From TARDIS Index File, the free Doctor Who reference.

Doctor Who: The Writer's Tale
Author:	Russell T Davies and Benjamin Cook
Publisher:	BBC Books
Publication:	25 September 2008 (first edition) 14 January 2010 (second edition)
Format:	Hardcover, 512 pages (first edition) Approx 800 pages (second edition)
ISBN:	ISBN 978-1-846-07571-1 (first edition)
Previous Release:
Following Release:

Doctor Who: The Writer's Tale is a 2008 book collecting e-mail correspondence between Russell T Davies, executive producer and head writer on the revived Doctor Who, and Benjamin Cook, a journalist and writer for Doctor Who Magazine. The e-mails date between February 2007 and April 2008 and cover the period of broadcast of Series 3, and preparation and production of Series 4, linking in with Davies' decision to move on from Doctor Who after the 2009 Specials. Interspersed are photos, illustrations, and script excerpts.

Although widely referred to simply as The Writer's Tale, the official title of the book incorporates Doctor Who.

The book includes a foreword by Phillip Pullman, writer of the His Dark Materials trilogy. Introductions by both Davies and Cook outline the concept of the book, and also reference the success of the Journey's End season finale, which occurred after the final e-mail exchanges in the book.

A second edition, adding more than 300 pages of new material covering the production of the 2009 Specials, was published in paperback on 14th January 2010.[1] For reasons unknown, North American release of the book has been delayed twice, first to 21 January, and as of 26 January the scheduled release date (per amazon.ca) is 24 March 2010.

Publisher's Summary

"It's such a hard job. Writers never talk about how hard it is, out of the fear of being pretentious. 'Try being a nurse or a teacher,' people say. No - try being a writer! Try sitting with every doubt and fear about yourself and everyone, all on your own, with no ending or help or conclusion... At the same time, writing can be the most wonderful job in the world. When I'm happy with a script, I'm happier than you can ever imagine. Delicious! What I mean is, writing is never easy."

Main Focus

A behind-the-scenes look into the production of Doctor Who in 2007 and 2008, told through correspondence between the show's executive producer and a journalist.

Notable Features

• Many excerpts from Davies' scripts for Series 4, including scenes not broadcast and early concepts.
• Details of characters and plots never realized on screen, including aborted plans for a new companion in Series 4, and a season outline featuring storylines not used.
• A number of original illustrations by Davies

Notes

• The book originally started out as an idea by Cook to write a series of articles for Doctor Who Magazine detailing the process between the creation of several episodes of the new series. As the amount of correspondence grew, this changed into the idea of creating a book, instead.
• At 512 pages (including index), this is the single longest officially licensed Doctor Who-related book published to date (fiction or non-fiction). It is not yet known whether the announced second edition, slated to add 300 pages of new material, will result in an 800-plus-page release (making it possibly the longest non-fiction book ever published about a single television series), or if previously released content will be replaced.

Associated Images

2010 Second edition

Online scripts

In conjunction with the release of both the first and second editions of the book, Davies posted his original scripts for all the episodes he wrote from DW: Voyage of the Damned through to DW: The End of Time to the book's official website.

See Also

• A Day with a TV Producer
• Doctor Who: The Making of a Television Series
• Doctor Who: The Inside Story

External Links

• Official book website