The Writer's Tale: The Final Chapter
I just finished The Writer's Tale: The Final Chapter. I read The Writer's Tale back in May 2009, but this linked post is the only one I can find where I talk about what I thought of it. Well, I loved The Writer's Tale. It was thoughtful, insightful, it said a lot of very true things about writing, and most of all, it was honest. I think if I ever were to recommend a book about writing, I'd recommend that book. It was the one I read that helped me the most.
Now, The Writer's Tale: The Final Chapter is basically the same book, except that it continues with a "Book Two" part after series four, and describes the writing process of the specials and Children of Earth, and ends with RTD leaving the UK for LA in September 2009.
I read the entire thing again, including the first book. They lost some material they included in the first book, probably to make it more concise. It's over 700 pages as it is. I still think it's a brilliant and insightful book, but I also thought that it didn't profit from the cuts. It lost some of its soul. Reading the first book left me excited, and motivated; reading the second book did that, too--but it was on a more intellectual than emotional level. I think they stripped a lot of content that made the first book more personal, and reading the second book now, it felt cooler, more distanced--less heartfelt. Which was what made the first book so exceptional; the pure, brutal honesty of it.
This might have other reasons than the cuts, as well. One, there was no actual season being written in 2009, which means that Ben Cook's and RTD's conversation shifted from being about writing to being about a broad range of different topics. Not that RTD wasn't doing any writing in 2009; after finishing The Stolen Earth/Journey's End, he went straight into writing The Next Doctor, and then wrote Children of Earth before he worked on the specials. But the first book gave you an insight into what RTD called the Maybe--the great mass of season 4 ideas in his head, which were working away and shaping into the season's plot, falling into place, until he finally had something that would let him start writing. The second part of The Final Chapter lacked that. It was all bits and pieces: writing The Next Doctor, which, as a Christmas special, was basically a standalone, and then writing Children of Earth, which they didn't talk about much--or maybe they did, but they didn't include it in the book, this being a book about writing Doctor Who--and then writing the specials, which were one-offs, too. Or, well, Planet of the Dead was a one-off, and that was mostly written by Gareth Roberts anyway, and the last three specials didn't need a lot of Maybe. They had their central theme all worked out: the death of the tenth Doctor, and the regeneration. So the emails didn't contain much talk about the Maybe anymore; it was all production notes and plot problems and technical aspects of writing. Which was interesting, too, but it wasn't as involving as reading about a season's plot forming in a writer's head.
Also, this was Ben Cook's and RTD's second year of writing almost daily emails. They had developed a short-hand, as you do with people you talk to a lot about very fundamental things. Like, you know, in the first few emails, RTD had to explain what he meant when he said "I'm panicking about this episode's resolution.". In later emails, all he had to say was "I'm panicking and smoking too much. Same old same old.". So, while still being very interesting, the emails became less revealing--as I said earlier, less personal. Less about actual writing and more about all the other stuff that comes with writing.
And there was a lot of banging on about the horribleness of fandom. Now, I understand it. RTD invested almost a decade of his life into Doctor Who; for seven years he thought, lived and breathed that show, and he made a phenomenal effort to make it the very best he could. If all that you get back for that is an internet full of people saying "god, he ruined the show"--that would make me bitter, too. It would make me so bitter. But, being a part of fandom, it hurts me to be so blatantly dismissed. Being a fan, in The Final Chapter, is used as a synonym for being a nag, for obsessing about continuity details and looking for faults, for never being happy and for always claiming that the show is being done badly. It's being a thoughtless voice in a mindless crowd repeating empty catchphrases and never making the effort of putting any independent thought into the voiced critique. And it's always the argument of, well, we're not making the show for the online crowd of nags, we're making it for the other 7.9 million viewers.
