Writing for Black Library – Summer of Writing 2019

The 2019 Black Library open submissions window has been officially confirmed – with the tagline “comrades in arms”, no less, as part of a summer of writing – and it’s running from the 26th August to the 23rd September. Check out my article Black Library Open Submissions – 2018 Recap for a look back at 2018’s open submissions window, including thoughts on some of the authors who successfully made it through, but in this article I’m going to talk a little about the guidelines for the 2019 window, and provide some useful resources for anyone interested in submitting including nterviews with some of the authors who successfully made it through and had stories published by Black Library.

Note: this contains some of the information which I’d previously included in my 2018 recap article – to make it clear what each article is about, I’ve split things out so that this one is focused entirely on 2019 and the recap article is focused on 2018.


Firstly, a few interviews with new Black Library authors whose entries in the 2018 window caught the eyes of the editors. I thought it would be fun to speak to some of these successful authors about how they prepared for their submissions, what inspired their choices, how they found the whole process and how they feel now that they’re on the other side. Click on the links below to read each of these, and check out these authors thoughts, insights and advice!

Next , let’s take a look at this year’s guidelines, which prospective BL authors will need to navigate.

2019 guidelines

First of all, this year there’s a single overriding theme that Black Library want everyone to adhere to – “comrades in arms”, celebrating 20 years of the military soap opera (in the best possible way) that is Dan Abnett’s Gaunt’s Ghosts. Here’s what the Community article on the topic talks about:

“We’re looking for stories about close-knit kill teams of hardened warriors, carrying out deadly missions across war zones in the 41st Millennium. Or how about a hard-bitten mercenary band from across the Mortal Realms, in search of treasure and glory in the deadly city of Shadespire? Necromundan hive gangs, warbands of the Eightpoints, Blackstone Fortress adventurers, even Blood Bowl teams…”

That’s an interesting challenge, because it means prospective authors need to specifically think about groups of characters and the dynamics therein, rather than focusing on just one or two. Lots to absorb there, I’d say. Here’s a bit more from BL:

“Your characters can be part of any of our main settings, and we’re looking for distinctive groups with dynamic relationships, involved in exciting and challenging situations. Your story can be whatever genre you like – adventure and war are some classic examples. But we would like you to select one of the following three ‘prompts’ as inspiration for your story:”

So that’s a bit more prescriptive than last year, but only in that it’s providing more of a steer in terms of the overview – plenty of flexibility in the details, still. I quite like the prompts – Betrayal from within, Against the odds and Hunt for glory – although I’d be interested to hear from prospective authors whether they inspire ideas or feel like restrictions.

None of that is wildly different from 2018, however there are a couple of areas which are worth paying special attention to. Firstly, BL are limiting it to one submission per person, as opposed to previous years in which you could submit as many as you wanted. I suspect this is largely driven by a desire to avoid a repeat of the 3,500 submissions that were sent in last year!

The specifics of what BL are asking people to submit are slightly different as well, with the addition this year of character bios as well as the pitch and the 500-word sample. Here’s how BL described what they’re looking for:

  • Character bios describing your group’s key members
  • A one-paragraph summary of a story featuring the group
  • A 500-word sample of this story which showcases your writing talents

Last year BL provided a whole page of advice from existing authors about writing Warhammer stories and sending in pitches. This year there hasn’t been anything like that (yet, at least), just a few suggestions for books to read as inspiration for the ‘comrades in arms’ theme:

  • Deathwatch: Shadowbreaker by Steve Parker (40k)
  • Eight Lamentations: Spear of Shadows by Josh Reynolds (Age of Sigmar)
  • Underhive: a Necromunda anthology (Necromunda)
  • Warcry: the Anthology (Age of Sigmar, and specifically the Warcry sub-setting)

All good suggestions, I think, if a little non-specific. In told I think there’s a decent amount of information to get started with,but I’ve also been trawling Twitter for more info from the Black Library editorial team (primarily Richard Garton, but a little from Kate Hamer as well), which I’ve collated here:

