Given that a couple of Who authors post here now, I thought I would offer them the invitation - and any other Who author who happens to chance upon this site - to give their insights into getting a Who book accepted.

Any of their thoughts appreciated; how to go about it, what not to do, why something may have been written the way it has; how to get past what's been done before, writer's block and so on. I'm sure there are plenty of questions we can all ask them - I wonder how many of us have half-written proposals, short stories, rejection letters and so on.

Any insights greatly appreciated.

Well, from what I've gathered...if you're gonna give the Companion a sexually-transmitted disease, DON'T mention it when submitting the synopsis.

(But don't not-mention TOO many things, cos otherwise you'll end up like Jim Mortimer.)

Has anyone else here ever submitted a proposal or at least toyed with the idea?

God, no. Who am I to control the Doctor's destiny??? I am not worthy. I am not worthy. I am not worthy...

...mind you, the same applies to most of the people who DO write for the Doctor.

I think you underestimate yourself, Emily... would be interesting to see what you come up with.

I bet it would be a Sixth Doctor story where he gets laid

The BBC writer's guidelines are at http://serendipity.drwho.org/90s/960808-bbc-books.html. Peter Anghelides has some interesting stuff relating to writing at http://www.anghelides.org/ which includes the process and changes he had to make for his novels to incorporate new companions and the like.

If by "laid" you mean "six feet underground", then, yeah, I could see that.

Emily is, it must be said, very democratic about these things. She thinks quite a few of the published authors aren't worthy either...

What advice can you give about getting published, Daniel, since you've got a few different types of Who publication under you're belt now - books, novellas, short stories, DWM articles...

I don't think Daniel wants to give tips away in case we steal a contract from him or something.
And I agree, Emily would at the very least come up with some great storylines for Doctor Who.
I myself have written a couple short stories involving crossovers of First Doc and Blake's 7 as well as 2nd Doc and Red Dwarf.
I started a bigger novel that had as a main story involving the 5th Doc and the Star Trek TNG crew, which included links to a 4th Doc and DS9 story as well as a third Doc and TOS crew story. Obviously, not a snowballs chance in hell of being published but still good fun to write.
A friend of mine is Shane Dix who with his writing partner Sean Williams have written, amongst many others, three Star Wars novels.

Perhaps you should let Daniel answer for himself.

well good to see you're on the ball Mike- 3 years EXACTLY after I posted....good to see the mods all primed around here....wait a minute...I am one myself....

Hmm, could have sworn that was a new message. Long day at work.

And I agree, Emily would at the very least come up with some great storylines for Doctor Who.

I most certainly could NOT.

I'm now the published author of fifty Synthetic Phonics books (http://www.piperbooks.co.uk/learning-to-read-for-adults.htm) and there's barely an original storyline in the WHOLE LOT. I nicked 'em all from dead-for-over-75-years authors and myths and legends from around the world. Oh, and I bribed Daniel O'Mahony to write a couple of 'em, to get things vaguely back on-topic. But whatever else being a rabid Who Fan since the age of four has done to my brain, it certainly didn't instil the ability to come up with original storylines, dammit.

I myself have written a couple short stories involving crossovers of First Doc and Blake's 7 as well as 2nd Doc and Red Dwarf.

BLASPHEMY!

Nothing wrong with crossing Doctor Who and Blake's Seven. They were made by the same people, after all.

I don't care about these alleged uncanonical 'same people'! It's hard enough trying to reconcile the events of the Whoniverse with each other without dragging in inferior non-existent universes! And it just FEELS wrong.

"Nothing wrong with crossing Doctor Who and Blake's Seven. They were made by the same people, after all."

This is the same logic that makes a Doctor Who/Old Mother Riley crossover inevitable.

What's Old Mother Riley?

Come to think of it, I wouldn't mind a Doctor Who/Queer as Folk crossover. We pratically had one anyway - plenty of Who in QaF, plenty, of, well, Captain Jack in Who...

Old Mother Riley was a musical hall drag act that was phenomenally popular in the 1930s and 1940s. There were well over a dozen Old Mother Riley films, some of which were written by Geoffrey 'The Underwater Menace' Orme.

More here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Mother_Riley (and anyone who thinks that a male comedian dressing up as an old Irishwoman for laughs is the sign of Olden Days-style freakishness obviously hasn't heard of 'Mrs Brown's Boys')

I would like to see:

A. The Doctor meeting a younger version of Sarah Jane Smith and saves her from dying


B. The Doctor meeting a younger, healthier version of Davros and wondering if he should kill Davros now or let history take its course

C. Meet his original self (Doctor # 1)

Dude, Sarah Jane didn't die. You're confusing the character with the actor that played her.

I think he means a story in which the Doctor meets a much younger, pre-Time Warrior Sarah Jane, played by a different actress. She'd be in some danger and has to save her so she can meet him later in her life.

Thank you, Kevin. That's what I meant

Oh, we don't want to see a younger Sarah Jane. She was bearable as a non-speaking baby/child in The Temptation of Sarah Jane Smith and Day of the Clown, but that TEENAGER in Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane?...UGG.

I'd love to see a story where Carole Ann Ford's Susan regenerates into a younger Susan and she goes off with the current Doctor...

That would have been an awesome idea for the 50th, something old reinvented for new fans. Susan and Ian are the two old-series I'd really like to see return in some form.

I'd love to see a story where Carole Ann Ford's Susan regenerates into a younger Susan and she goes off with the current Doctor...

On the one hand, it would help answer the unfortunate question that's been hanging over the programme for fifty years - WHY DID YOU NEVER GO BACK FOR HER YOU *******?

On the OTHER hand, it would raise the equally unfortunate question of Susan's parent and the Doctor's offspring...

