Ill

I have the cold. It is the worst thing ever. Aargh. I phoned work yesterday to say I was ill. They phoned me today. Twice. Is it just me or is that creepy as hell. Better be careful, my work monitors all blogs all the time and will sack me if I say it is the worst job I've ever had. I love it really. Oh god I'm gonna spew... lol.

Game Plot Ideas (Victorian London)

I love RPGs. I used to play at Uni. I miss it, but I know no one out here who plays...

So, here are a few ideas for steampunk RPGs set in London.


1) Joseph Bazalgette needs the heroes help. It is 1860 and he is building the sewers, but something dark and dangerous is using the new sewer tunnels as a lair. The heroes must hunt it out.

2) There were 4 assassination attempts on Queen Victoria in her lifetime. It is not hard to make up a fifth attempt, and have the heroes pursue the would-be assassin through Victorian London.

3) It is 1851, the Great Exhibition is in full swing, but suddenly one of the main attractions begins killing people. It is a one hundred feet tall steam-powered man and was last seen leaving a trail of destruction heading towards the river.

4) It is 1888, and Jack the Ripper is on the prowl. But he is not a man; he is a demon from the deepest pits of Hell, and only the heroes can send him back where he came from.

5) A man with a strange tale in the pub sparks adventure. His name is Jonathan Harker, and he spins a tale of a blood-sucking fiend from a distant land praying on the women of our fine city.

6) A mad scientist hires the heroes to bring him dead bodies. Dig them up or kill them yourself, he doesn't care. But when the heroes learn he plans to reanimate the pieces, sewn together as one monstrous man, they must stop him before it is too late...

7) A mad scientist needs a test subject and one of the heroes, strapped for cash and facing debtors jail, volunteers. But when the scientist accidentally makes him permanently invisible, and very slowly becoming permantly intangible, it is up to the heroes to find a cure.

8) The famous Egyptologist Dr Albert Napier returns to London with the results of his recent looting, including a mummy that comes to life each night... think Brendan Fraser's The Mummy in Victorian steampunk London

9) A werewolf in Hyde Park

10) Chinese Triads have a weapon of mass destruction. They plan to test it on Paris, firing from London. This could lead to a massive war between the two empires...

11) Dr Jekyll, Mr Hyde

12) Florence Cook, the famous medium, is haunted by ghosts... indeed, the spirits of the departed are rising all over the city. The heroes must help the restless dead to rest in peace.

13) A sorceror plans to summon Cthulhu to earth... (I love Lovecraft, too).

A nice mix of techie and fantasy ideas, there.

See also http://www.io.com/~sjohn/plots.htm. With the ideas above and this link I'm sure you'll have great games. I'm so jealous...

RPG Carnival

There is a blog carnival on steampunk rpg's this month, courtesy of Mad Brew Labs. I thought I'd get involved. http://www.madbrewlabs.com/index.php/2009/06/01/steampunk-klokwerks/

There is some idea that steampunk isn't punky enough, unlike cyberpunk. I think they just aren't thinking things through.

According to wikipedia, steampunk often lacks dystopian elements. Again according to Wikipedia, these elements include... poverty, war, violence, disease, pollution, and oppression. Because the Victorian era was so nice that this nonsense could be ignored... eh, no.

There was a lot of poverty in Victorian London. Work houses, debtor's prison, etc. Violence, Jack the Ripper. The Crimean and Boer Wars and the Taiping Rebellion. Cholera, tuberculosis, etc.

I think the problem is the name itself. Victorian gives rise to images of Victoria, who is usually pictured in a sombre all-black outfit (the clothing she wore after Albert's death). This gives rise to thoughts of upper class or middle class houses where the men ruled. Dinner jackets, cigarettes and tea in the lounge, and strict rules of etiquette were the order of the day.

Victorian Poverty

The Victorian era showed a vast increase in population. This seems to be a combination of larger families, of more children surviving infancy, of better understanding of disease and better medical care, and immigrants fleeing the Irish potato famine. By the end of the century, the population had tripled.

Because of the large number of people looking for work (skilled and unskilled) wages were low. People worked long hours, and so wanted to live near their work. Because of this there was a housing shortage. This led to extremely overcrowded situations, and unsanitary living conditions. There were no state benefits.

In 1848 Cecil Frances Alexander published a hymn:

The rich man in his castle,
The poor man at his gate,
God made them, high and lowly,
And order’d their estate.
(All things Bright and Beautiful). This hymn sums up Victorian attitudes to the poor. God made them poor, so they'll stay poor, the next life is more important than this one, anyway.

