![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethI finished reading A Writer's Tale: The Final Chapter today.
I bought it when it was new. For roughly the same reasons I have every sonic screwdriver variant I'm aware of, but without the squee. Sonic screwdrivers make me happy. RTD does not. But he wrote so many good bits even if they were wrapped up in the other stuff, and he brought back Doctor Who, and I buy books by writers about writing in the vague hopes they'll add up to magic and I'll be able to write. Er, hopefully not quite like RTD. But. Anyway. I bought the book. When it was new. Ages ago. And then I didn't read it.
The thing is, Children of Earth killed my squee, and replaced it with a head full of screaming. I went to the Hub 3 and had trouble having fun. Usually when I meet actors, even the ones that play bad guys, it is still of the happy, because they're from our show OMG happy. And everyone else has the same happy. And it is gleeful. But with actors from Children of Earth? It is not happy. I found myself really wanting to punch them, not that I ever ever would, I understand the whole actor-character distinction and that its writers who do the bad stuff, but the happy about the show that I usually carry around to meet people with, it was replaced with this rage. So this weekend I will not be going to Hub 4, because the happy fell out, even for the stuff I liked before. No fun. Maybe be fixed later, but right now I haven't watched Torchwood since the last con, and I only read small amounts of fanfic by authors I know. And all this was part of why I bought RTD's book, to know why it got writ that way, but it was also why I didn't read it.
So then on Saturday there is New Doctor Who. And my squee is back :-) I have happy! There is new work! New world! All good!
And now I've got that to hold on to I can look back at the other bits with a different mind. So I finished the RTD book in one day.
Wondering 'what was he thinking'? Answer: he wasn't. He was tired and sulky and complaining and having tantrums and really tired and tired some more. He had nothing prepared when he went to meetings. So he said to kill Ianto. He sent the other writers off to write their scripts without having any ideas for his bits. He didn't know how to end the series. He was months behind. The whole thing got borked repeatedly, he says his fault, for not having the script in, and the knock on effects of that. There was going to be Mickey and Martha, but without a script they can't book actors and they both got other jobs and the whole thing had to be rewritten without them. And still he didn't have an ending. They were filming the first three episodes and he still didn't have an ending. It's a right mess. And as a set of reasons it's just sad and stupid.
But I don't think it even explains the stuff that annoys me most. He just doesn't ask the same questions as me. Ever. He's not looking for the same things. He wouldn't consider those bits errors. He's out to make drama. He never talks about ideology, even in different words. It's never about what the show ends up saying, it's about making the audience cry. So for all he has scenes where the emotional brilliance really, really shines... he's never going to have the slightest interest in writing what I consider essential. And from my way of looking at things that makes it like he's never thinking at all.
:-(
There's also a page where he says about how he never sets things up or structures stories or any of that classic storytelling stuff. He reckons this is why Doctor Who works. I reckons he's very wrong, because Moffat really *does* do that stuff, weaves the clues in solid, and he keeps getting awards. So I'm really looking forward to the new Doctor Who, just as emotional but with actual structure and, maybe, possibly, plots you can't drive a truck through the holes of. That would be nice.
But fair praise to RTD: He has a bit about how Rose sets up everything they meant to do with Doctor Who, and they followed it all through for five years. And he's right. He made some brilliant characters and some brilliant moments. The bits he can write, he can really really write.
I just still can't imagine a conversation with him that wouldn't turn into a stinking great argument.
One I know he'd immediately write off, because fans, apparently, don't have proper critical faculties. And we're hysterical women.
And I'm just going to stop devoting brain space to him now, because he's gone, gone, gone.
Today I bought a TARDIS clock! Which is the new TARDIS! It has the little badge on the door and all! And the windows look like TT. It's very cool.
... the Doctor Who Adventures magazine probably thinks I bought a magazine with a free clock, but I bought a clock with a free magazine. And posters. Including one of Amy I was everso tempted to put up somewhere.
*sigh*
... *considers* ...
