David Taylor (Imaginary Boys)

David Taylor was a 21st century writer who wrote about "all kinds of things".

In autumn 2013, when David was 17 and living in Newton Aycliffe with his mother, Lawrence the Novelisor began documenting David's life. Knowing of David's future, Lawrence gave David a notepad as a gift and encouraged him to pursue writing.

In the few weeks they knew each other, David and Lawrence became romantically involved. After leaving school one day, David was assaulted by a group of older boys for being homosexual. David father was the police officer that came to David's house to ask David to issue a statement on the assault. David wasn't comfortable with telling his father that his attackers had used homophobic slurs.

The night after David saw his father, David had his first kiss with Lawrence. Realising that he had crossed the line in a relationship between a Novelisor and their subject, Lawrence regretfully summoned his spacecraft and prepared to leave Earth. Lawrence asked David if he wanted to come with him in the spacecraft, but David refused because he needed to stay with his mother and newly born sister. (AUDIO: Imaginary Boys)

Behind the scenes
David Taylor is in many ways a stand-in for writer Paul Magrs. Magrs was also raised by a single-mother in Newton Aycliffe. Magrs' father was a police officer; the final time Magrs saw his father was at the age of 17, when Magrs' father was the officer who took a statement from Magrs after he was queer-bashed. 

Prior to featuring in Imaginary Boys, David was the main character of semi-autobiographical Magrs two novels: Strange Boy and The Diary of a Dr Who Addict. Imaginary Boys is not entirely consistent with these novels, mainly due to the fact that in those stories David has the same birth-date as Paul Magrs. Strange Boy is about David as a ten-year old boy in 1980 discovering his homosexuality. The Diary of a Dr Who Addict is about David's relationship with Doctor Who around the beginning of the Fifth Doctor's era in 1981. Imaginary Boys replaces David's love of Doctor Who with a general love of science fiction novels.