  • While the Community article didn’t specify, Kate confirmed that “as with previous years, the Open Subs Window is for short story pitches.“
  • BL are mostly interested in “the overall concept of the story”, so aim for the pitch/summary to focus on that rather than describing the whole thing, unless you’ve got a “killer ending” in mind.
  • Character bios “should be snappy, one sentence or so per character”, and “are to give us an insight into who they are, what they’re like, what they want etc (as some of that info might be tricky to convey for all in a short pitch for a larger cast)”. Richard confirmed that he’s “hoping to give more guidance on these at a later date.”
  • Some comments about factions, and who to include in your story:
    • “All factions are fair game, but if you can think of a cool way to feature an existing faction then that’s great! Bear in mind that some factions have a particular ‘voice’ which can be tricky to write.”
    • Obscure character types (i.e. units from 40k/AoS etc. which are no longer in the game) are ok, but BL are “unlikely to commission a story purely based on [them] involving, say, necron Pariahs or Squats”.
    • However, there are no restrictions against writing a story from, say, an ork perspective (or even in ork speak…although I’d imagine that’s going to be quite tricky).
    • As for using humour with your characters, “a bit of black humour is fine, but use restraint.” “Ask yourself, do you have an original character whose comedy will come across in a 500-word extract? It’s not impossible but you’re definitely setting yourself a challenge”.
  • In terms of when to set your story, “‘Present Day’ is best unless you have a really good reason for using a different time setting”.
  • Similarly, “the Horus Heresy is fairly sacrosanct territory and reserved for our most veteran authors”, so don’t pitch a Heresy story.

There’s some useful information in there (for the full details check out this Twitter thread), so credit to Richard and Kate for all of that. I’d hope that this sort of information is going to be provided on the Community site (i.e. for wider consumption rather than only for those who follow Richard on Twitter), and perhaps with some further authorial advice, at some point soonish, but this is a good place to start.

Speaking of authorial advice, do check out this Twitter thread from Graham McNeill, which includes a stack of useful suggestions such as:

  • READ THE GUIDELINES (sounds obvious, but seems like an important point to reiterate…)
  • Give your characters “‘rocks in their backpack’; something they’ve yet to deal with, a trauma still to be processed, a secret they’re carrying, a guilt for which they’ve yet to atone, a hatred burning them up from the inside.“
  • Once your sample/pitch/bios are written, “check again that you’ve FOLLOWED THE GUIDELINES. Proof it, read it, get others to read it. Proof it again. Does it move you, do you feel for the characters and are their overt needs and more personal needs articulated and/or subverted by the story?”

Make sure you read the rest of the thread for the full info!

I’d be very interested to know if there’s more to the summer of writing than ‘just’ the open submissions. It feels like a tagline that should feature more than just one thing, but I’m sure we’ll find out one way or another if that’s the case or not. In terms of comments on the specific process, however, I think all that’s left to say is to wish you good luck if you’re planning on sending something in this year! I always enjoy reading new stories from new authors, so I’m looking forward to checking out lots of new names over the coming months. Best of luck!

Additional resources

If the plan is to submit a story in this year’s open submissions window, there’s no harm in reminding yourself of the guidelines from last year, and making sure you’ve read all of those successful stories to try and glean as clear an idea as possible of what attracted the Black Library editors to those authors, their styles and the stories they pitched. As I said earlier, however, the 2019 submissions window has rather different guidelines, so make sure you’ve paid close attention to those as well.

In addition to what Black Library have provided, I thought it might be useful to try and gather up a few other resources which might be useful to anyone planning on submitting this year. I did ask Black Library if they would like to contribute anything here (you should have seen the plans I had!) however I was politely (but firmly) rebuffed, so perhaps BL are planning on providing some more information through their own channels. In the meantime, here’s what I’ve been able to gather myself (and don’t forget the author interviews I linked out to earlier):

  • 2018’s advice from authors: the official article isn’t live any more, but BL published short pieces of advice from various authors…which you can find below.
  • Advice from authors in the community: I know of a few sources of information from various BL authors, whether on their own website or via another community resource, in which they talk about writing and pitching in particular. I’ll link out to those below.
  • Helpful authors on Twitter: I don’t personally write fiction, but I enjoy following authors on Twitter who talk about their writing processes and offer advice to other writers. I’ll recommend a few who I particularly like.

