Gav Thorpe's Blog, page 26

The Emperor Expects – Competition Winners!

As you will hopefully have seen, I ran a competition to win two copies of The Emperor Expects, to celebrate its release this February. I’ll be blogging a bit more about the book in the next few days, so keep an eye on the blog if you want to find out more.

And the winners are…

The first winner, and new newsletter subscriber is… drumroll please… Thomas Broussard! You should receive an email from me shortly Thomas.

Don’t worry if you didn’t win this time, newsletter subscribers can still win signed books in my bi-monthly draw. The next draw takes place in March and will be for a personalised, signed copy of my Ravenlord novella.

There were over 200 entries for #theemperorexpects competition – thank you to everyone who took part, it has given me more than a few chuckles these last two weeks. I’ll have to try and run a similar competition for the release of book eight later this year. Without further ado, the winner is… another drumroll please… @vidpui!

@DennisHamster #theEmperorExpects at least 1 Valentines day card that isnt from his mum

— Vidpui (@vidpui) February 4, 2016

I thought the entry was funny, timely, and has a touch of pathos – imagining the Emperor waiting for a Valentines card. I’ll tweet you shortly @vidpui!

Some definite themes emerged – the geek humour and in-jokes, those on the 40k theme, the takeaway gags, the inevitable ‘Spanish Inquisition’ and ‘Unexpected’ ones, the bribes and threats, and of course lots and lots of funny ones. You can read them all by scrolling down, but here are some that I thought deserved highlighting:

Charles Owens [Great Rowdy Roddy Piper quote there, wrestling and SF in one go – Gav]

#TheEmperorExpects you to kick ass and chew bubblegum and he’s all outta bubblegum….

Kasrkin Koala

#TheEmperorExpects to be bitterly disappointed on Father’s day, again. Inappropriate IOU “next crusade I promise” is inappropriate.

Dan Findlay-Robinson ‏@FRBlackSheep

#TheEmperorExpects his boys to go and sit in the eye of terror and think about what they’ve done

Greg D Smith ‏@blagmasterg

@DennisHamster #theemperorexpects nobody understands the torment of 10,000 years sitting in one spot and not being able to scratch an itch

Gareth Bradshaw [Only just started listening to Night Vale this week! – Gav]

#theemperorexpects that if you see something, to say nothing and drink, to forget.

D.M.A.Mitchell ‏@Damarcalex

@DennisHamster #theemperorexpects patchy rain at first, but brightening up as we move into the afternoon, before it begins to snow tonight.

Steve Gill ‏@GreenOakSteve

@DennisHamster #theemperorexpects Cadbury’s Milk Tray

Schäfe ‏@schafecast

#theemperorexpects me to join the family business, reuniting humanity under his banner across the galaxy. But what about my dreams dad.

Robert ‏@bighungry1969 [Another wrestling-related quote! – Gav]

@DennisHamster #theemperorexpects you to say your prayers and take your vitamins!

Trisha Zissler ‏@TrishaZissler

@DennisHamster #theemperorexpects his followers to realize that girls can like 40k too!

Gems Guymer @Ashanti_SC [Passive aggressive from Mrs Guymer! – Gav]

@dennishamster #theemperorexpects you to turn off the lights if no1 is using the room. Goddamn bf killing the planet 1 light bulb at a time.

D.M.A.Mitchell ‏@Damarcalex [Bonus points for rap/rhyme – Gav]

@DennisHamster #theemperorexpects / that his many defects / won’t have an adverse effect / on man’s prospects / but he is not correct.

**To make sure you don’t miss out on any blog posts or future competitions, you can keep up-to-date with everything Gav by signing up to my monthly newsletter. As a bonus, every other month I randomly pick a newsletter subscriber to receive a free signed copy of one of my books – the next being a copy of my Ravenlord novella.**

The full list of entries and much scrolling:

Mike Mullan-Jensen ‏@MstevnsMJ

#TheEmperorExpects improved warranty periods on Martian goods after his latest complaint. Ten millenia on Golden Thrones is not good enough.

Mike Mullan-Jensen ‏@MstevnsMJ

#TheEmperorExpects that death and taxes will occupy his mind for a while…

Kendrick Warnat ‏@Sumshine128

#TheEmperorExpects the finest golden toilet the universe has ever seen.

Marcus Pitt ‏@Marcoos14

@DennisHamster The Emperor expects the 2nd and 11th to turn up any time soon #theemperorexpects

Alexandra ‏@AlexandraPeel

@DennisHamster #theemperorexpects his back to be shaved by 3 of the clock.

DiscoJacen ‏@DiscoJacen

@DennisHamster #TheEmperorExpects that since it is third book in the series, this will be my third entry here

Vidpui ‏@vidpui

#theemperorexpects the #warmongers to enter this competition

Michael McCormick ‏@mimnouk

#theemperorexpects but never remembers his ‘please’ or ‘thank you’

Michael McCormick ‏@mimnouk

#theemperorexpects 50 Shades of Grey to really work as a bedtime read for Nathaniel Garro!

Michael McCormick ‏@mimnouk

#theemperorexpects to return his overdue books to the Black Library before Ahriman gets his hands on them!

Michael McCormick ‏@mimnouk

#theemperorexpects the unexpected

Michael McCormick ‏@mimnouk

#theemperorexpects a lump of coal in his stocking this year. He has been a very naughty boy!

Michael McCormick ‏@mimnouk

#theemperorexpects the Spanish Inquisition

Astrid Kepner ‏@VanguardOracle

#TheEmperorExpects fresh coffee every morning! Get on it Custodes!

Bruva Alfabusa ‏@Alfabusa

#TheEmperorExpects all threats to be lashed from the galaxy’s hind, as we emerge into a future embodied wholly of fridays all week long!

