In the spirit of tradition and before this year’s mad scramble, I thought I would share my most recent entry to the Paul Spragg competition.
If you’re entering this year, you can use this as a kind of past paper. At the end, I’ll do a short analysis of what I think worked well and what I think could have been improved. I’ve always tried to make my entries fresh and have learnt a lot about what works and what doesn’t from hindsight.
(developed into a Doctor Who Remnants story)
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The Grief Carnival
Carina- Top of her pilot school class with a love for her culture and making people happy
Sofia- Carina’s mother, a forever optimist and very proud of her daughter, whatever her path
The Sixth Doctor
Mel
Synopsis
Carnival is a planet of endless celebration. Crops are in abundance, wealth is shared and every death is celebrated with a parade. On Carnival, the concept of grief is an idea no one has ever had. Every inhabitant recognises the beauty in celebrating a life as if they were the most important person in the world. On the eve of first contact, the planet’s inhabitants dance to the sky where Carnival’s youngest pilot will greet the very first alien species the planet has ever seen, a species whose concept of grief is soul-sucking and will spell the end of mourning– and life– as all of Carnival knows it.
Carina Sevales is sixteen years old, fresh out of pilot school and about to become the first ever Carnivalian to make contact with alien life. She has become a symbol of progress and science amongst her people and today she stands on stage as guest of honour in the midst of one of Carnival’s biggest funereal parades. As the party rages, she spots a pair of unfamiliar faces running towards the parade, a trail of shadows hot on their tail. The man has one of the most festive coats she has ever seen, the perfect winner of the day’s best costume award.
The Sixth Doctor and Mel are hurried onstage, crowned as the contest winners and given the day’s grand prize: a feast in the company of Carina Sevales. With their pursuers nowhere to be seen, they are soon whisked away to Carina’s family home where they sit down to eat with Carina and her mother Sofia.
Carina tells the Doctor and Mel about Carnival’s culture and how she’s been training to make first contact all her life... Only now that it’s so close, she knows deep down that she doesn’t want to go. When Carina expresses her doubts to the Doctor and Mel, a chill falls over the room and its inhabitants are struck with morbid dread. That’s when the Doctor notices the shadow, the very shape that had chased him and Mel into the parade in the first place.
The shadows attack, kidnapping Carina’s mother. They give Carina an ultimatum: make first contact with their planet and be introduced to the concept of grief so their race can feed off of Carnival’s mourning or forfeit her mother. As the Doctor, Mel and Carina search, Carina’s grief only grows bigger and as the night draws closer and closer, the shadows grow longer and longer, the colourful sky no longer filling the space where the darkness touches...
...but that’s exactly it. The shadows are starving on Carnival, they need grief to survive and right now, they’re scraping by on Carina’s from losing her mother. With Carina’s help, the Doctor and Mel organise a “celebration” of loss for Carina’s mother and invite the whole planet. With the whole planet teeming with joy, the shadows’ grief is drowned out and they retreat, lacking the strength to carry Carina’s mother with them.
In the final scene, Carina declines to make the flight of first contact. Instead, she elects to help bring her planet joy and look after her mother. Rather than the soul-sucking shadows, first contact on Carnival comes in the form of the Doctor and Mel themselves, two aliens who are more than happy to help. Carina accomplishes everything she wants, without sacrificing what makes her happy... Though, can you truly avoid grief forever?
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Extract
The funeral is an explosion of colour. The sky of the planet Carnival is awash with its light, a swirling painter’s palette of dusty pinks, ocean blues and electric purples. On the street, glittering dancers weave their rhythms through the crowd, pausing to whirl their spangled skirts at the casket in the middle of the street. The mayor is dead, yet the memory of the gentle old man dances in a hot frenzy through the hearts of the crowd. They will remain until the sun sets and the sky churns to a coal fire black, cheering his name and craning their heads to gaze into the starless sky.
