Fic Commentary: First Year Camp
Fic commentary for First Year Camp. Spoilers for the story itself, but nothing else that I can think of. Requested by john_elliott.
I don’t know why I came up with this, but I went on a work-related trip to London and bought a notebook in the station and spent the next two days (in between the meeting bits) constantly writing this and chuckling insanely to myself.
Pretty much everything in here is the result of childhood memories and constantly working with children since (including three Crusader holidays - no camping, but still) + New Who characters as eleven year olds.
I think - it seems so long ago - I did do some messing with the TTR/TDTO set up in this, some of which was quite deliberate. It seemed logical to have John Master and David Doctor as The Only Ten Year Olds in the School (rather than as twins to Chris and Derek, which didn‘t feel right). Also, some staff posts at H G Wells seemed to be empty and some obvious teacher candidates not being used. So, Donna became school secretary (all schools need a fearsome school secretary) and Evelyn became a history teacher, instead of the Brigadier (he taught Maths!). The omission of Ian in the staff seemed so odd, that I allocated him the role of legendary Dead Teacher, which seems such a part of Secondary School, really. Legendary Dead Pupil even more so.
Fitz wound up being a superfluous PE teacher because I had the ‘voice’ for the story in my head and was racking my brain for a DW character who matched (I contemplated Ben), and then remembered Fitz and, even though it’d been a long time since I read him, I thought I could get away with it. And now Fitz-stuck-in-H G Wells has become one of my favourite characters. (His 1960s cluelessness about why Miss Maclay (Tara from Buffy) isn’t interested in him was fun to do.)
The only thing I wish is that I’d realised about on-screen parents being parents in TDTO, so my reading of previous fics and the FAQ was not great, whoops. Of course, Jackie would still have had to be Rose’s twin because she’s in the show too much to be ignored. (And the fun of Rose and her being close sisters, but yet a faint annoyance on Rose’s part at the wrongness of it appeals). Since this led to other strange relative consequences, I’m still a bit apologetic. (Although Jenny therefore being David’s twin also works oddly well).
I loved writing David Doctor’s stuff. I think it was more like ‘channelling’ than writing.
Mr Kreiner said I could keep the log for the journey. It’s been fun
so far except for when John screamed at Miss Maclay. Miss Maclay is
funny. Odd stuff happens when she is around and she said rude things
about Mr Kreiner under her breath. The Brigadier pulled John by the
ear and me by the nose. Wonder if he’s stretched them? Maybe Mr
Kreiner has a ruler so I can check? Oh but I don’t know how long it
was before. Oh well. Wonder what John’s doing? He never wants to do
stuff with me. Mr Kreiner is doodling on a piece of paper. He wrote
PE EXAM in big letters up the top but it isn’t. Rose is in front of
us with Jackie. They’re both puking up into brown bags. Cool. Mr
Kreiner is asking me if I’ve got a paper bag too. He looks a bit
pale. Martha and Donna are behind. Donna says the coach is scrappy
and old and you’d think it’d have more comfy seats and the driver’s
going too slow and the boys are all right pains, especially me and
John and school is rubbish anyway and she hates camping --.
And Martha is reading Inkheart on the journey because I had this idea for a Nameless library fic involving the Delgado Master, Martha, Meggie from Inkheart, the then unwritten Inkdeath and much intertextuality and confusion with librarians and children’s literature. It passed, thankfully, because it was a bit dull.
‘Killing Jack’ was inevitable. How could it not work like that? Logic…
Castle Spellerous was just my reminder that this is Nameless. I didn’t expect anyone else to actually know that I was talking about an educational ZX Spectrum game.
There’s a fair bit of this based on what happened when I went on ‘camp’ (not in tents) in top juniors, like Gwen’s spooky storytelling (my friend Lisa did this and her room-mate had to be removed in tears).
And I assumed that my friends and I weren’t the only ten and eleven year olds with an obsession with ghosts and witches hanging around the school, so I passed on the obsession.
I think the only other thing to say about it is that the timings in it are about as realistic as I could get them and probably all got changed a dozen times to make that the case in the process of writing it.
Poor Fitz! Lumbered with being David Doctor’s hero and the disapproval of the Brig and not much else:
Of course, it’s at this moment that the Brig returns from the old-fashioned shop
with his third of the group, all pristine and dry, to see mine standing round in a bad tempered, tearful, dripping, hiccupping huddle by the lakeside. Get another ear-bashing.
(And I don’t know what happened to Ian. I suspect he resigned or something, but there have to be School Legends.)
Hopefully, I will eventually get the concluding one done where Fitz tries to become a Dead Teacher in order to escape and Miss Wright inadvertently nearly murders people and we finally learn what really happened to Mr Chesterton.
