Fanfiction Spotlight #9) The Heart of the TARDIS
Fandom: Doctor Who, Torchwood
Rose: Yes, and I know what kids can be like. Right little terrors. I’ve got cousins. Kids can’t have it all their own way. That’s part of being a family.
The Doctor: What about trying to understand them?
Rose: Easy for you to say. You don’t have kids.
The Doctor: I was a Dad once.
Rose: What did you say?
–Fear Her
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I have gone on record on national television talking about how I wish they would bring back Susan Foreman/Campbell as a character on Doctor Who.
Now that we’ve had so many decades of the show, and we’ve met Jenny, I’ve always wanted to see how The Doctor was a parent. I wanted to see where their child came from (especially if they really are half-human as the 8th Doctor made-for-TV-film stated), and what it was about that child or what it was that happened to that child, that The Doctor doesn’t talk about them. Yet, the Doctor felt a close enough connection with their grandchild to feel they were worth taking with them when The Doctor stole a Tardis and ran away, but not fight to keep their granddaughter with them.
I mean, I understand why actors choose to leave the show, and that they need to find a way to make them do so in a way that works with the narrative, but it always sat wrong with me that The Doctor would just… leave their granddaughter in the 22nd Century on Earth and never ever go back ever again.
So when I finished my theatre degree and started teaching myself screenwriting, I learned about something called a Spec Script. Specs are basically fanfiction that you write in screenplay form so writers from either that show or a similar show can see that you know how to write for this show/characters, or for this genre of show.
For example, if you wanted to submit to be considered to be hired for the Writer’s Room to write for a snarky medical drama, you or your agent may submit a script for House, M.D.
Of course, I’d been told that these specs are very hard to write because you have to try to emulate the voice, style, and structure of a pre-existing show without the benefit of having access to their show bible, tone docs, or plot maps. But, uh, as fanfiction writers , we kinda already do that, don’t we?
So when I landed my first acting agent, and he told me that he also wanted to rep me for my screenwriting, I looked at what was being made in the Toronto/Canadian market at the time, and decided that my first spec ought to be a SF/F.
Of course, that spec probably would only be used to submit to the big SF/F shows in Canada at the time - Supernatural, Stargate: Atlantis, Sanctuary, Flash Forward, The Listener, etc. - so I had nothing to lose picking DW as a spec. And because I secretly wanted to actually and truly write for Doctor Who (not an entirely impossible prospect as I had made some connections at that time that may allow me to get a script in front of then-showrunner Russell T. Davies), I thought I should write a DW spec to start off.
With no constraints on a spec (it only has to fit into a specific season but not conform to everything that happens in it), I decided to set the story right before the Master episodes of the Martha Jones era of the series.
And yes.
Explore what happened to the Doctor’s granddaughter.
After I left that agent, that Spec was stale (you have to try to keep you specs relevant to what’s on TV at the time). I sat on it for nearly a decade, and then when I was looking to add more to my AO3 account, I realize I still I had it. I decided to share it as a fanfic. The problem with AO3 of course is that it’s very fiddly to format a screenplay correctly for the site, so instead of spending hours and hours and hours doing so, like I did with “To a Stranger”, I decided to just link people to the PDF, hosted on my website. It’s meant far, far fewer reads, though, so maybe one day I’ll go in and put the whole script up and spend the time to format it. One day.