Valrak ‏@Vigiliamortis

#TheEmperorExpects Me to win or you will be marked for exterminatus

Dan Findlay-Robinson ‏@FRBlackSheep

#TheEmperorExpects his boys to go and sit in the eye of terror and think about what they’ve done

Justin McFarland ‏@jtmcfarland

#theemperorexpects Vegetarian, vegan and Kosher meal options.

Tinker-rat ‏@Maliceunchained

@DennisHamster #theemperorexpects you to choose wisely.

Gohda ‏@husker04

#TheEmperorExpects to take the car,kill Phil “sorry”,grab Roboute,go to the Ultramar,have a nice cold pint+wait for the heresy to blow over

Connor Barker ‏@Proximocoal

#TheEmperorExpects Tetrahedriplets. He is concerned that Malcador won’t look at him the same way afterwards.

Banhammer72 ‏@Banhammer72

@DennisHamster #TheEmperorExpects his pizza to arrive in 30 minutes or less or He will declare you a heretic!

Christopher Morgan ‏@sanguine_morgan

#theemperorexpects Sanguinius to be home before bedtime. Seriously. Hurry up!

BrotherEJ ‏@Brother3j

@DennisHamster #TheEmperorExpects someone to change the ink in the Golden throne printer and not the cheap refills this time

Alex Dodds ‏@doddsalex

@DennisHamster #TheEmperorExpects the Spanish Inquisition.

Banhammer72 ‏@Banhammer72

@DennisHamster #TheEmperorExpects A better Golden Throne than the one from the Ikea range, he hates the smell of Pine! #justemperorthings

The Beard ‏@Longfellowbeard

@DennisHamster #TheEmperorExpects to get his groove back at some point.

Andrew Jordan ‏@AJVikng

@DennisHamster #theemperorexpects that it’s all been just a bad dream and he’s really in the shower. Horus is in the kitchen making a cuppa.

WM Crawford ‏@willcraw40k

@DennisHamster #TheEmperorExpects no fewer than 2 biscuits with his tea & your unending loyalty of course. But don’t forget the biscuits

Alexander Lannister ‏@PedagogensInre

#TheEmperorExpects milk together with his cookies.

Alexander Lannister ‏@PedagogensInre

#TheEmperorExpects the Spanish Inquisition.

Tinker-rat ‏@Maliceunchained

@DennisHamster #theemperorexpects everyone to stop fighting and make up again. Any time now…

A Edwards ‏@Lysander45

@blagmasterg @DennisHamster #theemperorexpects That telling Perturabo what happened with Olympia is cool will fix their beef.

Greg D Smith ‏@blagmasterg

@DennisHamster #theemperorexpects that it’ll all be fine once he’s found Magnus & apologised for not believing him & that silly Nikea thing

Greg D Smith ‏@blagmasterg

@DennisHamster #theemperorexpects nobody understands the torment of 10,000 years sitting in one spot and not being able to scratch an itch

Greg D Smith ‏@blagmasterg

@DennisHamster #theemperorexpects that it’ll all be fine once he’s sorted the whole web way thing out – after all he’s left Horus in charge

Greg D Smith ‏@blagmasterg

@DennisHamster #theemperorexpects that nobody will ever get the end of this dangling preposition right – it’s been ten thousand years so far

Greg D Smith ‏@blagmasterg

@DennisHamster #theemperorexpects-o patronums. Twenty of them to be precise, conjured up from his wand (ooh er) to protect man from evil

Greg D Smith ‏@blagmasterg

@DennisHamster #theemperorexpects the Spanish Inquisition. Because basically, red cowls, torture and a fanatical devotion is his thing

JerseyGeneral ‏@Jersey_General

@DennisHamster @3dgreg #@DennisHamster @3dgreg #theemperorexpects a follow up book- “what to expect when the Emperor is expecting”

Peter McLean ‏@PeteMC666

@DennisHamster #theemperorexpects you to spell kaiju correctly!

saintjw ‏@saintjw

@DennisHamster #theemperorexpects me to have finished Predator/Prey before The Emperor Expects comes out!

Greggles ‏@3dgreg

@DennisHamster @vidpui #theemperorexpects that everyone will misinterpret everything he said for the next 10,000 years.

Kevin Carley ‏@Kwizat

Better to die killing for the Emperor, than letting the heretic live. #theemperorexpects

Predrag Vasiljevic ‏@PVasiljevic

#theemperorexpects that someone finally fixes his text-to-speech device

Christopher Phillips ‏@Toophers

@DennisHamster #theEmperorExpects A bended knee from the ignorant. A blind eye to the true Powers!

Jamie ‏@DrakePoldragon

Writing up some #theEmperorExpects lines for @DennisHamster’s competition (check it out for a chance to win). It got me thinking about..1/4

John Oates ‏@JJ_Oates

@DennisHamster #theemperorexpects they mostly come out at night. #mostly

John Burchell ‏@JohnBurch

@DennisHamster not even #TheEmperorExpects the Spanish Inquisition!

Jamie ‏@DrakePoldragon

@DennisHamster #TheEmperorExpects the twist at the end of the Horus Heresy series to catch a lot of people by surpeise.

Jamie ‏@DrakePoldragon

@DennisHamster #TheEmperorExpects great(ish) things from this neq Thorpe book.

Jamie ‏@DrakePoldragon

@DennisHamster #TheEmperorExpects great things from this new Dickens book.

Jamie ‏@DrakePoldragon

@DennisHamster #TheEmperorExpects the inquisition. Obvious but it seemed a good place to start.

Jeff Preston ‏@GimpyMcStubbs

@DennisHamster #theEmperorExpects socks for Christmas.