Fair. Okay. It's fair. Because the loudest voices in fandom are the haters, the nags, the wankers, the idiots who log onto a message board and spout self-righteous nonsense trying to justify the things they didn't like about the show as Fact. If you log on, and the first ten results that you find are of that nature, why would you look any further? Of course you turn around and go, well, online fandom is a bunch of immature wankers. But it hurts me seeing RTD doing it--because I know that if he thought about it, he would realize that this is what people have been doing for years and years. Everybody loves to hate; it's just that by ways of the internet, the haters can now announce it to the world instead of just their bunch of mates in their own living room. But just as from time to time in real life, you find people who actually think about their opinions before they express them, you find thoughtful people on the internet as well. Which means that by dismissing the entirety of online fandom as a bunch of immature haters, you're creating a prejudice that will end up hurting people. The idea of being a fan comes with enough social stigmata that it doesn't need even more of that typed out and published in a book, black ink on paper.
I guess the bottom line is, it makes me sad. Because I love fandom. It's crazy, and wanky, and there is a sheer endless amount of stupid in it, but essentially, it's people coming together because they love something, and that's a good thing. If RTD weren't a fan, he would never have brought Doctor Who back. If David Tennant weren't a fan, he would never have been able to give such a brilliant performance as the tenth Doctor, and get so much joy out of working on that team. If Julie Gardner hadn't become a fan, she would never have been as brilliant at her producing job as she was. I've always loved the saying that in Doctor Who, the BNFs are writing the show. It's right to dismiss the stupid, and the hate, and the viciousness, but it's not right to lump everyone in online fandom in with that crowd. But then, I suppose RTD is only human, and it's what humans do--answer blatant hate with blatant hate.
It's made me think about my reaction to season 5, though. Try as I might, I can't love it as much as the previous seasons, for various reasons that I could go on and on about for hours. That's not anybody's fault, though. I'm sure Moffat is giving his very best to make the show as brilliant as he can, and so is everybody else on that production team. It's just that his very best doesn't synch up with my very best as well as RTD's very best does. Which is making me sad, because I used to adore that show, and it's hard giving up on something that you used to love. And hey, I'm only human, too, so of course I'm looking for someone to blame. Moffat's an easy target. I do think that there are serious problems with some aspects of his scripts, most of all his female characters, which I feel are almost insulting on a show that has had female characters like Donna, but he's not putting them in there out of some malicious, intentional urge to insult all female viewers. He's putting them in there because they're his very best. Which is maybe kind of sad, but still, not his fault.
Sigh. It is late and I have to get up soon, so I'll stop here. Fandom and television and writing are so complicated. You could talk about it for hours and barely scratch the surface.
Now, The Writer's Tale: The Final Chapter is basically the same book, except that it continues with a "Book Two" part after series four, and describes the writing process of the specials and Children of Earth, and ends with RTD leaving the UK for LA in September 2009.
I read the entire thing again, including the first book. They lost some material they included in the first book, probably to make it more concise. It's over 700 pages as it is. I still think it's a brilliant and insightful book, but I also thought that it didn't profit from the cuts. It lost some of its soul. Reading the first book left me excited, and motivated; reading the second book did that, too--but it was on a more intellectual than emotional level. I think they stripped a lot of content that made the first book more personal, and reading the second book now, it felt cooler, more distanced--less heartfelt. Which was what made the first book so exceptional; the pure, brutal honesty of it.
This might have other reasons than the cuts, as well. One, there was no actual season being written in 2009, which means that Ben Cook's and RTD's conversation shifted from being about writing to being about a broad range of different topics. Not that RTD wasn't doing any writing in 2009; after finishing The Stolen Earth/Journey's End, he went straight into writing The Next Doctor, and then wrote Children of Earth before he worked on the specials. But the first book gave you an insight into what RTD called the Maybe--the great mass of season 4 ideas in his head, which were working away and shaping into the season's plot, falling into place, until he finally had something that would let him start writing. The second part of The Final Chapter lacked that. It was all bits and pieces: writing The Next Doctor, which, as a Christmas special, was basically a standalone, and then writing Children of Earth, which they didn't talk about much--or maybe they did, but they didn't include it in the book, this being a book about writing Doctor Who--and then writing the specials, which were one-offs, too. Or, well, Planet of the Dead was a one-off, and that was mostly written by Gareth Roberts anyway, and the last three specials didn't need a lot of Maybe. They had their central theme all worked out: the death of the tenth Doctor, and the regeneration. So the emails didn't contain much talk about the Maybe anymore; it was all production notes and plot problems and technical aspects of writing. Which was interesting, too, but it wasn't as involving as reading about a season's plot forming in a writer's head.