Children

Children had to also support the family. There were very few schools, and most kids worked; climbing boys employed by chimney sweeps, or to crawl under machines, or in coal mines, or as errand boys... Crime was rife in the city, with pickpocket gangs mostly made of children. In 1848, Lord Ashley made reference to these "naked, filthy, roaming, lawless and deserted children" claiming that there were more than 30,000 "in and around the metropolis." (Victorian Town Child, Pamela Horn).

Women

In a time when a hard working man might earn £3'6 a week, and a prostitute could earn as much as £1000 a week, it is no wonder London was heaving with prostitutes.

Pollution

This is often seen as something new, but pollution was widespread in Victorian London, a city famous for its unnatural fog. This was the heart of the Industrial Revolution, a city where the queen ordered sewers to be built because the stink became so overpowering that something had to be done, a city so polluted that when Cholera came from Germany it spread like wildfire.

The rich took the attitude "out of sight, out of mind," which is why there were so many prisons (Australia being the biggest ;) ). If a starving man stole a loaf of bread to feed his family, he was locked up...

Violence

In our child-centred society today, it is hard to comprehend a time when there were dead babies by the thousands, droves of missing Madeleines, scores of Myra Hindleys, and hardly anyone batted an eyelid. The "Angel Maker" was the worst of these, and there's a chilling article here... http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-484575/The-baby-butcher-One-Victorian-Britains-evil-murderers-exposed.html

So murder, pollution, poverty, and crime were rife in the Victorian era, and this is where we'll find the punk. It was very much a time of "behind closed doors" with the Victorians fascinated by sex and death. This even extended to the royals, (look at Edward, who had numerous affairs. Infact, husbands encouraged their wives to sleep with the king because it would further the husbands position in society). Edward was involved in divorce proceedings and was in court twice, and was also embroiled in a cheating lawsuit about a game of cards at a gentleman's club.

You'll find it all in the Victorian/Edwardian era, from obsessive lesbian love affairs, to murder, from gangs of feral, lawless children, to high society, from the slums and rookeries to the mansions and palaces, from baby farming to drug taking, there is more than enough room and inspiration for punk. Be inspired.

Bet my block

I haven't written anything really since my last post that's why theres no gramma.

Hold on; screw the writing head back on.

I beat my block. Or maybe I sat it out. Personally, I think it was a combination of both. Either way, now I'm writing. I have a plan, a goal, and I hope only a quick editing draft after my current draft. An end is in sight (although more research will be needed).

The "Oh My God, I Don't Want to Write This" point

I've reached that point. Everything I write is rotten, crap, etc, etc, etc.

I should through the story away.

I should start something else.

An amateur would.

And that's what stops me.

Writing is hard.

Writing is work.

But ultimately, writing is worth it.

I just have to keep reminding myself that I'm actually closer to the end than I am to the beginning.

If I keep that in mind...

...Then I won't be an amateur.

I'll be a writer.

A real writer. Goddammit.

I am a real writer.

Hell, yeah.

The Poll and Other Things

The Poll results are in.

15 people voted for pocket watches.
11 people voted for brass goggles.
2 people for a ray-gun.
2 people for a baseball cap.

I guess some people don't come here for the steampunk. They must just like me.

I'm taking the poll down, putting another up.

Also, I've started a new blog - it's more of a private life journal et al, so I won't be linking to it from here. At some point in the next week I'll do housekeeping on the blog and make sure all the links are up to date. A few blogs will be edited off the blog roll.

I have a fan-fiction steampunk piece. It's a little like League of Extraordinary Gentlemen in that it uses fictional characters from long ago; these characters include Peter Pan who will be copyrighted forever under British Law.

I might do something with that.

Finally, I won't be blogging unless I've wrote 1000 words on my novel. It's been ages since I did anything on it.

Henry Dunant

Haven't done a historical piece for a while.

Henry Dunant was given the first Nobel prize for peace in 1901. His ideas led to the funding of the Red Cross and the Geneva Convention.

Wanting to meet with Napoleon III, Dunant travelled to Solferino in Italy. On the day he arrived there, a battle had taken place. The former banker was shocked to see thousands of injured, dead and dying soldiers left lying on the battlefield.

He quickly organized the local women and children to tend to the soldiers. He used the phrase "Tutti Fratelli," to convince them to tend to all soldiers regardless of the side they had been fighting for.

He later wrote a book, paying for 1600 copies to be printed and sent them to many leading political and military people in Europe. The book included the idea that a neutral organization should exist to mop up the blood after battles.

