Writing for Black Library – Richard Strachan Talks the Open Submissions Window

Welcome to this 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 Richard Strachan, one of Black Library’s newest authors, who made it through the 2018 open submissions process to have his debut short story – The Widow Tide – published in Maledictions, the first ever Warhammer Horror anthology.

Track of Words: Tell us a little about you as an author – who you are, where you’re from, what you like to write, etc.

RS: My name is Richard Strachan and I’m a writer and editor from Edinburgh. I like writing slightly experimental ‘literary fiction’ (although I hate that phrase), and I’ve been combining that with an increasing amount of fantasy and sci-fi work over the last year or so. I’m a regular book reviewer for various Scottish newspapers and journals as well.

ToW: Were you already writing regularly, or did the BL open submissions window spur you into writing?

RS: I’ve been writing for quite a while, with varying degrees of success; mostly short stories, although I’ve got a couple of thus-far unpublished novels cluttering my desktop as well. I’ve had stories printed in magazines and journals like Interzone, The Lonely Crowd and New Writing Scotland, amongst others, and I’ve been shortlisted for a few competitions as well.

ToW: Had you submitted to Black Library before?

RS: No – in fact, I didn’t even know you could submit to Black Library before I saw the open submissions announcement last year. I assumed you had to wait for the tap on the shoulder from the editors, or that they would only be interested in already-established writers. I leapt at the chance as soon as I saw it though.

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?

RS: It was something that came to me while I was thinking about the guidelines. I was drawn to the horror/supernatural theme and wanted to write something about the Stormcast Eternals; I was interested in the gradual fading of their memories and personalities – their humanity – after each reforging, and how they would themselves become almost ghostly presences. (In the end though, this wasn’t the story I had published).

ToW: Did you write the whole story, or just the 500 word sample?

RS: Just the 500 word sample – I did press on a little bit into the rest of the story, and I wrote up some notes about how it would continue, but I concentrated more on those opening paragraphs.

ToW: How did you find writing the pitch? Any advice for someone planning their own pitch?

RS: The pitch is probably the most difficult part of it, to be honest! There’s no getting away from the fact that it’s hard to outline a plot, a setting, the characters, their motivations, the barriers they find in their way, and the conclusion of the story, in little more than half a page. The best advice I could give would be to try and describe the entire story from beginning to end, and then work on condensing it. Alternatively, try and come up with a snappy elevator pitch-style description and then expand it from there. (A good way to practise this is to think of your favourite book or film and try to summarise it as concisely as possible. If you can do the same with your story, you’re halfway there.)

ToW: How would you describe the first story you had published through Black Library? Was it what you originally pitched, or something different?

RS: The first story I had published was The Widow Tide, in the Warhammer Horror anthology Maledictions. It’s set in a fishing village very much off the beaten track on the fringes of Shyish, and follows a young woman grieving for her lost husband, who has drowned at sea. She pours her grief into looking after a creature she finds washed up on the shore, although this creature turns out to be far more dangerous than she realises.

It was completely different to the story I pitched through the open submissions. I got through to the second round with that story and had some good feedback, but once I expanded it a bit more it was apparently too close to something BL had just commissioned from one of their established authors! The editors liked my writing though and asked me to just submit a few different ideas instead, and eventually The Widow Tide was the one they decided to go with. It seemed to fit well with the upcoming Horror anthology, so that’s where it ended up.

ToW: How have you found the whole process of submission through to publishing?

RS: It’s been highly enjoyable, challenging and weirdly straightforward all at once (I keep expecting someone high up in Black Library to realise that they’ve made a terrible mistake and ask me to leave…). The communication from the editors has been great, the editorial feedback has always been incisive and helped bring out the best in the work. Publishing is an industry with a long lead-time, so there can be quite a gap between finishing something and finally seeing it in print, but nothing can beat opening the parcel that contains your author copies when the book is finally published! I imagine that’s something that never gets old.

ToW: Can you talk at all about anything else that you’ve got in the pipeline (for Black Library or otherwise)?

RS: I’ve got another four stories on the way for Black Library, although I’ll have to draw a veil of secrecy over anything else I might have coming up… I’ve also got another book review on the go at the moment, and a sort of hybrid literary-fantasy novel I’m trying to write whenever I’ve got a spare moment. I’m also plotting out the first part of a fantasy trilogy that I really want to start writing soon.

If you’d like to keep up with any updates, you can follow me on Twitter @richstrach!

ToW: Finally, do you have any overall advice for anyone hoping to submit this year?

RS: My main advice might seem self-evident, but if you want to submit something for the open submissions, then actually do it – don’t talk yourself out of it, or give up in advance because you assume you’ll never make it. The other self-evident bit of advice is to actually write. Plenty of people might think they have a great idea, but ideas mean nothing if you don’t put the words down to explore them. Once you’ve committed to writing something, the next thing to do is to write as much as possible, whenever possible, and to revise as much as humanly possible too. I remember last year you could submit as many pitches as you liked, but I would strongly recommend just concentrating on one – make that as good as you can, rather than diluting your efforts over several.

Also, read the guidelines before submitting. In fact, read the guidelines before you start writing. Then read them again. They aren’t polite suggestions, they’re absolutely iron-clad rules that you have to follow. If they want 500 words, then only send in 500 words, not 1000. If they ask for stories set in AoS, 40K, Blood Bowl or Necromunda, then don’t send in a Warhammer Fantasy or Horus Heresy story. Read the guidelines.

Finally, a propitiating sacrifice to Sigmar, the Emperor or the Chaos Gods certainly can’t hurt. Good luck!

***

Many thanks to Richard for taking the time to put together these great answers! If you haven’t already read it, you do check out Maledictions and Richard’s story The Widow Tide – you can find my review of the overall anthology 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 Maledictions and check out The Widow Tide.

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.

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