WRITING WARHAMMER SERIES

By Bill King

There has been a lot of interest in how I write Warhammer stuff, so I thought that I would continue right along from last month’s essay and discuss the writing of series this month. I have actually had a number of questions about how I write my series, and I have never been able to give a consistent answer to them, which got me to thinking about why this should be the case. I don’t find it very hard to talk about writing a novel, and I have a fair understanding of the methods I use to do this, but discussing series has usually stumped me. Considered reflection has led me to the conclusion that this is because each series I have written for Warhammer has been created in a different manner. Taking them in order, let us begin with Felix and Gotrek. This did not start out with a series of novels in mind. It started out with the writing of one story about two characters. Gotrek actually died at the end of the first version of Geheimnisnacht and Felix went off to recount his tale. Then, I confess I thought-what am I doing?  I was sure I could get more than one story out of this pair. That was in 1988/89 or thereabouts and since then our heroes have lurched through short stories, novellas and novels leaving a trail of destruction in their wake. There was no great master plan for any of this. One book just flowed naturally into the next and events took on a momentum all of their own. Plot strands suggested themselves, some were left hanging, some were followed up assiduously. Characters took on a life of their own and invaded the story in much the same way as Gotrek and Felix originally had. Some of them got pruned out because they were really demanding too much time (Grey Seer Thanquol springs to mind) and were threatening to take over things completely. Recently Giantslayer has begun to close out all of this long story arc. With this series, I can honestly say there was no master plan whatsoever. It just happened. One thing led to another and before I knew it, the whole thing has snowballed… The Ragnar series was different. This was actually conceived as a series of books, but not linked in the way the Slayer books became. It began with an attempt to write a book about a Space Wolf, and the logical way of doing this seemed to be to begin at the beginning and look at his recruitment and training. Having done this, it then seemed logical to follow through the various stages of his career and build up a picture of a Space Wolf in the round. I decided to use Ragnar, because I had worked on the team that originally did the background for the character, back when I worked in the Studio. The structure of the series flowed from the nature of the story. The stories have no real chronological link and are set many years apart. They do have the same hero obviously, and a small consistent backing cast. So after writing 10 series books, have I learned anything about writing series and if so what would my advice be to anyone thinking about writing one for GW? My first piece of advice would be to put characters first. When you come up with your hero ask yourself - can this character sustain a series or is he good only for a one off? I have written a short story about Kharne the Betrayer, which was a lot of fun to do, but for the life of me I cannot imagine how to extend this tale of a Chaos worshipping bloodthirsty berserker, who kills EVERYBODY he meets, into a series. You really do need a hero who can sustain a number of books and does not kill his supporting cast. And you really do need some supporting cast who are going to stick around and be interesting in their own right. There’s another thing to consider. If you want to test your characters, try writing a few short stories and see how they hold up. Now imagine writing a series of tales 12 times that length about them, on a regular basis. How do you feel about it? Remember, you are going to have to live with these characters for years. I have been accompanying Gotrek and Felix on their adventures over three separate decades now. Don’t fall in love with your characters either. There are many great characters who could support one short story or one novel but probably could not support a series. I really like writing Grey Seer Thanquol, for example, and can imagine writing a book where he was the central character. I can't really imagine a series of them though. I would also add that from a purely Warhammer point of view, you should grab yourself a constituency. Find characters who players of the games will be interested in. I would say that there is a market for a series about the Orks and the Eldar in 40K right now. I know BL guidelines state that they don’t want point of view characters from these races but there are ways round this. How about tales told from the point of view of a human captive of an Orkish warboss, or a human trader among the Eldar. You could have a whole cast of non-humans here, and still not violate the rule. This is essentially what I have done with Felix and Gotrek in the fantasy setting. And in case you’re wondering, I have talked to Marco at the Black Library, and he said they would certainly consider both these examples for a 40K series. The other thing I would say about series is to generally plan for it from the beginning. When you’re writing that short story, look for ways you could turn it into a series. Ask yourself along which paths this story could develop. I had no idea where the Gotrek saga was going to go when it started but it was fairly obvious that these two characters could go anywhere and do many things. You would be setting yourself up for a completely different experience if you wanted to do a detective series firmly set in Altdorf. Do you need a master plan for the whole series right from the start? My own experience would suggest otherwise. I think you would be restricting yourself unnecessarily by doing a detailed outline for a multi-book epic. By all means, sketch out a method by which your tale could be extended into such an epic, but remember: no plan survives contact with the enemy. If you’re in any way like me, things you actually write when you do the book will change the overall structure. How do you go about selling a series to Black Library? I think the answer is probably obvious by now. If you have not already done so, sell them a story with interesting characters or an interesting premise that could be expanded on into a series. Try selling them another, featuring the same characters. If these are popular they may well ask you to do a book. If they don’t, approach them and suggest it yourself. And there’s something worth remembering. Black Library is one of the few publishers where you can do this. You can go all the way from short stories to novel series as I have done. They even provide you with a very clear set of guidelines as to what they are looking for and how you can provide it, chock full of great advice on how you can write action adventure stories. You can’t say fairer than that now can you? Bill The Black Library submission guidelines Bill mentions above can be found here. Read them carefully, follow them to the letter and it will stand you in good stead for your dealings with them in the future. Good luck!    [ Top ]     [ Essays ]