The ideas in his book eventually led to the foundation of the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Geneva Convention.

Again with the Internet Problems

Yes, again, that makes two times.

Damn you, virgin - never had these problems when it was cable.

I've had no net since Friday.

I'll post something new tomorrow - it's late here.

Steampunk Writing Opportunity

Seeking Steampunk Writers
Semaphore Magazine is currently seeking submissions for its June issue - and, indeed, for all following issues. We publish short fiction of up to 7,500 words, poetry of up to 60 lines, and creative non-fiction of up to 5,000 words.

Trust me, this one won't make you rich. But it's nice to be read.

If you're going to submit, good luck.

Suspension of Disbelief vs Research and Realism

Suspension of Disbelief

When a reader picks up a work of fiction, he or she will suspend his disbelief. He will happily believe whatever the story require he believe, whether this is faster than light space travel, alternative histories, the existence of dinosaurs in the modern age, etc.

But this suspension of disbelief comes at a price.

Breaking the Suspension of Disbelief

A reader can only suspend his or her disbelief so far. Eventually this suspension will lead to the disbelief breaking. Break the disbelief too hard, or too often, and it will shatter. A reader whose disbelief has been shattered will put your book or story down, and will not pick it back up. They often won't read anything else you write, either.

Keeping the Disbelief

So, obviously, you have to suspend the disbelief, but not break it. Right, great, fair enough. What we need to be aware of when writing is what breaks a reader's SofD.

1. Badly researched facts
2. Laws of physics/nature etc broken
3. Rules of storytelling broken

Number One

Badly researched facts (or unresearched facts) will pull a reader out of the story. The only way to combat this is to research, research, research. The old adage to "write what you know" should really be "know what you write." You can bet your backside that at least one of your readers knows.

I know a lot of people on the net who have read my work. One knows a lot about horses and has rode cross-country. One knows a lot about space, and works with satellites. I believe she has a degree in astrophysics. One knows a lot about computers and the internet. If I'm going to write in any of those subjects I had better have my facts right.

But then there are people on the internet, probably reading this right now, and I have no idea who they are, what they do, or what they know. Everything I write (everything you write) has to be researched.

This is the Rule of Research.

Number Two

Laws of physics and nature are the laws of the world you write about. If these laws include magic, that's fine. If they include life after death in the form of ghosts or whatever, cool. But stay consistent.

Consistency is the essence of number two. This is the Rule of Realism.

Number Three

The Rules of storytelling involve staying in character, staying in POV, not using deus ex machina or plot devices, and various add-ons.

This is a tricky one. Some of these rules can be broken, but the key to breaking these is knowing that you are doing it. If you know the rules, then you can learn how to break them.

In Summary

Readers will suspend their disbelief whilst you write about magic talking yoyos, if that's what turns your fancy, but get your facts right, be consistent in your world's logic, and in the story's logic, and your readers will keep reading.

NB: This is assuming you have a grasp of grammar, can spell, and can write a good story.

Gunfights - Part Five: The Smell of Cordite

Thought I'd set a few things straight re: cordite.

1) Cordite is no longer used in ammunition. When a modern gun is fired, you will not smell the cordite. Apparently, this is a common mistake; the only time I've seen it is in a Dresden Files novel by Jim Butcher. I may have read about it in the past. If so, it didn't stand out. I only recently learned it was a common novelist error.

2) Cordite was produced in the the UK from 1889, to replace gunpowder.

3) Cordite is smoke-less.

4) Shortages of cordite during WWI led to American smoke-less powder propellants being introduced.

The cordite is in long strings. Box of Truth took some shells apart, find the results here: http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/edu30.htm.

And remember, if your novels set in the present, you won't smell the cordite.

You're Not Bloody Dancing!

Ugh! I'm getting sick of people referring to fighting as dancing. "Want to dance?" sounded cool in the 80s. Come on, people, that was nearly thirty years ago.

Just to be ORIGINAL and INTERESTING, how about having a character describe a fight as something other than a dance. Like maybe, uh, a fight?

"Want to fight?" could sound cool (or, at least, cooller).

Steampunk World's Guide to Badassery: writing bad-ass characters

What is a bad-ass?

Those characters so dedicated to their goal that nothing and no-one will stand in their way. Those characters who will not be stopped. They are larger than life, able to withstand the most dire of physical punishments and still keep cracking one-liners.