I don’t know why I came up with this, but I went on a work-related trip to London and bought a notebook in the station and spent the next two days (in between the meeting bits) constantly writing this and chuckling insanely to myself.
Pretty much everything in here is the result of childhood memories and constantly working with children since (including three Crusader holidays - no camping, but still) + New Who characters as eleven year olds.
I think - it seems so long ago - I did do some messing with the TTR/TDTO set up in this, some of which was quite deliberate. It seemed logical to have John Master and David Doctor as The Only Ten Year Olds in the School (rather than as twins to Chris and Derek, which didn‘t feel right). Also, some staff posts at H G Wells seemed to be empty and some obvious teacher candidates not being used. So, Donna became school secretary (all schools need a fearsome school secretary) and Evelyn became a history teacher, instead of the Brigadier (he taught Maths!). The omission of Ian in the staff seemed so odd, that I allocated him the role of legendary Dead Teacher, which seems such a part of Secondary School, really. Legendary Dead Pupil even more so.
Fitz wound up being a superfluous PE teacher because I had the ‘voice’ for the story in my head and was racking my brain for a DW character who matched (I contemplated Ben), and then remembered Fitz and, even though it’d been a long time since I read him, I thought I could get away with it. And now Fitz-stuck-in-H G Wells has become one of my favourite characters. (His 1960s cluelessness about why Miss Maclay (Tara from Buffy) isn’t interested in him was fun to do.)
The only thing I wish is that I’d realised about on-screen parents being parents in TDTO, so my reading of previous fics and the FAQ was not great, whoops. Of course, Jackie would still have had to be Rose’s twin because she’s in the show too much to be ignored. (And the fun of Rose and her being close sisters, but yet a faint annoyance on Rose’s part at the wrongness of it appeals). Since this led to other strange relative consequences, I’m still a bit apologetic. (Although Jenny therefore being David’s twin also works oddly well).
I loved writing David Doctor’s stuff. I think it was more like ‘channelling’ than writing.
Mr Kreiner said I could keep the log for the journey. It’s been fun
so far except for when John screamed at Miss Maclay. Miss Maclay is
funny. Odd stuff happens when she is around and she said rude things
about Mr Kreiner under her breath. The Brigadier pulled John by the
ear and me by the nose. Wonder if he’s stretched them? Maybe Mr
Kreiner has a ruler so I can check? Oh but I don’t know how long it
was before. Oh well. Wonder what John’s doing? He never wants to do
stuff with me. Mr Kreiner is doodling on a piece of paper. He wrote
PE EXAM in big letters up the top but it isn’t. Rose is in front of
us with Jackie. They’re both puking up into brown bags. Cool. Mr
Kreiner is asking me if I’ve got a paper bag too. He looks a bit
pale. Martha and Donna are behind. Donna says the coach is scrappy
and old and you’d think it’d have more comfy seats and the driver’s
going too slow and the boys are all right pains, especially me and
John and school is rubbish anyway and she hates camping --.
And Martha is reading Inkheart on the journey because I had this idea for a Nameless library fic involving the Delgado Master, Martha, Meggie from Inkheart, the then unwritten Inkdeath and much intertextuality and confusion with librarians and children’s literature. It passed, thankfully, because it was a bit dull.
‘Killing Jack’ was inevitable. How could it not work like that? Logic…
Castle Spellerous was just my reminder that this is Nameless. I didn’t expect anyone else to actually know that I was talking about an educational ZX Spectrum game.
There’s a fair bit of this based on what happened when I went on ‘camp’ (not in tents) in top juniors, like Gwen’s spooky storytelling (my friend Lisa did this and her room-mate had to be removed in tears).
And I assumed that my friends and I weren’t the only ten and eleven year olds with an obsession with ghosts and witches hanging around the school, so I passed on the obsession.
I think the only other thing to say about it is that the timings in it are about as realistic as I could get them and probably all got changed a dozen times to make that the case in the process of writing it.
Poor Fitz! Lumbered with being David Doctor’s hero and the disapproval of the Brig and not much else:
Of course, it’s at this moment that the Brig returns from the old-fashioned shop
with his third of the group, all pristine and dry, to see mine standing round in a bad tempered, tearful, dripping, hiccupping huddle by the lakeside. Get another ear-bashing.
(And I don’t know what happened to Ian. I suspect he resigned or something, but there have to be School Legends.)
Hopefully, I will eventually get the concluding one done where Fitz tries to become a Dead Teacher in order to escape and Miss Wright inadvertently nearly murders people and we finally learn what really happened to Mr Chesterton.