Since 2002, Big Finish Productions have published 20 volumes of original Doctor Who short stories, featuring the "classic" Doctors (the ones before the TV series' revival). A recent competition open to previously unpublished writers received more than 1,000 entries. I spoke to co-judge Simon Guerrier as he reached the half-way stage of the marking.
Tell us about the competition. What did it involve, and what's in it for you?
The competition ran between December 2006 and the end of January 2007. It was open to anyone—of any age, anywhere in the world—who had never before had fiction professionally published.
"Professionally"?
Yeah. Which we're taking to mean "paid for". We'd have been a bit mean to exclude all those people who'd got Doctor Who fan fiction on websites… Entrants had to submit a full story, of no more than 2,500 words. One winner will be published later this year. They'll be in that alongside all the other professional writers. They'll get the same contracts, money and terms and conditions as our other writers.
So you're giving them their first professional job?
That's it. Doctor Who has a tradition of supporting new writers going back years and years. Paul Cornell, who's written two of the television episodes this year, started out writing Doctor Who fan fiction in fan-produced magazines. He then answered an advertisement—placed in the fan press—by Virgin Books, who published proper Doctor Who novels. They'd seen there was talent out there. And Paul wasn't alone getting that early break. Mark Gatiss of the League of Gentlemen, Matthew Jones who now produces Shameless, all these people wrote Doctor Who books for Virgin, and then went on from there.
We've tried to continue that at Big Finish, as much as is practicable for a small company like ours. Paul Cornell insisted on a new writers' competition each year on "Bernice Summerfield"—one of our other ranges. And a few years ago we briefly opened up the submissions to our Doctor Who audio plays. I sent in something for that, actually! It got rejected.
What's so special about Doctor Who ? For new writers, I mean.
Um… I don't know, really. I suppose Doctor Who has always depended on good writing, from way back when it began. It didn't have the money for effects and things, so the writing had to be good.
I think it depends on the same things as any good writing: a strong central idea, told in a straight-forward, pacey way that makes you want to find out what happens. Something with good characters and an eye for detail. Something that's funny and surprising and might even make you think. If you can tell a joke and keep people guessing, and make them laugh at the end… That's the trick to a good story.
What kind of story elements are of most concern to you as judges?
The bottom line has got to be, Can we publish this? If it's not something we can print under the terms of our licence, there's no point going any further.
After that, we're looking for things that make the story stand out from the rest of the crowd. We read and edit a lot of short stories--not just for the competition, but in the Short Trips books generally. So we're looking for clear and vivid prose style, a great idea well told, with that certain something that makes it special.
Identifying what that special something is... well, if everybody did the same thing, it wouldn't be special, would it? But you know them when you read them. Ones where you have to find out what happens next, and that you can remember months after reading them.
So it needs to be original, clever, surprising, by turns both funny and scary, with a good sense of and insight into character. Simple!
What was the standard of the entries you received?
Annoyingly, pretty good. It's much easier to reject something that's broken the rules immediately, or that doesn't make any sort of sense. But the vast majority of what I've read has been a good idea competently told. We weren't expecting anything like the number of entries we got in, and it's taking us even longer to get through them because so many of them are good.
How do you keep tabs on entries? Do you have a ranking system? Do you throw them into piles based on "yes," "maybe," and "no way"?
I set up a gmail account for all entries to sit in, and I've got the stories in one folder and general enquiries in another. A lot of people had questions when they sent their stories in, so I replied personally to everyone. That was, obviously, a long job—but I've entered things like this myself, and know the difference a personal message makes. If people can write us 2,500 words, we can at least reply to them.
I read my stories in order, and make a note of anything I think is so good that Ian [Farrington, the other judge] should have a look at it too. Anything above the general high standard, anything that's got that special thing. I might add some notes, like, "This is good, but the twist needs some work", or "Great idea, but the dialogue is awkward". I've had one so far where the note's just "FANTASTIC!"
What kind of people have entered? Is it all people sat on creative writing courses?
Not at all. We've had some from school children and one from a bloke in his 90s. We've had them from all over the world. The response has been pretty amazing. When Ian and I were first discussing it, we thought we might get maybe 100 stories in. At most. After all, it's a lot to write a whole story, and we only gave people a couple of months. If that had happened, I'd have finished reading everything ages ago!
We've created a special anthology which will feature the runners up. A dedicated Short Trips: How the Doctor Changed My Life. We'll need some time to work with those authors, so that will probably not be until some time into 2008. Which would also fit with our current schedule of releases.
So what notes can you give us, from what you've read? What "don'ts" do you keep on spotting?
Um… there are a few things, I guess. The quality of the entries basically shows it's not enough to write a good, generic story. You need something extra that makes you stand out. Think bigger, show us something we've never dreamed of. The writing I remember is the stuff that's like nothing else.
Other than that… Some of the stories take a while to get going. 2,500 words is not a huge amount, and there's maybe 500 used describing the set up. We need to get going from the very first sentence. Get us hooked and then keep our attention.
Can you choose a piece you've written and say a little about the process?
In the case of "Categorical Imperative," Ian Farrington (who edited the book it was in, Short Trips: Monsters) sent out a rough idea of what he was after, and I sent him back some ideas. We discussed those, and how long he wanted my story to be, and I then sent him a long breakdown of how the plot would play out. Scene by scene, plot point by plot point, to about 1,000 words. As long as I know a rough word-count, I can tailor a story around that. It's how much depth and incident you include, how much you explore angles on the idea.
