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Writing Steampunk!
Polish those brass goggles, grab your parasols or sword canes, hoist any carpetbags, and prepare to board the airship. This is Steampunk territory.
WRITING STEAMPUNK is a journey into building Steampunk fiction. It doesn't tell how to write a book -- there are other books that will do that. It doesn't talk about the Steampunk society. It focuses only on the elements that go into WRITING STEAMPUNK.
There are choices to be made in regards to era, characters, and world building. And there's research to do, for knowing what was really happening in Victoria or Edward's England, the American cities or frontier, and other locations around the world, and what masterpieces inventors and scientists were building and discovering is necessary. Why? Because Steampunk is alternative history and some tinkering will need to be done.
Steampunk is also fantasy. It's mystery, suspense, romance, and action-adventure. It can even be comedic or dystopian. It's all up to the writer spinning the tale.
Which is what WRITING STEAMPUNK is all about. Spinning the right sort of tale.
A list of Steampunk novels is included, as well as a list of publishers likely to be interested in Steampunk, a brief overview of events, discoveries and inventions of the 19th and early 20th century, and a lot of encouragement, suggestions and examples are given.
Multipublished author and frequent online workshop presenter Beth Daniels (aka Beth Henderson, J.B. Dane) is your tour guide. So step into our virtual parlour, accept a cup of tea or something stronger from our clockwork maids or steam powered automaton waiters. Do open the window should you feel the need to indulge in cigars or pipes. Those of you with paranormal leanings, please refrain from considering the other guests as possible snacks.
It's time to start the journey of creation right now!
WRITING STEAMPUNK is a journey into building Steampunk fiction. It doesn't tell how to write a book -- there are other books that will do that. It doesn't talk about the Steampunk society. It focuses only on the elements that go into WRITING STEAMPUNK.
There are choices to be made in regards to era, characters, and world building. And there's research to do, for knowing what was really happening in Victoria or Edward's England, the American cities or frontier, and other locations around the world, and what masterpieces inventors and scientists were building and discovering is necessary. Why? Because Steampunk is alternative history and some tinkering will need to be done.
Steampunk is also fantasy. It's mystery, suspense, romance, and action-adventure. It can even be comedic or dystopian. It's all up to the writer spinning the tale.
Which is what WRITING STEAMPUNK is all about. Spinning the right sort of tale.
A list of Steampunk novels is included, as well as a list of publishers likely to be interested in Steampunk, a brief overview of events, discoveries and inventions of the 19th and early 20th century, and a lot of encouragement, suggestions and examples are given.
Multipublished author and frequent online workshop presenter Beth Daniels (aka Beth Henderson, J.B. Dane) is your tour guide. So step into our virtual parlour, accept a cup of tea or something stronger from our clockwork maids or steam powered automaton waiters. Do open the window should you feel the need to indulge in cigars or pipes. Those of you with paranormal leanings, please refrain from considering the other guests as possible snacks.
It's time to start the journey of creation right now!
176 pages, Kindle Edition
First published March 30, 2011
36 people are currently reading
168 people want to read
About the author
Beth Daniels
39 books91 followersBETH DANIELS lends the expertise she gained as a professional novelist with 30 years and as many published books to her list of achievements. Add in a BA in History and a MA in English Composition and Rhetoric with an Emphasis in Creative Writing, over a dozen years as a composition instructor at the college level, numerous online fiction writing workshops at SavvyAuthors.com and for various RWA online chapters, and the stats add up. She knows her onions and can maneuver her way through nearly any genre or subgenre birthed. She is president of The Derby Rotten Scoundrels, the Louisville, KY, Sisters in Crime chapter, one of the founders of the writing group The Bards of Bardstown, and a very active member at The Vault, a fantasy specific writers’ group. Her numerous workshops have spawned a collection of Fiction Writers Aids e-books and other non-fiction titles about the art of writing fiction. Find her at www.Muse2Ms.com or Facebook.com/Beth Daniels or @BethDaniels1 on Twitter.
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
July 27, 2021
An excellent resource for a steampunk writer. The history mentioned in the book was helpful. There some good story ideas given by the author.
March 26, 2012
There are a lot of books out there that talk about writing, and more than a few of them cover science fiction and fantasy. However, look for a "guide" to steampunk, and you've got fewer choices. In fact, as far as I can tell, you've really only got one, and that's Beth Daniels.
Luckily for us, Writing Steampunk by Beth Daniels is a fairly comprehensive look at the details that can flesh out a steampunk setting and create a believable alternative world.
True to the title, Daniels covers what is necessary to take into consideration when crafting a steampunk story, and therefore this is not a book about living a steampunk life, although there are many inspirational details to be found here if you're trying to craft a background for your steamsona.
Although the book isn't meant to be a guide on how to write in general, there are good questions for any writer here. Who is your target audience? What is your setting? What your character's motivations? Any author could benefit from asking those questions, but this book specifically helps find the steampunk answers to them.
Daniels starts off with an overview of what steampunk actually is, the various settings you can use, and what the "rules" are. All of this is very valuable information if you're not especially familiar with the genre, or if you haven't given much thought to what's really necessary to classify a story as steampunk. If this sounds too rigid for you, don't worry. The author is clear that the rules are not set in stone, and as the idea goes, one must know the rules in order to break them.
