first draft: Nameless
Nov. 29th, 2009 09:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dbskylerIt's been ages since I've done a first draft post, and since I am feeling in the mood to be reflective, I've decided it's time to post the first draft of Nameless.
ETA: This is a retrospective look at the writing process for an already finished fic. The final version of the fic can be accessed through the hyperlink above; what's below is the first draft for that fic, and some general musings about how the writing went.
"Nameless" is the most unique story I've ever written, different from anything else I've ever tried to do (although I don't know whether that's a good thing or a bad thing). It started off when I was thinking one day about just why the Doctor hides his name, and then when I came up with an explanation I liked, I decided to write a fic about it. However, I didn't want to just tell the story; I wanted to tell it in a particular way, conveying not just a sequence of events whereby the Doctor loses his name, but also a feeling of how important names are in the grand scheme of things, to ourselves and to the universe at large. I borrowed heavily from ideas in "The Shakespeare Code" and added in a pinch of "Logopolis," then sat down with a periodic table of the elements and pieced the thing together. If you check, you will find that while I did skip some elements and some companions, I went in strict periodic table order with the exception of Rose, whom I felt just had to go with gold. This caused some weirdnesses, especially near the beginning (in particular, Jo and Harry only have one element associated with them when I would have rather they'd had two), and looking back at it now I think it may have been a mistake to hold myself to periodic table order -- I should have given myself more freedom to pick and choose among the elements and let the number of them per companion be completely dictated by the overall rhythm of the piece. But for good or ill I went (mostly) in order, and I'm not going to go back and revise it now!
In the first draft, I started off by telling the story in a fairly normal way, but interspersing it with the names of companions / the names of elements and also with paragraphs meant to hopefully get at the importance of names. But, I ran out of things to say for the "interspersed" paragraphs, and the more time I spent writing out the events of the plot, the more I started to think that the plot wasn't all that interesting in and of itself (just an explanation of why he hides his name, really), and I realized that I wanted to concentrate more on the meaning behind this choice of the Doctor's to become nameless. So, I cut the plot down to its bare bones and changed the "interspersions" to a simple pairing up of companion names with element names (except for the very end), and tried to let that juxtaposition speak for itself. Which seems to have worked, at least for some readers, although I always wonder how many people read the story and go "wtf?"
Anyway, here's the first draft, as far as I got before I gave up on going in this direction:
------------------------------------
Hydrogen. Helium. Barbara Wright. Ian Chesterton.
3.14159 has meaning. So does this sentence. The science of words is like the science of numbers. Put the right symbols in the right order in the right place and time, and the structure of the universe changes. Block transfer computation. The Magna Carta was a chemical reaction that spread. The Gettysburg Address, an atom bomb. The fundamental laws of space and time can be described by numbers or by words, and both are equally true. At the quantum level the distinction is irrelevant.
* * *
She was dying, with no possibility of regeneration. The doctors couldn't save her; no one could. She was unconscious, unaware of him, and he hoped that meant she was unaware of pain as well. She had only a few hours left when they left him alone with her so he could tell her goodbye. He took her hand and looked at her, and knew he could never tell her goodbye.
The doctors couldn't save her, but he could.
* * *
Lithium, beryllium, boron. Jamie McCrimmon.
The symbols don't matter; all that matters is what is described underneath. Go ahead and use base 10 if that's what you're comfortable with. It's just a language, like Chinese. Languages can be translated.
* * *
He'd always been a rebel, but now he would become a renegade. An exile, a fugitive. He didn't care. He looked outside the room and saw only Susan, curled up in a ball on the chair, her eyes red from crying. She looked up when she saw him standing there, then with a sob she ran to him, wrapping her arms around him tightly. He tried his best to comfort her, then told her what he wanted her to do. Her eyes widened in surprise, but she nodded in obedience and with a quick smile of hope, ran off. He stared after her, wondering if he was doing the right thing by taking her with him. Susan was just a child; she couldn't know the consequences of what they were about to do. She couldn't conceive of a life away from Gallifrey. But she trusted him. And he couldn't leave her here, alone. Very shortly he would be all that she'd have left.
* * *
Carbon, nitrogen. Brigadier Alastair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart.
* * *
He went back to the room and looked down at the figure lying on the bed. He remembered when she had been a child, much younger than Susan, and had come to him frightened over a tale of the Toclafane. Her teachers had laughed, mocking her, but when she came to him he took her in his arms and rocked her gently, promising her that she would always be safe. That he would always take care of her.
Determined now, he gathered her up in his arms and stole her away, gliding through the corridors of the citadel until he reached the area where the time capsules undergoing repair were stored. He stopped and closed his eyes, mentally reaching out until he felt an answering echo of curiosity, then welcome. He opened his eyes, smiling at the TARDIS. The key had been left in the lock and he opened the door, not forgetting a brief caress of thanks as he hurried inside. He lay his dying daughter down on the floor of the console room. Shrugging off his coat, he put it beneath her head for a pillow. She didn't know the difference, but he did.
* * *
When Susan arrived with her things and his, he closed the door and set the controls for dematerialization. The alarm sounded immediately, as he'd known it would. Quickly he adjusted coordinates, evading the transduction barrier they hastily tried to raise and sending the TARDIS and themselves hurtling backwards through time. He had to get them to a place of safety, and he had to do it quickly because they would soon be followed. He set course for the Medusa Cascade.
