I met Seth M Sherwood, screenwriter, at my favorite horror con, Crypticon, a few years ago (I want to say 2016 or 2017). Since I met him, he’s had three big projects come out: the films Leatherface, Hell Fest, and the Hulu series Light as a Feather.
After watching Hell Fest and later Light as a Feather, I was curious what drew this adult man to write so many young women as his MCs (main characters). And, especially in Light as a Feather, these leading ladies had full, varying personalities which I found refreshing in a number of ways. So, I asked him if he’d be willing to chat about it with me, and he said yes!
Side note: I recently took a workshop with thriller author Gabino Iglesias on “Writing the Other.” Unsurprisingly, there was some overlap between the concepts Gabino talked about and what was discussed in my conversation with Seth, so I may refer to some of those concepts to bolster this piece. You can check out Gabino’s blog here and, you can get his latest book Zero Saints here.
All quotes are from my conversation with Seth unless otherwise noted. Some have been slightly edited for context.
Why Create Characters Different from Yourself?
Write what you know.
I believe this saying is originally ascribed to Mark Twain. But fiction isn’t memoir, so how much of our fictional stories should be aligned with our own experiences and perspectives? And how can we represent the perspectives of others in an authentic, rich way?
That’s the big question.
For the sake of storytelling, let’s start at the beginning. Why do it at all?
For Seth, there are a few reasons he’s frequently writing women, or more specifically teenaged girls.
- He finds femme leads more interesting. There’s simply more uncharted territory for femme MCs versus male MCs
- Despite being uncommon in most other genres, teenage girl as main character is a common trope in Seth’s genre – horror
- As a writer in Hollywood, when you get known for something, you get asked to do that one thing…a lot
There are plenty of other reasons I can think of that would call for characters with backgrounds and perspectives that differ from the writer’s perspective…
The most basic is authenticity. Whether it’s authenticity of place (meaning, your story takes place in a city or region populated with various communities, or communities the creator does not have direct ties to). Or authenticity to the world more generally (humans of any group are not monolithic, so even within our own communities, varying perspectives must be present in any believable story).
Perhaps, however, you have a more pointed reason for creating characters that differ from yourself. Could be a larger message about race or gender discrimination, caste hierarchies, religious tension, etc. If this is the case, clearly, you’ll be writing about a range of people on a spectrum of alignment with these categories and labels.
So, the next, and possibly most important question is…how do we write others well?
How to Write “Others” Well
“The scope of what we know is not based on just what we’ve done ourselves.”
When I take a step back, I know that as artists, and especially as a writer, we write more characters that are unlike us than like us. We may write a pilot character without ever having flown a plane or a character who’s older than us. The list could go on, but I’ll spare you.
So, what makes characteristics like gender, sexual orientation, religion, and race seem so much heavier?
I believe it’s the politicization of women, LBGTQIA, BIPOC, and (in America) any non-Christian person of faith.
However, the basics for writing such characters with honor, respect, and authenticity starts the same place you would with your pilot – research.
Research
“The scope of what we know is not based on what we’ve done ourselves.”
When Seth began writing teenaged girl characters, he started with Vine.
“Back when I, when I was writing Hell Fest, that’s when vine was really popular and that was, you know, mostly dominated by younger people so I watched a lot of vines help get the language and the cadence and the slang…”
Seth’s youth-culture research is also part of his everyday life as he has a fourteen-year-old son. So, he sometimes monitors the trends and slang his son uses with his friends as a jumping off point. Which brought up another great point…
“You don’t have to be a thing, to be able to write about because you still know other people.
“I mean if you want to write a 12-year-old girl… if you’re a woman you were a 12 year old girl; if you’re a dude, you’ve probably known a 12 year old girl, even if you just encountered a girl when you were a 12 year old boy.
“If you are writing a shitty stepdad, like if you didn’t have a shitty stepdad you probably had a friend that had a shitty stepdad. There’s always a reference point. Write what you know or write what you are comes in great for adding deep authenticity and it’s often, you know, what can make something real. But the scope of what we know is not based on just what we’ve done ourselves.”
Briefly, I’d like to call out Gabino’s workshop here because he had some advice of caution when it comes to how you use your research in your work and what type of research you should be doing. Gabino points out that doing research or talking to one person who aligns with the character’s identifier (race, gender, etc.) isn’t good enough.
Go Beyond the Obvious
There are other parts of your character that will affect their personality such as where they are located, what their interests are, or what their family history entails. Taking a moment to frame your character in their environmental context is not only a great step toward an authentic character, but also brings a sense of nuance, understanding, and richness to your characters. This way, you’re not pulling generalization off the stereotype shelf and inserting them verbatim into your work. You’re curating a full, well-rounded character with a wealth of unique qualities and experiences of their own.
One final note, and interesting caveat, from Seth on research:
Seth shared an awareness of his unique position as a Hollywood writer with a teenaged target audience. This awareness is that not only is he in a position of representing these teens, he’s also in a position to potentially influence their culture.
If he, for instance, made up a slang term then, through Light as a Feather, it caught on amongst teens, it becomes a cyclical relationship.
This point could be a post unto itself, and is a topic I may explore in the Arts and Culture section at a later time, but I like that Seth thinks of his position as holding some responsibility to the people he’s writing for and about. Whether it’s in this precise way or not, some sense of responsibility for our work must be critical in honoring the unique differences in our characters and audiences.
