Today I have the pleasure of bringing you a lecture on the art of writing steampunk by author Chris White. SteamU Professor White considers the important elements in writing steampunk, and I'm not talking about goggles: characters make a story. Below, White discusses all the essential elements of writing in this exciting genre.
Today’s Lecture by SteamU Professor: Chris White
Author of: Short stories, flash
fiction and the still-in-progress (and occasionally serialized)
steampunk/pulp/men’s adventure novella The River of Crawling Death.
Further Discourses Available: Here (and mostly for free!)Office Hours:
Today’s Lecture: Writing Steampunk
Let’s face it: coming
to it as an outsider, steampunk is a pretty damned intimidating genre. There’s
a fully-fledged (and fully-pledged) fan base, with its own unique and
burlesquely beautiful sense of fashion and a deep knowledge of the Victorian
era, their own genre of music (shoutout to my friend’s brother’s band Clockwork Quartet.) Seemed best to leave
well enough alone, and let steampunk authors cater to steampunk tastes.
But I couldn’t. There’s something deeply
alluring about steampunk, and it’s not just the dapper gentlemen and women in
corsets. Perhaps it’s the deep sense of history, the suspicion that we haven’t
gotten the future we were promised, the grit and grime of cyberpunk (or
anything ending with the suffix –punk) mixing with a society and an era that is
typically portrayed as being overly formal. We are given the Jane Austen
version of history, rather than the Dickensian.
I am, truth be told, a newcomer to
steampunk. The genre itself seems like high fantasy, sometimes bizarre and over
the top, sometimes so truthful it catches the breath in your throat and tugs at
unguarded heartstrings, so truthful it hurts. The genre is eccentric and weird,
sometimes flirting with ‘hard’ science fiction, with intricate details, page
upon page about vast, grinding machinery. It can tell the stories of the
wretched, of criminal minds, of the wealthy, the aristocratic, of high fashion,
or of murder, most foul.
I came to steampunk rather underhandedly.
As a teenager I read writers like George Orwell and Aldous Huxley, Isaac Asimov
and Arthur C. Clarke. Dystopian science fiction and “pure” science fiction. I
eventually read Philip Reeve’s Mortal
Engines series, stolen from my sister’s shelves as a bored 19 year old. I
read China Miéville’s Perdido Street Station last year. This
year I was writing for one of Chuck Wendig’s Terrible Minds
flash fiction challenges. This particular challenge led me to write a
steampunk/Men’s Adventure hybrid, and so, The
River of Crawling Death was born.
“The
fog clung to the streets, left the cobblestones rain-slicked and dangerous.Muted footsteps echoed, almost hidden beneath the voice of the city,
its harsh, growling breath the sound of coal-laden lorries
and the eternal muttering of Trevithick contraptions . . ."
its harsh, growling breath the sound of coal-laden lorries
and the eternal muttering of Trevithick contraptions . . ."
The Mosquito Flies, on Gossamer Wings, Chris White
It
was my first foray into writing steampunk – although since then I’ve written a
few short stories, ranging from stories about steampunk superheroes (The Mosquito Flies, on Gossamer Wings),
about aviatrix pirates (Letters of Marque),
and about Arabic automatons (as yet untitled.) Clock-punk, steampunk – the most
difficult part about writing what is essentially science fiction set in the
past is getting the details right. Doing your research.
I have a problem with research. It’s not that I find it boring or anything like that. Quite the opposite. My problem with research is that I do too much. I’ve got a nineteen page dictionary of Victorian criminal slang sitting on my hard-drive. I’ve read article after article about the “toshers”, the sewer-sifters of London, about the miniature coffins pulled from Arthur’s Seat, Edinburgh, about bushrangers and pickpockets, all in the name of “research” for few short stories that feature none of these things. History fascinates me, always has, always will, and Wikipedia searches tend to develop into forests of tabs, each open to another beautiful, damning facet of Victorian society.
Do your research, and do it thoroughly.
"Science fiction is the most important literature in the history of the world,
because it's the history of ideas, the history of our civilization birthing itself . . .
Science fiction is central to everything we've ever done, and people who make
fun of science fiction writers don't know what they're taking about"
Ray Bradbury
The other thing that I think is
important (not just in steampunk, but in every type of fiction) is to remember
that the setting is not the character. Again: the setting is not the character.
Your setting can play an important role in the plot, as villains (and heroes,
or love-interests) disappear into the notorious pea-soupers of London, as vast,
nefarious engines shake the ground beneath the cobblestones, or gas-lights
obscure more than they reveal. The setting influences characters, the setting
can drive the plot, the setting is important. But it’s not the most important
component. Characters are.
Humans are – even if they’re not human, even if they’re quasi-sentient Babbage differential engines, or monsters, hidden behind human faces, or even if they’re the city itself, or some Coughing Devil, anthropomorphised.
Everything else is window dressing.
Your setting can help
to create your characters, though. When I sat down to write The Mosquito Flies, on Gossamer Wings
all I had was an idea – a Victorian-era, steampunk superhero. I knew I wanted
to write the story as a pulpy, noir detective story, but that was it. The
steampunk/superhero theme painted the rest of the character out for me, and
London gave up her beautiful contrasting maze of leaning, drunkard tenements
and opulent palaces, of drug addicts and pickpockets and serial killers. It
gave my character a backstory, and it gave me the plot. But I don’t want to
ruin it for you.
"Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass."
Anton Chekov
Introducing steampunk (or fantasy, or
science fiction, or magic realism, or whatever) elements into your story
shouldn’t be difficult, but it isn’t easy either. Smuggle in your gadgets and
devices, but have them occupy the world you’re creating. As Chekov said, “Don't tell me the moon is shining; show
me the glint of light on broken glass.” Don’t tell me, in intricate detail,
about these fantastical machines – tell me about how they change the world,
tell me about how they change society, politics, warfare, love, lust, death.
Tell me how they change the humans in your story. Otherwise it’s not a story;
it’s a description of events, in an imaginary world. 
Write your stories, write your
characters’ lives, write them large or small, write about schemes to tilt the
Earth from its axis or about a shanty-town perched in the sewers, huddled near
exhaust pipes for warmth, sifting through the refuse for scraps.
Write your stories.
--Professor Chris White
Please stop back in next Friday for a lecture by SteamU Professor Laurel Anne Hill, Author of Heroes Arise.
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