a writer's tale

Last night I finished reading "Doctor Who: A Writer's Tale."

It's a big book - it's about 500 pages long and the text is tiny. To put that in context, during the course of the book we get to read several (3-ish) Doctor Who scripts. Now a Doctor Who script is going to be the best part of 50 pages long if you were to read it as a script.

Admittedly scripts have a lot of white space, but still, when you consider the text of scripts includes all sorts of rewrites and when you look at it only accounts for 20% of the words in the book, you'll get a feel for how big the book is.

Anyway, what the book is is a collection of e-mails (and a few text messages for good message) sent between the head writer and executive producer of new Doctor Who, Russell T Davies and Benjamin Cook, a young journalist and friend of Russell's.

It's a little difficult to explain the format of the book, but it's obvious when you actually read it. The e-mails last the course of year and during them Davies writes a handful of his own scripts for Dr Who, which is mainly the point of the book, so we get to see those scripts develop.

But also, because he's head writer, we see him rewriting other people's scripts. And because he's one of the Executive Producers he has to do all sorts of show-running stuff. On top of that it's like Cook is conducting an extended interview as well as being a friend.

What we mainly get, therefore, is something of an insight into the mind of a writer. Now Davies is always quick to stress that it's only his mind and how he works and this is what works for him and his own personal take on things, so the fundamental point is it's an exploration of his writing process.

And it's really warts and all.

There are literally pages dedicated to self-doubt and anguish. Davies sometimes spends ages procrastinating and avoiding writing, making himself miserable. We get to know about ideas that failed and bits that didn't work as well as stuff that did.

It's very interesting stuff and I'd highly recommend it... although with a little bit of coveting. If you don't know about new Doctor Who (or, indeed, old Doctor Who) it does try to explain stuff to you, but really you'll be struggling. If you don't like Doctor Who or Davies this won't do anything to convince you otherwise.

The other biggy is I dunno how a non-writer would take to it. I'm guessing quite well as there's plenty in it that's just generally entertaining, but it did feel more directed at those who've considered or actually tried to write, rather than just the general public.