Avoid Dependence on Clichés and Tropes
This is something Gabino talked about quite a bit in his workshop and can have multiple meanings requiring a broad base-line understanding of what the common clichés and tropes are, what they’re made of, and how to avoid them. For instance, in horror, you often get the “slut dies first”, or the “Black guy dies first” trope. Maybe…avoid that? Combine a trope with some character clichés and you have a cringe-worthy story my friend.
Seth and I talked directly about clichés a bit, but I think this quote he offered is the best way to avoid clichés in your characters (Gabino also touched on this).
“When you bring a character into a story, you have to have a purpose for them. If you don’t, they shouldn’t be there. And that’s the worst thing you can do, and I can see that in poorly written things all the time. When there’s a character that’s serving the purpose to like receive lines or explain something, that’s not a real character.”
When your character has their own, unique purpose in a story (or motivation as it’s often referred to) they have their own life. They have agency. They are no longer a prop for the MC, but a full person with their own needs, desires, and goals.
“When you have a character who affects the story and affects other characters, you have reasons for them to be there and doing what they’re doing. Then, you’ve just got to think about those reasons and apply some psychoanalysis model that tells you this kind of person does these types of things. That sort of becomes like the framework for it but then on top of that you’re going to give them their own voice, their own likes, and their dislikes, and again it’s like shaping the clay or the blob of paint or whatever. It has to be or an organic process.”
Seth says that if you’re going to rely on stereotypes or archetypes, it should only be present in inconsequential side characters who aren’t central to the script/book/MC/etc.
“There’s a shorthand to cinema. Every character archetype has been done. You can rely on that shorthand to an extent, I wouldn’t always rely on it because it’s not always necessarily right or true. But, if it’s an inconsequential character like it’s not a big deal.”
Don’t Put Your Baggage on Your Characters
Another good point was made on this topic (after I brought up some artwork and movies I’ve seen where I thought the male director did a horrible job with a femme protagonist, and some white artists doing a horrible job with topics around social justice or creating characters of color). Seth pointed out that, often the problem in these situations is that the creator is bringing their own baggage into the narrative without examining that baggage.
What I take this to mean is, they’re bringing their sexist, racist, xenophobic, etc., deeply ingrained biases into the story, putting it onto their characters, and not taking responsibility as the creator for doing so. They just sort of drop their baggage in there, unexamined, and never engage with it.
For me, I’m much more accepting and appreciative of an artist’s work when they do dig deep and examine their internal biases and shorthand, even if I disagree with their conclusions, then artists who seem utterly unaware of having biases in the first place.
And of course, you can always ask a friend (or multiple friends) who can relate to the archetype, identity, etc. if they’re willing to view your work and give you some input on the richness (or flatness) of your characters.
Reflections on Writing Others
Reflecting on my conversation with Seth as well as the workshop I did with Gabino and the lessons I’ve picked up from consuming various podcasts, articles, books, and interviews, it’s simple actually:
A character should never be defined by a single characteristic.
Our struggle to write characters that differ from ourselves says a lot about how us humans think. We can be rather single-minded and can fixate on the most insignificant details such as gender, race, sexual orientation, or religious beliefs.
Writing rich characters requires an undoing of the objectification society often imposes upon those of us who do not fit the status-quo or default representation. In everyday life, it’s easy to see that not every woman likes pink, not every gay man likes to go clubbing, and not every Black person listens to hip hop.
As artists, you’d think we could be a little more creative than that.
Give them Purpose
I love what Seth said about characters having their own purpose and motivations or they shouldn’t be in the work. It aligns well with what Gabino said about using “othered” characters as props for the MC. In America (and elsewhere) there is an unfortunate history of using women and people of color as props to propel a white, male-centric narrative. Meanwhile, much of the LGBTQ and certain minority groups like Native Americans are erased from our historical narrative altogether.
It’s important, as artists, that we reimagine what this world could be. What it could look like. Who our MCs are in society and how our “heroes” act? Are we going to keep repeating the same narratives again and again? Or do we have it in us alter the narratives or to create new ones?
I’d like to believe we do. And, what I see from my experience as well as learning from and talking to others, is it starts with an internal reframing. A nuanced approach to understanding the people in our own lives and that we encounter as peripheral characters.
Seth mentioned that he doesn’t know a single writer who doesn’t spend some amount of time making up stories in their head about random folks they observe while people watching. Maybe that’s where the work starts. Next time we start making up a story about a random person on the street, we should challenge our own instincts. Ask ourselves why we assume this narrative and what if that wasn’t the narrative.
What if it was something else?
Follow Seth’s Work
Seth has a feature and some TV shows currently in the works. You can keep up with his projects on Facebook at Facebook.com/sethmathewsherwood.
Your Artful Effort
All of that being said, Seth encourages people to just go ahead and write. Don’t get bogged down in overthinking all of this before you even finish your rough draft. I think that rings true for artists working in all mediums. You can do research and create.
Nothing is set in stone (unless you’re a sculptor perhaps). It’s better to generate work so you can progress and have a jumping off point for these sorts of contemplations than let the very thought of “how to proceed” paralyze you and stop you from ever starting in the first place.
If you are among those who need a little help getting over yourself and getting started, check out this blog. Seth is one of 22 contributors who discuss this very topic.
