It’s Not Right… But It Works

I twisted the wrench, securing the new equipment in place. The gauges and dials all read in the green. The ridiculous machine that shouldn’t have even been possible was working perfectly.

Another Lolita–I didn’t know her name, to me she has always been “the annoying one”–stepped up and frowned, tapping the instrument. “This isn’t right.”

A heavy sigh escaped me before I could stop it, but once it was out I felt better and vowed not to stifle my exasperation again. “The captain told me to make it work, and it works.”

“But it’s not right,” the annoying one insisted, tapping it again. “Anyone who knows engines will question not only its purpose but its effectiveness and–”

Calmly, I wrapped my fingers around her wrist and pulled her hand away from my invention. I might have applied a bit more pressure than necessary, but I was done playing nice with her. “And anyone who knows this ship will see that it works and, at the end of the day, that is what the captain wants. Why don’t you go about your business and do your job. I’m sure you will perform it exactly right.”

Scowling, she spun on her heel and stalked out of my engine room.

Before the door hit her skinny backside, I muttered, “I’m sure you’ll remember where to find me when you break something else.”

~~*~~

When writing steampunk (or any fiction for that matter), there is an issue of terminology. Often there is a proper term and a common term that an author has to decide between. When writing non-fiction, of course one should err on the side of the “correct” word. But, with fiction, an author isn’t necessarily dealing with an expert. Not everyone who enjoys science fiction is a rocket scientist (or even understands any math beyond–hopefully at a minimum–some basic algebra). Not everyone who reads historical fiction is necessarily an expert in that era or even a history buff at all. Most people who are drawn to fiction are drawn to the story. Therefore, when choosing terminology, it’s often in an author’s best interest to select things that are recognizable to a general audience.

Take, for example, Clockwork Mafia. The history of organized crime in the United States traces back to Italy and Sicily where “The Black Hand” operated. It was essentially an extortion racket wherein the group would offer “protection” for a fee. This is similar to what most people know of the early mob in America. The name traveled with the “business.” The term mafia came into use in the late nineteenth century and was used in the US, but didn’t become popular until prohibition. 

Now, in the world of the Badlands, history has been tweaked. To that end, when organized crime came into the story, I had no problem whatsoever with using the word mafia. (My editor did cut “mob,” but I was okay with that.) I honestly would have argued had it been suggested that I change “mafia” to “The Black Hand.” Granted, the latter has this dramatic flair that speaks of dark evil and all sorts of foul deeds, but to the average non-history-buff, the term would have been meaningless. Everyone knows what the mafia is, and since these are steampunk romances we’re talking about the focus is supposed to be on the couple.

Anyone who knows my work knows that I aim for balance but, at the end of the day, I could either slow down the pacing of the book to explain to the average reader what The Black Hand was, or I could let the word mafia speak for itself. I chose the latter because it works and serves the purpose. 

And, considering the word was used often in print by 1891 in the states, it’s actually not wrong either. 

 

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The Shadow City : Putting the Punk Back into Steampunk

The Shadow City : Putting the Punk Back into Steampunk

by The Catastaraphone Orchestra

“New York is two cities sharing the same island. One of Light and the other of Shadow .”

– Boss Tweed

 

                The Catatsraphone Orchestra is a collective of steampunk authors who have written collectively and published stories, non-fiction and novels for the past 6 years. Our style owes as much to Charles Dickens as it does Jules Verne. We are endlessly fascinated with the horrors and heroes of those often left out of steampunk fiction or relegated to color but are seldom the protagonists.  We are talking about the everyday people who struggled to make a living in the great 19^th century cities. For every ingenious scientist there were thousands of men who kept the boilers fed while their children went to bed hungry. There seem to be endless stories of air-pirates but what about the all women gangs that prowled the East End of London and New York’s Soho? We do not believe that gentlemen’s clubs or opera houses are as interesting settings as Chinatown’s opium dens or the workhouses for the poor. A lady coughing blood into her silk handkerchief is less tragically romantic than a factory girl disfigured by the glowing phossy jaw, a fatal and gruesome disease caused by too much exposure to white phosphorous. The intricate fashions of the chimney sweep are as beautiful to us as the splendor of Beau Brummel’s suit. Many great stories can be found in the blind tiger taverns and teeming tenements if one only has the courage to explore.

Airships, goggles and clever clockworks are not only the property of the fabulously privileged but can also be appropriated by the punks of the 19^th century.  Street urchins are not just sidekicks of clever detectives but have their own stories, heroes and villains. We all know that Fagin and the Artful Dodger are a hundred times more exciting than Oliver Twist. How about a story with a protagonist that is a shoulder-pusher for Boss Tweed instead of a special agent for Queen Victoria? A picket-line holds as much drama as any author could hope for. What we all love about steampunk –  the history, the mechanical speculations, the outrageous fashion, the mad adventure and danger, can be found in breathtaking abundance in the shadow city. The 19^th century’s promise of progress was not the reality for the vast majority of Victoria’s subjects and it’s time we told their stories too, without pity or disdain.

Putting the punk back into steampunk is not just a matter of taste or style for us. Steampunk, with its alternative histories, has always kept an eye on the present. Retrofuturism is not just a gimmick to sell books but can be a serious and hopefully engaging attempt to learn from the mistakes of the past to better understand our present and shape our future. Fiction has the power to move us and open up new possibilities. The reality is that most of us will never be geniuses or fabulously wealthy but that doesn’t mean we don’t have stories that are just as important and meaningful. Steampunk can, and probably should be exploring more than corsets and clockworks, but a deeply problematic past that looks very familiar to our present.

 

–The Catastaraphone Orchestra has just  published a collection of stories and writings at Combustion Books.  Learn more at www.combustionbooks.org

 

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Confessions of a Steampunk Sequel — Part 9

I’ve turned book 2 into my editor.  ~launches cupcake cannon~

Book 2 has been very interesting. I’m not sure if it was any harder to write than book 1, other than feeling like it *should* be harder because everyone told me book 2 is harder. (PS, there’s nothing wrong with you if it’s not harder).  Both book 1 and book 2 had their own unique challenges.  Really, the toughest part in Book 2 was consistency, making sure the characters still sounded like themselves, used the right slang, had the right eyes, and in one case, had the right name.  (oops).  Well, that and writing my airships…

I wasn’t on Twitter during book 1, and it’s interesting to see what effect social media and twitter had on book 2.  A random question spans a DM chat that births a subplot, a joke spans a character, a guest blog post also adds a subplot. 

I’ve been writing these characters since 2009 and I love when they surprise me.  In my final read through I learned something about a character that’s been there from the beginning, something I’d never known before which, while a surprise, will help me in book 3 (which I should probably write soon). 

