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Thinking Violets

Finding the High Value Memorable Character

While in life we don’t remember every random person we encounter, those we do remember have usually done or behaved in a way that has had an impact on us. They could, for instance, have done something nice (or nasty!). We remember not only what they did, or the feelings they stirred, but also something about their personality. Maybe a quirk. Maybe a world view. Maybe something about their energy, or spirit. Sometime we can… Read More »Finding the High Value Memorable Character

Confronting Golden Ageism 

Older women in 1940s noir and what Helen Jacey has done about it… Raymond Chandler’s character of Anna Halsey in Trouble is My Business had a remarkable effect on me. I read the rest of the novel wanting more of her and less of sleuth hero Philip Marlow.  Why? Well, not only did Anna possess all the straight talking sass and jaded worldview I admire in a P.I., she is arguably one of the only… Read More »Confronting Golden Ageism 

Hopes, Dreams and brilliant storytelling: WOFFF’s Best Short Script Prize

Why Helen supports the Women Over Fifty Film Festival. At last, the disconnect between being older and hardly ever seeing anyone like yourself on screen is shrinking. As more women in film and TV commission, produce and create content focusing on women’s lives, portrayals of older women are increasingly diverse, empowering, realistic and relevant. The scope and breadth of representation of older women still has a long way to go, but the barriers are crumbling… Read More »Hopes, Dreams and brilliant storytelling: WOFFF’s Best Short Script Prize

Elvira Slate investigator holding a magnifying glass up which enlarges eye

Creating a historical female detective. 

Here is Helen’s feature article about creating historical female detectives, first published in Myslexia Magazine. Intersectional feminism and the 1940s aren’t the most likely prose pals, but when I set out to write Elvira Slate Investigations, I knew what I wanted to achieve: the first 1940s noir feminist sleuth. As women entered the workplace, the war fuelled patriotism and a sense of new independence, albeit at the cost of millions of men facing death. My… Read More »Creating a historical female detective.