Chris Dows is a hugely experienced writer across multiple formats, publishers and settings, on top of being a university lecturer, and he’s been writing for Black Library for a few years now. Over that time he’s tackled stories in both prose and audio about Elysians, Cadians, World Eaters and most recently explorers in the Blackstone Fortress, and I’ve been meaning for a while now to get him on Track of Words for a proper interview. With his latest audio drama, Augur of Despair, being released in three parts over the 2019 Black Library Advent series, now seems like a perfect opportunity.
Although he started off with Black Library writing short stories, Chris is really developing a reputation for being an audio specialist. As well as being an opportunity to learn a bit more about him as an author, and hear about both his latest releases and back catalogue stories, I wanted to use this interview to get some of Chris’ thoughts on working in the audio medium and the similarities between writing for comics and audio.
Without further ado, let’s get straight on with the interview.
Track of Words: Tell us a little about yourself as an author – who you are, where you’re from, what you like to write, etc.
Chris Dows: I’m proud to say I’m Lincoln born and Grimsby bred (it’s not just Guy Martin who’s happy to be from Grimsby!). I’ve been writing professionally since 1994, which means this is my 25th anniversary – as sobering a thought as it is remarkable. I’m proud to say I’ve been in print every year of that quarter century in everything from Looney Tunes comic books to The Official Star Trek Magazine. I’m currently the Programme Leader for the newly launched BA Creative Writing degree at the University of Lincoln where I also teach on two MAs and undertake PhD supervision (I got my Doctorate from Lancaster Uni in 2007 where I wrote my thesis on the place of comic book writing compared to other more ‘acceptable’ forms of authorship).
While I’ve specialised in Licensed Products, I also like to write historical fiction and YA fantasy – I’ve got a couple of novels that are non-Black Library available digitally or printed on Amazon (Lokomotive and Panthea). While I like writing prose, I love script-based narratives – hence me gravitating towards and specialising in audio dramas for BL over the last few years.
ToW: Can you remember a defining moment when you were growing up, or a particular book or author, that steered you towards science fiction and/or fantasy?
CD: One of the greatest moments of my life – and this might sound like an old SF hack’s cliché – was when I saw Star Wars for the first time. While it stunned and amazed me, it also made me think ‘If people can get paid to do that, why can’t I?’ I’ve always been a staunch defender of so-called ‘genre’ writing and have lost count of the times I’ve argued the merits of SF and Fantasy since then. There’s been so many books that have had an impact – Heinlein’s Starship Troopers blew me away, Arthur C Clarke never failed to unimpress me, Iain M Banks’ Consider Phlebas shows you what you can really do to piss off a reader… I actually rely on my students now to bring good stories – old and new – to my attention because, cliché that it is once again, I’m too busy writing to read!
ToW: What would you say your strengths are as a writer? Alternatively, what do you enjoy writing the most?
CD: I think the two coincide – strong, motivation-driven characters. I’ve written Space Marines before and enjoyed the experience, but I’m an Astra Militarum man (with a bit of Mechanicus thrown in – lets me go mad on my pig Latin). I also like to include as much ‘authentic’ warcraft as I can; I’ve talked about my interviews with veterans before to inform my writing and, along with my lifelong interest in all things military, that’s where I feel most comfortable and enjoy the most. But it’s all about the character first and foremost – Elmore Leonard once said ‘Every character should want something, even if it’s a glass of water’ and he’s absolutely right. Additionally, I don’t assign characters on a gender basis – if it’s a good character, it’s a good character, male, female or non-binary.
ToW: Over the years you’ve written a lot of stories for various publishers, and in different formats. How did you make your start as a writer?
CD: My writing career started with an actor friend of mine asking if I’d do a rewrite on a Channel 4 film script called Paper Marriage in 1990, a British version of the hugely popular 80’s American film Green Card. It was a disaster, but I got a nice free lunch in Greek Street with the producer of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I then got invited to write comic books with my good friend Colin Clayton in the mid-90s; no email, so we used to mail and fax stories to US publishers and meet up with them at UK and US conventions.
Colin and I enjoyed modest success (Image Comics, Caliber Comics, 2000AD, Sony, Nickelodeon) and did a lot of licensed products as well as everything from gothic horror to science fiction for fifteen years. I also did a lot of non-fiction writing, and have been attached to the Star Trek franchise for twenty five years (DS9 comics, The Star Trek Fact Files, The Official Star Trek Magazine, StarTrek.com).
ToW: How did you come to write for Black Library in particular?