Hopefully my editor will like it, and hopefully (when you read it in 2013) you will, too.  Until then, Book 1 is up on Netgalley and is everywhere for preorder.  (Pssst…it’s only $5 at B&N.)

ARCs and such for book 1 are going out…which is exciting and fearsome at the same time and a blog post in its own right.

Anyway, I’m going to go buy some chocolate.  I just got book 1 copyedits. 

–

Suzanne Lazear writes steampunk tales for teens.  Her debut novel, INNOCENT DARKNESS, book one of The Aether Chronicles, releases August 2012 from Flux. Visit her personal blog for more adventures.

 

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The Real Inspirations for My Fictional Characters by Kim Lakin-Smith

 

Kim Lakin-Smith, author of Cyber Circus – shortlisted for this year’s British Science Fiction Association Best Novel award.  Her new work, Queen Rat is published by Murky Depths and is available from Amazon.co.uk, or order direct from the author’s website for a personalised, signed copy.  For more information about Kim and her latest news, visit www.kimlakin-smith.com or follow Kim at www.twitter.com/kimlakinsmith

 

The Real Inspirations for My Fictional Characters

by Kim Lakin-Smith

 Philip Reeve, luminary author of the Mortal Engines series, kindly described my novel Cyber Circus as “…definitely some kind of ‘punk’: violent, grungy, transgressive and bristling with attitude,” adding, “Compared with it, most Steampunk that I’ve read needs to be reclassified as ‘Steam-Easy-Listening’ or Steam-Middle-of-the-Road’.” Such descriptions from my favourite author left me humbled – also newly aware that while my writing is heavy on the mechanics, it is the ‘punk’ aspect of the steampunk genre which really gets my juices flowing. From my debut novel, the dark fantasy Tourniquet, to my recent short stories – The Harvest, The Killing Fields, Field of the Dead… – I’ve always been drawn to the rebel and the outcast. In Tourniquet, I focused on the punkish aspects of the gothic and rock music scene. In Cyber Circus, I concentrated on a dust-punk world where the freaks of the circus provide welcome relief from the drabness of existence. In my latest story, the Young Adult novella, Queen Rat, it is the teenage protagonists who add a punkish flavour.

                                     Queen Rat is set in the underwater world of the Free Ocean where 14-year-old Princess Ratiana Clementine Saint John of the submersible Victoriana is to wed Prince Simeon of the Aesthetes. Neither is keen on the match. Princess Ratiana – ‘Rat’ for short – is the Victoriana’s acting captain, given that both her parents are borderline senile. She is used to her rough tough people and, in spite of her personal tutor’s best efforts to refine her, has adopted their wild ways. In contrast, Prince Simeon is an orphaned Aesthete who is more likely to be found with his head in a book in the royal library than playing dodge with a cloud of jellyfish. They are an unlikely match – and desperately young to be forced into the constitution of marriage. But for a long time, the notion of a small pool of suitable partners combined with marriage at a young age was notorious among royal families across the globe. 

 In creating Rat, I wanted to pay homage to her most famous ancestor, the real life British monarch, Queen Victoria. While Victoria is often associated with the strict morality of the period, her actions as a young woman reveal the sort of spirit, strength and passion which underpins the character of Rat.

Victoria was raised under the Kensington System, a strict and complex set of rules devised by her mother, the Duchess of Kent, and her attendant and rumoured lover, Sir John Conroy. Reacting against the presence of the then King William’s illegitimate children at court, the duchess banned Victoria from any hint of sexual impropriety. Consequently Victoria shared her mother’s room every night, was not allowed to descend the staircase unattended, spent her days isolated but for her beloved King Charles Spaniel, Dash, and was consistently badgered to make Conroy her private secretary. Given the restrictions of her childhood, it is fascinating that, on inheriting the throne at age 18, Victoria banished Conroy from her presence. It wasn’t long before her mother too was evicted from the palace. Victoria remained distanced from the duchess for the rest of the latter’s life.

Someone who noted Victoria ’s feisty personality was her future husband, Prince Albert , who wrote “(She) is said to be incredibly stubborn and her extreme obstinacy to be constantly at war with her good nature…(She is said) to enjoy sitting up at night and sleeping late into the day.” Apparently the future queen’s quirks did not put Albert off – on the15th of October 1839, he accepted Victoria ’s proposal of marriage. The success of their union, which produced 9 children, alongside Victoria ’s extreme mourning for her husband when he died at the age of 42, reveals that she was not only spirited but intensely romantic.

There is also an essence of Prince Albert about my character Prince Simeon. Like Simeon, he was a foreign royal who combined intellectual pursuits such as the study of law, political economy, philosophy, art history and music, with physical prowess in gymnastics, fencing and riding. Notably, Albert was heavily involved with the organisation of the Great Exhibition of 1851. Similarly, he was gifted with a very clear sense of right from wrong. Over time he adopted many public causes including educational reform and a worldwide abolition of slavery, as well as running the Queen’s household, estates and office.

To my mind then, the ‘punk’ side of my steampunk novella Queen Rat lies in the ghosts of the monarch and her consort prince who inhabit my main characters. Rat and Simeon have to fulfil several life-threatening Grand Rites together before the knot can be tied; in order to survive they must learn to work together and utilise body, mind and soul. It’s a fairly useful analogy for a happy marriage, and one which served their famous ancestors well.

 ~Kim

 www.kimlakin-smith.com 

 www.twitter.com/kimlakinsmith

 

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Confessions of a Steampunk Sequel — Part 7

My apologies for the lateness of this post.

And the sequel adventures march onward…

I’ve spent the last week taking that completed draft and attempting to make it fit for human consumption. 

This included putting in the proper names for ship parts, adding a few literary quotes/references, adding in some proper Victorian terms, and fixing any errors I came across.

The draft is by no means perfect or finished, but off to the beta readers it goes.

Some of them were quite excited about it.  The day after I tweeted that I finished the draft I got an email from a beta going, “Saw it’s done, where is it?”  LOVE LOVE LOVE such enthusiasm.  I hope everyone likes it. 

The synopsis has also been written.  Often I’ll work off at the very least a skeleton of a synopsis, but this story has been so wonky in so many respects that I had to actually finish the draft because I *didn’t know how it ended*.

I’m still not sure if the first chapter works, we’ll have to see.  I listened to “Through Glass” by Stone Sour on endless loop through much of my December drafting (with a dash of Emilie Autumn for Steampunk-spiration) and I think it shows. 

Now, to get those first three chapters and the synopsis off to my editor….

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Confessions of a Steampunk Sequel — Part 6

Ding Dong the Draft is DONE!

Yesterday I typed THE END for book two of my Aether Chronicles series.

~whew~

I was really afraid I wasn’t going to make it.

