Write for Black Library

[T-Rock]

It could be a number of things. I'd have to see your pitch to tell you what I'd have thought of it as a reviewer. It could be that while your excerpt read well, the pitch didn't sound like a complete story, or a story that would be interesting in its entirety to the eventual readers. You may just not have given them a good enough idea of what the story was going to be about, how it was going to develop, and then end. You have to remember that they A: expect you to give them the best 500 words, but B: have to publish a finish product.

 

Did you make sure that your pitch did that? Gave a clear beginning, development, and ending, which gave a clear path for the story and the motivations of the characters? You know your story. The readers don't. If they were asking you to "flesh out" your pitch, that would be my best guess. That your writing was good, but other submissions gave a clearer idea of how their stories were going to look as a finished product.

 

Also, if you made it to the final 20, you have to think that's out of thousands of submissions. That's really good if it's your first try, especially considering the small number of accepted entries. Crushed souls just come with the territory of trying to become a published author for most people. Not everybody gets to write BDSM Twilight fanfiction and become a multi-millionaire.

Point taken. Soul crushing is self-indulgent, but there's just something about knowing a few altered plot points stood between me and a once and a lifetime opportunity cuts deep. The core of the narrative was a Black Templar unit answers a PDF's distress call and is ambushed by chaos forces. It's told through the eyes of a neophyte who has to overcome "trials" of duty, honor, and faith (what I proposed to be the core tenets of the chapter) throughout the course of the story. Part of me is worried I got too caught up in the thematic pedantry at the cost of the core narrative.

 

If you wouldn't mind checking out my pitch, I'd love to get some feedback. I could PM you so as to not derail the thread too much. It's a bit over half a page, so nothing too long.

[K0rtmer]

 

 

 

-snip-

I think my pitch for a story about a young girl who uses a bow and arrow to feed her family by fighting through a maze on a post apocalyptic world AND also is genetically different from the social castes of her society and hunted by vampires and werewolves for it would be too original for BL not to steal. The love triangle between her handsome immortal vampire boyfriend and average joe crush who is just a baker forced into a life or death situation would provide some real drama you just don't see in literature these days.

Well that was painful to read as a summary...

 

Any idea what level of torture, sex, language, etc... GW is willing to print these days. I could dust of the Sisters story I was working on, but it was a bit dark/messed up at times. (And no, it isn't erotica.....).

I don't think GW had any trouble with printing dark, messed-up Sisters stories in the past... At least not at the level of brief expositions in certain Codices.

[Brother Argent]

I might well be in for this. If for nothing more then to say I did.  Its just a case of actually writing... or coming up with an original enough idea...  To the Schemeatorium!

[Kelborn]

Got a question.

As the theme is "The Imperium of Man" it should (of course) deal with member of the Imperium.

 

That being sad, would it be ok to write about a Marine and him joining chaos? Would like to write about someone who is torn apart between his duties, his conscience and him being a smart-arse leading to his corruption.

 

Would that even count?

[Gothical]

I'm giving this a go again. I entered the one about the Deathwatch but never got anywhere, but every time you write and submit something it adds to your experience and confidence. I'm still heavily procrastinating but I've got my general idea and planning worked out, as well as what I think I want to pick for my 500 word excerpt. Oddly, it is the paragraph-length summary that I seem to be really hung up on at the moment.

 

Mind you, having read some of the great ideas people have proposed here my confidence has taken a knock!

[Kassill]

Eh, why not. Finals coming up as well as a big move. This shouldn't be a problem.

[Sanctimonius]

@Kelborn I don't see why not. It's down to you to how you want to interpret it, imo, and if nothing else it encourages you to put down the best story you can. Write about something that inspires you and it'll be better then trying to shoehorn something else in to fit the prompt 'better'.

[depthcharge12]

@ADB

 

I was quietly hoping you'd write a heresy novel about Malcharion and the changes happening to the VIIIth legion from inception to Curze to Terra...:(

 

I'd take up the mantle of responsibility, but I feel it'd pale in comparison to your vision.

 

#TeamMalcharion

[Eldrick Shadowblade]

I'm going to submit to this!

[Ovidius Incertus]

I hadn't intended to get in on this, but I think I'll bite.

I already got the 500 word sample written in very short order, so plenty of time to revise it.

...Now to just come up with a plot outline...or any plot at all.... Is it sad that I know the ending, but nothing that comes in between?

[Lagrath]

Oh geeze, did not realize this was due the 29th already. I've been too busy with work to look at this so far. I have a longstanding idea, but I won't be able to polish and rewrite a 500 word story in this time frame.

 

Oh well. Might just rush my story out in one or two goes and submit anyway.