*happysigh*
Has show back! Has happy squee!
:-)
I bought it when it was new. For roughly the same reasons I have every sonic screwdriver variant I'm aware of, but without the squee. Sonic screwdrivers make me happy. RTD does not. But he wrote so many good bits even if they were wrapped up in the other stuff, and he brought back Doctor Who, and I buy books by writers about writing in the vague hopes they'll add up to magic and I'll be able to write. Er, hopefully not quite like RTD. But. Anyway. I bought the book. When it was new. Ages ago. And then I didn't read it.
The thing is, Children of Earth killed my squee, and replaced it with a head full of screaming. I went to the Hub 3 and had trouble having fun. Usually when I meet actors, even the ones that play bad guys, it is still of the happy, because they're from our show OMG happy. And everyone else has the same happy. And it is gleeful. But with actors from Children of Earth? It is not happy. I found myself really wanting to punch them, not that I ever ever would, I understand the whole actor-character distinction and that its writers who do the bad stuff, but the happy about the show that I usually carry around to meet people with, it was replaced with this rage. So this weekend I will not be going to Hub 4, because the happy fell out, even for the stuff I liked before. No fun. Maybe be fixed later, but right now I haven't watched Torchwood since the last con, and I only read small amounts of fanfic by authors I know. And all this was part of why I bought RTD's book, to know why it got writ that way, but it was also why I didn't read it.
So then on Saturday there is New Doctor Who. And my squee is back :-) I have happy! There is new work! New world! All good!
And now I've got that to hold on to I can look back at the other bits with a different mind. So I finished the RTD book in one day.
Wondering 'what was he thinking'? Answer: he wasn't. He was tired and sulky and complaining and having tantrums and really tired and tired some more. He had nothing prepared when he went to meetings. So he said to kill Ianto. He sent the other writers off to write their scripts without having any ideas for his bits. He didn't know how to end the series. He was months behind. The whole thing got borked repeatedly, he says his fault, for not having the script in, and the knock on effects of that. There was going to be Mickey and Martha, but without a script they can't book actors and they both got other jobs and the whole thing had to be rewritten without them. And still he didn't have an ending. They were filming the first three episodes and he still didn't have an ending. It's a right mess. And as a set of reasons it's just sad and stupid.
But I don't think it even explains the stuff that annoys me most. He just doesn't ask the same questions as me. Ever. He's not looking for the same things. He wouldn't consider those bits errors. He's out to make drama. He never talks about ideology, even in different words. It's never about what the show ends up saying, it's about making the audience cry. So for all he has scenes where the emotional brilliance really, really shines... he's never going to have the slightest interest in writing what I consider essential. And from my way of looking at things that makes it like he's never thinking at all.
:-(
There's also a page where he says about how he never sets things up or structures stories or any of that classic storytelling stuff. He reckons this is why Doctor Who works. I reckons he's very wrong, because Moffat really *does* do that stuff, weaves the clues in solid, and he keeps getting awards. So I'm really looking forward to the new Doctor Who, just as emotional but with actual structure and, maybe, possibly, plots you can't drive a truck through the holes of. That would be nice.
But fair praise to RTD: He has a bit about how Rose sets up everything they meant to do with Doctor Who, and they followed it all through for five years. And he's right. He made some brilliant characters and some brilliant moments. The bits he can write, he can really really write.
I just still can't imagine a conversation with him that wouldn't turn into a stinking great argument.
One I know he'd immediately write off, because fans, apparently, don't have proper critical faculties. And we're hysterical women.
And I'm just going to stop devoting brain space to him now, because he's gone, gone, gone.
Today I bought a TARDIS clock! Which is the new TARDIS! It has the little badge on the door and all! And the windows look like TT. It's very cool.
... the Doctor Who Adventures magazine probably thinks I bought a magazine with a free clock, but I bought a clock with a free magazine. And posters. Including one of Amy I was everso tempted to put up somewhere.
*sigh*
... *considers* ...
*happysigh*
Has show back! Has happy squee!
:-)