popular belief, I am not difficult to work with – as long as you don’t piss me off. And c’mon, who isn’t the same?
You can hear more from Lucy by bookmarking her blog (http://www.bang2write.com/) where you’ll get the latest news about the London Screenwriters’ Festival and tons of useful tips on writing for the screen. You can also find Lucy’s rates for getting her script reading services, which I can personally recommend.