Can you not see the first scene? Susan sitting by the grave of whatisname that apparently she was madly in love with, and as she solemnly contemplates a hand reaches out and gives her flowers. She turns around and sees the Doctor who says "I told you one day I shall come back...." *cue title music*

That would be as corny as heck, Rodders. Even Susan lovers would be spewing into barf bags.

Nah, Doctor Who has honed corny to a fine art. The fans are used to it by now.

On the OTHER hand, it would raise the equally unfortunate question of Susan's parent and the Doctor's offspring...

Didn't the Tenth Doctor say he had been a father once...

Yes, in Fear Her for no readily apparent reason, and in Doctor's Daughter to stop Donna forcing him to adopt Jenny, and Eleven mentioned a granddaughter in *shudders* Rings of Akhaten. But it's a lot easier to ignore such things if only Susan doesn't turn up in person...

Unfortunately, it's part of Who canon. Susan is his granddaughter (although I wonder about that human name, perhaps she assumed it when they arrived on Earth, her Gallifreyan name being too hard to pronounce).

Rodney's idea has merit.

Three. Five. Two. Time Crash. The other one with John Hurt instead of Paul McGann. Love them or hate them, they have increasingly explored the temporal physics of meeting yourself in the past (and, briefly, in the future).

Of course, any show with time travel in it worth its salt does this - Back to the Future, Quantum Leap, Red Dwarf, Star Trek, Austin Powers etc. all have characters meeting temporally displaced other selves, and a certain amount of 'production stress' has been employed to allow this the same actor to be on screen twice.

That's where Doctor Who is genius. We have a time travelling alien who changes his face. How wonderfully British and penny pinching is it that if we want him to meet himself in the past, we just get the other actor back, and forget about all that split screen ••••?

That's interesting. Has the Doctor ever met himself in the same incarnation he was in? Hand Doctor and the tesselator do not count.

Eleven met himself in DVD Extra Last Night.

And 3 in Day of the Daleks, with Jo to boot.

tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/SpellsRUs

I write stories set in the above universe.

I'm writing a DW crossover with it where the Brigadier/Yates/Benton fall victim to the Wizard's antics.

And the Doctor has to save them...

Given that a couple of Who authors post here now, I thought I would offer them the invitation - and any other Who author who happens to chance upon this site - to give their insights into getting a Who book accepted.

Lance Parkin has a helpful chapter on this in Time, Unincorporated. (Well, I say 'helpful'. Not any more, not now Justin Richards has decided he just can't be bothered to produce ANY Who novels any more...)

Most people don't use formal English in practice. For example the Prom dance should be "The Prom" but pretty much everybody calls it just "Prom". And the TV show is "Doctor Who" not "Doctor Whom".

In my fiction writing, I'm writing for that general audience, not people wanting something to tide them over until their next Shakespeare play.

Tip:

A grisly end is when you die in a horrifying or disgusting way.

A "grizzly" end is when you die in a horrifying or disgusting way at the hands of a bear.

Grizzlys don't have hands

Try this real event as a Who plot:

Francis Scott Key's grandson, Frank Key Howard, was arrested during the Civil War for his critical newspapers of the Lincoln administration's suspension of habeas corpus and arrests without warrants. He would initially be imprisoned in Fort McHenry, the same fort where his grandfather composed the Star-Spangled Banner.

Only two women wrote Classic Who stories, Barbara Clegg (Enlightenment) and Rona Munro (Survival). Both these ladies would also write the Target novelizations of their stories.

Of course, Rona Munro would return to the fold when she wrote the NuWho episode, Eaters Of Light.

And no, I don't count "Paula Moore" for Attack Of The Cyberman, as the name was just a front for Eric Saward and Ian Levin to do an end run around union rules (Levine not being a member of said union should not have been writing the script in any way). Whoever "Paula Moore" was, if she even existed at all, just allowed them to use her name. Her involvement ended there.

Only two women wrote Classic Who stories, Barbara Clegg (Enlightenment) and Rona Munro (Survival).

Yeah, the twentieth century was REALLY SEXIST.

(Though it's some consolation that 100% of Female-Penned Old Who was really really good.)

What's bothering me more is the dearth of women writing NEW Who. For YEARS all we had was *shudders* Helen Raynor. Which RTG apparently regarded as perfectly sufficient. Moffat spent YEARS trying to round up a few females of the species and when he finally managed it, let's face it, the quality was not great. Chibnall's efforts, on the other hand, are paying off nicely. (And yes, I'm quite sure he made deliberate efforts to involve more people-who-aren't-white-men in writing AND in front of the cameras.)

Chibnall's efforts, on the other hand, are paying off nicely. (And yes, I'm quite sure he made deliberate efforts to involve more people-who-aren't-white-men in writing

That would be nice if he had hired real writers and not political activists.

He did.

*mic drop from Emily*
BOOM!

Yeah, Emily, you just keep believing that. If it gets you through the night.

What doctor who episode shocked you whether it was bad or violent etc.?

Yeah, Emily, you just keep believing that. If it gets you through the night.

Are you seriously suggesting the writers who had the temerity to not be white males and to explore some of humanity's ISSUES, wrote WORSE episodes than their white-male colleagues...?

Because JODIE!'s finest episodes so far are Rosa, The Witchfinders, It Takes You Away, Spyfall, Fugitive of the Judoon and The Haunting of Villa Diodati, most of which were written by what you seem to think are political activists instead of writers cos, um, they've got XX chromosomes and/or melanin-rich skin and occasionally mention things like sexism and racism!!

We're gonna need a new mic pretty soon.

I could care less the gender and skin colour of a writer, as long as the writer in question produced a good story. In the case of the current lot of the season just past, IMO, many failed to deliver.

Perhaps you should be happy that I'm leaving Who behind, you won't have to see me criticise the current writers anymore.