Report on Nate Crowley’s talk to the Hampshire Writers’ Society, 10th January 2023 by Sarah Noon
Nate Crowley is a novelist, an interactive fiction consultant and videogame journalist. He has been published through the traditional route of a publishing company, and also through the self-publication route. He is talking to us today about work for hire writing, which he describes as “…playing with other people’s toys.”
Nate grew up in South East London and now lives in Walsall near Birmingham. He explains that he grew up wanting to write. He wrote a novella at the age of fourteen (“It was garbage and I never did anything with it.”). He went on to read English Literature at university but “…crashed out after two years…” because he was “…reading too much pulp science fiction…” according to his tutor. After dropping out of the course he went on to study the History of Science which, he says, was a lot more useful in the end.
However, leaving his English Literature course halfway through affected his confidence and so he didn’t write anything for thirteen years – until 2015.
Nate goes on to tell us about the first book he got published. Originally two novellas, The Death and Life of Schneider Wrack was published through Rebellion Publishing. He describes this time as “…wonderful fun…” and was, he explains, feeling very motivated to write. He then went on to write “100 Greatest Video Games That Never Existed” which he describes as “fictional non-fiction.” More recently, Harper Collins published Nate’s book Notes from Small Planets –another piece of fictional non-fiction written in the style of the Lonely Planet travel book series. He describes it as “…a really lovely book.”
Nate explains that while this was happening, he met the Commissioning Editor from Black Library (of the Warhammer brand) whist visiting FantasyCon. He had read Schneider Wrack and compared it to a Warhammer book. At this point, Nate tells us, he asked him if he could write one for them as he had loved Warhammer since he was a child. He was given a “yes” and has now written three novels, a novella and five short stories for Black Library as a Work for Hire writer. This he confides, has earned him more money than the work he has done through the traditional publishing route (something, he says, which surprised him.) Through being a Work for Hire writer, Nate has been able to make a living.
There are downsides to this however. He explains that whilst working for a company with a known IP brings with it its marketing and readership, it is hard to attract new readers from outside that brand. Working with an established IP can be restricting. Nate has worked on the novelisation of a videogame, as well as scripts, dialogue and character designs “…often not with the IP I would have chosen.” Whilst Nate might love Warhammer, he admits that “…other things I have worked on left me completely cold.” This, though, provided him with a positive creative challenge. He describes it as “trying to find a passion in something you have no passion for. “
Nate also discusses how restrictions as a Work for Hire writer can also help generate creativity. He tells us about his father who was an abstract painter. He told Nate that the hardest thing for him was to be given a blank canvas and no parameters. He also told him that the best work he did creatively was when he was given “unreasonable restrictions.” Nate explains that this is the same with any creative work.
So what are the restrictions with Warhammer? Nate explains that the stories are “…going to be quite bleak, it’s going to be quite violent and it’s going to be in the future.” The fun part, he says is working out how many ways a writer can get around those restrictions. He talks about Warhammer and how the setting is so established, that “…you can pretty much choose any story you want to tell, and you can find elements of that setting to hook on.” Nate goes on to share a story he wrote within the Warhammer setting, about Necrons (60,000,000-year-old futuristic robots), but is, in fact, “… a love story…” based on an old General and his devoted bodyguard, and reads us the ending to this story.
A Work for Hire environment provides a very collaborative process, but Nate says that within the restrictions, a writer can write the story they want to tell. He explains that whilst working with a big IP (such as Games Workshop), he “… can’t go charging in there and making dictatorial decisions over what to do with it.” However, he feels that he still gets the chance to be creative and is rarely having ideas forced upon him – he says that it is just that everything has to be discussed in minute detail with an editor. Nick enjoys working closely with an editor as he often “… can’t see the woods for the trees” when he is writing.
Nick claims he feels fine knowing that he will “… never be the star of the show…” – although some writers might struggle with this element of being a Work for Hire writer. He describes it as “playing with someone else’s toys…” but finds this relaxing as the idea of working with such a big name is “reassuring.”
Nick also explains that this way of working is good for world building skills, as the world has already been built but the writer is trying to add their own mark to it “It makes you ask yourself really interesting questions.” He gives an example using the competition he set and asks us to consider what our world would be like if we lived within a Monopoly game – What would happen if we had to pay £200 every time we walked past a certain street? How would the character move around? Given a rigid and well known structure forces us to be creative.
To finish off his talk, Nate tells us the story about how he got into writing – off the back of a birthday Tweet that got more and more extreme and going viral. He would appear that he has never looked back since that time – his final words this evening are “I’m having the time of my life doing what I do.”
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