Also, this was Ben Cook's and RTD's second year of writing almost daily emails. They had developed a short-hand, as you do with people you talk to a lot about very fundamental things. Like, you know, in the first few emails, RTD had to explain what he meant when he said "I'm panicking about this episode's resolution.". In later emails, all he had to say was "I'm panicking and smoking too much. Same old same old.". So, while still being very interesting, the emails became less revealing--as I said earlier, less personal. Less about actual writing and more about all the other stuff that comes with writing.
And there was a lot of banging on about the horribleness of fandom. Now, I understand it. RTD invested almost a decade of his life into Doctor Who; for seven years he thought, lived and breathed that show, and he made a phenomenal effort to make it the very best he could. If all that you get back for that is an internet full of people saying "god, he ruined the show"--that would make me bitter, too. It would make me so bitter. But, being a part of fandom, it hurts me to be so blatantly dismissed. Being a fan, in The Final Chapter, is used as a synonym for being a nag, for obsessing about continuity details and looking for faults, for never being happy and for always claiming that the show is being done badly. It's being a thoughtless voice in a mindless crowd repeating empty catchphrases and never making the effort of putting any independent thought into the voiced critique. And it's always the argument of, well, we're not making the show for the online crowd of nags, we're making it for the other 7.9 million viewers.
Fair. Okay. It's fair. Because the loudest voices in fandom are the haters, the nags, the wankers, the idiots who log onto a message board and spout self-righteous nonsense trying to justify the things they didn't like about the show as Fact. If you log on, and the first ten results that you find are of that nature, why would you look any further? Of course you turn around and go, well, online fandom is a bunch of immature wankers. But it hurts me seeing RTD doing it--because I know that if he thought about it, he would realize that this is what people have been doing for years and years. Everybody loves to hate; it's just that by ways of the internet, the haters can now announce it to the world instead of just their bunch of mates in their own living room. But just as from time to time in real life, you find people who actually think about their opinions before they express them, you find thoughtful people on the internet as well. Which means that by dismissing the entirety of online fandom as a bunch of immature haters, you're creating a prejudice that will end up hurting people. The idea of being a fan comes with enough social stigmata that it doesn't need even more of that typed out and published in a book, black ink on paper.
I guess the bottom line is, it makes me sad. Because I love fandom. It's crazy, and wanky, and there is a sheer endless amount of stupid in it, but essentially, it's people coming together because they love something, and that's a good thing. If RTD weren't a fan, he would never have brought Doctor Who back. If David Tennant weren't a fan, he would never have been able to give such a brilliant performance as the tenth Doctor, and get so much joy out of working on that team. If Julie Gardner hadn't become a fan, she would never have been as brilliant at her producing job as she was. I've always loved the saying that in Doctor Who, the BNFs are writing the show. It's right to dismiss the stupid, and the hate, and the viciousness, but it's not right to lump everyone in online fandom in with that crowd. But then, I suppose RTD is only human, and it's what humans do--answer blatant hate with blatant hate.
It's made me think about my reaction to season 5, though. Try as I might, I can't love it as much as the previous seasons, for various reasons that I could go on and on about for hours. That's not anybody's fault, though. I'm sure Moffat is giving his very best to make the show as brilliant as he can, and so is everybody else on that production team. It's just that his very best doesn't synch up with my very best as well as RTD's very best does. Which is making me sad, because I used to adore that show, and it's hard giving up on something that you used to love. And hey, I'm only human, too, so of course I'm looking for someone to blame. Moffat's an easy target. I do think that there are serious problems with some aspects of his scripts, most of all his female characters, which I feel are almost insulting on a show that has had female characters like Donna, but he's not putting them in there out of some malicious, intentional urge to insult all female viewers. He's putting them in there because they're his very best. Which is maybe kind of sad, but still, not his fault.
Sigh. It is late and I have to get up soon, so I'll stop here. Fandom and television and writing are so complicated. You could talk about it for hours and barely scratch the surface.