Vidpui ‏@vidpui

@DennisHamster #theEmperorExpects at least 1 Valentines day card that isnt from his mum

rich ‏@gamingking1616

@DennisHamster i would say #theEmperorExpects but khorne wont let me! #bloodforthebloodgod #deathtothefalseemperor lol

D.M.A.Mitchell ‏@Damarcalex

@DennisHamster #theemperorexpects patchy rain at first, but brightening up as we move into the afternoon, before it begins to snow tonight.

Banhammer72 ‏@Banhammer72

#theemperorexpects you to be wearing clean underware at all times! You would want to get shot wearing dirty draws!

James Hodden ‏@JamesHodden

@DennisHamster #theemperorexpects someone to explain One Direction to him.

Tinker-rat ‏@Maliceunchained

#theemperorexpects his kids to do their homework before committing rebellion. Otherwise its straight to bed with no dessert.

Herbie ‏@RicHerbert

@DennisHamster #theemperorexpects just a little peace and quiet whilst he’s on the golden throne, it’s the only privacy he gets

Ben Ward ‏@therealbenward

#theemperorexpects his arse to be wiped for him

Lee Murphy ‏@tanith1st

#TheEmperorExpects you to stay classy and to wear Sex Panther 40% of the time it works 100% of the time band on 3 contents

Gohda ‏@husker04

#theemperorexpects me to fail this exam! I shall seek to surprise him!

DiscoJacen ‏@DiscoJacen

@DennisHamster i know i already enteted a few days ago but “#TheEmperorExpects the Inquisition” seems like a classic to me : )

Zauberwurf ‏@zauberwurf

#theemperorexpects his mother to tea. @DennisHamster

Adrian ‏@AdrianGdMag

#TheEmperorExpects you to judo chop the heretic @DennisHamster

Steve Gill ‏@GreenOakSteve

@DennisHamster #theemperorexpects Cadbury’s Milk Tray

Matt Smith ‏@Thee_Other_Matt

#theemperorexpects early retirement and a room with a view… And maybe one of those lazy boy chairs with a beer fridge @DennisHamster

Seany Wan Kenobi ‏@weareallgeth

@DennisHamster #theemperorexpects the Spanish Inquisition…no really he does!

Schäfe ‏@schafecast

#theemperorexpects legions of perpetually adolescent super human warriors to be conductive for long term Empire building.

D.M.A.Mitchell ‏@Damarcalex

@DennisHamster #theemperorexpects to wake up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed after his dinner date with hunky Horus high above luxurious Terra!

Ben Findlay ‏@qball2kb

@DennisHamster #theemperorexpects the Spanish inquisition

Schäfe ‏@schafecast

#theemperorexpects me to join the family business, reuniting humanity under his banner across the galaxy. But what about my dreams dad.

Schäfe ‏@schafecast

@DennisHamster #theemperorexpects which leads to #theemperorsdisappointments

Eadwine Brown ‏@EadBrown

@DennisHamster #theemperorexpects a healthy baby boy… to be chosen for a Space Marine

Tom Healey ‏@ladvoncarstein

.@DennisHamster #theemperorexpects a bowl of m&ms with all the brown ones taken out.

Damian ‏@LordShaper

@DennisHamster #theemperorexpects all marines to use a minimum amount of toilet paper otherwise you will be branded as a heretic!

D.M.A.Mitchell ‏@Damarcalex

@DennisHamster #theemperorexpects nineteen baby boys and a pair of twins.

Kenny Lull ‏@kennylull

@DennisHamster we could say #theemperorexpects you to die, Commisar Bond

2015-16 Public Lending Rights (PLR)

It’s that time of year again when writers up and down the country enjoy the benefits of PLR. For those who don’t know, PLR – Public Lending Right, is the mechanism by which authors are recompensed for the free loan of their books through public libraries. I’ve never received a huge amount, but it’s enough to fund my Kickstarter habit for a month or two, and it always comes as a nice surprise.

Aside from the money received, it’s interesting to look at the loan figures and see which of my titles did well. Here’s my top ten, showing a comparison to their position last year (idea completely and utterly pinched from Jim Swallow’s blog here – thanks Jim).

1 (-) Ravenwing

2 (-) Master of Sanctity

3 (4) The Primarchs

4 (1) Deliverance Lost

5 (7) The Purging of Kadillus

6 (6) The Crown of the Blood

7 (8) The Crown of the Conqueror

8 (5) Path of the Warrior

9 (3) Path of the Seer

10 (10) The Sundering

I’m really pleased that two books from my original fiction series Empire of the Blood are in the top 10 – it’s good to know people are still enjoying it.

If you’re an author make sure you register with both PLR and ALCS (the international equivalent) to make sure you’re not missing out on any monies. And an additional bit of advice I need to listen to myself – make sure you keep your list of works up-to-date!

**To make sure you don’t miss out on any blog posts, you can keep up-to-date with everything Gav by signing up to my monthly newsletter. As a bonus, every other month I randomly pick a newsletter subscriber to receive a free signed copy of one of my books.**

Artwork Reveal – Angels of Caliban

Following the reveal at today’s Horus Heresy Weekender, here’s the artwork for Angels of Caliban. And oh my, look at this fiery goodness from Neil Roberts. The Lion and Night Haunter go head-to-head once more – will this be their final confrontation? One of the glorious benefits of writing for The Horus Heresy is that you get book covers like this.

What do you think of it?

**To make sure you don’t miss out on any blog posts, you can keep up-to-date with everything Gav by signing up to my monthly newsletter. As a bonus, every other month I randomly pick a newsletter subscriber to receive a free signed copy of one of my books.**

Emperor Expects Competition – Update

On Friday I launched a competition to win two copies of The Emperor Expects, the third instalment in The Beast Arises series.

If you missed the blog post, you can find more detail of the competition here. I’ll be contacting the lucky winners on 11th February, before the book hits the shelves, so there’s still plenty of time to enter.

