Welcome to this first instalment of Writing for Black Library, a new series of quick author interviews in which I chat to Black Library authors about how they got started with writing for the worlds of Warhammer. Whether you’re actively hoping to be published by Black Library yourself, or just interested in getting a peek behind the scenes, these interviews will offer insights into the backgrounds and working processes of some of the authors who are lucky enough to contribute to the ongoing development of Games Workshop’s various worlds and settings.
In this interview I chatted to Thomas Parrott, one of Black Library’s newest authors, who made it through the 2018 open submissions process to have his debut short story – Spiritus in Machina – published in Inferno! Volume 2.
Track of Words: Tell us a little about you as an author – who you are, where you’re from, what you like to write.
Thomas Parrott: Well, my name is Thomas Parrott. I live in a city called Macon, with my wife who is an intensive care nurse at a local hospital. It’s in the middle of the state of Georgia in the United States. I’m originally from a rural town in the same state called Monticello. It’s pretty much every stereotype about small town living made real.
I like to write speculative fiction. Science fiction, fantasy, or anything in between. I’ve loved those sorts of stories since I was a little kid. I cut my teeth on Bruce Coville’s work, like Goblins in the Castle or My Teacher is an Alien. One of my big formative literature memories is reading A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin and just being blown away.
ToW: Were you already writing regularly, or did the BL open submissions window spur you into writing?
TP: I had been writing regularly up until a few months before. A novel, some short stories. Nothing had been published. I had actually been pretty close to giving up. It was a rough time for me for a lot of reasons. Ultimately I wrote the initial entry as something to take my mind off my troubles.
ToW: Had you submitted to Black Library before?
TP: No. One of my friends had pulled me into a 40k Facebook group. Everyone started talking about the window. That was my first time hearing that open submissions was something they did.
ToW: How did you decide upon a story to pitch? Was it something you chose having read the guidelines, or had you planned (or written) any of it already?
TP: I think this might be the nerdiest explanation I ever have to give. The window came with keywords you could choose from. I remember one of them being a total gimme – I think it was ‘war.’ So I focused on the others. I don’t remember what they all were, just that ‘mystery’ and ‘ghost story’ caught my eye.
So the nerdy part – I had just finished running a Rogue Trader (the Fantasy Flight Games RP system) campaign. We had this whole huge storyline for our Tech Priest character that I never got to finish. It was about a legendary Ark Mechanicus that had been lost in the region. There were elements of mystery and even – sort of – a ghost story to that.
So I did not have a story written, but I did have an RPG adventure I’d planned out. I converted that over into Spiritus in Machina.
ToW: Did you write the whole story, or just the 500 word sample?
TP: Just the 500 words. Sat down and hammered it out in a night. Sent it before I lost my nerve. Spotted a typo immediately, panicked. Life went on.
ToW: How did you find writing the pitch? Any advice for someone planning their own pitch?
TP: I had no clue what I was doing, if I’m going to be honest. I would say I got several things right the first time by sheer accident, and proceeded to completely mess up my next set of pitches. Since then it’s been a long process of learning how to actually pitch like a writer.
As far as advice goes, I can offer a few with the benefit of greater experience.
- Take prompts seriously.
- Don’t just recite events. Breathe life into your characters. ‘Astra Militarum regiment defend a planet’ is an event. ‘An ambitious AM commander assigned to a backwater posting manufactures a crisis, only for a real enemy to strike’ is the beginning of a story.
- The best approach I’ve discovered is to start with a character. Terrified soldier. Idealistic Space Marine. Regretful Chaos cultist in over their head.
- Then figure out what they want. To get back to the Imperial lines. To save the population of a world. To leave the cult behind.
- Now what’s between them and their goal? Enemy patrols and exposure to a deadly environment. An Orkish invasion and misguided freedom fighters complicating the defense. Their former allies and an Arbites with a pict-capture of them at the wrong place at the wrong time.
- Put the three things together and you’ve got the good beginnings of a story.
- Don’t overdo it. Your first project with Black Library is almost certain to be a short story, unless you are an established author. You want a tightly plotted story you can tell in 5000 words.
ToW: How would you describe the first story you had published through Black Library? Was it what you originally pitched, or something different?
TP: Superlative, and you should totally go buy it right now! #selfpromotion Haha. More honestly, it’s a Dante’s Inferno pastiche. You have Dante, in the form of 7-Cyclae. You have Virgil, in the form of the Magos Explorator via remote. Cyclae must journey through hell, the ruins of the Ark Mechanicus he served aboard. In the process he will undergo revelations. He does not enjoy this.