Well, technically I didn’t since my self-imposed goal was actually December 31, but Jan 2 isn’t too shabby.

91k in 2 months and 2 days isn’t shabby at all.

However, I’m not anywhere near done.

For the sake of vomiting out this draft and getting it on paper I glossed over some things….mostly the technical aspects and proper part names of the airships.  I will be spending this week researching all the things I didn’t research and filling in all the blanks I left.  I’ve never done that before and I’m not sure I liked doing it.  Certainly it took me out of my comfort zone.

I also need to clean up all the errors.  I am really bad about leaving out words, writing the wrong words, and the like. 

Then, it’s off to a couple of betas. 

Book 2 was tricky for me, mostly because I had to take it in a direction other than I’d originally intended and I really, really, really pantsed it.  Usually I know how a book begins and ends and just have to pants the middle.  Not so with this book…

It also didn’t end where I wanted to, and took some twists and turns I hadn’t planned on. 

We’ll see how it all goes.  Hopefully it’s for the better. 

Now…back to filling in those blanks. 

–

Suzanne Lazear writes steampunk tales for teens.  Her debut novel, INNOCENT DARKNESS, book one of The Aether Chronicles, releases August 2012 from Flux. Visit her personal blog for more adventures.

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Confessions of a Steampunk Sequel — Part 5

Did you know Steamed has a facebook group? 

If Steamed has helped you at all with writing your Steampunk novel (or any novel) could you please nominate us for “Write to Done’s” top 10 blogs for writers? 

So, I won NaNoWriMo with my whopping 51,109 words I wrote on Aether Chronicles #2.

Of course, I’m nowhere near finished.  I’m probably about the halfway mark, plus there’s all that editing and revising and stuff to do.

~Whew~

I did get  32,703 written on the “project that hijacked NaNo” but that’s not due soon.  I’ve given it a cookie and shoved it in the drawer to take a nap until *after* I finish my sequel.

Did I get a bajillion words written on the sequel over the weekend? 

Um, no.  I’ve been doing edits on the Eflpunk for my agent for the past few days, but those should be done shortly.

Then, it’s back to the sequel.

This time I’m bringing my raygun just in case those airpirates continue to misbehave. 

How are your projects going? 

 

–

Suzanne Lazear writes steampunk tales for teens.  Her debut novel, INNOCENT DARKNESS, book one of The Aether Chronicles, releases August 2012 from Flux. Visit her personal blog for more adventures.

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Confessions of a Steampunk Sequel — Part 2

It’s Day #14 of NaNoWriMo. As of last night, most should be around 22k to stay on track word count wise. Anyone hit 30k yet? 40k?

If you need some inspiration the Happily Ever After Blog over at USA Today is checking in weekly with romance writers doing NaNo.

Amazing news on the book front.  Innocent Darkness popped up for pre-order on Amazon. If you have a moment, could you please go tag it with “steampunk”? Pretty, pretty please with cupcakes on top? Also, if you want to read it on Kindle, make your you press the little button to tell my publisher that there’s interest.

I’ve also crossed over to the darkside and gotten a Facebook author page.  Like it for book news and such, if you wish. 

The NaNo Cheater Challenge is still going on my personal blog and it’s not too late to join in the fun.

So how is everyone doing on their goals? Here’s my wordcount so far as I chip away at book #2 in my Aether Chronicles series (sequel to Innocent Darkness).

Day 7     2467      

Day 8     1662      

Day 9     1195      

Day 10   2200      

Day 11   4750      

Day 12   1324      

Day 13   5152      

Grand Total so Far: 36305

Some days are good, some days aren’t. There were a few days I was just too tired to write at night, so I only had my lunch time counts. I just do what I can each day and try to make up for it on the weekends.

I’ve hit a huge road block in this WIP. I’ve written myself a character who would actually know and care how an airship works. Right now, she’s on an airship, which means *I* need to know how my airship works right down to the repairs she’s making on the engine. This has been quite the challenge for me (and I’ve spent a lot of time complaining about it on Twitter.) I just don’t know enough about airships — and yes, it’s steampunk, I can and will make things up, but at the same time, I like to know what the rules are so I can break them — and there is *so* much to learn I’m getting overwhelmed. I need to decide how much fantasy I will have in my world (versus something very realistic), and even then I want it to be somewhat plausible (maybe) — or at least fit within what I’ve built in book 1.

I’ve been using a lot of [insert proper name here] and the like, but at the same time, that only works for some details, the big things, like what the ship looks like, what runs the engines, where they’re located in the ship, the ship’s layout, what keeps the ship afloat–those things I need to know so I can actually write the story. When you don’t have much writing time, this research can slow you down. Because in this point of the story these things are so important I’ve had to look up a lot of things, and ask a lot of questions, and ponder a lot of things. So I’ve just had to suck it up and do what I can, though I know I’m going to have to do a lot of fact-checking and detail adding in re-writes. The reason why I’m having to take so much care in all this is because it’s in character with my MC. Noli likes to fix things, so her not knowing these things, asking about these things, or caring about these things, would be very much out of character for her, not to mention, some things are plot points. If she didn’t care about these things, I wouldn’t need to care about them so much either. (Why did I write myself an MC who likes to fix things, again?)

Thanks to everyone online so far who’s explained things to me, sent me links, etc. I’m still looking for more links and *really easy to understand* explanations. All of this is a little out of my comfort level, and I am getting overwhelmed and bogged down, which I can’t do, since this is NaNo. Must. Get. Wordcount.

Even with all my progress, I think December is going to be “Novel FInishing Month” and January is going to be “Novel Editing Month.” Anyone game?

So that’s where I am in my NaNo progress.

How are you doing? What have been your trails and triumphs this week?

Also, we have our winner of DARKER STILL by Leanna Hieber:

What The Cat Read

Please contact me to claim your prize. 

Until next week, write on!

Suzanne Lazear writes steampunk tales for teens.  Her debut novel, INNOCENT DARKNESS, book one of The Aether Chronicles, releases August 2012 from Flux. Visit her personal blog for more adventures.

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Confessions of a Steampunk Sequel — Part #1

So, who’s doing NaNoWriMo?  How are you all doing?  Anyone hit 10k? 15k?  20k? 

Anyone haven’t started yet? 

I’m running a “NaNo Cheater Challenge” on my personal blog.  It’s for those who what to harness the energy of NaNoWriMo, but can’t play by their rules.  All you need is a goal.  There are prizes, including pretty steampunky ones.  It’s not too late to sign up. 

If you’re writing Steampunk for NaNoWriMo go graffiti the forum over at Steampunk.com – it’s lonely. 

