Linda Seger, who served as a script consultant on films from Peter Jackson, Roland Emmerich and hundreds of others and authored 11 books about screenwriting, has died. She was 80.
Seger died Feb. 16 of breast cancer at her home in Cascade, Colorado, her husband of 42 years, Peter Le Var, told The Hollywood Reporter.
Seger began her script consulting business in 1981 based on a script analysis method she developed as part of her doctoral dissertation, “What Makes a Script Work?” Her first book on screenwriting, Making a Good Script Great: A Guide for Writing and Rewriting, was published in 1987.
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Ron Howard was given the book by his father, actor Rance Howard, and he told Seger that he used it on every one of his films beginning with Apollo 13 (1995). Tony Bill (Oscar-winning producer on The Sting), William Kelley (Oscar-winning writer on Witness) and Barbara Corday (co-creator of Cagney & Lacey) are among those who have praised the book over the years.
Seger was a consultant on Jackson’s Dead Alive and Emmerich’s Universal Soldier, both released in 1992, and Ray Bradbury was a client, too.
She also was a script consultant on Pasttime (1990) and Picture Bride (1995), winners of Audience Awards at the Sundance Film Festival, and on such other films as Romero (1989), The Long Walk Home (1990), The Neverending Story II (1990), Luther (2003), Mr. Jones (1993) and Dating the Enemy (1996).
The younger of two daughters, Linda Sue Seger was born on Aug. 27, 1945, in Peshtigo, Wisconsin. Her father, Linus, was a pharmacist and her mother, Agnes, a homemaker and piano teacher.
She earned her undergraduate degree from Colorado College in 1967, followed by master’s degrees from the Pacific School of Religion and Northwestern and a doctorate from the Graduate Theological Union.
The prolific Seger consulted with writers, producers, directors and production companies on an estimated 2,500 scripts, 100 produced films and 35 produced TV projects, and she taught screenwriting on six continents and 33 countries, including Russia, Bulgaria and New Zealand.
She also led seminars for executives at ABC, CBS, NBC, Disney, Embassy Television, RAI (Italy) and ZDF (Germany) and for members of the AFI, the DGA and the WGA before her retirement in 2020.
Her other books on screenwriting included 1990’s Creating Unforgettable Characters; 1992’s The Art of Adaptation: Turning Fact and Fiction Into Film; 1994’s From Script to Screen: The Collaborative Art of Filmmaking; 1999’s Making a Good Writer Great; 2003’s Advanced Screenwriting: Raising Your Script to the Academy Award Level; 2008’s And the Best Screenplay Goes to … ; 2011’s Writing Subtext: What Lies Beneath; 2019’s The Collaborative Art of Filmmaking: From Script to Screen; and 2020’s You Talkin’ to Me?: How to Write Great Dialogue.
Seger also wrote the 1996 book When Women Call the Shots: The Developing Power and Influence of Women in Television and Film, featuring interviews with Sherry Lansing, Dawn Steel and Nora Ephron; eight books on spirituality, including 2016’s Jesus Rode a Donkey: Why Millions of Christians Are Democrats; and a 2025 memoir, Unpacking.
Her husband said her favorite film was Stanley Donen’s Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954).
Survivors include her half-brother, Fred. Donations in her memory can be made to a cancer charity.
