Tales of Darkness - BL submissions from 19th to 31st of Oct

[grailkeeper]

Heart Shaped Box by Joe Hill terrified me. Stephen King is his old man and he's learned from the best. Edited October 20, 2020 by Kelborn

[Shinros]

Don't post your entry, you can invalidate it. 

[DukeLeto69]

Yep @grailkeeper you need to delete that now. Nothing submitted to Black Library can ever have been “published” before and that includes all forms of social media.

[G8Keeper]

Submitted mine today.  Let's see what happens aye?

[Kelborn]

I've taken the liberty to remove your excerpt. Just to be sure and avoid risking your chances.

[grailkeeper]

Didn't realise it applied to Social media. Much appreciated. Best of luck everyone.

[DukeLeto69]

And that is mine submitted. Was ready week ago but gave another pass to tighten up (and was caught out by only 100 word pitch summary so lots more work was needed there).

 

Anyway done!

 

Good luck everyone.

[G8Keeper]

If nothing else comes of this submission period, it's got me writing again for the first time since school and I blooming love it! I guess thank you GW.

[grailkeeper]

If nothing else comes of this submission period, it's got me writing again for the first time since school and I blooming love it! I guess thank you GW.

 

I've actually entered a few writing competitions since lockdown. I haven't come anywhere but I enjoyed it. There's a writers center near me and on its website it lists all kinds of online competitions. Maybe there might be something similar near worth looking into if you enjoy it

[Slave to Darkness]

Heart Shaped Box by Joe Hill terrified me. Stephen King is his old man and he's learned from the best.

Not as terrifying as Heart Shaped Box by Evanescence :D 

[Ioldanach]

Horror isn't normally my thing, but I think I came up with something apropos to the setting. Horror is a great way to portray the true grimdark nature of the WH40K setting. I'm skeptical of my chances, but my fingers are crossed. I didn't really have a strong story idea until a couple of days ago, and I wanted to get it submitted before BL shuts the submission period down (the 31st is just the latest - they might close it earlier if they get too many entries). Good luck to everyone else that enters!

[Plague _Lord]

I've submitted my thing - a mix of psychological and cosmic horror. Shame they only let you pick one category.

Doubt it'll get anywhere - it was very hard for me to actually fit in the 500 words limit. My first try came up with over a thousand words, so had to cut my story in half basically.

I did win a writing contest in primary school so I might have a chance! (the last time I've ever written something that's not a corporate email or a school essay)

[DukeLeto69]

I've submitted my thing - a mix of psychological and cosmic horror. Shame they only let you pick one category.

Doubt it'll get anywhere - it was very hard for me to actually fit in the 500 words limit. My first try came up with over a thousand words, so had to cut my story in half basically.

I did win a writing contest in primary school so I might have a chance! (the last time I've ever written something that's not a corporate email or a school essay)

Unless I misunderstand you seem to imply that your story is 500 words (cut down from 1000)? They only wanted a 500 word sample and are expecting it to be from a “normal” length short story, so approx 6-8k words.

[Plague _Lord]

Yeah nah yeah I meant the sample - I don't have the actual story written down amywhere yet. It's all in my mind palace though ;)

[DukeLeto69]

Cool good luck!

[Indefragable]

That was fun.

Best of luck to all!

[Dagoth Ur]

Welp, submitted pretty much last minute - managed to get quite far last time so lets see how this goes.

[Indefragable]

Welp, submitted pretty much last minute - managed to get quite far last time so lets see how this goes.

What does “quite far” mean? Would you be able to share your experience of the process as far as you made it? I’m curious what each “phase” of the process looks like etc...

[Plague _Lord]

Yeah, some info from the vets would be nice.

For instance - in what timeframe do BL tend to reply / how long is the first phase? Is it more like 2 weeks or 2 months?

[Dumah]

I can't speak for getting "quite far" but the one year I made it through the first round of review I recall it taking months to receive word. They did not ask for additional materials, but instead further scrutinized the initial pitch and sample. It took an even longer span of time to receive word that I didn't make it to the third phase and I have no idea what that entails.

[Dagoth Ur]

I'll try to pull up my old mails and notes from back when I first did it - once real iife allows for it but its pretty much as Dumah says, its a whole lot of waiting and eventually you hear in which phase you dropped out.

[Brother Tyler]

Those wanting to get a better idea of how long it has taken BL to send replies in the past might look at our discussion about last year's Comrades in Arms challenge.

[Cleanse And Purify]

Has anyone heard back yet? I suppose it hasn't even been three months since the end of the window, but I am curious

[Cleanse And Purify]

Sorry for the double post, but check your emails everyone!

 

Just got notified I am advancing to the second round of the story contest. They gave some pretty detailed feedback on the story itself and requested a synopsis and another 500-1000 words, submitted within the next two weeks.

 

Good luck all! This is the first time I have submitted to a short story contest and I am excited to have made it out of the first slush stage :)

[DukeLeto69]

Congrats and well done!

 

Not heard back myself yet either way!