The responses I’ve received so far on Twitter and Facebook have kept me chuckling these last few days, so I thought I’d share some of them here.

#theemperorexpects your soul to sustain his life – please join the queue on the left at your convenience

— Dan Findlay-Robinson (@FRBlackSheep) January 29, 2016

@DennisHamster #TheEmperorExpects you to put away the sceptre and stop chanting, Magnus. Seriously, you're creeping people out

— Sleeping Skunkyena (@YenaskunkwolfDF) January 29, 2016

(and apologies for the blurriness of these, I’m a writer not a techy)

**To make sure you don’t miss out on future competitions, you can keep up-to-date with everything Gav by signing up to my monthly newsletter. As a bonus, every other month I randomly pick a newsletter subscriber to receive a free signed copy of one of my books.**

Interview at Jousting With The Imagination – Feb 2016

You can read an interview I gave over at the Jousting With The Imagination blog, where I discuss how I feel about writing for a living, what being freelance means to me, and that terrible moment my computer ate half a novel one week before deadline.

Read the interview.

**To make sure you don’t miss out on any blog posts, you can keep up-to-date with everything Gav by signing up to my monthly newsletter. As a bonus, every other month I randomly pick a newsletter subscriber to receive a free signed copy of one of my books – the next winner will receive a copy of my Ravenlord novella.**

World Building and Infodumps

Recently I was contacted by Jon Schafer* with a writing question.

I see on the interwebs that you’re now entrenching yourself into an original fantasy work for the next few weeks. Exciting times for sure. But it does make it sort of an opportune time to pick your brains writerly wise. How do you balance world building, info dumping and pacing? Obviously you’ve come up with all sorts of details for all sorts of reasons but letting the reader know all of that detail will detract from the flow of the narrative. Magic systems seem the obvious one. They tend to need forward planning so they work consistently throughout the story but having someone explain how magic works can be boring. Similarly cultural/social conventions can be used really well to create interesting dynamics between characters but if they’re not typical to our standard human set up then they’ll need explaining to describe how and why they’re treating each other so differently.

To use the example in my current attempt at wordage, chapter 2 a god pays a mortal a visit. There are various rules and laws defining how the interaction works (rules being artificial restraints decided upon by the gods and laws being immutable restrictions) and my initial draft has all of these being discussed and whilst it sparked some thinking and refining of my ideas about how gods work it isn’t good writing even for me. There is a lot of fat to trim, but if I make it too lean maybe it’ll be less tasty/interesting or stop making sense. It is something I’m weighing up and considering and redrafting and I don’t know if you’re having to do similar right now with your own work, or with your Crown trilogy (I guess the BL work doesn’t matter so much as there is an extent to which knowledge can be assumed to exist in the audience) but if so maybe you’d have some thoughts to put down in a blog or something which could give me some guidance in working out my own troubles.

*When I first met Jon at an event (Games Day probably) he asked me to sign his copy of a Last Chancers novel. One of the principle Last Chancers characters is Colonel Schaeffer, and I thought it strange Jon should ask for his novel to be dedicated to a fictional person within the work being signed. The following year when he asked for a different book to be signed to ‘Schafe’ things became clearer…

A Need to Know Basis

Let’s get down to basics. As a writer you’ve probably spent a lot of time working out the world of your story or novel. It’s been with you for days, weeks, months or even years; when you were washing up, getting the bus to work, at 3am in the morning. You’ve put in a lot of effort to make it all ‘work’.

And now you want to tell someone how awesome it all is.

Which is fine. It really is. The attraction of genre fiction is to take us to new and wondrous (and terrifying) places, to meet different cultures, and to use them as a lens to examine ourselves, our societies and our world.

What the writer must bear in mind is that as much as genre readers want to explore strange new worlds and meet fascinating new people, they also want a good story. And that means crafting your tale in such a way that all of those cool parts of the world you want to show off are relevant – relevant to the characters and therefore the reader.

There are two ways to do this, either through the plot or through characterisation.

Plot is often the focus of a writer’s efforts, because we are terrified by the thought that something won’t make sense. It is seen as the backbone of the story, carrying it through from beginning to end in a seamless motion of cause-and-effect. It is not unusual for a writer, when faced with a problem, to run to the plot to solve it. In the example you give, it would be simple (not necessarily easy) to make one of the restrictions or laws of godly intervention a plot point. Something does or does not happen to the protagonist because of those restrictions. It immediately makes the metaphysical landscape of the world relevant to the ambitions of the character and reader.

The downside is that readers almost expect this. ‘Aha!’ they think, ‘I better pay attention, this will be important later’. If it isn’t, they will be disappointed. They will wonder why you bothered to show them this thing in the first place. This is because they are expecting you, or rather the narrator, to tell them everything they need to know to navigate the world, plot and characters – but nothing else. Real life is full of inconsequential fluff we have to deal with on a daily basis; our stories are not. Drama is, to quote Hitchcock, “life with the dull bits cut out.”

A far more satisfying but difficult route to take is to make the information relevant on a character level. Rather than telling us something about the world, which is abstract, it tells us something about the character, which is specific and personal. Rather than thinking ‘Aha! Plot point!’ our reader learns something more useful – an insight into a character.

To use the god powers example again, it could be how the god or the petitioner reacts to the laws or restrictions that defines the moment. In acceptance or opposition? Is the god a jobsworth or genuinely upset that further intervention is impossible? How desperate is our petitioner? How extraordinary, mundane or overwhelming is the incident of a godly visitation?

And ultimately, if there is no plot reason and no character reason for a reader to know a thing, don’t spend time and words introducing it. It doesn’t matter how cool or logical or essential it seems, if it doesn’t serve the story just keep it in the notes file.