For National Novel Writing Month I am attempting to write book 2 in my Aether Chronicles Series.  Here’s my progress so far:

Day 1 925
Day 2 1504
Day 3 3430
Day 4 3438
Day 5 3894
Day 6 3654

Total words: 17555

Thus far I have killed someone off, broken hearts, made someone do something they didn’t want to, gotten someone drunk, and left someone stranded in a far off city.  I’ve had carousels, hoverboards, burnt cooking, and tree houses.   I’m in chapter 5.   This is a raw no-holds-bard rougher than rough draft.  Any and all of this could change.  Especially the opening two chapters.  Book 2 started off a little slow, since with my day job I don’t always have time beyond my meager lunch break to write, but I worked up quite the momentum, carried it through the weekend and now have a nice bank of words as a hedge against lean writing days.   Usually I reasearch as I go, but I don’t always have time for that, so I’ve been leaving myself notes unless it’s a quick Google, which has been hard for me.  fortunately, I haven’t had to create anything brand spanking new yet, but this week will take my characters someplace they didn’t go in book 1 , so we’ll see how long the notes and brackets hold up.

If you need some motivation, the Happily Ever After Blog checks in with some authors doing NaNoWriMo.

I’m going to continue to chip away at this book scene by scene and take the days as they come, high wordcounts and low.  That’s my plan for the week.  What’s yours?

Also, we have a winner for the Secret Scents locket giveaway…

Catherine D.

 

Congrats, contact me to claim your prize. 

Until next week, write on!

Suzanne Lazear writes steampunk tales for teens.  Her debut novel, INNOCENT DARKNESS, book one of The Aether Chronicles, releases August 2012 from Flux. Visit her personal blog for more adventures.

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A blognovelist’s foray into the world of Steampunk by Michael J. Rigg

Michael Rigg lives with his wife and children in a suburb of Chicago, Illinois. He’s a social media writer and blognovelist, and self-described nerd. His Steampunk blognovel, Heart of Bronze, can be found at heartofbronze.wordpress.com. He also writes a regular column about roleplaying for the upcoming Star Wars: The Old Republic video game called “The RP XP with MJ” which can be found at swtor-life.com. If you’d like to learn more about the author or his work, as well as plans for an e-book and audio version of Heart of Bronze coming in 2012, you can email him directly at BronzeNovel@gmail.com. You can follow him @MichaelJRigg on Twitter, or check out his links at MichaelRigg.com.

Do you feel steamy, punk?

A blognovelist’s foray into the world of Steampunk

by Michael J. Rigg

I’ll admit it. The first time I’d heard the word “Steampunk,” I turned my nose up at it. I had heard of “Cyberpunk,” and I grew up in an age of “Punk Rock,” but steam?

Then I saw glimpses of it. Huge bronze engines, airships bristling with guns, bizarre pistols brandished by roguish men in top hats and brass goggles, beautiful women in corsets and bustles brandishing attitude, biplanes, steam-powered monstrosities, strange and mysterious glimpses of a reality that seemed all too real but not quite right, and I was intrigued enough to allow a seed to plant in the back of my mind.

Good thing. I would need it.

I am a writer and DIY author. My work is all free, mostly rough (because I’m more storyteller/writer than writer/editor), and available to anyone who doesn’t mind reading a novel on a computer screen. I  published poetry and short stories way back in my meager beginnings, but the long form had always appealed to me. If I was going to be a writer, I would write novels.

I studied filmmaking and philosophy in college, but it was one professor who pointed out to me that novelists don’t need to hire actors, build sets or pay caterers that steered me toward writing to tell my stories; truly “Do-It-Yourself Filmmaking on the Cheap.”

After several failed attempts and publishing a novel (I had no problems writing them. I wrote in just under three months, another during a mad dash through “NaNoWriMo”), I gave up. I had written a horror story, a science fiction novel, a fantasy set in an age of dragons and heroes, and I had received kudos and accolades from peers and even publishers. “Your manuscript passed our first round of reviewers and has moved on to our editorial board,” came from St. Martin’s Press on a first submission. Holy cow!

But I’m lazy when it comes to publishing persistence. The average number of submissions to get a hook from a publisher used to be 20-25. I’m sure it’s much higher in today’s economy. I didn’t have that kind of money for postage. And I couldn’t find an agent. This was decades ago, folks. We old-timers didn’t have no newfangled Internet Thingy.

Then I realized I didn’t want to be “published” per se. I just wanted someone to enjoy my stories. It had nothing to do with fame, fortune, or being an author. I was a story teller. If just ONE person read my work and it made their day, it would make my day. It would all be worth it.

In 2007 I “published” my first “blognovel experiment.” I started a blog, but—instead of entries about the funny things my dog does—I wrote chapters. I didn’t have an outline or even characters in mind. It was an organic experiment to see what would happen if I just started writing from a premise. It began with this thought: What if a serial killer, on the run, ducked into a fortune teller’s home at the precise moment the fortune teller realized she really could predict the future? Ninety thousand words later: August Winter.

Two years later I took another stab at it. An Angel For Sara Dawn began with a premise and an idea. I followed that up with an outline and some character bios, but I had no idea how it would end. The characters would decide that as the story progressed. The few readers I had collected for August doubled by the time I started Sara. What next?

For my third blognovel, I went back to an old favorite manuscript. I started to re-write a finished book as a blognovel, but stopped dead only five chapters in. Again, I gave up (Yeah, its’ a theme with me).

Something wasn’t clicking. I had written about angels and demons, aliens and mysterious government projects—all topics I loved—but the settings all seemed weak to me, stale.

That’s when my mind wandered to an alternate reality where airships and Victorian lifestyles reigned, where polite English butlers waxed their mustaches and ladies wore tiny hats with veils (and Derringers in their garters), where Nikola Tesla’s visions provided the fuel for a world. What was that called?

STEAMPUNK

Heart of Bronze began the same way as August Winter. I had an opening scene in mind, as well as a few others that would come later in the story, and a conclusion. All I had to do was let the characters connect the dots for me.

As of the publishing of this article, I’m a little more than half way through the story, with a new chapter publishing each Wednesday. Heart of Bronze, forgive the pun, has picked up steam as well as readers. Nearly four times as many people are following Heart than followed August and Sara combined, and I’m dedicated to putting it out as a free e-book and podcast book next year.

What makes the journey fun and interesting is the interactivity with my readers. Three of the main characters were named and designed by readers. Several other items, places or vehicles were named by readers. The book cover and web site banner were created by readers. One reader has even stepped up to create a Wiki for the book. And, as we near the climactic crescendo, I’ll be asking readers to decide which of the story’s two villains will die, and which will live on in book two.

I don’t claim to be an expert on Steampunk. In fact, I’m still a Steampunk virgin. I don’t classify Heart of Bronze purely as a Steampunk novel. I call it my Steampunk-Sci-Fi-Romantic-Thriller-Alternate History-Fantasy because it has elements of all (or most) of the above, though several of my most vocal fans lean toward “Steampunk Romance” and call it a day. Who am I to argue with my readers?