It stayed very much the same from pitch to publishing, concept wise. The main thing that changed was my execution thereof. It was my first experience with professional writing, and I had a lot to learn. I had atmosphere down pretty well, but I was still figuring out pacing, characterization, and how to use the IP to best effect.
I think my redeeming features are a) I work my ass off and b) I leave my pride at the door. ‘You need to fix this’ is not an attack. Your editor is there to help you. They are on your side, they want that story to be the best it can possibly be. I embraced that from moment one, and I think I’ve improved a lot thereby.
ToW: How have you found the whole process of submission through to publishing?
TP: This is a dream come true for me, so I may be biased, but it’s been wonderful. It’s been such a learning experience, and everyone I’ve encountered along the way has been so willing to work with me and answer my questions. I feel like I had stagnated as a writer, and all of a sudden these professionals were working with me and I had so many resources available to grow and improve. It was amazing.
I love the work. The waiting is the hard part for me. Worrying about pitches. Worrying about edits. Waiting for publication and to see how the fanbase reacts. Publishing takes forever. You think you know, but you don’t. Because of how the industry works, by the time you’re able to talk about the thing you did, that was forever ago. You finished that last year, you’re working on next year, and planning the year after that.
ToW: Can you talk at all about anything else that you’ve got in the pipeline (for Black Library or otherwise)?
TP: Whew. I’m so bad at this, haha. I just want to babble excitedly about all the things, but that is not my prerogative.
Let’s see. I have a novella coming out in November that I think is the best thing I have ever written. I got to work with a part of the IP that I love, and that was very exciting. I think that’s all I can say right now. Keep your eyes peeled for more info on that front.
I have three (count ‘em, 3) short stories slated to release in the final quarter of this year. One will appear in the pages of Inferno! Volume 4 and is titled Salvage Rites. It is a horror story, to some extent…not under that imprint, mind, just that’s the feel I worked towards when writing it.
One of the other two will appear in another anthology, the other will have a semi-independent release. I think they’re both worth a read. The absolute truth is that anything you see with my name on it, I worked hard at it. Not everything will be the best, but everything will be the best I could do.
I also have my own creations that I’m shopping around. If you’re an agent looking for a scrappy SFF writer, get in touch!
Beyond that, if you want to keep up with the latest and greatest for me, follow me @parrotttd on Twitter. The moment I can talk about things, I will talk about them there. There’s exciting stuff coming, so stay tuned.
ToW: Finally, do you have any overall advice for anyone hoping to submit this year?
TP: I can take a crack at it.
- It’s not a contest. This one bewilders me. I see people call it a contest all the time. It’s a job interview inasmuch as it is anything. You’re not ‘winning’ a chance to do a story. You’re competing with others for a job. Comport yourself accordingly.
- I have seen people say they don’t use their ‘best ideas’ when they submit, because obviously it’s all a big trick to steal people’s clever concepts. I can tell you with absolute honesty, that is not how this works. The editors are the only ones who read your submissions. The editors do not come to us with a story idea and say ‘write this.’ Authors pitch ideas to them. The MOST specific guidelines I’ve been given were ‘do you want to do a story about this army?’ If you’re not going to try your best at this, why waste your time?
- Don’t try to re-invent the IP. If you hate the existing universe and want to rebuild it, you’re probably not suited for tie-in work. That is not the scope of our job.
- Don’t talk yourself out of trying. There’s a lot of stuff out there saying this is impossible. All I can say is, if you love writing and this is the kind of thing you want to write, you will never win by never trying. Even if you get rejected, 99% of writing is being rejected and trying again. Most writing opportunities demand far more investment on the writer side. A pitch and 500 words? If that’s too much to risk, maybe you don’t want to write.
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Many thanks to Thomas for taking the time to answer these questions, and provide such great answers! If you haven’t already read it, you can find my review of Thomas’ debut short story Spiritus in Machina right here.
For further information about the 2018 Black Library open submissions window, and more advice and ideas from authors regarding how to prepare for the 2019 window, have a read of this article.
Click here to buy Inferno! Volume 2 and check out Spiritus in Machina.
If you’ve got any questions, comments or other thoughts please do let me know in the comments below, or come find me on Twitter or Facebook.