Master Works: Tales of Companions Meeting the Doctor’s Greatest Frenemy, a Doctor Who charity anthology, seeks English-language submissions of short fiction. Published stories will be available for a limited time in ebook and print format. All proceeds benefit Migrant Justice / Justicia Migrante, a U.S.-based organization that “build[s] the voice, capacity, and power of the farmworker community and engage[s] community partners to organize for economic justice and human rights.”
Works should concentrate on one or more of the Doctor’s companions, very broadly construed, meeting the Master. All companions and all Masters are welcome, including those in the extended universe. All Doctor[s] is/are also welcome, but they are not necessary, nor are they the focus.
Submissions should be 6,000 words or less. Works previously published online are welcome.
The anthology, which will contain around 60,000 words, has a projected publication date of April, 2020.
I need only two things: your submission and your obedience to my will! the Master in The Daemons
Content Guidelines
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- Foster hope. This anthology celebrates companion ingenuity and resilience. Pain and suffering are fine, as long as they serve the narrative and have realistic psychological fall-out. Companions survive their encounters with the Master and vice versa.
- Respect the companions. Companions must have agency, dignity, their own personality, and their own goals, even if the Master is exploiting them or trying to.
- Respect the Master. They’re a larger-than-life, multifarious personality, both similar to and different from the Doctor. Explore that.
- “Companion” is very broadly defined. It’s pretty much anyone who is Doctor- or Master-adjacent in a DW or DW EU story in any medium. For example, any usually canonically defined companions would count. Furthermore, Carol Bell, the Brig’s assistant during Three’s era, would count, as would Queen Galleia of Atlantis in The Time Monster and any of the poodles from Mad Dogs and Englishmen.
- Violence, cursing, and general sexual content are fine, as long as they subserve plot and character development. See “Foster hope” rule.
- No detailed sex scenes and/or tragic brooding. This is not PWP or someone’s angsty reflections on their Tragic Past [TM].
- Original Master[s] and/or companion[s] are possible. Mostly I’m looking for good writing, compelling character development, and decent plot. If you’ve got OCs, don’t hesitate to pitch me. Just mention the OCs in your pitch.
- Flash fiction, humor, action/adventure, angst/drama, hurt/comfort, fluff, sexual innuendo, and companion/Master relationships [friendship, mentorship, partnership, romance] are okay.
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The editor enthusiastically encourages companions, Masters, Doctors, and other characters who are one or more of the following:
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- any flavor of queer including ace
- trans/nonbinary/gender nonconforming
- autistic/neurodivergent
- mentally ill
- disabled
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How to submit
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- Submissions will be open from June 17th to July 19th, 2019.
- Send me a brief pitch telling me what companion[s] and Master[s] you’re writing about. Include a simple plot summary, estimated word count, status [written or unwritten], and short two-sentence author bio.
- Submissions can be made under legal names or preferred names/online handles/pseudonyms.
- I will reply, letting you know whether I am interested.
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Example pitch
Stranded in Dystopiaville on the edge of a black hole, partly Cyberized Bill Potts reels from the Twelfth Doctor’s callous treatment. She devotes herself to resisting the city’s oppressive Cyber regime along with the not-quite-human Razor. Just as Bill figures out who Razor really is, Clara Oswald arrives with the promise of escape.
Length: ~5800 words.
Companions: Bill Potts, Clara Oswald.
Master: S10 Simm Master.
Status: Written.
Author Bio: ModernWizard imagines, writes, and edits in Vermont. She prefers Alison Cheney, Bill Potts, and Jo Grant as companions, Delgado Master and Shalka Master, and well-executed redemption arcs.
Proposed Timeline
The proposed timeline for this anthology is below. Dates may change.
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- June 17 to July 19, 2019: Pitches accepted.
- July 28, 2019: Acceptances or rejections sent.
- August 30, 2019: Draft stories due.
- November 30, 2019: Drafts returned to authors.
- January 25, 2020: Final drafts due.
- February, 2020: Copy editing.
- March, 2020: Proofreading.
- April, 2020: Editing ad nauseam.
- May 11, 2020: Proof pages sent to authors.
- May 25, 2020: Final changes due.
- June 8, 2020: Final PDF to lulu.com
- June 15 to July 17, 2020: Ordering period.
- August, 2020: Money to Migrant Justice.
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Masterworks Pitch – Maestro Temporale
Pitch: Professor Bernice Summerfield (in an uncharted point in her life where she has both heard the dark whispers and seen the rotted evidence of a future “War in Heaven”) as been hired by the mysterious Advanced Research Project to lead an archeological dig on the planet Cratosi. Cratosi ia an “untethered” world of mists, ghosts, and a ruined civilization. In the tomb of the Farreaching Faithful she finds a Quantum Harp, a mythical Gallifreyan relic, an arch of humming validium strung with the same quantum threads that lace the structure of the Web of Time. When the dig is attacked in an attempt to steal the Harp by a renegade Time Lord (a “Satanically handsome” man with eyes both pitch black and molten gold), Benny’s employer reveals herself as the mysterious Time Lady Larna. A confrontation becomes a temporal cacophony when the Harp malfunctions and throws the trio into a maelstrom defined by the shadows of both the Doctor and the Master, humble beginnings on Gallifrey and the stars their friendship and rivalry have burned becoming a maze that threatens to swallow Benny and Larna. The pair, both former companions and former lovers of the Master’s best friend and arch foe, must assert their own stories and agendas against the tidal waves, proving themselves within the very resonating music of time and space as more than “side characters” in the story between the Doctor and the Master.
Length: 6000 words
Companions: Bernice Summerfield, Lady Larna
Master: Post-Frontier in Space Roger Delgado (primary) and The Infinity Doctors Magistrate (cameo)
Doctor: The Eighth Doctor and the Infinity Doctor (both referenced and glimpsed briefly, but not primary focuses)
Status: Work in Progress
Author Bio: Jacob Black finds himself writing and teaching in his bouncing between Virginia and Washington. He has written for the Faction Paradox collections The Book of the Enemy and The Book of the Peace, and was one of the editors behind the charity anthology Unbound: Adventures in Time and Space. He spends far too much of his time thinking about the BBC Eighth Doctor novels and Faction Paradox. His favorite eras of Doctor Who include everything from 1963-1969 and the era of Capaldi’s Twelfth Doctor. He is adamant that the War Chief is the Master and is perfectly willing to draw swords over it.