The Naive Reader

So we’ve determined that we need to tell the reader something about the world and that their understanding of the characters and story will be richer for it. In this instance we are aided by a simple fact – the reader is naive about the world and actively wants to learn more. To facilitate that need we can create a similar naiveté in our character(s).

We do this by putting the narrator’s words into the mouths of the characters.

Exposition!

Yes, if done poorly this becomes exposition – characters expounding facts about the world or plot or other characters that they do not need to within the context of a scene, related for the reader’s benefit alone. This is why we deliberately create naive participants. We engineer the situation so that it is entirely natural for a character to raise the subject. Often this is couched as an inquiry – literally voicing the question that will be in the reader’s mind.

Margret looked up at the nebulous entity that had appeared in her living room.

“Are you a god?” she asked.

“Yes!” The voice came like the whispering of leaves and the thunder of running hooves. “I am Arulek of the One Horn.”

“Should I bow?” Margret was already bending at the waist.

“No need,” repied Arulek. “This is just a social call. Though if next time you could light a few votives before you pray, I would come sooner.”

Does our petitioner question a restriction, giving our god a chance to explain why unlimited intervention would be such a bad thing, because last time it happened the world split, wars were fought, magic appeared, etc, etc? Alternatively does the god complain about these immutable laws? Talking about the world like this must still serve the purpose of furthering the plot or deepening our understanding of the participants. It might all be in the delivery.

“I cannot make the rent,” explained Margret.

The godly cloud turned a melancholy blue.

“Alas, it is not for me to bestow worldly riches.”

As opposed to:

“I cannot make the rent,” explained Margret.

Angry lightning flickered through the god’s amorphous form.

“Vain mortal! You dare besmirch my favours by demanding worldly riches?”.

Another way to get around the problem is with exposition-by-proxy. An anecdote, superstition or tic that illustrates a point. Our character might mention the time their brother forgot the holy incense and was left in a coma for three days, or relate the folk tale of the priest that tried to cheat on a deal with his god.

Get the characters to test the boundaries of the world. They might already know something will or won’t happen but try their luck anyway. Real people do that all the time. It might just work…

The djinn appeared in a puff of smoke.

“She that freed me from the prison of the lamp shall have three wishes granted,” boomed the billowing apparition floating in front of Jeanie.

“My first wish will be for infinite wishes.”

“Sorry, no can do. And no killing, no time travel and no immortality while we’re at it.”

Jeanie sighed.

“Worth a try, wasn’t it?”

Do First, Explain Later (Or Not At All)

I flick a switch and the light comes on. I understand that this is because of a thing called electricity. I also know, in slightly vaguer terms, that there has to be a circuit for electricity to flow, and flicking the switch completes that circuit. There is also something about polarities, voltage, amps and a bunch of other stuff…

For the act of turning on the light, all I need to know is that the switch does it.

In terms of introducing our world to the reader we must first start with the immediate, tangible consequences. Flick the switch; light comes on. Speak the words; summon a god. Deactivate the shields; let in the storm.

And when that is done we must cleave to the narrative mantra that act begets reaction. Having done a thing, or a thing happening, the character must react to it. Thus the building blocks of the scene and the action are laid. By the time you have resolved the action and reaction you will realise that it’s too late to explain why the light came on, why a god appeared, how the shields keep the weather at bay. And the reader won’t care because the story has carried them on to the next action-reaction sequence. Only where it impacts the action (which might also be thoughts and dialogue, but we shall call it action for now) does a fact from the world assume any significance to a reader.

The same is true for social conventions. One of the ways I judge how to write about this stuff is to step back out of fantasyland and think of an equivalent in the real world. Why do we shake hands? (You can Google the answers later.) Where did winking come from? Why say please and thank you, or what are the specific situations in which you address someone by their name, or title and name, or title only? Would you take the time to explain these if you were writing a story in our world?

Context is your friend. Readers will infer a great deal from what is happening, you don’t need to feed them every last detail. If a character always calls another character ‘Ma’am’ and then suddenly calls her Betsy we will understand that the moment is personal, informal.

Think about the sign of the cross used by Christians. It’s an odd thing really, particularly if you describe it in detail.

Jack raised his hand to his forehead and then moved it down to his abdomen, before gesturing to the left shoulder and finally the right shoulder, making the sign of a cross in reference to the crucifixion of his lord and saviour Jesus Christ.

That’s pretty complex already, but let’s add in an info dump for fun (cribbed from Wikipedia.)

Jack raised his hand to his forehead and then moved it down to his abdomen, before gesturing to the left shoulder and finally the right shoulder, tracing the traditional shape of the cross of the Christian Crucifixion narrative.

There were two principal forms of the gesture: the one—three fingers, right to left—was exclusively used in the Eastern Orthodox churches and the Eastern Rites of the Catholic Church of the Byzantine and Chaldean Tradition; the other—left to right, other than three fingers—was the one used in the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church, Anglicanism, Methodism, Lutheranism and Oriental Orthodoxy. The ritual was rare within other Christian traditions. [Insert explanation of who Jesus was and lose reader completely…]

Okay, that’s extreme, but we’ve all read, and sometimes written something like it, haven’t we? A simple word or two can provide all of the context you need.

Jack made a rapid sign of devotion, his hand moving in the sign of a cross.

The key words are ‘sign of devotion’. This is what we need to know about the character. Devoted. At this stage do we need to know what he is devoted to? Does the crucifixion matter to our understanding of the character? If we were to translate that into some other religious gesture from our imaginary world we would still leave the reader with the same necessary information.

Jaquer-Ell made a sign of devotion, his finger lifted to forehead in imitation of a solitary horn.

Or,

Jaque-Ell gestured, one finger becoming the sign of the sacred horn.

