McTavish began her writing career as a staff writer on the
Procter and Gamble Productions' Texas. (The show was notable for allowing actors to contribute as writers; its final head writer,
Pam Long, had been portraying the front-burner role of Ashley). McTavish worked as a staff writer for the company's
Guiding Light. McTavish was head writer of several shows. She was at
Guiding Light from 1995 to 1996, at
One Life to Live from 1999 to 2001, and at
General Hospital from 2001 to 2002. However, she is best known for three separate stints at
All My Children. McTavish was mentored by
All My Children creator
Agnes Nixon and her 1992 ascension to
head writer was reported in the press as a change of the guard. McTavish wrote for
AMC until 1995, and returned for two additional stints, from 1997 to 1999 and from 2003 to 2007.
Accomplishments and criticisms McTavish's first stint on
All My Children was her most critically and commercially successful. McTavish updated some of the existing characters and introduced new ones. She wrote several sweeping umbrella stories over the years, most notably a story where Pine Valley is hit by a tornado. During her third run as head writer, she penned a baby-swap story involving two of the show's young
ingenues,
Bianca Montgomery and
Babe Carey. She created several popular characters, including
Ryan Lavery during her second stint in 1998 and
Kendall Hart in 1993, who were still cornerstones of the show until its series end. McTavish was criticized for various plot-driven stories during her tenures at
All My Children. The 2003
Bianca rape storyline incited controversy when viewers and critics debated the storyline as an attempt by the writers to avoid onscreen physical intimacy between characters Bianca and
Lena Kundera, as well as Bianca seemingly being punished for being a
lesbian. She was criticized for rewriting history, such as the reversal of the landmark story where central character
Erica Kane undergoes daytime's first abortion; McTavish rewrote the story to reveal that rather than having had an abortion, Erica's fetus was stolen and implanted into another woman's uterus, resulting with character
Josh Madden. McTavish also rewrote history and the timeline of Erica's past to introduce character Kendall in the early 1990s, though this proved to be a popular story. ==Writing credits==