He okayed that, and I got sent the contracts. The ideas and plotting I find comes naturally, but the writing is where it gets tricky. I find the first draft of anything hard to get into, and prevaricate like crazy. The prose is always clunky and it's full of plot holes, and the "characters" are made from cardboard, and I don't like any of it. But it has to be got down. I keep a notebook on me, and scribble ideas while I'm on the bus or watching telly of an evening, or while the wife is talking to me. And I'll have a Word document saved of the outline, which I'll flesh out more and more. Slowly a version of the story will come together.
Once I've got a crudely written version as a Word document, I find it much easier to go through it and amend things, brutally rewriting from top to bottom. I tend to read it out loud as I'm doing that, polishing any phrasing I get stuck over. And I'm trying to guess the angles from which people might attack it, looking for plotholes or inconsistencies, and plastering a sentence over them. I'm not sure much of the first draft ever survives in the final version, but it's the necessary, gruelling first stage.
And then there's a feeling where I'm not making it any better, just changing the odd word here and there. An art teacher years ago said the two rules to painting were, 1) to work on something until it was good as you could make it, and 2) to then leave it well alone. I think I've been writing long enough now to have an instinct for when that is.
I then tend to send everything I write to people whose judgement I respect. The sorts of people whose recommendations I'd heed for good books and movies. The great thing about Internet communities is that you can quickly establish a peer group. A lot of these are also writers, who send me their stuff in return. I try to vary things, so it's not always the same people being sent stuff.
And the best thing about that is if they make clever comments you can nick all their ideas, and no one is any the wiser. More importantly, if they say something you don't agree with, then you can ignore them. Often them saying something you don't agree with crystallises why you've done things as you have, and you can tweak other things to make that more obvious. I had the same advice about when you can't make a decision: flip a coin, and you'll know if it comes up wrong.
Then the story goes to the editor, who'll have notes of his own. That can be things like spotting missing apostrophes, or asking for more clarity or more description in a section. The worst note I ever had was on a particular end-of-episode, which the guy thought was the worst cliff hanger he'd ever read. Ho hum.
The first draft of "Categorical Imperative" included a cameo from someone who might, just conceivably, have been the Christopher Eccleston Doctor. And the editor explained that this was not allowed under the terms of the licence, so that section needed rewriting. That's an important point: the editor's job is to make your story as best as it can possibly be, and in a form where it can actually be published. You make things difficult for your editor at your peril.
You mentioned you submitted a play to Big Finish before you worked for them. Can you say a little about the pros and cons of drama versus prose, at least for writing Doctor Who? Do you think it lends itself to them both equally?
Yeah, I think it does. Doctor Who is a great story generator. You just land the TARDIS somewhere new and the Doctor can step out into any kind of story—horror, sci-fi, romantic comedy, whatever.
The pitch I sent in back in 2002 was called Prisoners of War, and was sort of Lord of the Flies in space, only with alien soldiers instead of posh schoolkids. I might use bits of it elsewhere, but it made a lot of basic mistakes. The two points in the very kind rejection were, "it's all a bit of a generic runaround" and, on one major scene in particular, "how would we know this was happening?"
When I actually came to write my first audio play for the company, I got to talk to other writers—and to my designated sound engineer—who gave me plenty of hints and tips. One very good one: don't just have your characters stood idly talking, have them doing things while they speak. Running, climbing, washing up. In my Doctor Who play The Settling, two characters keep making cups of tea…
Of the different media... Audio drama eats plot really, really quickly. Doctor Who is an adventure series, so you have to keep things moving. You can have quiet moments, but more to punctuate the action stuff.
Prose also gives the writer more control over everything, whereas in drama you've got actors, a director, the sound engineers and so on, who all contribute to the end version. I think I actually prefer that—because prose can be a bit lonely. It also means working with very talented people, and pinching their ideas. And it's really satisfying to hear a good actor playing out your stuff.
Do you think it's easier or more difficult to write something like Doctor Who, which has such a history attached to it, rather than a story you've made up on your own?
Um. It's always easier to write something when you've already got something to start from. Doctor Who has a framework, and you know the rough shape of most of them. The Doctor arrives where weird things are happening, and the more he investigates the weirder things get. He then reveals all and puts things right again, but nothing can ever be the same... So all you need do is add in your own weird idea, and you're already flying.
But then, because it's got that history, you're also fighting a constant battle with ideas other people have had before you. And worse, because there's so much Doctor Who being written right now, you're never sure if someone else has had the same idea, and you're writing it at the same time! I once pitched an idea to a mate of mine to discover it was the Doctor Who book he had just delivered...
I'm sure there is a moral here. Don't sit on your great ideas, pass them on as quickly as you can, like they're hot potatoes. If it really is a great idea, someone else will have it sometime. It happens all the time.
But that comes down to the same thing as the single best piece of writing advice I've ever had. Ten years ago, at a Doctor Who convention in Manchester, I got to meet my hero Paul Cornell. He wrote books and stories that tore off the top of my head, that did things it had never occurred to me that you could do in a story, that seemed to speak to me, personally, and show me how Life Worked. I nervously, awkwardly, tried to explain this to him, and he listened with great patience.
"I'd like to write, too," I said.
To which he replied, "Then write."
It just took someone to say that yes, it was possible if I only buckled down and wrote. And as it's turned out, I now write for a living. So it's all Cornell's fault. But it's that sentiment—why can't it be me?—is sort of the thinking behind this competition.