Famous Badasses

Bad-ass characters are becoming so popular they seem to fall over themselves in fiction. I have a few personal favourites;

• John McClane, Die Hard. Focused, unstoppable, takes bucketloads of punishment, cracks one-liners (even one with a Permanent Marker; Now I have a machine gun. Ho ho ho.) and has a catch-phrase.
• Ellen Ripley, Alien etc. Focused, unstoppable, takes bucketloads of punishment, but a bit short on the one-liners.
• Porter, Payback. One of my all-time favourite films.
• Riddick, Pitch Black and Chronicles.
• Chev Chelios, Crank and Crank 2.
• Harry Dresden, of the Dresden Files series of novels.

Writing your own bad-ass

You can see from watching the above badasses in action what you need when writing them.

• Make them hurt. In Die Hard John McClane gets pretty busted up, even getting his bare feet cut up by broken glass. The more pain they can take without going under, the more bad ass they are.
• Make them focused. All these bad-ass characters have a goal they want that they focus on to the exclusion of everything else.
• Make them witty. Don't underestimate the power of the one-liner.
• Give them style. Long, flairing coats, manga poses and so on are all popular in movies. Similar things can be achieved in fiction. Obviously not exactly the same.
• Make them witty. One-liners are essential.

Steampunk World's Guide to Viewpoints: Omniscient

Newbie writers are often warned not to use the omniscient viewpoint. Reasons are often not given. The reasons are simple.

• It is hard to use right


• It's often used wrong

Because of the sheer volume of newbie writers getting it wrong, a lot of places give this advice. I think giving advice on how to do it right would be much more beneficial, so that's what I'm going to do.

What is the omniscient viewpoint?

It is a 3rd person viewpoint. It is different from the 3rd person limited POV that is currently the most common in fiction because the limited viewpoint is restricted to one character per scene. A lot of people think the omniscient viewpoint is invested in several characters, but this is a common misconception.

This viewpoint is, instead, in the head of a God-like being. This being floats over the scene. It can enter the heads of any character in the scene. It has vast benefits over all the other viewpoints, but it has weaknesses, too.

The key to the successful use of this God-view is knowing it's strengths and weaknesses.

If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is around to hear it fall, does it make a sound?

Who knows?

If you want to write about a tree falling when no one is around, or if you want to write about the formation of a wormhole leading to another universe, or the inner workings of a vast steampunk machine, or indeed anywhere that there is no character (and thus, no possible POV to be your camera) you can use omniscient.

This is one of the strengths of the omniscient viewpoint; use it when there is no one else around.

The Mystery Prologue

I'm calling this one the Mystery Prologue. That's where it's used most commonly. If you've read a mystery, you'll know what I'm talking about. The murder scene that the detective later has to solve. You have the killer, and the victim. You can't tell the scene from the victim's point-of-view, unless you're happy with him becoming a ghost halfway through. You can't tell the story from the murderer's point-of-view, either. You need him to remain anonymous (otherwise it isn't much of a mystery).

Omniscient viewpoint is the only answer. Of course, not all mysteries have a prologue. Dresden Files spring to mind as one (series) that doesn't.

Old Style

When writing about steampunk, some writers like to write in a Victorian manner. Personally, I don't (my readers aren't Victorians, after all) but if you do, remember that they primarily wrote in omniscient. See Jane Austen for examples of the Old Style.

Little Did he Know...

...he'd be dead by morning. This is a type of writing where the narrator reveals things the character can't possibly know. This is done to great effect in Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, where he reveals things that are to come. When they actually come to pass, however, they are revealed to be totally different than expected.

Pratchetterian

Okay, so I don't know what else to call this. Terry Pratchett has his own omniscient style where jokes are a large (and awesome) part of the narration. I don't advise you to try and copy it, but if you can, go for it. There are any number of horror writers, epic fantasy writers, etc. There's only one Terry Pratchett.

So, how do we use omniscient?

There are tricks to using omniscient properly.

• Don't go into someone's head unless you have to. Action scenes and descriptive passages are better told from the God POV.
• When you do go into someone's head, don't go in too deep. A light brushing of surface thoughts should suffice. If you go in deep, it is harder to come back out.
• If you reveal the future (a la Lemony Snicket) be aware that constantly revealing what is coming will leach away tension.
• If you change characters too quickly, it is head-hopping. Head-hopping is baaad!
• Omniscient tells more than it shows, and telling is baaad, too.
• It is the most impersonal viewpoint, and can make it harder for the readers to care about the characters.

And that's omniscient viewpoint for you.

I fancy doing bad-ass characters next. We'll see...

Amazon Rank

I missed all the excitement of Amazonfail today.

I'm going to point you at another blog... http://www.smartbitchestrashybooks.com/index.php/weblog/comments/amazon-rank/

They have all the details.