‘Horn’ already paints a picture for the reader without further description. If you wanted to include a little more information you can get away with it because the important part – the ‘what’ – is frontloaded. Having been given this insight the reader will allow you a little bit of ‘how’ and ‘why’.

Jaque-Ell made a rapid gesture of devotion, one finger flicking up his forehead in the sign of the horn of Arulek.

In this case I’ve dropped the ‘sacred’ because the religious nature of the gesture is already covered by ‘devotion’. Contrast with a sentence that starts with the ‘why’.

Jaque-Ell, a devotee of one-horned Arulek, flicked his finger up to his forehead, making the sacred sign of his creed.

Though the insight into Jaque-Ell’s religiosity comes first it reads as an aside, slipped in for informational purposes, making the sentence unwieldy. It looks like an infodump. There’s probably something about noun-verb distance, if I knew more about the technical side of things.

These are principles that can be applied to whole paragraphs and scenes too. If you are constantly asserting the setting through specific actions and dialogue first you will be forced to avoid too much narrator introspection.

It might seem like this is a lot to be bearing in mind while you are writing, and it is. My advice would be to not worry too much about infodumps and exposition on your first draft. They will happen. One of the things I find is that during editing if I come across an info dump (or an editor has…) it can quite often be subtly changed into dialogue or reworked into the scene through the characters. I’ve identified the need to include the information in the scene but have got the delivery mechanism wrong.

This is why we edit. You may come back to a paragraph and realise it is of no use to character or plot at all. You might realise the opposite, that on reflection some further explanation is required, or that the actions of the characters grant you a natural opportunity to go into a bit more depth.

In summary, curb the instinct to show off your creation, let the story dictate the necessary flow of information, and trust your readers to follow along without holding their hands.

You might also want to read the following blog posts, and use the tags at the bottom of this blog:

Less is more – a world evoking workshop

Three tips for a better world creation

Describing the familiar

**To make sure you don’t miss out on any blog posts, you can keep up-to-date with everything Gav by signing up to my monthly newsletter. As a bonus, every other month I randomly pick a newsletter subscriber to receive a free signed copy of one of my books.**

Horus Heresy Short Story, Inheritor – Out Now

Today sees the publication of my new Horus Heresy short story, Inheritor.

The Word Bearers and World Eaters clash over the Ultramarines world of Kronus.

READ IT BECAUSE – In the Shadow Crusade, two Traitor Legions united to set Ultramar aflame, but inevitably, they were gonna end up fighting each other, weren’t they? Well, here we go…

“On the world of Kronus, deep within the grand realm of Ultramar, Torquill Eliphas of the Word Bearers brings his grand designs to fruition. As part of Lorgar’s Shadow Crusade, the Ark of Testimony Chapter has fought alongside their berserker allies from the World Eaters for many months. But the slaughter of Ultramarines is not their only goal – Eliphas seeks to harness the power of the warp, in the construction of the mighty Templum Daemonarchia…”

You can find more information here including a link for a free extract.

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Proper Planning Prevents… Something

I should have thought about the title a bit more before I started.

A while back (last year in fact) Dan Morley asked me the following question about the nitty-gritty of planning my writing.

“How long do you plan (hours/days/weeks/months)? Do you sit and stare at a structure diagram for a couple of hours and then off you go? What I’m really asking is what a regular day’s planning looks like and whether it’s a case of repeating it the next day.”

At the time I was busy finishing my second contribution to The Beast Arises series so couldn’t answer in full, but I thought it was a great question which deserved proper consideration, and which may help others with their writing process.

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Most of my planning happens before I start the writing – it’s the initial part of the process rather than a day-to-day thing. At its heart, my daily planning usually boils down to ‘write another 3,000 words’.

If I was to break down the process into defined stages (and they usually don’t all occur in such a neat order) it would be Concept/ Brief – Themes – Scenes – Structure – Synopsis. Let’s have a look at each of those.

Early notes for The Bloody-Handed novella. Red ink=bloody! This story changed completely after a re-plan

Concept/ Brief

This is the most basic element of the story, and it will either come from a random idea or a desire I have, or be given to me – either directly such as with some Black Library stories, or indirectly in the case of a themed anthology, for instance.

We’re not even at ‘elevator pitch’ stage yet. We’re at ‘It’s about Phoenix Lords’, ‘A story about beer’, ‘No dialogue’ and that’s it.

You may have lots of ideas for stories. Pick one and concentrate on it. Write down other ideas if you need to, but put them away. They aren’t important until you have finished this story.

Plan for Caledor

Plan for Caledor

Themes

Almost immediately after picking the concept/ receiving the brief, I’ll start noodling* about the themes that come with the idea. As an example, in my forthcoming Horus Heresy novel Angels of Caliban, I explore the nature of honour and loyalty. I looked at the cast of characters available and assigned thematic roles for them – what aspects of the themes would their actions embody?

Some thoughts for The Crown of the Conqueror

*Noodling is our catch-all term for any kind of thinking that requires time away from the keyboard, be it on a thorny issue of a current piece, or coming up with ideas for the future. To noodle is to do the brain part of writing rather than the finger part of writing. For this I might go for a walk, or do the ironing etc – any activity that doesn’t require too much brain power.

Themes may develop in later stages, but you need to have at least one, and more if the work is longer. As I’ve noted before, this is what the story is about rather than what happens. The themes should spring from the concept – in fact the initial idea may be a particular theme or question you want to examine.

Scenes

Certain plot points, lines of dialogue and specific vignettes or sequences start to come out of the theme. If your story is about betrayal, for example, there is going to have to be one at some point. As I write genre fiction this is also where some of the raw imagery comes from – things that are just cool in themselves, whether it’ll be a particular action sequence, a strange character or environment, and so-on.

