ABSTRACT
Histories of mainstream screenwriting, usually centred on the development of the profession in Hollywood, offer a number of insights into an ongoing process of standardization and mythologization on the part of the screenwriting community and commentators within this community. Particular origin stories and mythic narratives are repeated across the histories, and this process has served to solidify a particular self-perception on the part of the industrially oriented screenwriter. Sue Harper suggests that the advent of sound in the British film industry also allowed more women to pursue screenwriting work. The industry was ‘in a state of disarray’ she argues, and again, the informality of this period ‘opened up spaces for female professionals’, although they often had to pursue more ‘circuitous routes’ into the industry. British-based writers also align with and emulate the myths of the screenwriter (as hired hands, as marginal, as combative and so on) in discussions of their work and the calculations and navigations that characterize their careers.
