User:SOTO/Forum Archive/Inclusion debates/@comment-86.178.203.198-20140629173408/@comment-6032121-20190703090135

I've begun reading it, and I do feel like it's a story, but the "play" bits are suspect, yes.

I think we should cover this with the same caution we do other things presented as in-universe texts, like All-Consuming Fire or The Book of the War. What The Shakespeare Notebooks tells us is "William Shakespeare, following his encounters with the Doctor beginning with the Love's Labour's Won incident, drafted a play in which the Doctor was himself a character, entitled Hamlet…", as opposed to "the Doctor encountered Prince Hamlet of Denmark…".

The thing is, really, that I'm not sure pegging it as a collection of independent short stories is really the way to go. Shakespeare Notebooks seems more along the lines of something like, as I said, The Book of the War, or A Brief History of Time Lords, or The Adventuress of Henrietta Street. A collection of what is purported to be in-universe writings which, taken all together, builds up to an overarching narrative of the place the Doctor must have played in Shakespeare's life post-Shakespeare Code.