The Writer's Tale
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Doctor Who: The Writer's Tale is a 2008 book collecting e-mail correspondence between Russell T Davies, executive producer and head writer on the revived Doctor Who series, and Benjamin Cook, a journalist and writer for Doctor Who Magazine. In the first edition, the e-mails date from between February 2007 and April 2008 and cover the period of broadcast of Series 3, and preparation and production of Series 4, linking in with Davies' decision to move on from Doctor Who after the 2009 Specials. Interspersed are photos, illustrations, and script excerpts.
Although widely referred to simply as The Writer's Tale, the official title of the book incorporates Doctor Who.
The book includes a foreword by Phillip Pullman, writer of the His Dark Materials trilogy. Introductions by both Davies and Cook outline the concept of the book, and also reference the success of the Journey's End season finale, which occurred after the final e-mail exchanges in the book.
A second edition subtitled The Final Chapter and adding more than 300 pages of new material covering the production of the 2009 Specials, was published in paperback on 14th January 2010. For reasons unknown, North American release of the book was delayed twice, first to 21 January, and finally 24 March 2010.
The second edition includes additional e-mails and script excerpts dating up to 5 September 2009. However it omits elements such as photographs and script excerpts found in the first edition.
Publisher's summary
First Edition
"It's such a hard job. Writers never talk about how hard it is, out of the fear of being pretentious. 'Try being a nurse or a teacher,' people say. No - try being a writer! Try sitting with every doubt and fear about yourself and everyone, all on your own, with no ending or help or conclusion... At the same time, writing can be the most wonderful job in the world. When I'm happy with a script, I'm happier than you can ever imagine. Delicious! What I mean is, writing is never easy."
Second Edition
For this new edition of The Writer's Tale, Russell T. Davies and Benjamin Cook expand their in-depth discussion of the creative life of Doctor Who to cover Russell's final year as Head Writer and Executive Producer of the show, as well as his work behind the increasingly successful Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures spin-offs. Candid and witty insights abound throughout two years' worth of correspondence, covering David Tennant's last episodes as the Tenth Doctor and the legacy that Russell and David leave behind as a new era of Doctor Who begins.
With over 300 pages of new material, and taking in events from the entire five years since the show's return in 2005, The Writer's Tale: The Final Chapter is the most comprehensive - and personal - account of Doctor Who ever published.
Subject matter
A behind-the-scenes look into the production of Doctor Who in 2007 and 2008, told through correspondence between the show's executive producer and a journalist.
Notable features
- Many excerpts from Davies' scripts for Series 4 and the 2009 Specials, including scenes not broadcast and early concepts, as well as the complete script for the Tonight's the Night mini-episode.
- Details of characters and plots never realised on screen, including aborted plans for a new companion in Series 4, a season outline featuring storylines not used, and early plans for the Torchwood: Children of Earth mini-series and The End of Time.
- A number of original illustrations by Davies.
Notes
- The book originally started out as an idea by Cook to write a series of articles for Doctor Who Magazine detailing the process between the creation of several episodes of the new series. As the amount of correspondence grew, this changed into the idea of creating a book, instead.
- At 512 pages (including index), the first edition was the single longest officially licensed Doctor Who-related book published to date (fiction or non-fiction). The release of the second edition of the book, The Writer's Tale: The Final Chapter, increases the page count to 704.
- Some of the correspondence in the second edition deals with the work that went into compiling the first edition, and the mutual decision to compile what was originally planned to be a separate second volume.
On-line scripts
In conjunction with the release of both the first and second editions of the book, Davies posted his original scripts for all the episodes he wrote from TV: Voyage of the Damned through to TV: The End of Time to the book's official website.