CD: My connection with Warhammer started around eight years ago over a pint at Wetherspoons in Grimsby with Nick Kyme [now Managing Editor at Black Library], who I knew from his time at the Grimsby Institute when he studied Creative Writing. He knew I’d been a pro for a few years and specialised in SF particularly, and was looking to diversify away from comic books. That led to a try-out short story (In the Shadow of the Emperor) then a few more (where I created the Elysian drop troop super-sniper Zachariah), some other shorts and then The Red Path short stories/novel (KHARNAGE!) My direction then changed to audio dramas; Nick knew I was familiar with script-based storytelling, I love the audio format and I’m delighted to be specialising in them now.
ToW: Do you have any key pieces of advice for anyone wanting to write professionally, whether in terms of pitching, writing or generally just working with editors and publishers?
CD: That’s an entire interview on its own! I do a lot of this in my teaching on the BA Creative Writing at Lincoln (and the MAs), where I lean on my professional career to inform my teaching and module design. If I had to pick a couple of pieces of advice, the first – and foremost – would be ‘know your audience’. That’s doubly so for any Licensed Product, triply for Warhammer; if you don’t know the IP and your stuff, you’re not going to get very far. The second piece of advice is to think of yourself as a career writer, not a ‘single story’ one-shot wonder. It’s a funny thing, but the primary concern people have is they’ll run out of ideas; it doesn’t work like that. So get writing, and keep it simple too – don’t over-complicate plots and characters.
ToW: Your latest release for Black Library is a three-part audio drama released as part of the 2019 Advent Calendar – Augur of Despair. How would you describe this story?
CD: One word – adventure! When it was proposed I write a Blackstone Fortress story to coincide with the latest expansion, the plan was for it to be a three-parter that had to dovetail strongly enough to make a single release CD at a later date (by May 2020 I believe). This posed the same structural and dramatic challenges that The Red Path did, but that was for eight consecutive stories, not three, so was much more straightforward. I pitched three ideas – the first two were fairly complex, the last one relatively simple and with my favoured characters – and that was the one that got picked. It’s a rollicking yarn that covers a lot of Blackstone Fortress ground while adding, I hope, something intriguing to the mix – and has some set-pieces which lend themselves really well to the audio drama format IMHO.
ToW: It features two very different characters in Neyam and Gotfret – did you deliberately choose these two so that you could develop that sort of odd-couple dynamic between them?
CD: Absolutely. I was given free reign of the existing and new characters; I was drawn to them from a number of angles, particularly the fact that, at heart, they both had the same goals (but from very different perspectives). Neyam is a super-tough cookie who knows what she wants and will charge in to get it; Gotfret is more thoughtful and the voice of reason. I also decided he absolutely hates Genetor Sett, something I thought would add an extra dimension to the story. I knew the Blackstone Fortress backdrop would pose challenges but at the same time if I used it properly it’d be a great dramatic stage and become a character in itself if I handled it carefully; I hope I was right.
ToW: Is there anything that you’d recommend fans check out before listening to this?
CD: Any Blackstone Fortress novels, shorts or audio dramas should fit in beautifully with the continuity; Darius Hinks has The Beast Inside audio which features the Dreaded Ambull heavily, which is where I start off my story and set precedents for a lot of the soundstages. I worked from the Codexes to put my story together but I’ll bet the production gang have got it sounding exactly the same. And if you play the game, you’ll know who everyone is!
ToW: Why this story? Of all the possible stories you could have written about the Blackstone Fortress, what made you go for this one?
CD: As I said, I proposed three stories initially but they all included some kind of device at the centre of the narrative. This one, I felt, allowed me to focus on villains myself, Will and Kate wanted to include (a Chaos Commissar) and a few of the ‘regular’ threats from the Blackstone Fortress, including the deadly shifting innards themselves. I also set part of it in Genetor Sett’s whacky lab although they soon get down and dirty back in the Fortress proper.
This is the thing about working on Black Library; you get to fill in the details, and that’s a lot of fun (my character description for Sett was ‘imagine Doc Brown out of Back to the Future but on serious Class A drugs). I also wanted to do it as a breathless adventure; you don’t get time to recover before the next crazy thing is happening. I like a frenetic pace (it helps to hide plot holes – as JJ Abrams knows) and to keep the story moving while, I hope, giving texture to the characters that people know and love/loathe. How can you possibly beat a character who has a sword for a leg? I mean, come on…
ToW: What do you hope 40k and Blackstone Fortress fans will get out of this by the time they’ve finished it?
