Tuesday, February 23, 2010

In the Candy Shoppe


I had meant to write this post when I became distracted by Avatar and perceived disconnects. The jump, as it were, was bad writing. I was prepared to compare the script writers for Doctor Who with Anne Rice, who is famous for her disdain of editors and their publishing industry, as discussed here. That site led me to the pseudo-contests mocking individuals Storm and I very much admire and - dare I say - hero worship, such as the 1998 "Bad Writing" award winner and runner up, Judith Butler and Homi Bhaba, and I couldn't resist commenting.

If the drunken revelation I underwent in Avatar regarded the disconnect between various parts of my life, the end of David Tennant's run as the eponymous Doctor, The End of Time,* suffered from the exact opposite - from too many allusions to Tennant's, Davies's, and others' exit too strongly affecting the plot.

When I go book shopping, I go around and around the store, and pick up all the items that catch my attention. When I want to go, I find a quiet spot with the ten to fifteen titles in hand, choose a maximum of three, and put the rest back. I thus know I really want the books I've chosen; I economize; I am happy.

Someone needed to sit Russell T. Davies down and say: "You need to look through the fifteen plots you are doing poorly in this rough draft, choose three, and then edit and revise them."

-Drunk
* 2009, BBC One. Directed by Euros Lyn. Written by Russell T. Davies.