The Hound of Belenus

I had always wanted to write for Big Finish. My first work was in audio, and at the time the one part of my writing I was confident about was my ability to write dialogue. When Heritage came out, I thought I had my chance and emailed then producer Gary Russell to ask if there was anything I could pitch for. It led to me writing for their Short Trips range a couple of times, but Gary moved on and I still hadn’t been offered the chance to write for their actual audio ranges. It was a disappointment, but I figured I should concentrate of getting a follow-up BBC Book written if I was going to be the next Paul Cornell, so I focussed on that instead.

I’d pretty much conclusively given up on both dreams by the time I was invited to write what eventually became The Many Hands, but talking with BBC Audio editor Michael Stevens about the audio book of that story gave me the idea I might try again. I cold emailed one of the Big Finish producers and asked again if they had anything I might pitch for: he had nothing open at the time but said he would bear me in mind, and this turned out to be true - he offered me the chance to write The Piltdown Men as a subscriber only bonus on one of their releases, and suggested me to Michael Stevens for the relaunched Short Trips range. But after that, things went quiet again, so instead of letting the opportunity get away from me I got back in touch. In August 2013, I got the reply that he was just in the process of picking writers for a new Companion Chronicles boxset and would I like to pitch some ideas?

Scheduling of directors and actors delayed things, but the producer eventually asked for stories featuring Susan as the main narrator. I came up with a few ideas - a Doctor Who version of Brighton Rock, or Susan training with the Mercury Thirteen - that were knocked back because they didn’t feel era appropriate, something which with the benefit of hindsight I can completely agree with. Eventually, we agreed on a more appropriate idea: the TARDIS crew arriving in the court of Cunobelinus (Shakespeare’s Cymbeline) just as the Romans arrive to choose his replacement. I had to work this up into a synopsis for a two-part story with a cliffhanger in the middle, which was submitted in May 2014 and returned with some notes a couple of months later: the story lacked a big centrepiece, and had too many events that Susan - the narrator - wasn’t present for. 

After more reworking, an updated pitch document was sent to the BBC and approved in September 2014 with a couple of additional notes. I was asked to start working on the script.

I was told that the script would need to be 10,000 words and asked for my details for the contract, along with a date by which I could get a first draft to him. I suggested the end of October, which was agreed, and since I’d suggested a deadline that had me working at the top end of my pace, I set to work on the script immediately. I’d spent some time reading up on British Roman history and finding out who the major players in the story needed to be during the down time between submissions and feedback, so there wasn’t anything holding me up, More importantly, I knew how I wanted the story to work … particularly in one regard.

Obviously before I tried writing one, I’d listened to a few Companion Chronicles and I already knew I wanted my play to be much more of a theatrical two-hander; I knew that the house style was for scripts somewhere between a prose reading and a full cast audio, using an additional actor who could provide a bit of a rest for the narrator and the audience. But I wanted my script to be a conversation between Susan and Caratacus, the leader of the Catuvellauni tribe who had resisted the Romans around Colchester before being taken to Rome to have the Emperor decide his fate: I had the hook that Susan was charged with this decision, giving her the opportunity to revenge some wrong he did through the course of the story.

This was a risk, I knew: going against the house style can annoy the people you are writing for, but when it works it makes a story stand out and can make it much more exciting for all involved. I knew I was risking having the script rejected or getting asked for major rewrites, but I had decided that I was happy with that. If rewrites were needed to change the style, then so be it, but I would show them what I thought was best first: after all, I had no contract and there was no recording date set so the only time I was wasting was my own.

I finished the script and sent it off to the producer, who passed it straight on to the box-set’s script editor for their comments. These came back in November 2014: they really liked the script and, as luck would have it, were familiar with Colchester and so could correct a lot of the geographical errors I’d made by getting all my Roman history from books. I went through another draft, correcting the errors, reworking some bits that didn’t quite work, and making my direction for the actors clearer - something which I’d avoided for fear of irritating anyone by telling them how to do their job. 

The script editor received the second draft with no more notes, and passed it back to the producer for his final approval. I had got away with it: no complaints at all about the structure I’d chosen for the script.

Then at the start of December, I got the producer’s notes. Or more accurately his note.

He felt that the story didn’t work, primarily because - by choosing the focus on the two characters and their conversation - the other characters, the story and the geography wasn’t coming through how he expected. This is of course entirely fair: I was working for Big Finish and if the work wasn’t to their liking they was under no obligation to take it. It is also undeniable that in making the two main characters the focus, they were the ones who came across most strongly. I was happy with that, but the producer wasn’t. That was the risk I had decided to take right at the start, and here it was now: the producer asked for a page one rewrite of the script, the worst response a writer can get to a submission. He wanted the script rewriting from scratch to bring it more stylistically in line with the work of some of the other writers working on the boxset.

Again, I want to make clear the producer was completely right to make this request. He was not obliged to put out any work he did not think met Big Finish’s standards. But the timing of the response - after it had already been reviewed and been rewritten to the notes I was given - bothered me, I have to admit. I had decided I would do a page-one rewrite if the script editor said it was necessary, but they hadn’t and I’d spent time redrafting a script that apparently was unusable in its current form. I had a decision. If I wanted to work with Big Finish again, it was clear I was going to have to rework the script.

Which was when I realised that I didn’t.

The contract we’d discussed hadn’t arrived, and the only thing tying me to the rewrite was the possibility of future work. Nothing tied Big Finish to using my script in their boxset, and I didn’t believe I would be causing anyone any major headaches if I pulled out. But the producer’s note wasn’t exactly explicit, and if I rewrote it would be left to me to decide exactly what I needed to change to get it working, possibly with another round of changes with the script editor before I even knew if it would be accepted this time or if I had just wasted more time. Having gone through the process of trying to write Kaldor City and failing to understand just what a producer was looking for, I didn’t want to go through that again with Big Finish.

So I stepped away.

It wasn’t an easy decision, but once it was made it was made: I didn’t want to work with Big Finish. To avoid the risk of a protracted discussion about just how much or how little I was willing to change it, I sent Big Finish a polite email apologising that I’d mistakenly assumed I’d only be needed to do minor redrafts of the scripts rather than a full page-one rewrite and had foolishly taken on a large piece of other work that wouldn’t allow me to continue. I received a brief reply wishing me well with the other project.

I never worked for Big Finish again.

I’d chosen to be a little more selfish about my writing, to risk firmly closing doors and burning bridges without knowing where else I would turn. In an ideal world, I wouldn’t have stepped away midway through a job, but having got there and felt uneasy about the way things were going, I trusted my gut and backed away. That wasn’t something I would have done even a few years before: that version of me would have tried to keep the producer happy, rewrote the script in a way that didn’t feel right and probably wouldn’t have been invited back in any case.

I’m not saying this is definitely the way you should behave if you find yourself in a similar situation. That’s a decision you’ll have to make for yourself if and when the time comes. But one of the things that’s become clear to me over all my years writing is that I’m not one of the people that will ever be able to earn their living solely from this job: even if I was good enough, I don’t have the temperament to take the risk. That means I’ll most likely always be a minor figure in the world of literature. But that brings with it some privilege too: if I don’t have to earn a living, I can afford to be picky. If writing isn’t going to be fun, there’s nothing stopping me from walking away. That’s a power you have to be careful with - walk away every time and you will never grow as a writer, even if you find someone willing to risk working with you - but it is a power you might find you need to use, sometimes.