Kursaal |
Novel first published in January 1998 by BBC Worldwide, ISBN: 0-563-40578-3
When
I heard that the BBC were planning to relaunch the original novels, I submitted
an unsolicited proposal. The editor liked it enough to commission it, but
requested that I incorporate the Doctor’s new travelling companion, Samantha
Jones.
I wrote my original proposal
for an
85,000-word novel in August 1996. It doesn’t feature Sam Jones at all - I had
to incorporate her subsequently. You can work out for yourself how I managed
this.
Compare
the proposal to the scenes breakdown that I used when
writing the novel. It’s a combination of physical, scenic and plot detail, with
sections of dialogue and gags, plus suggestions for chapter endings. I used it
as a guideline when writing, and developed ideas which are not in the outline
as I did the writing and rewriting.
You
can work out how the outline changed during the writing of the final book. For
example, I hacked several thousand words off the opening chapter to kick-start
the novel, and introduced a variety of subsidiary characters to make some of
the transitions more interesting.
An
example of how the book may have changed more substantially is in the revisions article.
In-joke:
I chose “Kursaal” as a title from a list of words meaning “place of leisure”. I
subsequently discovered that it is also the name of several casinos in Europe,
as well as a pier attraction in Southend-on Sea; the “Kursaal Flyer” is a train
that runs to the Southend Kursaal, and this is where the one-hit wonder band
got their name; so, naturally, I name-check them in the novel.
You can read Chapter 3 of the novel online, and
also see my ideas for the Jax symbol. And there’s a more
detailed history of how the book was
commissioned, written, and published.
The
book was the seventh of the BBC’s Eighth Doctor novels, and there were lots of reviews, which I have summarised. There’s also a short interview from Doctor Who Magazine.
Last revised: 12 December 2003