I think I can safely say I’ve come home. I’m learning a lot about this booming genre and can’t wait to create more stories and characters in the clockwork world of brass and steam. Heart of Bronze is a love affair for me. It has given me a playground to call my own, a world frozen in time and reality where anything can happen.

And does.

–Michael J. Rigg

MichaelRigg.com

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Rules? I Don’t Need No Stinking Rules! by Maureen O. Betita

My apologies for the radio silence.  I do have some epic news for you…but you’ll have to wait until Monday. 

Until then, here are the winners I owe you:

The winner of The Faerie Ring is:

Jessie Ball

The winner of the toy airship is:

Mina Gerhart

Congratulations!

Today we welcome author Maureen O. Betita!

Rules? I Don’t Need No Stinking Rules!
by Maureen O. Betita

I love that about steampunk. I’ve been to several big steampunk conventions and one thing most everyone agrees on…we don’t want rules. We don’t want a definition; we don’t want to be hemmed in.

Yes, steampunk roams free across the plains of the ‘what if’. It almost seems, as a genre, it’s more about a feeling, an aesthetic, than a strict interpretation of anything. This is one of the reasons it’s one of my favorite new genre mutations. (I know it isn’t really new-new, just new to the greater world.)

Because, I, too, want to roam free. I’m one of those writers who didn’t know about the rules, or the concept of format. All those silly acronyms were like hieroglyphs to me. I just wrote. And if I crossed POV or head hopped or used too many adverbs or… Well, you get the picture. Obviously, at the rate I worked, I would never see anything published.

So, I learned some of the rules. The basic rules. About grammar and punctuation and POV and head hopping… I still tend to use run on sentences. (Notice?) But mainly for the effect of effective babble.

Yes, effective babble.

In many ways, this is one way to look at steampunk. Effective babble. It wanders and roams and plays with words and inventions that boggle the mind. Not the purely high-minded scifi inventions created by luminaries such as Arthur C. Clarke, penning the concept of satellites before the idea was more than a gleam in the eye of communications specialists all over the world. Or Isaac Asimov and the Three Laws of Robotics.

Nope. Steampunk creates…oh…mechanical wings with gears, powered by steam. An earth mover that undermines an entire city, or a blend of mechanical and biological…hence an airship created from a whale. See? Effective babble!

Open any page of the Girl Genius comics and you’ll see inventions and innovations that defy every law of gravity, mechanics, physics…and yet…they aren’t magic! Which is one of those weirdly wonderful things about steampunk. Seldom is magic part of the mix.

And I say seldom because being the free roaming spirit it is…sometimes magic is part of things.

I love it!

For those of us who see ourselves as closet anarchists…steampunk is our wetdream.

When I began to create the world of The Kraken’s Caribbean, I wanted elements of steampunk, without the steam. I wanted magic and I wanted some technical toys. But mainly, I wanted pirates. So, no steam. But pirates. Hence, piratepunk was born. My personal name for the genre of The Kraken’s Caribbean.

The Kraken’s Mirror introduced a pirate haven of Tortuga, roundabouts 1690, where there were blenders at the bar and margaritas! My pirates do their work with an iPod strapped to their belts, heads bobbing to the music of the internet. A corner juggler may be using rubik’s cubes to amaze his audience. There’s ice to keep the drinks cold. And sanitation. Vampires act as the defense system for the island. Werewolves wander the forest and zombies gather in the swamp.

Oh, and time travelers stroll the streets while a matchmaking albino kraken stands guard over the entire world.

Yes, pirates inhabiting a world I could see steampunk would find interesting.

So, in the second volume, The Chameleon Goggles, I have Tortuga under attack from a very nasty steampunk world, intent of harvesting all that is profitable from the Kraken’s haven. Novan has come for its escaped citizen, but Captain Jezebel isn’t going easy and with the help of the chameleon goggles and a swashbuckling Mick March, Tortuga will force Novan to regret their actions! (coming October 20^th!)

Bwah ha ha!

I have a third in the works involving a pirate circus…

Would I have felt so free to create this world without the example before of Gail Carriger? And Scott Westerfield? Cherie Priest? I don’t know. Maybe, but maybe not.

Steampunk. Piratepunk. Effective babble…what wonderful worlds!

Is there a favorite bit of fantastical babbling you’d like to see slip into the steampunk universe? Tell me about it (include your e-mail addy, please)  and I’ll set one of you up with an e-copy of The Kraken’s Mirror AND The Chameleon Goggles when it’s released!

Yup, I’m Maureen O. Betita and I write along the shores of the beauteous Monterey Bay in California. I walk my dog along the bluffs where I study the waves, watch the dolphin teach the surfers a thing or two and dream about pirates. When I’m not at pirate festivals, renaissance faires, scifi/fantasy conventions or steampunk gatherings…

Explore my worlds at
www.maureenobetita.com
Facebook http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Maureen-O-Betita-Author/155907664465540  
Twitter http://twitter.com/#!/maureenobetita
and www.romancewritersrevenge.com (Where I babble as 2^nd Chance, the bartender of a ship full of writing pirates.)

Contest ends at 11:59 PM PST 10/19/11.

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Foggy Goggles: The Problem with Steampunk Sub-genres

Tee Morris began his writing career with his 2002 historical epic fantasy, MOREVI The Chronicles of Rafe & Askana. In 2005 Tee took MOREVI into the then-unknown podosphere, making his novel the first book podcast in its entirety. That experience led to the founding of Podiobooks.com and collaborating with Evo Terra and Chuck Tomasi on Podcasting for Dummies and its follow-up, Expert Podcasting Practices for Dummies. He won acclaim and accolades for his cross-genre fantasy-detective Billibub Baddings Mysteries, the podcast of The Case of the Singing Sword winning him the 2008 Parsec Award for Best Audio Drama. Along with those titles, Tee has written articles and short stories for BenBella Books’s Farscape Forever: Sex, Drugs, and Killer Muppets, the podcast anthology VOICES: New Media Fiction, BenBella Books’ So Say We All: Collected Thoughts and Opinions of Battlestar Galactica, and Dragon Moon Press’ Podthology: The Pod Complex.  When he is not writing, Tee enjoys life in Virginia alongside Philippa Ballantine, his daughter, and five cats (3 female, 2 males). Considering the male-to-female ratio in his house, Tee understands how General Custer felt near his end.

