Are More Women Writers Using Initials Instead of Proper Names on Their Scripts?

It may be one way of getting around unconscious or even conscious bias.

The other day as part of the A Story Idea Each Day for a Month series, I posted this article: These Women Entrepreneurs Created A Fake Male Cofounder To Dodge Startup Sexism. My riff on this concept is set in Silicon Valley:

Two young women have come up with a strong high tech business plan based on their expertise as programmers, but cannot get any traction with the venture capital crowd, victims of overt misogyny.

This is not an uncommon reality witness, here, here, here, and here.

So our dynamic duo — let’s call them Sydney and Loretha — create a third member of their team: Vilad, a tech genius. Sydney does a pretty good job with her low-register, stilted-English impersonation, at least sufficient enough on teleconferences that they manage to break through male resistance… or rather Vilad does… to get some seed money for a start-up.

Great news, right? Well, now they have to keep up the ruse which gets increasingly more challenging to the point where they have to do a face-to-face meeting with the mysterious Vilad — no more excuses about Vilad getting sick, Vilad’s parents getting sick, Vilad’s cat getting sick. The money people need to meet Vilad or else full funding for the project will not happen.

Plus, there’s this: If they cannot produce Vilad and their charade gets exposed, Sydney and Loretha will be facing possible jail time for fraud.

The only option: Finding Vilad. In fact, that’s the title of the movie. They need to find someone who fits Vilad’s ethnic background, who has the same mad tech skills the fictional Vilad purported to have, who will go along with the ruse, and not blow the whistle on them. Oh, and they have to find this dude within 48 hours, train him and school him up for the Big Meeting.

In comments, Marielle Lela Quesney responded with this anecdote:

I have a screenwriting prof from UCLA Extension that told me a similar story. When she first started out in the biz over 30 years ago, it was really uncommon for agents, producers and showrunners to bring women onboard, especially if it was an action/thriller type show. She wrote a great spec and got it into the right hands, the catch, she initialed her first name on the script. She got a call back and pretended to be her own secretary, and set up a meeting with the decision makers. Low and behold a woman shows up to the meeting, apparently jaws dropped, but she got the gig!

To which I responded:

Thanks for that story, Marielle. Using initials instead of proper names is not uncommon. Witness two of the 2017 Nicholl winning scripts written by SJ Inwards (“Jellyfish Summer”) and KG Rockmaker (“Last Days of Winter”) aka Sarah Jane Inwards and Kristen Gray-Rockmaker.

Which got me thinking: Are more women writers trying to break into Hollywood using initials instead of their proper names in an attempt to get around bias, unconscious or otherwise? Knowing a writer’s gender identification almost certainly becomes part of the mental ‘lens’ through which a reader interprets and assesses written material.

If I were a woman and the script I’m writing is in the Action or Science Fiction space, I think I’d probably use SB Myers as my name.

Is that a smart idea? Or could someone argue it’s a cop-out, that the material should stand on its own merits?

But that’s kind of the whole point about unconscious bias: equally qualified candidates for a gig, the man gets hired over the woman because there is a attitudinal tilt toward the male.

Writers, I am interested to hear your thoughts, especially women. Do you use your proper name when submitting scripts to readers or contests? Or do you use initials instead?

Click on Write a Response and let’s hear your thoughts.