Inclusive Screenwriting for Film and Television

2Reimagining Character

DOI: 10.4324/9781003170310-4

Now that we’ve examined some of the ways that screenwriting paradigms developed through a system predicated on universal and neutral storytelling principles, it is time to dissect how certain ideological attachments obscured by universalism manifest within the craft of screenwriting. Keeping in mind that the universal operates through a series of abstractions that blur the specifics of particular forms of embodiment while negating and excluding others, we can begin to examine the internal logics of character design, conflict, three-act structure, and world-building, and how those logics maintain the dominance hierarchies central to the status quo.

Character and Agency

One of the central ...