 

Foggy Goggles:  The Problem with Steampunk Sub-genres

by Tee Morris

When reading a recent blogpost from the Parasol Protectorate’s Gail Carriger, I felt my hackles rise. They stood a hint taller when I followed a link to The Steampunk Scholar who gives an in-depth look at what I believe to be the silliest trend currently running amuck in steampunk. The gist of both posts is that Gail’s New York Times bestselling series really shouldn’t be considered “Steampunk” but a softer cousin of the genre — “Bustlepunk.” Gail, as she is a class act, opens her commentary on this as follows:

I tend to not weigh in, Gentle Reader, on the controversial subject of bustlepunk, and prefer to let the experts argue amongst themselves as to whether my books are officially steampunk… Since Soulless came out in 2009 I have obeyed to the letter the old Internet adage “do not engage.”

I admit—I’m a new kid in the community. I know this. It was only in March of this year when I (with Pip Ballantine) stepped fully into the fray. Our first steps into steampunk were with the launch of a steampunk podcast anthology. We followed this first step with our second step — the book, Phoenix Rising: A Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences Novel, now just over two months old.

And yet, reading both of the earlier cited columns, I’m asking the same question:

Bustlepunk?

Seriously?

Seriously?!

With the accomplishments Gail has achieved with the Parasol Protectorate series, I’m stunned that there are Steampunk SMOFs (Secret Masters/Mistresses of Fandom) who believe she doesn’t write steampunk on account of — as described by Gail herself — her books being unabashedly frivolous and fun. “Of course that can’t be steampunk!” these SSMOFs trumpet from pulpits on high. “We must give it its own classification — bustlepunk! Yes! That’s it! Bustlepunk! The softer side of nitty, gritty, icky, grimy, and dirty steampunk!”

Yes, I’m the new guy, but I’m just going to say it — Enough with the sub-genres!

It’s not just bustlepunk (and yes, every time I say that word, a kitten dies) that I speak of. It’s all of these contrived sub-genres that are cropping up in order to distinguish themselves from “true” steampunk. I first discovered this segregation when explaining to a curious bystander what steampunk was. When asked for some examples from film and television, I went with a favorite example: Chitty Chitty, Bang Bang.

One of the steampunks in our group turned to me and said:

 “Well, Tee, Chitty Chitty, Bang Bangis more dieselpunk.”

Not only was the steam-curious furrowing his brow at that, so was I. Dieselpunk? What the hell is dieselpunk?

The hair-splitting continued, particularly at WorldCon 68, when I heard bandied about the other “just-like-steampunk-but-different” sub-genres:

• Sailpunk
• Sandalpunk
• Ricepunk
• Atompunk
• Teslapunk
• Stonepunk (No kidding — Stonepunk. Think The Flintstones.)

To those in the mainstream struggling to understand what steampunk is, dropping sub-genres like these only muddy the boiler’s water, making for a really poor performance and a bad stink coming from your analytical engine’s exhaust.

So if this rule of “a case of the whimsies” applies and Gail Carriger therefore doesn’t write steampunk, then you better tell Kaja and Phil Foglio they aren’t writing steampunk either. And someone call The League of S.T.E.A.M. They are having their steampunk card revoked, regardless of their delightfully witty writing and artistic direction.

And while you’re at it — best proceed with caution when reading Phoenix Rising. Between the explosions and intrigue, our whimsies are strong.

Part of what appeals to me (and, I imagine, outsiders of the steampunk circles) with this Science Fiction sub-genre is the passion, wit, and downright cleverness and creativity of “what could be.”  From the possibilities K.W. Jeter, Tim Powers, and James Blaylock first envisioned back in the late-1980’s came a “future-that-never-was” along with a wide definition of what steampunk is all about. When Pip and I attended The 2011 Steampunk World’s Fair, we were struggling not to gawk and gape at what people defined as steampunk, but never did I hear anyone describe someone’s outfit as being a great ricepunk outfit or how their elaborate cannon and teapot was an amazing dieselpunk creation. And when I saw rayguns of Grordbortian inspiration, never did the term retropunk ever bandy about people’s lips. What we were a part of was a celebration of ingenuity and do-it-yourself technology with style. It wasn’t about the niche you fit into, but what you as an artist were defining as steampunk.

Now as steampunk begins to approach mainstream in its appeal, we as writers, costumers, and artisans of various media should stop and ask ourselves how wise it is to search for that magic genre we fit in. If we are not edgy enough are we merely writing bustlepunk? (And there goes another kitten…) If we decide to set our steampunk in Calcutta, have we ventured into currypunk? What if our steampunk traces its true origins back to the earlier era of the Restoration? Do we dare explore the possibilities of powderpunk?

How silly can this hair-splitting get?

Steampunk is more than an era, more than Victorian London, and far more than the technology of Babbage taken to a higher plane. Steampunk is a celebration of what you can accomplish when your heart and your imagination is behind it. It is adventure. It is wonder. It is, as Nathan Fillion’s Richard Castle so eloquently puts it, “…a subculture that embraces the simplicity and romance of the past but at the same time couples it with the hope and promise and sheer super coolness of futuristic design.”

Not ricepunk.

Not retropunk.

And certainly not bustlepunk.

This is steampunk.

Let’s keep our sights on what we do together, not searching for our own little niches. That way, we are better artists, a stronger community, and an artistic movement that changes perspectives.

-Tee Morris

http://www.ministryofpeculiaroccurrences.com

http://teemorris.com/

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Writing Steampunk Technology

I’m going to be teaching Writing Steampunk Aether to Zephlin again, this is revised version of the class I taught last November (which was great fun) and a beginner/intermediate overview class covering the basic nuts and bots of writing Steampunk.  It runs July 5 – July 29, 2011 via a private email loop classroom.  The cost is $20.   More info here. 

 

Writing Steampunk Technology

The trick to writing about technology and your gadgets is to only reveal to the reader what your character might actually know.  Otherwise, it can pull us out of the story, feeling like both an author intrusion and an info dump.

For example, a society lady may give no thought to how something works, only noting that it might be noisy, messy, or shiny.  But an inquisitive child or a scientist might analyze its workings or even come up with improvements in their heads.

But at the same time, this isn’t a license to info dump or spend paragraphs waxing poetic about steam engines (even if it is in character).  Keep in mind – does the reader need to know this and does the reader need to know this now. 

Your technology should be showcased in your steampunk novel, but at the same time, you don’t need to point out or dissect every, single detail.  This screams “See, my novel is steampunk, look, look” and can take the reader out of the story.  Again, think about what your particular character would actually notice, what they may actually know about a particular item, its uses, origins, and inner-workings.

Also, your technology needs to be integral to your world building.  If you can take the tech out of your story, and it still stands, it’s not truly steampunk.

However, it may still have steampunk elements, and if you’re okay with this, then by all means, go for it.  Otherwise you may need to rethink your tech and world and brainstorm on ways to make it stronger.

