Revisiting the past with an Angry Robot

A new author I know slightly (Anne Lyle) has helpfully pointed out that the publisher Angry Robot is set to have what’s described as an ‘open fortnight’ for classic fantasy.

What this means is that they’ll be accepting submissions from any Tom, Dick and Thaddeus, even if they have no agent.

I’ve got an old story I wrote a few years ago, the first part of a trilogy (I did the groundwork for part two but decided to write the stand-alone Bane of Souls instead). So, I’m going to dust it off, and redraft the first five chapters (for the initial submission) in time for the 16^th April submission date.

At the moment I’ve only looked through the first chapter (one of the best, I felt at the time of writing), and it’s already clear that there’s plenty of room for improvement. I’m not going to alter the character of the book (the dialogue is more contemporary and the mood grittier than Bane of Souls), but I am intent upon improving the quality of the writing.

Compared to the older book I’ve taken a more structured approach with Bane of Souls, doing the world-building first rather than making many things up and then trying to fit the pieces together. However, the nature of the trilogy format does allow for a grander tale to be told, and I’m looking forward to re-reading and redrafting it.

It’s a very welcome initiative of Angry Robot to hold another open period (they did one last year as well). The tidal wave of submissions (32 a day) almost certainly make it impractical as a permanent approach to submissions but doing it occasionally means the publisher might just pick up a gem and authors without agents stand a chance of getting their work chosen.

One chap from the Chrons came within a whisker of success last time, so let’s hope he does one better and gets published (as well as me, obviously).

Hurrah for Angry Robot!

Thaddeus