April 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).

Sam asked: Hey Gav, I like writing very much, and as 40k is as a big part of my life as it can be allowed, i have been reading many BL novels. it has inspired me to write my own lore and stories about my Cadian regiment that I actually own. But i fear that as i am quite young, never had a book published and my writing seems to resemble Mr Abnetts very much I wont get accepted. Do you have any ideas on how I could counter these faults to increase my chances?

First of all, writing anything is an achievement you should be proud of. If it happens to resemble Dan’s work I wouldn’t fret too much. As a species we learn by copying – whether writing, drawing or learning to walk and talk we all start off by imitation to learn the skills required. Also, there are far worse authors to emulate.

There are lots of articles on my site and elsewhere about writing and storytelling, but my three key tips when starting out would be:

* Pick a solid, simple story to tell. http://gavthorpe.co.uk/2015/09/05/how-to-write-a-story/

* Choose a strong point-of-view character and stick with that one person. http://gavthorpe.co.uk/2011/10/13/whos-the-agent/

* Come up with a plan before you start and then write to that plan. http://gavthorpe.co.uk/2016/01/30/proper-planning-prevents-something-something-something/

And, of course, get as many people as possible to read it and give feedback – a good edit is essential.

Matthew asked: Hello Gav, huge fan of your work. I wanted to know if you knew anything about Black Library’s policy on multiple submissions. It doesn’t seem to say anything in the guidelines against it.

Given the way the process works, I would pick what you think is your best idea and go with that – they are looking at you as a writer as muxch as the particular idea you are pitching. Focus your energies on one awesome submission. If you’ve got plenty of ideas for stories that’s great, but make sure they one you send in has got enough meat to it to last ten thousand words – that’s pretty long for a short story and you may want to see if you can fold in a character idea or subplot from your others to add some depth. All the best with your writing.

My Author’s Notes blog on my first Age of Sigmar novel, Warbeast, continues to be of interest:

Wayne commented: The problem I always had with this kind of fluff is that just like Marine vs. Marine, you can’t really rationalize Stormcast vs. Stormcast in the fluff/narrative of the game. You have to handwave it away as a “training exercise” which gets old. That’s been an issue IMHO since, well, forever with 40k (and I played in 2nd and 3rd edition) and seems like a new thing in AOS where you can’t really have Order vs. Order, it has to be Order (especially if Stormcast) vs. Chaos/other.

That’s a good point, though like Empire v Empire you can justify SM vs SM with examples of many historical falling outs between Chapters and mini civil wars. It’s always hard to work the ‘good guys’ fighting themselves, but I don’t see it as any more problematic that High Elves versus High Elves in the old background, or the even more unlikely case of Lizardmen vs Lizardmen, for example.

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