Forum:Changing novelisation prefix and a question as to novelisation canonicity

good prefix for novelisations
can anyone suggest a good one? DWN wouldn't work, because we also have a novelisation of the "A Girl's Best Friend". --***Stardizzy*** 12:49, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Round about 99% of them were published by the same company so I would suggest TN for Target Novelisation. If we're going to aspire to quite those heights of pedantry (and yes, I'm in no position to criticise others) we can give the TVM adaptation and those things John Peel plopped out in the late 90s their own prefix as they weren't published by Target. In any case the K9 and Co novel is already covered by the TC prefix.

I would strongly suggest the format for a novelisation reference be just (for e.g.) TN: Carnival of Monsters - Novelisation) rather than TN: Doctor Who and the... as a) Target's policy on that changed mid-run b) it wasn't always consistent even on a particular book and c) it's pointless extra typing that doesn't tell anyone anything they don't already know. --Gai-jin 13:29, 26 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I would like the K-9 novelisation to have two prefixes, the novelisation one and /PROSE. --***Stardizzy*** 15:37, 26 March 2007 (UTC)''


 * TN for Target Novelisations is good, I think the later ones in the 90s were published by Virgin, so maybe VN for Virgin Novelisations, or maybe VP for Virgin Publishing so we can group the Script Books (which I think were also published by Virgin during the same period).
 * But I also think we should preserve the original names of the novelisations: ie: Doctor Who and the Space War rather than Frontier in Space Novelisation. --Tangerineduel 13:58, 26 March 2007 (UTC) Actually we can't have it as TN as that's the abbreviations for Telos Novellas, so DWTN for Doctor Who Target Novelisations. --Tangerineduel 14:03, 26 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Yeah, but we would potentially confuse someone who bought that novelisation in the 90s by which time it had been retitled in line with the TV show.


 * Would it be a major undertaking to re-prefix the Telos books TPN (for Telos Publishing Novella)? Doctor Who Target Novelisations is a bit laborious - I can't think of a Target Novelisation on this wiki that wouldn't automatically be Doctor Who anyway (K9 & Co is TC as mentioned above) so the DW part would be redundant. How about TTV for the Target version of a TV story? --Gai-jin 14:36, 26 March 2007 (UTC)


 * okay, stroke of brilliance, could use something like NVN for all novelisations?


 * as far as my opinions I would like to have the same prefix for all novelisations. and apart from the ones mentioned above (and including them):


 * The Paradise of Death, The Scream of the Shalka, Doctor Who - The TV Movie, Shakedown, Downtime (technically, Barry Letts wrote the book version of The Ghosts of N-Space before writing the radio serial).


 * I think novelisations can do double duty as PROSE or some other kind of book, too. as far as strict accuracy, the first three Hartnell novelisations did not get published by Target. Target re-printed them and then decided to continue the series. so "Target novelisations" existed before Target Books, proper. anyway, I would like all novelisations to have a consistent prefix. maybe a Target Books prefix, too. --***Stardizzy*** 15:37, 26 March 2007 (UTC)


 * apart form those mentioned above, we also have the [[MA]


 * only Downtime. to give an example of what I mean, we could have NVN/PROSE as the prefix for Downtime, for example. again, like I said, the book version of The Ghosts of N-Space came out first. --***Stardizzy*** 15:39, 26 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Seem to recall the radio show was written and produced first, but Radio 4 sat on it for about a year before broadcasting (mainly cos it was something they inherited from Radio 5 and didn't really want). Bazza wrote the book in the interim so it is still technically a novelisation, just of an at that time untransmitted story.


 * Anyway yet another plea for the novelisation title to be kept as '(Name of Story) - Novelisation' as some of them were published under multiple titles (three different ones in the case of the first Dalek story). NVN (or even NV) sounds like a good prefix if we're taking votes on it. --Gai-jin 16:19, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

canonical or apocryphal or what?
IMO I would regard them as apocryphal. truthful up until a point, until they contradict the television stories or, yes, even the novels. (famously, Doctor Who and the Doomsday Weapon, the novelisation of Colony in Space and Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks, based on the first Dalek story, have the Doctor meeting his companions in those books for the "first" time. later novelisations contradict them.)

we can try to incorporate both versions of the facts, however, when it comes to direct contradictions, the television series must win, with the novels, comics or audios giving corroborating evidence pro or con.--***Stardizzy*** 12:49, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Ow, slapped wrists, but a fair point. Just trying to be as comprehensive as possible.

I suspect that if we start down the this piece of in-universe material is canon, this piece is apocryphal route There Will Be Trouble as everyone's opinion on this is different (normally based on what stuff they personally collect!).


 * This is probably off-topic but (for example) there are at least two mutually-incompatible stories in licensed publications 'revealing' what happened to the Master post-TVM, which goes in the wiki? I've tried using phrases like 'One account has it that...' but someone keeps taking them out.    --Gai-jin 13:29, 26 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I would just note the fact that the stories contradict each other and put in both versions of what "really" happened, under different headings. put the earlier version first. when we first start really working on Ace's biography that will get really nightmarish, because following Survival, all sorts of hard to reconcile with each other continuity happened to her. I couldn't even begin to tell to the contradictions. so, yes, it happens, with Ace as arguably the worst example. --***Stardizzy*** 15:43, 26 March 2007 (UTC)


 * no one, I think will have a probably with us saying that Apocryphally, Susan Foreman used the name Susan English on Earth (that comes form the first-ever Doctor Who novelisation). calling that apocryphal shouldn't offend anyone, after all, it only ocurred in the one book. I didn't mean to suggest labelling any of the novels as apocrypha, for example. --***Stardizzy*** 15:52, 26 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I must confess I still have a bad feeling about this. I think being consistent will be next to impossible (we already treat Nightmare Fair as apocryphal even though it doesn't contradict the TV series, only other material published much later). And it's not like the TV show doesn't contradict itself on a fairly regular basis anyway. Definitely don't envy whoever tries writing Ace's bio-data though... --Gai-jin 16:19, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Archivist's notes
Nothing about the first section on prefixes is current policy, aside from the fact that PROSE is the abbreviation for Target Books Companions of Doctor Who, and thus the abbreviation used for the K9 and Company novelisation. And the second section doesn't come to any firm conclusions. So it's pretty much a falied proposal all round. 18:00:10 Tue 31 May 2011