1,3,5,7,11; a, e., i, o, u. And sometimes y.
ETA: This is a retrospective look at the writing process for an already finished fic. The final version of the fic can be accessed through the hyperlink above; what's below is the first draft for that fic, and some general musings about how the writing went.
"Nameless" is the most unique story I've ever written, different from anything else I've ever tried to do (although I don't know whether that's a good thing or a bad thing). It started off when I was thinking one day about just why the Doctor hides his name, and then when I came up with an explanation I liked, I decided to write a fic about it. However, I didn't want to just tell the story; I wanted to tell it in a particular way, conveying not just a sequence of events whereby the Doctor loses his name, but also a feeling of how important names are in the grand scheme of things, to ourselves and to the universe at large. I borrowed heavily from ideas in "The Shakespeare Code" and added in a pinch of "Logopolis," then sat down with a periodic table of the elements and pieced the thing together. If you check, you will find that while I did skip some elements and some companions, I went in strict periodic table order with the exception of Rose, whom I felt just had to go with gold. This caused some weirdnesses, especially near the beginning (in particular, Jo and Harry only have one element associated with them when I would have rather they'd had two), and looking back at it now I think it may have been a mistake to hold myself to periodic table order -- I should have given myself more freedom to pick and choose among the elements and let the number of them per companion be completely dictated by the overall rhythm of the piece. But for good or ill I went (mostly) in order, and I'm not going to go back and revise it now!
In the first draft, I started off by telling the story in a fairly normal way, but interspersing it with the names of companions / the names of elements and also with paragraphs meant to hopefully get at the importance of names. But, I ran out of things to say for the "interspersed" paragraphs, and the more time I spent writing out the events of the plot, the more I started to think that the plot wasn't all that interesting in and of itself (just an explanation of why he hides his name, really), and I realized that I wanted to concentrate more on the meaning behind this choice of the Doctor's to become nameless. So, I cut the plot down to its bare bones and changed the "interspersions" to a simple pairing up of companion names with element names (except for the very end), and tried to let that juxtaposition speak for itself. Which seems to have worked, at least for some readers, although I always wonder how many people read the story and go "wtf?"
Anyway, here's the first draft, as far as I got before I gave up on going in this direction:
------------------------------------
Hydrogen. Helium. Barbara Wright. Ian Chesterton.
3.14159 has meaning. So does this sentence. The science of words is like the science of numbers. Put the right symbols in the right order in the right place and time, and the structure of the universe changes. Block transfer computation. The Magna Carta was a chemical reaction that spread. The Gettysburg Address, an atom bomb. The fundamental laws of space and time can be described by numbers or by words, and both are equally true. At the quantum level the distinction is irrelevant.
* * *
She was dying, with no possibility of regeneration. The doctors couldn't save her; no one could. She was unconscious, unaware of him, and he hoped that meant she was unaware of pain as well. She had only a few hours left when they left him alone with her so he could tell her goodbye. He took her hand and looked at her, and knew he could never tell her goodbye.
The doctors couldn't save her, but he could.
* * *
Lithium, beryllium, boron. Jamie McCrimmon.
The symbols don't matter; all that matters is what is described underneath. Go ahead and use base 10 if that's what you're comfortable with. It's just a language, like Chinese. Languages can be translated.
* * *
He'd always been a rebel, but now he would become a renegade. An exile, a fugitive. He didn't care. He looked outside the room and saw only Susan, curled up in a ball on the chair, her eyes red from crying. She looked up when she saw him standing there, then with a sob she ran to him, wrapping her arms around him tightly. He tried his best to comfort her, then told her what he wanted her to do. Her eyes widened in surprise, but she nodded in obedience and with a quick smile of hope, ran off. He stared after her, wondering if he was doing the right thing by taking her with him. Susan was just a child; she couldn't know the consequences of what they were about to do. She couldn't conceive of a life away from Gallifrey. But she trusted him. And he couldn't leave her here, alone. Very shortly he would be all that she'd have left.
* * *
Carbon, nitrogen. Brigadier Alastair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart.
* * *
He went back to the room and looked down at the figure lying on the bed. He remembered when she had been a child, much younger than Susan, and had come to him frightened over a tale of the Toclafane. Her teachers had laughed, mocking her, but when she came to him he took her in his arms and rocked her gently, promising her that she would always be safe. That he would always take care of her.
Determined now, he gathered her up in his arms and stole her away, gliding through the corridors of the citadel until he reached the area where the time capsules undergoing repair were stored. He stopped and closed his eyes, mentally reaching out until he felt an answering echo of curiosity, then welcome. He opened his eyes, smiling at the TARDIS. The key had been left in the lock and he opened the door, not forgetting a brief caress of thanks as he hurried inside. He lay his dying daughter down on the floor of the console room. Shrugging off his coat, he put it beneath her head for a pillow. She didn't know the difference, but he did.
* * *
When Susan arrived with her things and his, he closed the door and set the controls for dematerialization. The alarm sounded immediately, as he'd known it would. Quickly he adjusted coordinates, evading the transduction barrier they hastily tried to raise and sending the TARDIS and themselves hurtling backwards through time. He had to get them to a place of safety, and he had to do it quickly because they would soon be followed. He set course for the Medusa Cascade.
1,3,5,7,11; a, e., i, o, u. And sometimes y.