CD: Primarily, enjoyment – and if one gamer uses any of the voices from the audio when they’re next playing, I’ll die a happy man. When you consider many Black Library writers have, as their primary character reference, a few lines from a codex and a three inch figure, there’s a lot of context and detail to bring to the (gaming) table. I want the characters and environments to dovetail with expectations rather than challenge them; that can be a tricky thing to pull off (you can’t please all of the people all of the time, ask Peter Jackson about LOTR) but I’m giving it my best shot.
Check out my review of Augur of Despair right here!
ToW: What else can you tell us about what you’re working on, or what you’ve got coming out over the coming months?
CD: I have another completed audio drama ready to go into the studio, and have just finished the first draft of number seven which will be done and dusted in the new year. I can’t say anything about either, but I will say this; if you thought Titans’ Bane and Augur of Despair were good, you’re going to love these!
ToW: Speaking of Titans’ Bane, I always recommend this to anyone who’s interested in getting into Black Library audio dramas – it’s my absolute favourite. Can you talk a bit about that story – what the overall plot is, what inspired it, and what you hope people will get out of it?
CD: They say you’re only as good as the last thing you’ve written, so I hope everyone thinks Augur of Despair is as good! It’s a very different story of course, and Titans’ Bane has been very warmly and positively received since it came out. It’s set during an attack by Nurgle forces on the planet Xalxat and is set entirely inside a Shadowsword super-heavy tank in real time, with a dysfunctional crew and dangerously over-used Volcano cannon that will likely blow them up instead of their Titan prey.
Pretty much everything that can go wrong does go wrong for Lieutenant Quiller and her mongrel team; there’s internal and external conflict compressed in a pressure cooker for 50 minutes as they try to destroy their target and avenge not only fallen comrades but the whole of Cadia. It was suggested by Nick K; he gave me ‘let’s set a story inside a tank and not go out’, and I just went from there. I’ve always been a massive military history fan, and getting inside a tank and the heads of its crew was right up my street. As for what I hope people will get out of it… tension, menace, some (dark) humour, but the belief that, despite all the odds, there is a reason for fighting ‘the cause’.
ToW: There’s a real emotional heft to this story – did you deliberately set out with that in mind, or was it something that developed as you worked on it?
CD: I knew this story was going to be about conflict, and with that would come high emotion. Quiller’s trying to keep a lid (literally) on a situation not of her making; she’s got half of her original crew dead and replaced by very different races (Paragonian, Mordian) whose belief systems would cause issues, the tank’s machine spirit is fed up of running away, she’s got the guilt of Cadia falling… I tried to balance out the pressure so it didn’t become absurd and one undermine or distract from the other. It starts frantically, calms a little then builds and builds; the main criticism of Titans’ Bane was its running length (too short) but I think one of the main reasons it has the emotional clout is because it’s not overlong. The details developed as I progressed through the drafts, but it was intentional – as was the way they slowly came together and resolved their differences (some of them at least).
[If you’d like to know more about Titans’ Bane you can check out a RAPID FIRE interview with Chris about it right here]
ToW: I’m also a big fan of your Elysian Drop Troops stories. Do you think you might return to tell more stories about Sergeant Zachariah and the Elysian 158th?
CD: I’d love to. Martyrs of Elysia was left deliberately open, and I like the idea of Zach ‘owing one’ to the Commissariat. How that pans out, who knows?
ToW: You’ve written both short stories and audio dramas about the Elysians. Do you think they suit one better than the other, or is it more a case of picking the right format for each individual story?
CD: That’s a really good question. I enjoyed writing both; the short stories matched the urgency of the narratives being told on the page, and I liked the descriptive writing. But audio lent an entirely new dimension to the universe and I got to expand the whole Elysian world significantly, with sound helping tremendously, particularly with character development (great to hear Zachariah and Adullam talking!). I think there are stories that naturally suggest themselves better to one format than another; and now I’m specialising in audio I think of stories that will visualise themselves well (yes, visualise – writing for audio is all about the visuals!).
ToW: How did you find moving between formats with these stories?
I’ve never had a problem moving between formats; writing scripts is no harder than prose, it’s just different. The initial pitching of the premise and synopsis development is the same regardless of the format; it’s the execution that differs, although pacing and staging differ quite a bit, as does the timing of scenes opposed to the balance of chapters. Pace is something that can be more immediately obvious with audio, and easier to screw up/fix too with some prudent editing.
