I was recently asked to be one of three community judges for the April 2020 Fast Fiction Collection over at Cold Open Stories, a call for fans of Warhammer fiction to submit 1,000 word stories in the Warhammer 40,000 setting. The deadline has now passed and the three judges – Colyn from Cold Open Stories, Jack from the Youtube channel Oculus Imperia and myself – have read through the submissions selected for inclusion in the collection and picked out our recommended choices. You can read the winning short story, along with all of the selected entries, over at the COS website. It’s been a really interesting experience to be part of this process, so I thought I’d write up a few thoughts on what was involved.
What is Cold Open Stories?
If you’ve not come across it before, Cold Open Stories is a website dedicated to commissioning and publishing fan-made fiction set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, in the form of both short stories and audio dramas. It’s not affiliated with Games Workshop or Black Library, but rather is run as a not-for-profit enterprise by dedicated fans of the setting, providing an opportunity for anyone who’s interested to have a go at writing and submitting stories. It’s been running since 2019 and at the time of writing you can find four audio dramas and over 20 short stories (of varying lengths) live on the site.
Here’s the full description from the site itself:
The “cold open” is a storytelling technique which throws the reader directly into the action to build up a sense of danger, humour, or mystery. COLD OPEN STORIES was launched in June 2019 as a love-letter to short fiction and weird fiction that have the power to quickly throw us into new worlds and encourage us to reflect on our culture. You can read and listen to Cold Open Stories for free, and we encourage our audience to support our efforts by giving to sponsored charities.
Before Colyn (De Graaff, the site’s founder) got in touch about the Fast Fiction Collection I had been aware of COS for some time, but hadn’t really dug into what was available. I’ve since investigated further and been impressed by the amount of work that’s gone into the site, not just in terms of writing the stories but producing the audios, laying everything on the site out, and generally putting together an easy to use, remarkably professional-feeling experience. It’s clearly a labour of love, and if you’re interested in 40k and want to read/listen to a slightly different take on the setting to what you get via Black Library, this is well worth checking out.
The Fast Fiction Collection
Most of the short stories available on COS are of a relatively similar length to what you’d see from a Black Library short story (the Spring 2020 Short Fiction submissions window asks for between 2,000 and 8,000 words), but the Fast Fiction stories are what I would call micro-shorts, restricted to a maximum of 1,000 words. The idea behind this submissions window was for prospective authors to submit stories based around a theme word – reclaim – relating to that theme “as told through the environment, characters, or conflict”, which I’d say was a pretty big ask. 1,000 words doesn’t offer a lot of room for storytelling, so it was certainly a tough challenge.
The 17 stories you can see on the site now were selected by COS’ editorial team from the 40+ that were submitted, and the three judges – Colyn, Jack and myself – each read through them all with a view to selecting our top picks. We all used the same set of grading metrics to help us make our choices, which I thought was a sensible decision on the part of COS – this way we could be consistent within our own decision-making and as a group as well. I won’t go into too much detail, but here are the areas we looked at, applying a numerical score to each one for every story:
- Plot
- Setting (and how well it fits 40k)
- Characters
- Writing (with various key points to consider)
- Originality
- Theme
Obviously any exercise like this with multiple judges remains subjective, as we’ll all inevitably take different things from the stories, but I’m sure these metrics helped even things out a little. The specifics of this grading system are a little different to how I normally assess and think about a story, but once I got my head around things I found that I enjoyed reflecting on each story through the lens of these metrics. I realised in hindsight that, when reading Warhammer stories at least, I already do think about things like how well a story fits the relevant setting and how its themes fit in with the overarching tone and feel of 40k/Aos etc. – but it was interesting to codify things in this way. If you’re a reviewer, or if you’re just interested in thinking more analytically about what you read, you might find it interesting to have a go yourself!
The stories
I’m not going to talk about all of the stories – I would urge you to check them out on the COS website yourself (at 1,000 words or less they’re pretty quick to read) and see what you think. Instead, I thought I would highlight those that I picked out as my personal selections, and talk very briefly about why I liked each one of them (subjectively, I won’t refer to the grading metrics specifically).
Just a quick note: in terms of direct feedback, the kind folks at COS have actually offered to provide direct editorial feedback on all of the submissions, should the authors want it, which I think is a very generous offer!
My top pick: Prime Helix by Darren Davis
This one really stood out for me, a powerful tale of a Space Marine Apothecary searching for lost brothers (to reclaim their progenoids) and reflecting on the path that led him to where he is. It cleverly packs in a lot of story with the help of a few judiciously placed flashbacks, and doesn’t try to tell too big a story – I got everything I wanted from it without needing masses of action or detailed backstory. While it wasn’t the overall winner, it was my personal favourite!
Honourable mention: Lost Property by Leon Davis
I do love an ork-perspective story when done well, and this is done really well. I’ve probably read it four or five times now and it makes me laugh out loud every time, nicely capturing the vicious humour of the greenskins with a balance of almost-slapstick comedy and brutal violence. The idea of an irate ork Nob on the warpath because he’s lost his prized shoota, only to find it mid-battle in the hands of a rival…I won’t spoil what happens, but it’s spot on!
Honourable mention: Reclaim by Ignatius Fischer
This is another example of a story which doesn’t try to fit too much in – in fact it gives you very little information other than a breakneck sense of urgency, right up until the end when it all becomes clear. I won’t say too much for risk of spoiling the plot, but it’s a very personal sort of ‘domestic 40k’ story, clearly taking place in this setting but informed by the usual militaristic themes rather than focusing on them.
I’d also like to mention The Blue Git by Cody Skrine, another tremendously entertaining orky story, and The Consuming Gaze by Jenny Strath, a remarkably dark Sisters of Battle story. Both of these were in my personal top five, and there’s lots to enjoy about them.
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Hopefully this has piqued your interest in the Fast Fiction Collection, if you hadn’t already checked it out. Do hear over to the Cold Open Stories website and have a read of these stories – if you fancy writing something yourself, check out the Submissions page and see what’s open at the moment. All that remains is to say thanks to Colyn for inviting me to be part of this collection – cheers Colyn – and well done to everyone who submitted a story!
If you have any questions, comments or other thoughts please do let me know in the comments below, or find me on Twitter!