If your writing makes cringe one year on, you're doing something right. My entry for last years Paul Spragg short story contest makes me want to do just that. I thought I'd share what I did, mostly because I did work hard on it and it would physically pain me to write the full story now.
Take a look. It might help you format your work and possibly get some ideas of what to do and what to avoid like the plague.
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Doctor Who- Short Trips
Mostly Haunted
Cast
The Fifth Doctor
Nyssa
Leanne; world-weary storyteller, a Brit out of place.
Ben; Leanne’s assistant and all-round cheeky chappy.
Synopsis
Paris, the modern day- more or less. Leanne Dubois sits on the steps of The Old Blacksmith’s Inn and wonders how she came to this, telling ghost stories she doesn’t even believe, in the cellar of a pub hundreds of miles from home. Leanne is tired and ready to pack it all in… only there’s one detail about her life that still haunts her: the howling, whistling noise coming from the walls of the pub’s cellar.
As they sit, Leanne and her assistant, Ben, spot the TARDIS- immediately come to the conclusion that a wayward tourist has been fly-tipping and report it to the authorities. Some time later, The Doctor and Nyssa return to the sight of disgruntled council workers attempting to remove the TARDIS, realising that they will have to stay until the men give up and go home before moving the ship again.
By way of an apology, The Doctor offers to buy the furious Leanne an ice cream and asks her if she can show Nyssa around the city. As they walk, he is baffled upon hearing Leanne’s story of how she came to Paris and her reports of noises in the cellar.
What is the howling coming from the walls and how come no one else can hear it?
Finding nothing out of the ordinary in the cellar, The Doctor and Nyssa decide to come along to the evening’s gathering, an event Leanne says the local mystics are calling ‘the most haunted night of the year’. A century to the day when a brilliant but dissatisfied Blacksmith went missing from the Inn’s guest room.
Under the dark Paris streets, Leanne takes centre stage. It’s a ghost story with predictable twists and turns but still reassuringly scary. A dark cellar, lights dimmed and a very real chill in the air. In the centre of the room, a group of enraptured tourists shiver at the tale of a wandering spectre who haunts lost souls and makes them disappear in the dead of night.
Towards the end of Leanne’s story, it becomes clear that something is wrong. The howling has returned, the glow of the candles now a blinding white. In a flash of light, Leanne disappears. Finding no trace of her, The Doctor and Nyssa go back to the TARDIS in the hope they can identify the source of the teleport.
Some hours later with the scan still running, The Doctor receives a letter sent from The Old Blacksmith’s Inn in 1820. Attached is a picture of Leanne and beside her, Ben. Smiling, safe, no longer tired. Behind them is the missing Blacksmith from years ago fixing what looks like a standard-issue Vortex Manipulator.
As the scan finishes, the sound of a single Blacksmith’s hammer rings out across the console room. The TARDIS takes off. Another day, another adventure yet to come. As the ship dematerialises, the hammering fades. The sound distorts and twists into the very same howling Leanne had heard from the cellar. As real and clear as the TARDIS engines themselves…
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Wake up. Get dressed. Lie through your teeth. Pay rent.
Not the sort of life you’d write about. Big dreams as a kid, the usual; Astronaut, Pirate, Actress… It had all fizzled out soon enough. Leanne Dubois had moved from one country to another only to settle down in the dregs of Paris. In the worst kept Inn TripAdvisor had ever reviewed.
There wasn’t a lot she was proud of. Telling ghost stories for a living in a dark, damp cellar really took the edge off of motivational mantras. ‘Believe in yourself’ never had the same charm when you couldn’t even believe what came out of your own mouth.
Leanne Dubois knew everything. When to open, when to shut, how to fix the leak in the ceiling above the master bedroom… But the noise in the cellar was different. The noise wasn’t real, yet every night, sure as anything, she sat by the cellar walls and listened.
Life at The Old Blacksmith’s Inn was terrifying, mysterious and most of all expensive. At least she had Ben.
“Cheer up. Might never happen.” Her assistant called from over her shoulder, his voice hoarse from shouting over the racket of the tourists that streamed by.
“Already has happened.” Leanne replied and rolled a few spare Euros together between her fingers, longing a little belatedly for the feeling of a twenty-pound note instead.
Ben settled next to her on the stone steps leading up to the Inn’s front door and the two of them paused for a second to take in the furnace-hot Paris air. From a vendor somewhere along the street, a tinny store radio was blaring out a bad cover of ‘Thriller’. “Might take you up on that Desert Island thing.” Leanne pondered, sensing Ben’s excitement from the way his leg started to bounce against the step. “I said might. Don’t get yourself in a tizz.”
Leanne looked out at the street. Instead of the usual cortège of Parisians, there was a bustling crowd of sightseers pushing their way down to the City Centre. In the small patch of sky up ahead, she could see the sun at midday, the buildings below stacked like stalagmites against the wide, blue sky.
“Everything’s ready for tonight, I take it?” Leanne asked. Ben nodded and smiled in the direction of the cellar door.
“Air-con on max. Speakers playing something suitably creepy. What more could you want?” Some peace and quiet, she didn’t add. A bicycle passed the steps, the sun reflecting off its wheel, its brightness forcing the two of them to turn away. “Oh, you have got to be kidding me.”
Ben pointed. Leanne followed the direction of his finger.
By the side of the Inn loomed a tall rectangle covered in such a striking blue that Leanne had to squint to make out the writing:
‘Police Box’.
The fly-tippers had visited again, it seemed. The box must have belonged to a tourist, Leanne thought. An eccentric collector tired of stamps, too wealthy for it all, now wanting a side project in lieu of any suitable love interest.
Ben pulled a face beside her. “I’m not the brightest but has somebody dumped a Portaloo on our pub?”
Yes, thought Leanne. Another perfect day.
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