I knew it. I knew he couldn't leave her like that. I mean, look at her! She's fab!
I'm still recovering from the Doctor's character development of Sunday night (I'm sorry, it's breathless-fangirl time. If you don't know what I'm talking about it's probably best to move along... but I should add, I'm not giving away any spoilers about Sunday night's episode). My heart was thumping, my kids were going, 'Mum, what just happened?' while I snapped unmotherly things at them about keeping QUIET.
It was a stunner of an episode. It wasn't a weepie, though. It wasn't like the Doctor being separated from Rose forever (BAWL!) in the tradition of Will and Lyra. It wasn't like... Donna Noble.
I would say *Spoiler Alert* at this point, but I think if you want to see Series 4, you'll already have seen it...
The 'death' of Donna Noble at the end of Series 4 was up there with the saddest things I've seen on TV. Oh, heck, it was one of the saddest things I've seen on film or in books or
anywhere. 'Worse than death,' says Russell T Davies in
The Writer's Tale. He cried when he was writing her fate. I've done that. But that was only when I
killed them.
How do you cope with doing what he did to Donna? Killing your darlings, that's one thing. That's nice and final. You can have a good session with the Kleenex and a second bottle of red, go on Facebook and blub (virtually) to your mates.
But taking from your darling everything you've put them through, every experience, every bit of character development, and restoring them to how they were? Like restoring your laptop to factory settings? I don't know how he did it. I mean, I admire him, because what a story! What a tragedy! (I howled, I did.) But I don't know how he could bring himself to do that to her. Oh, it must have hurt.
And then I saw the trailer for the Christmas denouement, right after Sunday's episode. And she's back (or seems to be). Oh joy! I knew he couldn't leave her like that, I just knew it. (Though I probably won't be so delighted when I see what he has in store.) (And if it's just a tease, I'll never forgive the trailer director.)
The funny thing is, Donna's story wasn't meant to happen
. The Writer's Tale begins with the chaos of what RTD calls the Maybe in his head - the place where he's planning a life, a history and a future for a new character called Penny. (He describes the Maybe so beautifully - all those ideas roiling away in a stew in the writer's head.) But when Catherine Tate's Runaway Bride makes an unplanned return as the Doctor's companion, it's Penny who dies.
She never really existed, of course - she never got that far -but you can sense RTD mourning her anyway. It was Penny who was supposed to have the stroppy attitude and the stargazing grandad, but she never got the chance. There's a sad little sketch in the book, done by RTD, that shows Penny walking past the Tardis, on into a Doctorless future, never knowing what she's missed.
Having written my way toward the end of the Seville novel (transformed, over time, into a young adult novel), I yesterday returned to the adult novel that has been stewing in its own juices these past many weeks. A brilliant friend had read it through. She had suggested that I take a particular look at how some chapters ended (had crispness been achieved, and suspense?) and at a few stretches that might, she seemed to say, benefit from a certain economizing.
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Good luck with your revisions!
Murder and mayhem...sounds like an exciting day. :)
I have to kill some of my darlings in one of my pb manuscripts too. But I will keep the first version because I LOVE it. It's too adult though.
It is hard to sweep away such beautiful words, but you'll have a much stronger book for it. Good luck...
Teagan Oliver
I am looking forward to reading this one, especially because of the Spain connection. I hope you didn't have to do too much killing... ;)