I think you can adapt pretty much anything to any format, but there are certain stories that definitely work better in particular formats – and it’s worth noting that while it’s more of a challenge to write, Black Library’s move towards ‘proper’ radio play audio dramas and away from omniscient narrators (the one thing I don’t like about the Elysian trilogy) is a good one as it strengthens the drama and the staging. You just have to be very careful not to fall into expositional ‘oh look we’re walking through a very long passage with spikes sticking out of the sides’ dialogue.
ToW: We’ve talked already about how much work you’ve done writing comics, while since working with Black Library you seem to have specialised in audio dramas. Could you talk a bit about the crossover between those two formats, in terms of the technical skills required?
CD: I’ve kind of answered this partly, but let me add that, as I’ve got more into writing audio dramas, I’ve found an extraordinary similarity between the ‘palette’ of tools an audio writer has compared with a comic book writer. For both, you have layers of storytelling open to you; scene directions are described the same as panels, dialogue is identical, you have SFX as onomatopoeic spellings in comics or translated into sound for recordings…and both require highly visual thinking, something that, at first, you perhaps wouldn’t associate with audio dramas.
Ask anyone who digs them; it’s all about how it looks in your head while you’re listening to it, and the job the amazing voice actors keep doing and the direction Matt Renshaw maintains (along with the musical scores and SFX) all paints a rich virtual tapestry of sound. It’s an area I lecture about at Lincoln and, to my knowledge, isn’t discussed anywhere else.
ToW: What about choosing your narratives – with shorter, episodic formats like these (not to mention the absence – or reduction – of narration) does that affect the kinds of story that you choose to tell?
CD: As I’ve mentioned, the last few scripts I’ve written have been without an omniscient narrator. This makes it more difficult to tell the story; everything relies on dialogue and SFX/atmos, but I think it makes it a more authentic dramatic experience and less like a glorified talking book (there’s absolutely NOTHING wrong with that format by the way – they’re hugely popular and rightly so). I’d have to say it would have been very tough to write the Elysian trilogy without an omniscient narrator, but I would have been able to do it – only differently. Shorter single shot stories are definitely more manageable without narration, but you still have to be careful and thoughtful about how you arrange them so yes, shorter stories are easier to handle sans narrator.
ToW: Both comics and audio seem like more collaborative projects than writing prose fiction. Is that something you particularly enjoy?
CD: There’s an old saying in Hollywood – ‘everything starts with a script’. The rest of the saying should go ‘and then you get stamped out of existence by everyone else’s opinions’. That’s not the way at Black Library – there’s a lot of vibrant and lively discussion with editors at every stage of the process, but it’s rarely a single person’s pure vision. As long as the end result is a good story well told, I’m entirely happy (and it’s something I tell my students and new writers – you can’t afford to be precious with your work if it’s going to see the light of day).
To a certain extent being a scriptwriter for comics and audio dramas has similar issues – you’re at the mercy of a penciller/inker/colourist or producer/actors/fx and musicians – but when everyone’s being coordinated properly, it shouldn’t be a worry. EVERY story I’ve ever done for Black Library – audio or prose – has come out well, with things only added to make them better. The key is to be as descriptive as possible regarding what you want – contents of a comic book panel, the soundscape you want for a particular scene – because the worst that can happen is it isn’t quite right. The worst that can happen if you DON’T specify is you get something absolutely unconnected with what your ‘vision’ was. I know all the girls and guys at BL well enough to trust them, and that’s good enough for me – as well as being hugely enjoyable (you all know I’ll turn up to the opening of an envelope).
ToW: When you’re not writing awesome Warhammer audio dramas, what might we find you getting up to?
CD: Running the BA Creative Writing and teaching on the twin Masters programmes/PhD supervision at the University of Lincoln, spending time with my gorgeous fiancée Sarah and an assortment of her and my kids, and plumbing.
ToW: If someone wants to keep up with what you’re doing, how’s best to do that?
CD: I’m a bit of a Twitter fan so if you want to subscribe to me @CSDOWS that’s the best way to do it. Thanks to Michael for being such a stalwart supporter of my work, and a final big shout out to all the fantastic Black Library fans out there and my wonderful UG and PG students at Lincoln!
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I’m grateful to Chris for taking the time to talk to me for this interview – I hope you’ve enjoyed it as much as I did! If you haven’t already, make sure you check out some of Chris’ Black Library stories – you can find all of my reviews (and several other interviews) right here. Do head over to Twitter and follow Chris to keep up to date with all of his writing news, and keep an eye out for reviews of more of Chris’ stories coming soon.
