On Creating Steamy Steampunk

Chapter Four

2011-07-03T21:32:00.000-07:00

Writing the first couple of chapters I started to get a really good feel for who my second PoV character is. I feel like I am really starting to see the world through his eyes. The first character hasn't struck me in this way yet, but I know she will grow on me.

Today's inspirational picture comes from anstellos on Deviant Art

Day the first!

2011-07-01T01:21:00.000-07:00

Today is day one of my month long novelling journey. I plan to start in the morning. I am going to get some sleep and dream of clockwork creatures, princesses, and evil stepmothers. When I get up I will brew some strong, highly caffeinated coffee and try to crank out as many words as possible before the start of my shift. I think I may push to get 10,000 words done this weekend, just so I am ahead of the game. It is a long weekend so that should be more than doable.

Wish me luck!

More World Building

2011-06-25T02:08:00.000-07:00

Well, I have made some excellent headway on my world. The map is labelled--albeit with blank labels--and I have the races and recent history as fleshed out as I would like for this stage in the writing process. I don't want to outline myself into a corner; I want the world to reveal itself to me, but it needed a little backbone. I feel pretty good about it so far. I even had an idea today for a future novel in the world while I was creating the history for one of my races.

I like to think of my world as a cross between Victorian era western Europe, Far Far Away from the Shrek series, and Middle-Earth. I mean, it is all of those and none of them at the same time. Your run of the mill fantasy races thrive in archetypal form, but they also harbor all of these fairy tales. On top of all of that they have a very realistic and gritty underbelly that controls the mood of the stories. I am hoping the world itself feels more like Waterdeep from the D&D Forgotten Realms, or like Sherlock Holmes' version of London; where everything is seedy and dark with a nice coat of varnish.

I don't want these stories to feel like silly fairy tale interpretations, but their own living breathing stories that somewhere down the line may have resembled something more traditional. So far I am liking what I have. I don't want to say too much because this thing may turn into something I can sell. I will say though, that this is the first time I have sat down to something and truly felt the world. I smell the oil that lubricates the cogs, I here the wail of steam trumpets on the locomotives, I taste the sickly sweet mead of the north. It's a full sensory experience and that is how I know that this is something different than the other stories that sit idle in my brain or on my hard drive.

World Building and Photoshop Maps

2011-06-16T13:04:00.000-07:00

http://www.cartographersguild.com/The thing about this novel, is that I want it to be like nothing I have ever read. Every time I try to get into erotic fiction I find that it is full of all the cliches and silliness. I may be biased because I have a hard time finishing books that make me cringe, but I honestly have never picked up a decent erotica novel and thought "yes, this is what I was looking for. I believe that there has to be a lot of people in the world that feel this way; that erotic fiction is hokey. In my mind I see a whole legion of women--and perhaps men as well--who love fantasy and sci-fi, but would dig a little more steam.

I am treating this novel, first and foremost, as a strictly speculative fiction novel when it comes to craft. I am world building heavily; working on races, religion, political structures, geography, technology, magic structures, and so much more. Any of the great speculative fiction writers prepare themselves this way. Sara Douglass, for example, set up giant timelines all over the room to handle continuity in the Tencendor books; Tolkien wrote languages from scratch and crafted a whole world history for Middle-Earth; George R.R. Martin knows exactly what types of cuisine each region enjoys and gives delicious mouth-watering descriptions which makes the world feel more alive.

I have spent the last two weeks world building and map making. If you are curious about the map making resources used you can find the community here. It's an amazing place for writers of speculative fiction. The tutorials are amazing, and free! I used Photoshop to create the map, and a tutorial that can be found here. All told it's taken me approximately 20 hours to complete, but the end result is way sexier than my hand drawn garbage. The best part about the map is that I can look at it now and know where things are and how they relate to each other. I even had an epiphany about the production of the magical alloy that the book centers around after seeing the mountains start to take shape.

I still have a ways to go on the history of the world and such, but having the map finished is proving to be the perfect inspiration. I am exactly two weeks away from drafting now, and I feel accomplished already. This process has been much nicer than the rigid plotting I tried to do for the last incomplete novel I almost wrote. I am convinced at this point that I am a more organic writer like Stephen King; I have to be surprised when I write. I enjoy it more when the characters reveal themselves to me, and manipulate the plot on their own.

Anyways, I should get back to it.

Taking a Cue From Video Games

2011-05-29T19:47:00.000-07:00

I finished reading Mass Effect: Revelation on Friday. I am not going to write a review for it here, but I wanted to mention it because it got me thinking about how video game stories are structured. When it comes to Bioware games, they tend to be steeped in rich lore. A lot of franchises treat lore as a sort of after thought. More games these days tend to throw things together only after the publishers commission a second and third games after the first makes a bajillion dollars. Mass Effect, however, is structured very much like any great Fantasy or Sci-Fi series.

Drew Karpyshyn does a fantastic job of fleshing out this very realistic lore for the future of our planet, and the design team does an amazing job of making Citadel Space this very organic feeling place. On top of settings you have all of these histories for all the other races and how they found their own way into Citadel Space. I had a very good understanding of who all of these races were after playing through Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2, but Revelation was amazing at illustrating the more finite details. I mean, you could read through the whole codex in game, but it's a lot more interesting when you are being walked through it by characters you care about. That's what storytelling is all about; showing, not telling.

What I am getting at, is that video games are an untapped resource when it comes to world building and lore. It's even worth it to look at the not so elaborate ones for ideas on how you would do things differently. Just like doing peer reviews in English class, seeing other people's mistakes makes you a stronger writer. I am working my way through the entire Mass Effect series chronologically before Mass Effect 3 comes out. I plan on taking some notes on my way through; picking up little things I notice along the way regarding what makes me feel emotionally connected to that universe. The Mass Effect universe gives me the same fuzzy feeling as the wizarding world of Harry Potter, or Middle-Earth, or Oz; just so enthralling.