who_contest | All Stories in the End ('Child' entry)

Title: All Stories in the End
Word Count: 470
Summary: Amelia Pond’s story ended in 1938, but Amelia Williams kept writing.
Warnings: None
Spoilers for ‘The Angels Take Manhatten’ and for the short Chris Chibnall-scripted animation, ‘P.S.’ (which, if you haven’t already seen it, is here). Detail on ‘Summer Falls’ comes from the e-book.

Editor's note: the manuscript to this novel was complete but unpublished at the time of Mrs Williams's death. Thanks to the efforts of her son Anthony, it is now possible to count The Last Centurion among the most nuanced of the author's mature works. The original foreword is reproduced below.

This was a book I never thought I’d write.

It wasn’t that the idea was too complicated for the readers I most enjoy writing for. I have always believed that no story really worth telling is too difficult for a child if you put enough thought into it. It’s the grown-ups who get everything confused later on. No; I hesitated because I didn’t know whether I was ready. I still don’t, but when you get to my age readiness takes a back seat to necessity.

There are two questions which are repeated more than any others in an author’s life, and neither of them have easy answers. The first is, Where Do You Get Your Ideas From? Rory and I used to joke that if interviewers paid us by the word for everything they asked, like magazines sometimes do their staff for everything they write, this one question would have taken care of our heating bills for good. Imagine being asked where your dreams come from. I didn’t choose them, but they are part of me, and all I can do when I describe them in print is hope that someone, somewhere, will understand.

Which brings me to the second question: Who Do You Write For? Simply to say “for my readers” isn’t enough for the grown-ups, you see: they think the reply has to be something the author’s been hiding, like a secret. If so, then mine is a rather badly kept secret.

Of course, my very first readers are grown-ups now too. But I like to think some of them remember the people they were in between, because that is how stories live; through words that gain new meaning at every stage of life, and are passed on to whoever comes after. It is my belief that there are and always will be children determined to create their own adventures, like Kate in Summer Falls; or in love with the myths of long-ago, like Dora in The Pandora Box; or fighting their private battles with the darkness under the stairs, like Arthur in The Night Thief of Ill-Harbour.

Over the years there were many grown-ups who helped me with what I had to say, and I can't possibly remember them by name here. The thank-yous to my various long-suffering editors can be found in the afterword.

So I will take this opportunity to mention three people in particular. The Last Centurion is dedicated to Melody, Anthony and Rory. You were worth the wait.

Amelia Williams
New York, 1989

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but_can_i_be_trusted

Clever twist on the prompt. :) Well done.

templeremus.livejournal.com

Thank you. I love how Moffat carried the theme of childhood and storytelling through with Amy's character arc. From that perspective 'The Angels of Manhatten' worked wonderfully.

thisbluespirit

Aw, that is rather perfect. :-)

eve11

Aw, I had tears welling at the end. Very well done.

a-phoenixdragon.livejournal.com

Ohh, this was clever and sweet and...thank you. I love fictions like this. A fiction that reads real, that gives me a smile. This is so, so Amy. She always got it. She always KNEW - and this is her in a way that comes with age, wisdom...and a woman who was wise enough to never grow up.

*HUGS*

:-) Thank you. I love drabble challenges; it's a great way of seeing how much you can cram into a very tight word limit.

Thank you. I cried at 'P.S.' when the Beeb first published it; the mood of that extra scene was my main inspiration for the drabble, more so even than TATM. There's something incredibly moving in its directness and simplicity.

Thank you. I've never really attempted anything in this style before, but it was great fun. And you're absolutely right; Amy did get it. She always had a profound grasp of the Doctor's freely childlike logic and the wisdom that comes from loss, though 14 years of people telling her she was wrong made that understanding hard for her to access at times.

gallif-migrant.livejournal.com

Awww. So beautiful.

Thank you. I had my issues with the Ponds' goodbye, but Amy's farewell monologue to the Doctor is wonderfully poignant. That was my main inspiration for the drabble.

flowsoffire.livejournal.com

Oh, this was just fascinating, so clever, so thought-provoking and so touching. Your thoughts, Amy's thoughts on childhood and writing are so perfectly true. The beauty and wonder of childhood was so strongly conveyed here, and the love of writing, how it is just part of you. There are so many perfect bits of insight I could quote half the fic, most striking ones here:

I have always believed that no story really worth telling is too difficult for a child if you put enough thought into it. It’s the grown-ups who get everything confused later on.

I didn’t know whether I was ready. I still don’t, but when you get to my age readiness takes a back seat to necessity.

Imagine being asked where your dreams come from. I didn’t choose them, but they are part of me, and all I can do when I describe them in print is hope that someone, somewhere, will understand.

Simply to say “for my readers” isn’t enough for the grown-ups, you see: they think the reply has to be something the author’s been hiding, like a secret.

I like to think some of them remember the people they were in between, because that is how stories live; through words that gain new meaning at every stage of life, and are passed on to whoever comes after.

And the ending lines nearly undid me. Such simple, to the point and powerful emotion. ♥ Thank you for this.

<3 Thank you. I think it's perfectly fitting that Amy would end up writing children's books, which require an adult's control over a child's world if they're to succeed. When she couldn't settle because normal life scared her, she was always trying jobs on for size, like a child playing at being grown-up, but when she made her choice in 'The Angels Take Manhatten' she had finally become comfortable enough to understand what both the child and the adult in her wanted.

Yes—it's very interesting to explore that duality in her… :) I really like that insight. I've always been a bit iffy about Amy—she grows on me more with time, but I wish the parts of her character that we glimpsed in Eleventh Hour had been handled more thoroughly instead of bits here and there, for instance—so I always love fics like yours that set some aspects of her in a new light for me. Thank you for that :)