I write down these disparate flashes of stuff. These are like a mood board for the story – set pieces and story beats that need to be or could be included. This is the most amorphous part of the process, which may be a couple of days if I have to come up with something on a tight deadline, or could be weeks, months or years in the percolation. As an example, some of the thoughts I’d had about craftworlds and Aspect Shrines that eventually appeared in my Path of the Eldar series had been bubbling away for a decade or so. There are still plenty I haven’t used yet.

More from The Crown of the Conqueror, putting ideas into a narrative sequence

More from The Crown of the Conqueror, putting ideas into a narrative sequence

This is not the stage to be critical. As Jim Swallow has said on panels, “Ideas are your currency, you need to spend them.” Not all of them will make the final cut, or end up in the exact same state in the final manuscript, but don’t pre-judge them.

This is notebook territory. Start a fresh page, write the name of the project at the top and jot down whatever comes to mind at any given time. Title ideas often come this way too.

This is also the most common type of day-to-day planning I do – I have an idea for the current project and I sit down and work out where in the plan I can fit it. It might be something that’s occurred to me while writing – like having to go back and insert some set up for a cool sub-plot that’s developed – or it might be something I want to include later. In the latter case, I make a note

[[[like this]]]

on the plan where I think the line of dialogue or scene should go.

Questions and plot points for Deliverance Lost

Structure

Depending on what sort of timeline I have there can be quite an overlap between the previous stage and this stage. This is where ideas are turned into stories; taking the different scenes, plots hooks, moments of awesomeness and deep despair, wrangling them into a coherent narrative.

At this juncture knowledge and experience of structure and pacing come into their own. I almost always start with a basic three-act approach. Intro-development-conclusion. The intro should be as brief as possible, getting into the meat of the story from the outset. This is also where the plot needs to get straightened out. If character A is going to have an awesome fight scene, how do we engineer that. It is also where the characters get fleshed out – notes on their motivations, backstory, etc.

Physically at this stage I often use a large flipchart and write on a sheet all the disparate nuggets of coolness and plot that I have. I annotate them with character notes and draw lines between them, connecting the dots of the character(s) journey.

Oh, did I mention I almost always start at the end? I have said this a few times, but you can’t plan well unless you know what you are aiming for. Start with the final scene, the big payoff and work backwards. For Z to have happened, Y needs to be in place. To move Y into place she needs to have overcome her fear of chickens in scene X… And so forth, lining up all of the ideas in turn so that when viewed from the start they move seamlessly from the start of the story to its inevitable conclusion.

More Deliverance Lost planning

More Deliverance Lost planning

There are of course gaps. This is where ‘targeted noodling’ needs to come into play. The plan then becomes one of coming up with solutions to particular plot points or character development issues. For example, do you need another scene that shows the character’s short temper, setting up their pivotal outburst later in the story? How exactly does the princess steal the sword from the dwarfs? The goal here is not to come up with an answer – that’s pretty straightforward – but to come up with the most entertaining and appropriate answers.

Some writers, particular screenwriters, like to use a ‘beat sheet’, which is sort of a written storyboard. You can find a nice introduction to the concept here by Larry Brooks. Some programs like Scrivener are set up to allow you to create a kind of interactive beat sheet, allowing you to mix and match scenes and move stuff around like file cards before collating them into a single document. I want to try Scrivener again when I have a bit more time, I think it will prove really useful if I can get my practises moved over to its interface. (Also, don’t you hate it when you reach the bottom of a page on Word and have to scroll down because you need to see the space into which you are typing? Scrivener doesn’t do that, it keeps the active line in the middle of the screen. Small but very useful things like that can make a difference to focus and writing speed.)

It is a lack of extra noodling at this stage that most often catches me out during the writing itself. I am faced with reaching a point at the start of a chapter, for instance, and not knowing already exactly what is going to happen or how the scene looks and feels. This really slows me down, forcing me out of typing mode and into noodling mode.

Noodle-thoughts for Deliverance Lost

Synopsis

The last part of planning (though not always definitive) is the synopsis. This is where you take the pages of notes, squiggly lines, margin comments and doodles and turn them into a coherent set of words. The format here can vary from bullet points to lengthy description and chapter-by-chapter breakdown. Or a mix depending on how much info you need at any given point in the book – more detail on the set up and ending, less in the middle sometimes (though this is often where novels in particular can lose their momentum, having laid down the foundations but not ready to start the build up to the climax – make every scene push forward to the conclusion). Whatever works for you to have a narrative template to work from.

I used to have quite specific chapter breakdowns in my synopses, because it helped me gauge the length. For instance, if I assumed an average of 2,000 words per chapter (not uncommon) I would need enough story for 45-50 chapters to write a 100,000 word novel. Or perhaps I wanted each chapter to be longer, encompassing several scenes, changes of perspective and so on, so I would break the story down into 25 chapter to allow 4,000 words per chapter.

I don’t do that so much now, because I’ve run into situations where I’ve included something on a chapter plan that, in the course of writing, is clearly only going to be a few hundred words; conversely some single chapters, particularly big battles, might end up sprawling over more chapters than intended. These days I will often just write the whole thing in scenes and sections and then insert the chapter breaks at suitable, natural cut-off points in the writing.

Early plotting notes for The Lion

The important thing to remember is that any plan, even a synopsis approved by an editor, is subject to change if a better idea comes along. Having the plan, having the structure in place to allow you to analyse and manipulate the story detached from the actual words and sentences, allow you to look at when you hit high and low points with more clarity. It is like an x-ray of the skeleton from which the flesh of the narrative is hanging, revealing any fractures and painful contortions beneath that need to be fixed. Without this kind of plan, it can sometimes be hard to work out why a story seems to flag in the middle, or the ending seems drawn out or rushed, or many other problems that beset stories and novels form time to time. Seeing the scenes, the story beats, unadorned with beautiful prose leaves them bare to your scrutiny.

