Robin Swicord could be a heroine in one of her own screenplays: a woman overcoming the odds to triumph--if still rather anonymously. Consider:

* She has three films slated for production over the next few months: "Little Women," to star Winona Ryder as Jo, at Columbia; "The Perez Family," starring Marisa Tomei and Anjelica Huston, at Goldwyn; and "Matilda," an adaptation of the Roald Dahl novel that she co-scripted with her husband, screenwriter Nick Kazan.

* A fourth Swicord script, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," adapted from an F. Scott Fitzgerald story, once planned as a directorial project for Steven Spielberg, has come back to life in a proposed co-production deal between Universal and Paramount, produced by Kathleen Kennedy.

* She recently completed her directing debut with "The Red Coat," a short autobiographical film, "a valentine to my grandmother," financed by Disney, which premiered at the Aspen Film Festival in February.

Not a bad Hollywood run for anyone, especially for a woman whose protagonists are usually of the strong female persuasion. "I want to create real characters," she said, "even if they happen to be women.

"Female characters rarely get to speak in their own voices," insists Swicord in her soft Southern voice, evidence of her Florida upbringing. "Women have been misunderstood and absolutely silenced--they have been figments of men's imaginations."

Unlike, say, screenwriter Hilary Henkin's strong women--who out-cuss, out-maim and out-shoot her male characters--Swicord's protagonists choose self-expression, even sexual desire, as the motivation for their actions. But in a decided departure from Hollywood's norm, these women are not punished for their choices.

For example, her version of "Little Women" is a slightly different take on the beloved tale of the four March sisters. In Swicord's version (which will be produced by Denise DeNovi and directed by Gillian Armstrong), in contrast to the 1933 George Cukor version that starred Katharine Hepburn, the focus is no longer on the marriage prospects of the young women, or on how Jo, because she wants to "write," loses the handsome Laurie as a husband. Instead, as in Alcott's book, the film is set within the Women's Progressive Movement of the late 19th Century, and tells the story of a young woman who wants to be an artist and writer, and who marries exactly the man who matches her passion.