Here’s a starter list of Steampunk tech here.

How is your tech integral to your world?

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Steampunk and gadgets and gears. Oh my!

First off, we have three copies of Tim Akers Horns of Ruin to give away. 

Gail Gray

Giada M.

Tina

Congrats!  Please email me at suzannelazear (@) hotmail to claim your prize.  Didn’t win?  We still have up for grabs a book by YA author Ren Cummins, a prize pack of goodies including a copy of Blameless and a fan autographed by Gail Carriger, and your choice of one of Leanna Renee Hieber’s Strangely Beautiful books. 

Today we welcome Steampunk author Philippa Ballantine. 

Philippa (Pip) Ballantine is the co-author with Tee Morris of Phoenix Rising: a Ministry of Peculiar Occurrence novel coming out soon from Harper Voyager. It contains airships, archives and large amounts of derry-doing. Find out more at ministryofpeculiaroccurrences.com

 Steampunk and gadgets and gears. Oh my!

By Philippa Ballantine

One of my favourite quotes about our upcoming book is from Warp Core Sci-Fi If James Bond wore a corset and drank Earl Grey it might be something like the adventures in Phoenix Rising.

The joy of gadgetry that can be found in the Bond movies is something that my co-author Tee Morris and I wanted to include in our series—after all we too are writing about a government organization, even if it is one in the nineteenth century rather than the twenty-first. So the tech support that Q gave the secret agents in MI5 might well be found in the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences—but powered by boilers and steam. Interestingly, since the term boffin wasn’t coined until much later, we invented a term for those that make gizmos—we called them clankertons.

Steampunk is a rising genre in fiction that can be dark and dystopian, or fun and optimistic. It can be set in the Victorian age, or on a distant planet—it doesn’t really matter. Steampunk is about many things, but above all its trademark is technology powered by steam—often fantastical and improbable. One thing that is constant however is the gadgets. Some are be used to keep humanity oppressed, others are just loads of fun.

For example a steam-powered listening device is in the Ministry’s arsenal. It’s larger than our own modern devices, but looks a lot more amazing, with valves and brass. It’s also far larger, which gives our agents some difficulty getting it into the opera.

A joy of working in steampunk as an author, is that you can get inspiration from things that might have been and imagining what might of happened if they had been made. A particular favorite machine in the genre is Charles Babbage’s difference engine. This device was made in the first half of the nineteenth century and was a mechanical calculator. However, one device that Babbage never got the funding to build was the analytical engine. This would have been a mechanical general-purpose computer, and could have been revolutionary for Queen Victoria’s empire.  Steampunk often takes this particular device and plays with what the resulting social and political change might have been. In our novel, it is used by the Archivist of the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences to keep track of the files…and also to make a spiffing cup of tea.

Research into the time period often throws up remarkable inventions that you might not know even existed, and giving them just a little ramp up. Before setting forth on this adventure I was not aware that there was in fact something called a steam-powered motor-bike. The sequel to Phoenix Rising has our heroine racing through the English countryside on a souped up version of what actually existed. Indeed, the movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang can be counted as steampunk because of that particularly amazing car.

Finally, as an author you can just let your imagination take flight in steampunk. Just create devices out of wild and fun imaginings. Automatons, of the clockwork or steam variety, are a staple gadget of the genre. For example Paul Guinan’s Boilerplate is about a steam powered robot and his adventures with famous people of the era. Inserting this comical looking robot into historical pictures eventually lead to it becoming a book and optioned by JJ Abrams to be a movie. Not bad at all for a collection of pistons and boilers.

Gizmos, gadgets, the wild and the possible all embroider the steampunk world of fiction. They provide a vital ingredient of ‘what if’ and twist the history of the Victorian era into all kinds of interesting shapes. They can also be jolly good fun!

 

 ~Philippa Ballantine

http://www.pjballantine.com/

What are your favorite Steampunk gadgets?

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My Non-Traditional Heroines: The Joys and Struggles of Being Different by Leanna Renee Hieber

First we have three copies of Mike Resnick’s The Buntline Special to give away.

David mark brown

Riva Laughlin

Joan Gallo

Congrats!  Please email me at suzannelazear (@) hotmail to claim your prize. 

Didn’t win?  We still have books by Tim Akers,  or Ren Cummins up for grabs and a prize pack of goodies including a copy of Blameless and a fan autographed by Gail Carriger.

Today we welcome back one of my favorite people, author Leanna Renee Hieber. She’s also giving away a copy of Strangely Beautiful 1 or 2 (your choice). 

Award winning, bestselling author, actress and playwright Leanna Renee Hieber grew up in rural Ohio inventing ghost stories.  She graduated with a BFA in Theatre from Miami University, a focus in the Victorian Era and a scholarship to study in London. She has adapted works of 19th Century literature for the stage and her one-act plays such as Favorite Lady have been produced around the country. Her novella Dark Nest won the 2009 Prism Award for excellence in Futuristic / Fantasy / Paranormal Romance. Her debut novel, The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker, first in her Strangely Beautiful series of ghostly, Gothic Victorian Fantasy novels, landed on Barnes & Noble’s mass market and overall Bestseller Lists. The book was named a favourite of 2009 by 14 genre book review blogs including Publishers Weekly’s Beyond Her Book and Smart Bitches/Dear Author’s book tournament, won two 2010 Prism Awards for Best Fantasy and Best First Book, the 2010 Orange County Book Buyer’s Best Award (Young Adult category) and option rights have been sold for adaptation into musical theatre production currently in development with a team that includes talent that brought Tony Award winning shows like Memphis, Wicked, Tarzan and more to the Broadway stage. In November 2011 Leanna launches Magic Most Foul, a new Gothic Paranormal Young Adult series with Sourcebooks Teen Fire.

My Non-Traditional Heroines: The Joys and Struggles of Being Different
by Leanna Renee Hieber

Firstly, thanks Suzanne, I am thrilled to return to this festival of awesome.

This topic is one of the most near-and-dear subjects to me and to the books I write, it also a subject I’ll be presenting several times this year at conventions and conferences. It’s also a topic that goes really well with the themes of Steampunk.

One of the great values of this genre: You get two fantasy worlds in one; a historical setting/world we do not live in yet have some sort of touchstone to, and yet different from what you’d see in a textbook or on the History channel. That being the punk part – and I think that’s what draws people to alternate history, taking known historical facts and asking ‘what if’ – it’s a wonderful challenge to the imagination that so many wonderful writers have risen to. Disclaimer: In regards to my work, I have to be careful saying Steampunk straight up, though I’m happily active in the Steampunk community, my books are technically Gaslight Fantasy as I’ve no tech or gadgets in my story; i.e my ghost-busting Guard uses holy fire, not contraptions. For me, what I love most about Neo-Victorianism and Gaslight Fantasy is re-envisioning it, but yet still putting my characters in a ‘realistic’ Victorian world. There were so many issues and injustices inherent in the Victorian age, and I’m not interested in writing books where those conflicts are not present, but rather how my characters must deal with them. And while we have some ‘advances’ in our society, we can’t cast stones today. There are just as many present injustices and social issues taking different sheeps’ clothing. But by presenting a fantasy world – we can present an enjoyable rather than didactic way of examining what we find troubling, interesting, or needing fixing about the past or present society. We can also challenge the normative.

