Doctor Who Storybook 2008

[louisedennis]

Its sort of customary to start reviews of the Dr Who storybooks by mentioning the totally bonkers Dr Who annuals of the 1970s but I figure most people reading here either know all about them or aren't terribly interested. Suffice it to say the storybooks are their successors both in content and, in some cases, bonkersness although the storybooks

Comments

Re: Storybook

[anonymous]

Oh, okay. I see what you mean.

I did give some thought to that. There's an ambiguity to the story about how much the Doctor is actually real, or just a figment of the child's imagination. But I do rather like ambiguity, really - and since it's a story which is supposed to *celebrate* that imagination, I think it'd have been somehow churlish to have reined it in in that way. The ultimate conclusion that Harry must draw is that he'll never precisely know just how much of his little childhood adventure was real, and how much he created himself. In the same way, that when I was a child, the most potent memories I have had that same ambiguity. There's so much I only *think* I remember - which, years later, seem so extraordinary and wonderful that they couldn't entirely have been true. (Could they?)

It's a story for eight year olds. It's a story designed to let eight year olds think that, if they let their imaginations run just that little bit more wild, they too can blur the line between Coherent Reality and Wild Fantasy. There obviously *is* a line, somewhere - there obviously is a place where Harry's encounter with the Doctor is real (in fictive terms!) and where it isn't. But the magic of it is that it's an impossible line to see. I think if I had, it'd have made everything I wrote rather trite.

(Although, I dare say, to an adult reader, it might all be trite anyway! But this was very much intended as a children's tale. And, in all honesty, the children I know and have been told about who have read it seemed to get the trick...)

Ultimately, the idea of it all being an 'origin' story, or whatever, reduces the intention a bit, codifies it, and puts it into a continuity that ties in with the Doctor Who Series Canon TM. Just for once, having written stories in different media for Doctor Who over the years that always can be slotted into 'canon', I just wanted to write a story about kids writing stories. Like all the ones I visit at schools actually *do*. Maybe that's the limitation of writing for Doctor Who, though. Maybe we shouldn't attempt stories which don't give much of a fig for the wider picture, and just selfishly follow their own mandate. (I mean that. Maybe we shouldn't! I really don't know. The only thing I know is that I had more fun writing this than - say - a TV episode about a Dalek. It's just more personal. And I'd hope that even a story for pre-teens in a Doctor Who storybook might have room for something a *little* personal...!)

Thanks for your input, though! And for your (many) kind words, both in your review, and in your patient response. I think we may be coming at the story from different and irreconcileable angles. And that's great - it's what it's all about! And thanks for letting me do that Pompous Writer Thing and witter on about it all. I haven't had much opportunity to get my thoughts about it in order!

Re: Storybook

[louisedennis]

I didn't think the story you wrote was trite and I loved the idea and I liked the "hey just imagine stuff" message. And I have to agree that I can't see a way to implement my suggestions that wouldn't make the story trite. But I didn't get a "that all worked in a really cool way" feeling at the end which I felt, somehow, it should have done and that feeling stemmed from a dissatisfaction about the way the Doctor and Martha fitted in (though I'm not sure whether I wanted them to be more clearly fictious, more clearly real, or more heavily signposted ambiguity or what) but I'd hate that to be read as a plea that writers stop trying to be adventurous or personal.

The 1970s annuals are kind of special in a bizarre way but I'd hate to see the writing in these storybooks descend to the rather unadventurous, by the numbers writing I recall from a lot of the TV tie-in annuals I remember from my childhood (or don't remember the stories from, which is more damning in a way).

... and thanks for dropping by to write a comment, one of the reasons I write reviews is because I want to discuss the stories, the opportunity to discuss it with the author is an added bonus.

Re: Storybook

[anonymous]

And thank you for writing a review which made me want to comment in the first place! It's a funny feeling with Who, ever since the new series came along - almost anything tangential to the televised episodes is sent out before the audience, but rarely merits more than the most cursory of mentions!

And I think you may be right about those problems at the heart of my story. The very first draft of it involved the Doctor and Martha getting trapped in a child's story, and only by tapping into his imagination (becoming Santa, or the shop assistant, in his memories) could they lead him to the TARDIS so he could rescue them. It was all quite nice and sweet, but (as happened in true crisis style with a few stories in this year's annual!) the BBC got concerned because it all seemed a bit too similar to the forthcoming episode in series three. (The irony being that Steven hadn't actually written Blink at that point - but it all seemed worryingly close to the bone of his proposal!) So to keep the story, I scuppered the entire second half, around from the time Harry gets into the TARDIS, and played up the ambiguity instead. I wonder now, from your comments, whether I'd really filled the hole that I'd created by removing that plot point after all...! Oh well. Never mind!

Thanks again for the constructive comments!