If you’ve found this interesting, take a look at my other blogs on planning. If you have a completely different way of approaching your planning process, I’d love to hear about it in the comments (along with any other questions you have about the writing process).

**To make sure you don’t miss out on any blog posts, you can keep up-to-date with everything Gav by signing up to my monthly newsletter. As a bonus, every other month I randomly pick a newsletter subscriber to receive a free signed copy of one of my books.**

Competition Time! The Emperor Expects

To celebrate the publication of The Emperor Expects, the third instalment in The Beast Arises series, I’m running a competition to win two signed copies of the book, just in time for publication day.

There are two ways to win a copy, the easiest of which is to sign up to my newsletter. I’ll choose a winner from all new subscribers who join between 30th January and 11th February.

You can also enter #theemperorexpects competition. All you need to do is use #theemperorexpects in a Tweet or comment on the competition post on Facebook, telling me what #theemperorexpects. I’ll publish the best ones on my blog, and pick a winner to receive a signed copy of the book. You can enter as many times as you want. Here are some examples to give you an idea:

#theemperorexpects his milkshake to bring all the Primarchs to the yard

#theemperorexpects to be in bed by 10pm, as he has work tomorrow

#theemperorexpects to be amused by this competition

I’ll contact the lucky winners on the 11th February, before the book hits the shelves.

Sign Up To My Newsletter

If you’re not lucky this time around, by signing up to my mailing list you’re automatically entered into my bi-monthly draw for a personalised, signed copy of one of my books. Prizes have already included The Unforgiven, Asurmen: Hand of Asuryan, my Horus Heresy audio Raptor, and the Ultramarines Anthology. The next draw takes place in March.

January 2016 – Q&A

This is a compilation of questions that have been emailed and messaged to me recently. If you want to ask about anything, you can post a comment here or get in touch through the contact page (and newsletter subscribers can just reply to any of my emails).

Jon Schafer asked via email: (Subject line – One of those questions you may want to do a blog about.) How do you balance world building, info dumping and pacing? Obviously you’ve come up with all sorts of details for all sorts of reasons but letting the reader know all of that detail will detract from the flow of the narrative. Magic systems seem the obvious one. They tend to need forward planning so they work consistently throughout the story but having someone explain how magic works can be boring. Similarly cultural/social conventions can be used really well to create interesting dynamics between characters but if they’re not typical to our standard human set up then they’ll need explaining to describe how and why they’re treating each other so differently.

You’re right, that will be a question I’ll need to blog about – but thanks for sending it in. I reckon it’ll be a good topic for a post, but in the meantime you could check out the World Creation tag for relevant writing advice posts.

My short answer is – make it relevant. Any ‘rules’ or world features must influence the story in some way, or be intrinsic to the nature of the characters. Obviously if such a ‘rule’ is important later and heavily influences the plot it should be introduced to the reader first so as not to appear out of the blue when it becomes important. Conversely, the Chekov’s Gun principle applies. If there is some restriction or ability introduced or discussed early in the story it should be used and or relevant by the time the story has concluded. Ask ‘Does the reader really need to know? Really?’.

Jay asked in the comments – Hi Gav – as others have said thanks for being so accessible! Really looking forward to Angels of Caliban. Any clue as to when we might see that released?

Nothing more solid than later this year…

And Jay asked another. Oooh sorry a second question – With the news that the GW Specialist Games unit is being re-established (in some shape or form) will you be getting involved in a game designer/background writer POV? Clearly you were heavily involved with some of those games first time around!

They are currently recruiting on-site staff and I have no desire to give up my freelance life. If they want to commission work, that’d be great but I don’t see that happening. I will be letting them know I’m available for playtesting duties if required

And another… Sorry Gav one third (and final) question – I read a quote from you somewhere that there are some changes afoot at Black Library that should result in a GW Publishing arm focusing on game tie in stories and BL focusing on expanding the universe (ala Horus Heresy and The Beast Arises). If that is the case it is very exciting to me (as a more mature reader) as my ongoing engagement/consumption of W40k is exclusively through BL due to my love of the lore. Do you think it possible that we may get to see a series set during The Apostasy? Would you like to be involved in that?

I’m not certain how everything is going to shake up with the recent organisational changes but I’m certainly hopeful that we’ll be seeing a bit more leeway in terms of the subjects authors can tackle. Quite how this will pan out into the release schedule remains to be seen. It’d be great to work on an Apostasy-era series – it’s something I’ve borne in mind as a bit of subtext for The Beast Arises, regarding the rise of the Ecclesiarchy, the Black Templars’ involvement and so on. When The Beast Arises is done there might be scope for a new shared series.

Andrey asked on Facebook – 1) When and how to apply to competition for ‘The Emperor Expects’? 2) When we will get the ‘Angels of Caliban’? Who are the main antagonists/protagonists? 3) Will there be another HH audio about Titans, like ‘Honour the Dead’? 4) Does your kid know about the greatness of their father and him being an awesome author?

1) Blog post coming soon. 2) Sometime in 2016. That’s all I know. I sneaked a bit of a character list onto the Reader’s Guide 3) I haven’t anything scheduled yet, but I’d love to write more about Titans and audio works really well for them. 4) I point to the shelves with Daddy’s books on and tell him I wrote them. He’s not impressed yet, not enough pictures inside…

John Oates asked on Facebook – Do marines wear legion-branded underpants and socks?

Some of them. Alpha Legion wear other people’s pants while Raven Guard, obviously, go ‘commando’.

On the subject of questions, if you play board games could you please go and help Daily Worker Placement with their anonymous online survey?

**To make sure you don’t miss out on any blog posts, you can keep up-to-date with everything Gav by signing up to my monthly newsletter. As a bonus, every other month I randomly pick a newsletter subscriber to receive a free signed copy of one of my books.**