[Hydriatus]

Applied. With a Rogue Trader story no less >_< Wonder how many submissions will involve Space Marines...

[Kassill]

I hadn't intended to get in on this, but I think I'll bite.

I already got the 500 word sample written in very short order, so plenty of time to revise it.

...Now to just come up with a plot outline...or any plot at all.... Is it sad that I know the ending, but nothing that comes in between?

I have the opposite problem haha. I start with a character or particular scene, and start thinking about that and building around it and generally end up with an Intro, body, but no idea how to end it all

[Lagrath]

I put together a piece almost immediately, but it's a scene that is really 1100-1500 words rather than 500 Hard to cut it down to 1/2 or 1/3 and still do justice, and I like the idea too much to let it go.

[Kassill]

I put together a piece almost immediately, but it's a scene that is really 1100-1500 words rather than 500 Hard to cut it down to 1/2 or 1/3 and still do justice, and I like the idea too much to let it go.

Yeah, trying to find that one block of 500 that fits the criteria will be a challenge indeed. Good luck to all!

[Father Mapple]

I submitted last night, hoping an early submissionln means they'll pick me and fill their quota before getting to better submissions that were sent in later. Because I'm not super confident in the sample, I need every bit of odd help I can get!

 

Good luck to you all.

[Veteran Sergeant]

Don't overthink your 500-word submission guys.

It's just an example of your writing style, not a complete story. You want it to do three basic things. Demonstrate your technical proficiency with language, give an example of your style, and show that your narrative will be engaging. Obviously there's really no advice about the first one other than to edit the heck out of it. But for the second and third, just pick the part of the story you think will represent it best, and try to give an example of your strengths as a writer, while as a secondary objective, trying to show at least a few different things you can do well (descriptive language, dialog, action (since this is 40K, etc). Concentrate on the parts that are most relevant to the story you are pitching. And, at the same time, try to avoid anything that is too focused (because it makes it harder to figure out if you're actually capable of writing a good story, or just at creating really good single-subject fragments) on one single thing (dialog, description, action, etc).

 

Your submission is two parts: A description of your story's elements. A 500 word submission. You're not trying to get the second one to do the first one. The second one is there to prove that you could potentially create the first one. If your 500 word submission is good enough, the readers will want to find out what happens in the rest of it.

[Lagrath]

Don't overthink your 500-word submission guys.

 

It's just an example of your writing style, not a complete story. You want it to do three basic things. Demonstrate your technical proficiency with language, give an example of your style, and show that your narrative will be engaging. Obviously there's really no advice about the first one other than to edit the heck out of it. But for the second and third, just pick the part of the story you think will represent it best, and try to give an example of your strengths as a writer, while as a secondary objective, trying to show at least a few different things you can do well (descriptive language, dialog, action (since this is 40K, etc). Concentrate on the parts that are most relevant to the story you are pitching. And, at the same time, try to avoid anything that is too focused (because it makes it harder to figure out if you're actually capable of writing a good story, or just at creating really good single-subject fragments) on one single thing (dialog, description, action, etc).

 

Your submission is two parts: A description of your story's elements. A 500 word submission. You're not trying to get the second one to do the first one. The second one is there to prove that you could potentially create the first one. If your 500 word submission is good enough, the readers will want to find out what happens in the rest of it.

 

This is all what I was thinking as well. I didn't have any problems with 400 word for the FW Titan contest. My only gripe is that 500 words as an excerpt out of a longer, original story is kind of tough for most anything other than taking a slice out of the middle of a pure action scene.

[simison]

Sure, I'll go ahead and throw myself into Round 2 of an Open Submission. Last time, I got a response, so why not see if I can make it one more step further this time.

 

Too bad I can't use any of my lost legion or BotL material. Ah, que sera sera. 

[Sigismund229]

Sure, I'll go ahead and throw myself into Round 2 of an Open Submission. Last time, I got a response, so why not see if I can make it one more step further this time.

 

Too bad I can't use any of my lost legion or BotL material. Ah, que sera sera.

Ah if only we could(particularly seeing as a story I wrote set in the battle of the Forge ended up being 20k words long)

 

I too am going to give it a go

[veterannoob]

I need to get my together to get my story in on time, keep second guessing ideas. Good luck to us all!

[Sigismund229]

Does anyone know if we're allowed to submit two stories? Or is it one per writer?

[BitsHammer]

Well I finally made my submission today. Wrote ~3,800 words just so I could snap up 500 of those and use that for the submission.

 

I think it nailes some nice elements though with the mouthless psyker being a favorite visual element for me.

[Aias]

Got mine in, as well. Hopefully it'll at least amuse the reader for a moment, if nothing else.

[Aqui]

Still slogging along with mine. Have Wednesday off. Project: Sisters Story will be finished!