The thing that draws me time and again to storytelling are tales of underdogs and outcasts struggling to find a community, working to find a place where they belong and where their particular gifts and talents are valued. The heroines of my two series, The Strangely Beautiful and forthcoming Magic Most Foul series are examples of this.

About Miss Percy Parker:

18 years old, Miss Percy is entirely without colour. She surpasses pale, she’s without colour. She looks, for all intents and purposes, exactly like a ghost. She can see and speak with ghosts, and feels often as if she belongs more with them than the mortal world. She’s lived clinging to the belief that her abilities and crippling visions mean she’s fated for something specific, and the series is about finding out that purpose,.

Speaking just about Percy, solely, as a character, I suppose every author hopes her heroine will be loved and adored, so when my awkward, timid Percy is loved, I rejoice more than anyone. But I’ve also discovered that my books are not for everyone, not everyone is ready to go on the ride that the Gothic novel style requires, nor is everyone ready for Miss Percy. Perhaps they think she should be stronger. If you were told you were a freak every day, if people shuddered and started when they looked at you, would you feel very confident? You might, like she did, think yourself the freak the world thinks you are. It’s a brave act for her to face the morning every day, and to interact with the world at all. Still, I’d never write a story where a character simply stays in the uncomfortable place they’re in, and Percy goes on quite the growth journey in the series. And it’s growth she as a character and we as readers can take joy and pride in.

Some aren’t exactly sure what to do with Percy, how to think about her. Far from typical, she looks shockingly different than your average person. I’m not sure people quite understand that on a visceral level, even though I describe her often. One reviewer who rated the book poorly mentioned that she didn’t understand how a pale girl with blue eyes would be treated poorly in Victorian England – evidently she simply did not internalize how different Percy is and what that truly, realistically would have meant for her. Still, I want her not to be criticized for her difference but accepted regardless. I’m so grateful so many readers do just that; accept her and champion her. But for those who may wonder, it’s why I have the picture of her on my website, for reference. Personally, I think she’s beautiful but in no way could someone say she’s ordinary. This is a distancing quality for some readers; we’re used to seeing ourselves as the protagonist in some ways, relating to her, rooting for her on a deeply personal and relatable level. I think her sweet nature, her awkwardness and passion is something everyone can relate to, but visually it’s hard to capture that same relational quality. And yet, I think we should challenge ourselves to relate.

She is the woman she is because she came into my mind just as she was, and I was captivated by her from the start. I felt presented with an exciting opportunity to make us all think about beauty and its limitations through the character of Percy, through the eyes of us; the beholders. The Victorians had a very strict notion of beauty, and it was limiting to women. Present day is no exception. Yet there are plenty of ways to go against the grain. I’m a Goth girl, I think a lot of things are beautiful that other people might think are strange, and I find it a freeing and envigorating way of life. It may be a bit lofty, but I’d love for the character of Percy in the Strangely Beautiful series to encourage us to redefine beauty, as the narrow definition of beauty is so limiting from past to present, it is confining and damaging to so many people in the world. Let’s find something we might once have dismissed as strange, in fact, beautiful.

Miss Natalie Stewart:

17 years old, Natalie lives in 1880New York City, lost her mother as a child, the trauma of which led her to suffer from Selective Mutism, a condition where she does not speak. She communicates through a mixture of Sign Language and note-writing. The story is told through her diary.

I’ve always been interested in giving a voice to the voice-less. So much of Victorian society muffled most women, speaking for them and speaking about them, never did the society really interact with them and their best interests. The society stifled their sexuality, their intellect, their abilities and their rights, across all classes, and far worse treatment was offered to non-white races.

I wanted to think about a girl who was still subject to the rules of this muffling society having to exist further muffled. With a sharp wit, a fiercely intelligent mind, but this frustrating condition that wasn’t one that she could simply ‘snap out of’, Natalie is additionally oppressed. Though the book does see her speaking by the end, thanks to supernatural circumstances, it isn’t an ‘easy out’ for Natalie. She has many social and physical constraints to overcome as she struggles to regain something she lost. Yet, like Percy, there is such pride in overcoming her battles, all the more fierce pride for having been written off as an ‘unfortunate’ and pigeonholed into nothingness, to then rise to heroic heights no one would have expected of her. In my world, I empower Natalie with a few awesome and open-minded helpers along the way. The reality for a girl like Natalie in that time period, though, was much less optimistic. I make Natalie aware of this so that we, the reader, may be aware of her particular advantages amidst her struggles.

I’m not interested in non-traditional heroines as novelties or plot points. I’m interested in them as people. I’m interested in all persons being able to see themselves as heroines of fiction, no matter their body type, mental type, physical type, etc.

Beauty for the freaks, a voice to the voice-less. These are my small, tiny hopes for love in a world full of difficulty and pain.

Something that I have not mentioned yet is something that must be mentioned: Multi-culturalism in our work and the work of our genre. The ‘traditional’ heroine in our Western fiction is just that, traditionally Western. I don’t personally have an example otherwise, though my upcoming Strangely Beautiful release, The Perilous Prophecy of Guard and Goddess, has an Egyptian hero and several Egyptian characters from several different religious backgrounds. For greater, ongoing discussion on the multi-cultural front as it is always an ongoing discussion, I’d like to turn you to two of my very favourite resources in all the world: Beyond Victoriana http://beyondvictoriana.com/ and Silver Goggles – http://silver-goggles.blogspot.com/ – Please do yourselves a favor and have these sites on your radar and check them often.

I’m giving away a copy of either Strangely Beautiful book 1 or 2, winner’s choice, to a random commenter chosen by the Steamed! Staff – So tell me, What about you? Please share your favourite non-traditional heroines!

~Leanna Renee Hieber

http://leannareneehieber.com

http://twitter.com/leannarenee

http://facebook.com/lrhieber

http://leannareneebooks.blogspot.com

The Strangely Beautiful series: The Perilous Prophecy of Guard and Goddess (A Strangely Beautiful prequel) arrives May 3 in trade and digital

The Magic Most Foul series: Darker Still  (Magic Most Foul #1) arrives November 8 in trade and digital from Sourcebooks Fire

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