As is Katherine Wheeler tradition, I thought I would share my last year’s entry to the Paul Spragg Short Trips Competition. It’s something I enter every year as a writing exercise and to hold me accountable for writing something at a certain point at the same time every year.
I always analyse the entries for what I think is good about them, what (in hindsight) sucks and how I feel about them one year on— I’ll include this at the bottom of the page. If you’re entering this year, you can use this as a kind of past paper.
(developed into a Doctor Who Remnants story)
Eye of the Beholder
SYNOPSIS
Characters:
Mabel
The Believer
The Businessman
The Fourth Doctor
Multitude is dying. Sewage congeals on the highways, heat scorched trash eclipses the sun and the population stew in the waste of aeons. In a few solar rotations, the planet’s people will depart for the rest of the universe and leave their civilisation to die. Only the museum remains, preserving ancient remnants of the planet and the galaxy around it.
Mabel Sath-Lique visits the museum every fifth rotation with a packed lunch and a flask of tea and sits where she has sat for the past eight years: in front of an old chipped statue, damaged beyond repair and sitting ignored in a side room. Where no one else notices, Mabel sees beauty. She remembers life before the sun couldn’t shine, before big business ruined the planet. With the stone man, she has something to protect against the rubbish.
On the very last day of the museum’s existence, Mabel sits in the dark, cold room and watches visitors come and go. She’s pouring herself some tea when a strange new man stops in front of the statue. He calls himself “the Doctor” and he’s certainly not part of the tour group that’s milling around the entrance. Just as the two are getting acquainted, there’s a loud crash from above the museum. Rubble clatters through the roof from the poisoned sky above, blocking the door to the room and trapping Mabel, the Doctor and the rest of the tour inside the tiny room with the statue and only a tiny window the other side. They’re trapped with no way out whilst garbage rains from the sky.
In their last few hours alive, the people in the museum share their stories. Of what they love and of the most beautiful thing they have ever seen. Mabel shares her story. Of the statue, of the stone man and of how she would like both of them to see the sun one last time. A young woman who recalls when Multitude had a second sun, an old god who made the sky clean before waste ruined the world. A businessman scowls as his time is wasted. His next payday, the evacuation ship from Multitude, is waiting for new passengers.
The Doctor unites them all in one final small act of kindness. The people of the museum work together to clear the trash from the window to let the sun shine on the statue one last time. As the first beam of sun hits the eye of the statue, golden light fills the room and the statue transforms. In the place of the broken stone man is the old god, the second sun of Multitude who can now rise again. The businessman, helpless to stop it admits his own company had hidden it away in order to sell more seats on the transport off-planet,.
In the end, the second sun rises again, Mabel strolls out to a clear blue sky and the businessman is held to a promise by the Doctor to clear up the mess he had made. If it weren’t for seeing the value in the care of broken things, Multitude would have been left for dead. After all, beauty is in the eye of the beholder…
EXTRACT
The Museum of Multitude sits on the highest peak of the planet’s seven summits. Built above the capital as the perfect preservation for fine art and ancient artefacts from times before the world was born. The museum’s main hall stretches the length of a moon, its corridors sprawling for miles with treasures and rarities. Fine jewels of pirates long past, dust from the Dark Times long decayed, fragments of ancient azbantium… All to be thrown away as the people of the planet leave for the last time. For Multitude, the world, is dead. Junk lines the streets, sewage congeals on the ocean and heat scorched trash eclipses the scorching light of the sun. ‘In the name of business’, ‘in the name of progress’, it is only right.
Mabel Sath-Lique has come to visit the statue one last time with a packed lunch and a tea flask to sit where she has sat every week for the past eight years. The other exhibits have huge pillars and sparkling spotlights that huge crowds gather to see. The statue Mabel visits sits in shadow inside a small room. It looks like a man, he’s sitting– or kneeling, there’s some debate about that amongst the staff– slumped on the ground, his one remaining eye gaping at the ceiling above. The other has crumbled away, leaving only a mottled crater in its place.
The air around it is frozen cold. Where a small window used to be, there is a pile of junk stacked into a wall so high it blocks the light entirely. Visitors she talks to often forget there had once been a window there or indeed that the Museum of Multitude is made predominantly of glass, the piles of burnt junk cling to it like a second skin.
Mabel uncaps the flask and pours a tall drink. She’s just about to take a sip when the man speaks. “Excuse me, you wouldn’t happen to know the history of this statue? Only I just realised the tour guide’s an idiot.”
Mabel squints. In front of her is a tall stranger, a visiting professor maybe. He wears a quizzical frown and a long colourful scarf. “The Doctor. Nice to meet you,” the man announces, offering a handshake to the tea flask clutched under Mabel’s arm.