If you read my roundup of Black Library Live 2019 then you might remember that I mentioned some editorial cheat sheets which the BL editors were providing to fans at the event. I’m hoping that Black Library are going to make these available for wider consumption sometime soon, as they contain lots of genuinely interesting information and advice which I’m sure would be useful to anyone hoping to submit this year.

2018’s advice from authors
In this section you can find the advice which was published by Black Library last year, from various authors – David Annandale, David Guymer, Chris Wraight, Robbie MacNiven, Guy Haley, Gav Thorpe and John French. I’ve attached these as screenshots to save myself typing them all out (my patience only extends so far, after all…) so click on each name below to open the screenshot and have a read (each one will open in a new window)!

Advice in the community
Pretty much all of the Black Library authors are lovely folks who will happily take the time to chat in person (and sometimes on social media) and offer advice and insight into the writing process. What I wouldn’t suggest is that you actively pester them with highly specific questions about your personal writing challenges, HOWEVER…I know of at least a few who have provided advice and suggestions to the community before. In this section I’ve linked out to various sources of information which you might find useful, and if I come across any more in future I’ll make sure to add them in here as well:

I’m a semi-regular contributor to the Imperial Truth (and its sister podcast, Fanatic), on which Greg does a brilliant job of speaking to Black Library authors. One interview in particular is of interest here, as Greg spoke to a pair of BL authors about the submissions window:

  • Laurie Goulding and David Guymer discuss their respective approaches to writing and preparing for the submissions window. You can listen directly from this page, or by subscribing to the podcast on iTunes or another podcast app.
  • If you really want then you can also listen to Greg and me talk about the open submissions window in this episode as well.

Gav’s website features great articles with advice on loads of different writing-related topics. I saw on Twitter that Gav’s actually planning on updating some of this advice via his Patreon account, so (as if you needed another reason) it might be worth checking that out. Here are a few existing articles, however, which I think might be useful:

It actually isn’t BL-related, but I recently came across this great blog post from Kate Coe – author, and editor for Rebellion Publishing – talking about story pitches and what editors are looking for. It came off the back of Rebellion opening up an impromptu Twitter submissions window (of sorts), which produced some really interesting story ideas…and some really weird ideas too…and Kate’s thoughts on the topic are fascinating. This is more geared towards pitching novels, but I think lots of what’s discussed will be relevant to short story pitches too.

Know of any great authors who have written similar articles? Let me know and I’ll add them to the list…

Helpful authors on Twitter
Blog posts and articles aren’t the only ways in which established authors can offer help and advice; I follow lots of great science fiction and fantasy authors on Twitter, for example, and while I don’t follow them specifically to get advice (as I’m not actively trying to write stories) I’m aware of several who regularly go out of their way to help newer authors out. Your mileage may vary with all of these authors, but it might be worth checking them out to see if their styles and approaches could help you out.

For each one I’ve linked out to an example Tweet or thread which demonstrates the sort of thing that I think might be helpful to other authors:

  • Gareth L. Powell: one of the most positive, friendly authorial presences I’ve come across on Twitter, Gareth is a fantastic author and a lovely bloke. He’s also got a book about writing which you could check out.
  • C. Robert Cargill: a sci-fi and horror author and scriptwriter with serious credentials (he wrote Marvel’s Doctor Strange, for example), and another hugely positive online presence who goes out of his way to help people out.
  • Delilah S. Dawson: a prolific prose and comic book writer, Delilah has tremendous experience in IP writing, so I’m sure some of her advice and guidance will be relevant to anyone wanting to write for BL.

These are just a few authors who I admire for their positive, helpful online presence – let me know if there are any others who you find helpful!

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I hope this article has been interesting and/or useful, whether you’re actively getting ready to submit this year or like me you’re just interested in the process of open submissions. As I said earlier, if you’re planning on submitting then best of luck! Let me know in the comments below if you’ve got any thoughts, questions or feedback, or get in touch on Twitter or Facebook.

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