It is the second best day in Carina Sevales’ life. Along with the weight of the expectations and the heat of the stage lights, there are gifts and feasts and party games. Today, she will celebrate in the mayor’s honour, recite a few words of remembrance and crown a Carnival winner. It should turn her stomach, like every day of her public life has done so far, but for once, the sensation of eyes trained on her is gratifying. She feels selfish for enjoying it, yet after so many years of grinding through pilot training, it has to be a reward.
Beside her, the stage thrums with feedback as the announcer fixes his headpiece. He motions to a technician offstage and promptly, the sound of the parade fades into static silence. The announcer clears his throat. “We are so proud to introduce our guest of honour and the judge of today’s costume competition, the very first to make first contact, Miss Carina Sevales!”
The crowd roars. Carina is hustled onto the stage, the spotlights staining her face with a damp layer of new sweat. She’s smiling, she can tell that much from the ache in her cheeks, but the rest of her feels hot and distant. She’ll probably enjoy this. No, she will enjoy this, she thinks to herself. Today is a good day and she will be grateful.
The long line of contestants begins to trail onto the stage, each of their outfits gleaming too brightly for her squinting eyes to adjust. At some point, Carina’s attention drifts, her gaze finding patterns in the pastel sky. It is a sudden flurry of movement that draws her attention to the side of the street. Beside the crowd, two figures stumble to a stop, their heads whipping back and forth between the stage and an alley just out of Carina’s sight. One of them, a tall man, is gasping for breath, one hand clutching a scarlet handkerchief and the other brandishing a small silver rod.
The man’s outfit is a frenzied patchwork of colours, his coat spilling over with fabric upon fabric, whipping into a blur as he hacks into his handkerchief. Carina’s eyes swim, it is difficult to focus on just one: the yellow, green, purple, pink... all streaming into the arc of a rainbow. There is a girl with him, a cloud of orange curls bouncing around her head as she gasps for breath.
“Talk about a holiday! This is more like one of your fitness routines,” the man huffs, his voice is sharp and crabby, even beneath his gasps for breath. Carina can hear it all the way from the stage. “I don’t suppose we lost them, did we?”
“We never do, Doctor,” says the girl. “Though, are you sure we weren’t just running from our own shadows?”
She frowns. Shadows? The strangers are odd. They seem somehow out of sync, their words cutting over the murmur of the crowd, their outfits so unusual... and yet, despite it, she wants to know their names.
Carina feels a tap on her shoulder, “Miss Sevales?” the announcer prompts. “Your winner?”
She peers down the line of entrants, their spangled dresses and dazzling headpieces twinkle under the bright sun. They’re all great, things she would wear to a funeral herself, if there were another soon. She smiles, lets her eyes trail to the side of the stage.
“Your vote is final. Just say the word!”
Carina locks eyes with the man in the technicolour coat and raises her finger.
“Him.”
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Analysis
Looking back on this a year later, I feel like I had a strong entry. The extract reads better than the synopsis, but I think that’s because it’s paced in “story-mode”. It has a lot of merits and it does what it was designed to do. It’s not intended as some big arc-starter, it’s entirely stand alone and quite short.
When I was writing, I was aware that the story had stopped exciting me. I was very happy to create the original idea and develop the bare bones of a cohesive story but I wasn’t blown away by it, even though I thought the concept was good.
I wanted to do a few things:
Write a story that wasn’t a tragedy
Make it as colourful as possible
Introduce a protagonist in a unique situation
Though I like most stories I write to have a hint of sinisterness to them, I think for a really solid and medium-appropriate story I needed to nail down exactly what the morals of the piece were. If Carnival of Grief was an allegory about death and celebrating life then spelling out the take away message may have helped my cause. Past stories have had a really solid setting and I wanted to equal the immersion other writers have included in theirs, hence the intensity of the parade. I think that at least carried through.
This year, I’m aiming not to spend so long on my entry as the past three have ended up sucking up more time than I planned for. I think giving yourself a shorter amount of time means you have less time to overthink it and ideas are more raw.
If you’ve read this far, thank you and good luck if you’re planning on entering!
Picture credit: Kalexander2010 on Flickr (License)
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