“No history, no date of origin. He’s marked to go in a few solar rotations.” Mabel points to the pile of rubbish in front of the window, swallowing back a lump in her throat. “Thrown out like the rest of the rubbish they don’t take care of.”
“Ah that is a shame. I came to sightsee, you see. Call it my day off.” The Doctor grins, all teeth. “He’s a fascinating chap isn’t he?”
She frowns. “Not many people seem to think so.”
“Well, what do you think?”
Mabel opens her mouth. Pauses. What she thinks? She thinks nobody has asked her that in many years. She thinks she wants to take the statue far away from the museum. She wants it to see the sun in a clear sky. Mabel Sath-Lique thinks, truly, that the stone statue of the crooked man is the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen.
“I think-“ says Mabel before the sound of her voice is swallowed by a loud bang.
—
THE VERDICT
Don’t ask me why, but I have always wanted to write a story about the caretaker of an alien museum. This wasn’t that story (it actually started life with lizards in), but it was supposed to be! Upon writing the above, I didn’t think it was bad per se, but I wasn’t convinced enough that it had any merit in the competition. I’ve since had it peer reviewed and much to my embarrassment it holds together like a piece of swiss cheese. Eek!
I don’t know if it comes across in the writing but I’m not the biggest fan of the Fourth Doctor. I was originally planning to use another Doctor in the story but was admittedly was taken off guard by the rule change limiting the incarnations that could be used. I thought it was a good way of focusing stories, much like how I’m a big fan of this year’s theme ‘The Time War’. However, from the range of Doctors now allowed, I wasn’t entirely which fit the new story. After consideration, the one I could make fit was 4. In my previous entries I had written 3 out of 5 of the allowed incarnations— Five, Six and Eight— and not wanting to repeat myself ended up being a bit of a thorn in my side.
So, what went wrong?
I think the plot is vague. I wanted to write a single room story, powered by tales of people, slotting together to make a worthwhile climax but… where is the proof that I can actually write that? I pull the second act twist out of my ass and it’s described in one sentence in the synopsis. I think in part this is me sacrificing story flow to make a good point— credit if you can spot the heavy handed metaphor I’m going for here. In part I think this is because I fall into the trap of sacrificing plot for concept (because the concept is so cool!), the plot is almost secondary and I needed to make something out of it. I think that’s the major reason why it doesn’t work.
If you’re talking about personal reasons, I’m not sure but I do know that writing about faith and deities isn’t something I’m good at. I like writing real people. I know that people have faiths, but also that people have their own very complex relationship with it that you don’t see 90% of. I don’t have faith in anything in the religious sense and from a personal perspective, the thing I know most about faith is fear and conformity. Writing faith in 45 minutes is something I don’t know how to do without making it a gimmick.
In Sacrosanct, my 2021 entry, I write about a man disguised as a priest tasked with taking the last rites of a war lord. It’s by far my favourite entry into this competition and it was actually adapted into a Remnants story. Somebody called it incredible and astonishing in the comments and I’m STILL not over it! Anyway, as the story progresses, you realise that the priest’s belief is a gimmick. The core of the story is both the evil of its antagonist but also the falsity of the priest’s faith. That’s the juicy bit. Looking at how I have incorporated a strange wayward God in this story makes me cringe a little because I, the writer, don’t care about him. I think, going forward, that’s not something I’ll do again.
What went well?
I always always endeavour to create a very different sort of protagonist in my entries because sometimes I think short stories everywhere can suffer from generic hero syndrome. Without enough time to flesh out a character, events sort of… happen to them and we find out what their responses to these events are through the course o the story. With Mabel (and Carina, and Gloaming and Leanne) you know who they are. They’re steeped in some history, however shallow, that makes you, the listener, know who you’re listening through. Mabel has a history on the page and in my head. You can tell who she is because your brain knows how to paint a picture of her.
I think the concept is great too! I love alien museums and I love the idea of quiet worship to something that is worthless to others. I think the isolated room idea could work but not for the context of this competition. The idea of each person introducing a section of the story by introducing something they find beautiful is quite compelling and I rather like it... but yes. Something to chalk up to experience.
I have an idea for this year, on theme and something that will hopefully play to my strengths a little more. It can be hard not to lose hope in ideas when they don’t lead anywhere, whether that’s because they’re left for too long or never materialise into anything. But potentially I’ve got a good re-user on my hands this time. One I’d quite like to pitch to somebody who can produce audios a lot better than me… maybe in time for Halloween. 👀
If you’re reading this, I’m curious to know what you think. For better or for worse! About this entry but also about my previous ones.
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