The Sunday Scribbler: Paul Cornell

The first in this new series of weekly writer profiles goes to someone I have followed for well over twenty years but remains unknown to many of you. This should be rectified.

Paul Cornell first came to my attention with a piece of short Doctor Who fan fiction in the fanzine Frontier Worlds. Unlike virtually all fan fiction, Cornell’s story (the title of which is lost in my fog of a memory), mixed reality with fantasy in a unique way. Unlike anything else I had read – and I read almost anything in print that contained the two words ‘doctor’ and ‘who’ in those days – this short tale packed a melancholy punch that betrayed a writer who knew how to write from the gut.

No monsters, no thrills and daring adventure, just a little boy on his sick-bed experiencing a surreal encounter with the Fifth Doctor. I loved it.

The Big Break

I wasn’t surprised to see Paul’s name crop up a lot over the next few years and was less than amazed to see his name announced as one of the very first writers to join Virgin’s range of Doctor Who New Adventures novels.

Considered by many fans to be the best book of the four part Timewym series, ´Timewyrm: Revelation´ contained so much bizarre imagery and completely bonkers imaginings, to win over anyone who wasn’t sure whether Doctor Who would survive beyond the end of the classic television series.

With a few more stand-out Doctor Who novels, Paul cemented his name as the go-to guy for Who fiction. He created and introduced Bernice (Benny), a character that has gone on to star in her own series of books and audio adventures.

At the same time, Paul was making the break into television, with episodes of the long running soap Coronation Street, as well as Springhill and Children's Ward.

By the time Doctor Who returned in 2005, Paul’s career was exactly where it needed to be to receive the fateful call. With show-runner Russell T Davies being a huge fan of Cornell's Who fiction, his name was always on the short-list of writers when the new series began forming.

‘Father’s Day’ became the eighth episode of the first series, with its emotion-charged stampede through Rose Tyler’s back story. The dilemmas and concepts the episode dealt with were certainly fresh to the series and demonstrated that this new incarnation of the forty year old series was capable of far deeper and personal stories than previously. ‘Fathers Day’ was an important moment in the return of Doctor Who, allowing for further introspective and character based storylines in future episodes.

With Paul contributing another two episodes for the third series – this time based on his Virgin novel 'Human Nature' his transformation from avid fan-fic writer to cornerstone of the new series was complete. ‘Human Nature was recently nominated for a Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation – Short Form, something he shares with fellow Who writer Steven Moffat, similarly nominated for his episode ´Blink´.

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But if you think Paul’s talents are confined to one small area in the writer’s realm, you are mistaken. Paul's name is now also recognised in comic book circles as a growing new talent at Marvel. With recent X-Men mini-series' under his belt, April sees the launch of a new Captain Britain title to be scripted by Paul.

As a long time fan of Captain Britain, I was ecstatic to hear Paul would be giving the character a new life. After years of being misused and relegated to minor and poorly produced titles, I feel confident Paul will reinvigorate the character without simply plagiarising Alan Moore's classic run. (Yes, that's another dig at Chris Claremont. Regular readers may have begun to spot a theme here.)

Paul is the perfect example of a writing career. Spending his formative years frantically writing every piece of fan fiction he could get published, he built a name for himself that secured him is first professional jobs. His willingness to work on anything, from 'Casualty' to 'Born and Bred´, allowed Paul to demonstrate his professionalism and his constant drive to produce quality scripts.

Now he is writing a lot of the stuff the younger fan would never have dreamt of. Paul is a name to remember, as I am sure that having achieved his first set of writing goals, the bar will continue to be set even higher. Award nominations are only the start.