Inside the HWA Mentoring Program

An Interview With Steve Savile

This article previously appeared online at Horror Library.

THE HORROR WRITERS ASSOCIATION (HWA) is a nonprofit organization of writers and publishing professionals around the world, dedicated to promoting dark literature and the interests of those who write it. One of the benefits of membership in the HWA (as listed on their web-site) is the HWA Mentor Program.

Under the Career Building section of the HWA site, it says: “We feel strongly that one of the best ways we can contribute to the health of the horror genre is by helping to educate beginning writers in the ins-and-outs of both the craft and the business of writing. Yet writing courses are expensive, never last long enough, and rarely deal with the practicalities of establishing a career in writing. For that reason, we've created the HWA Mentor Program. Participating professional horror writers are paired with Affiliate members who wish to learn a little or a lot about everything from the craft of writing to the pitfalls of contract negotiations.”

That such a program exists is good news. The bad news is that that quote is everything the HWA site tells the outside world about the program, and frankly it’s not enough. I wanted to know more. Happily, Mr. Steven Savile volunteered the “more” I was looking for. Savile has worked inside the HWA mentor program for several years, having been on the giving and the receiving end of the program.

What you should know about Savile as a writer is that he is currently finishing the final volume in a trilogy of vampire novels (Inheritance, Dominion, Retribution) tied to Games Workshop's popular Warhammer Fantasy games. Dominion is due out in the UK in August and in the US in September. Savile recently signed a new book deal with Black Library, so look for many more of his books in the coming years.

For anyone not familiar with Black Library, they are the publication wing of Games Workshop, the creators of the Warhammer worlds. Warhammer is a grim and nasty fantasy world shared by a role playing game, a number of computer games and over one hundred novels. Savile says, “It’s pseudo-medieval, very Germanic in nature and far, far grittier than D&D ever was when I played it. They publish a phenomenal depth of material, really bringing the world to life. For my own part I play in a very small part of the history ‘the Wars of the Vampire Counts’.”

Savile got involved with Black Library the old fashioned way: he networked. Here’s the story is his own words: “The modern writer is a curious beast – not only does he need to be able to do HIS job, the actual writing; he needs to be able to do so many other jobs, not least of which is networking – you’ve all heard the ‘it’s-not-what-you-know’ cliché by now. Here’s the thing, all good clichés have a grain of truth in them. The door was opened for me by Mike Lee – who had just finished his first novel for Black Library (The Daemon’s Curse). What followed was about two thousand emails, plots schemes and wild ideas bouncing between my editor and me, and a rigorous audition. You see, “who-you-know” might help in opening the door, but it is what you know that stops it from slamming in your face. To abuse another cliché, you have to be able to walk the walk.”

In the US Savile had his first hardcover, Elemental (an anthology co-edited with Alethea Kontis), released by Tor in May of this year. He is also editing a new Dr Who anthology for Big Finish/BBC. He was a runner up in the British Fantasy Awards in 2000, and won the Writers of the Future award in 2002. He has also written a series of Celtic fantasies for Black Flame. The first novel, Slaine: The Exile, is due for Christmas 2006.

About the HWA mentoring program, since the information on the HWA web-site is somewhat limited, Savile provided a more detailed explanation. Basically it works like this: A new writer is teamed up with an older professional, one who has been around the block a bit, picking up industry knowledge – everything from simple stuff like manuscript format, market advice, support, to more detailed help like line edits, development of ideas into synopses and complete stories, helping identify the mentoree’s strengths and weaknesses, and working toward their own professional sales.

“It’s a wonderful idea,” said Savile. “Right now I’m working with a great young writer, Eric Christ, who I think has a lot of potential. We started with me simply reading a stack of his work to get a feel for what he was capable of – and, as with most of us, the same chinks appeared over and over. So I set him a number of assignments to focus on fundamental points of plot and character, and had him work up a short story idea from a seed into a synopsis, then into a completed piece. It’s out there (on the market) at the moment and I have high hopes for it. We then talked at considerable length about his career. You see it isn’t about simply stumbling into the right decisions – the role of the mentor really ought to be in helping the novice make the right decisions to become a professional so that he might, in turn, help the next new voice along.”

Savile went through the mentoring program himself as a fledgling writer. His mentor was Mort Castle author of a number of novels and short stories. Castle’s short story collection, Nations of the Living, Nations of the Dead, was Bram Stoker nominee in 2003 for Best Collection.

About having Castle as a mentor, Savile said, “In all ways he was a great teacher. He was also very encouraging when I felt my confidence taking a battering. He’s a brilliant writer, acerbic and gifted with a mind that just cuts through all the BS and gets down to the heart of the matter. I am very proud to call him a friend, and think I am slowly beginning to repay the faith he showed in me all those years ago. Certainly I am making good use of the advice he offered.”

When asked if there was a single piece of advice he got from his mentor that still stood out in his mind, Savile replied, “Simple – he told me to look for the Story People. A great story gimmick is all well and good, but if that is all you have, then your story is nothing more than flash and powder. It’s the people who make the story breathe because it is their story. The Story People are how we identify with the action; we need to care, to feel, to suffer with them. The tale needs to be unique to them.”

Once Savile attained a level of success, he felt it was important to “pay it forward.” He said, “Enough people have helped me and offered great advice to help me around pitfalls, and in doing so they all (to a man) said the same thing – don’t thank me, do the same for someone else when you are in a position to.”

Previously Savile had mentored two other writers, and hopes, once Eric Christ reaches pro-qualification, to take on a fourth. He feels it’s a two way thing – that the novice can’t help but teach the mentor as well, and he calls it “an immensely rewarding experience.”

Savile believes there are around 40 or so HWA members serving as mentors right now. He says when he puts in a request for a mentoree, it is for someone primarily interested in darker fantasy as opposed to traditional horror. He also has to specify his strengths as a writer, which takes a large amount of self-evaluation, something a lot of people choose to avoid. His only firm point is that in his case he prefers to work with novelists over short story writers because he is more comfortable with longer works. But he also adds that the HWA has great people working behind the scenes to match mentor strengths to mentoree needs.

“It’s rather like Blind Date I suppose,” said Savile. “Matchmakers working to facilitate the best relationship. I’ve certainly been happy with both sides of the ‘couple’.”

The HWA mentoring program is open to HWA affiliates. Officially, affiliates are: “Beginning horror writers with a demonstrated intention of establishing a professional writing career. Minimal publication is required, and only works of Horror or Dark Fantasy can be used as qualifying material. Any one of the following may be used:

Sell one short story of at least 500 words, for payment of at least $25.

Sell one non-fiction article, role-playing supplement, comic book script, computer gaming script, or theatrical play for payment of at least $50.

Sell one book-length manuscript (40,000 words or more) for payment of at least $200.

Sell a screenplay or an option on your existing screenplay for payment of at least $200.

Sell three poems for total payment of at least $15.

For more information, visit the HWA web-site. The page for membership information can be found at: http://www.horror.org/joinhwa.htm

Edmund R. Schubert is the editor of InterGalactic Medicine Show (www.InterGalacticMedicineShow.com), an on-line science fiction and fantasy magazine founded and published by Orson Scott Card. Edmund’s fiction has been published over thirty times, with stories appearing in magazines and anthologies in the U.S., Canada, and England, garnering a small handful of awards no one ever heard of. His web-site is: www.edmundrschubert.com.