She leads you through choices to make and questions to ask in order to come up with your characters, setting, and conflict, but this isn't done to get you to follow a formula, but rather to help one figure out where the steampunk details can fit into a story. There's a lot of real value here for people who haven't written steampunk before and aren't really sure how to approach it.
For example, Daniels gives some steampunk character archetypes such as scientist and inventor, which are probably more familiar to steampunk fans, but also some choices that I wouldn't have considered, such as the diplomat.
There is a lot of emphasis placed on research in Writing Steampunk, which I personally love and agree with. There's an idea with anachronistic stories that research isn't necessary, because you're just changing everything anyway. I'd refer you back to that idea that you need to know the rules to break them, but more importantly, there's a lot of cool stuff to be found when you research, and Daniels does a good job of showing the kinds of cool historical facts you'll miss out on if you decide to skip the background check on your setting.
More than half of the book is devoted to "Research Aids", which is a sort of compendium of period appropriate knowledge of clothing, money, weapons, slang, and entertainment, as well as an overview on goings on and technological development of the 19th and early-20th centuries. If you aren't afraid of some research, these chapters are golden, because Daniels includes sources -- more than enough to keep you busy looking for "fodder" for your stories and worldbuilding.
Also included is a chapter on markets (publishers that you can send your steampunk story to), and "The Competition" which is a list of authors and their steampunk works, as well as steampunk themed movies, graphic novels, anime, and television shows.
If you're not interested in the research, but you'd still like a handy guide on writing a steampunk story (perhaps if you're already well familiar with the 19th century and what's currently available on the steampunk market), check out "Writing Steampunk Jr." which is the same book, minus the research chapters.
Luckily for us, Writing Steampunk by Beth Daniels is a fairly comprehensive look at the details that can flesh out a steampunk setting and create a believable alternative world.
True to the title, Daniels covers what is necessary to take into consideration when crafting a steampunk story, and therefore this is not a book about living a steampunk life, although there are many inspirational details to be found here if you're trying to craft a background for your steamsona.
Although the book isn't meant to be a guide on how to write in general, there are good questions for any writer here. Who is your target audience? What is your setting? What your character's motivations? Any author could benefit from asking those questions, but this book specifically helps find the steampunk answers to them.
Daniels starts off with an overview of what steampunk actually is, the various settings you can use, and what the "rules" are. All of this is very valuable information if you're not especially familiar with the genre, or if you haven't given much thought to what's really necessary to classify a story as steampunk. If this sounds too rigid for you, don't worry. The author is clear that the rules are not set in stone, and as the idea goes, one must know the rules in order to break them.
She leads you through choices to make and questions to ask in order to come up with your characters, setting, and conflict, but this isn't done to get you to follow a formula, but rather to help one figure out where the steampunk details can fit into a story. There's a lot of real value here for people who haven't written steampunk before and aren't really sure how to approach it.
For example, Daniels gives some steampunk character archetypes such as scientist and inventor, which are probably more familiar to steampunk fans, but also some choices that I wouldn't have considered, such as the diplomat.
There is a lot of emphasis placed on research in Writing Steampunk, which I personally love and agree with. There's an idea with anachronistic stories that research isn't necessary, because you're just changing everything anyway. I'd refer you back to that idea that you need to know the rules to break them, but more importantly, there's a lot of cool stuff to be found when you research, and Daniels does a good job of showing the kinds of cool historical facts you'll miss out on if you decide to skip the background check on your setting.
More than half of the book is devoted to "Research Aids", which is a sort of compendium of period appropriate knowledge of clothing, money, weapons, slang, and entertainment, as well as an overview on goings on and technological development of the 19th and early-20th centuries. If you aren't afraid of some research, these chapters are golden, because Daniels includes sources -- more than enough to keep you busy looking for "fodder" for your stories and worldbuilding.
Also included is a chapter on markets (publishers that you can send your steampunk story to), and "The Competition" which is a list of authors and their steampunk works, as well as steampunk themed movies, graphic novels, anime, and television shows.
If you're not interested in the research, but you'd still like a handy guide on writing a steampunk story (perhaps if you're already well familiar with the 19th century and what's currently available on the steampunk market), check out "Writing Steampunk Jr." which is the same book, minus the research chapters.
April 13, 2012
In "Writing Steampunk" Ms. Daniels has compiled a sort of quick start guide for the author looking to write a novel in the Steampunk genre. I think she has done an admirable job of distilling the genre into its essentials. For me, however, the most interesting, and potentially more useful, parts were the research aids, historical synopses and bibliography.
The book is roughly divided into four sections. The first section discusses what the author considers the essential elements of a steampunk novel which she boils down into 10 "Rules of the Road". which outline various tropes that are common to the genre.
(1) "they need to be, in essence, Victorian"
(2) "the story involves steam driven machines ... doing things that similar devices were incapable of actually doing in the time period"
(3) "uses elements of magic or that appear to be magic"
(4) "historical figures can appear or be mentioned"
(5) "Paranormal creatures and the fae can become featured performers"
(6) "beings created by science are welcome"
(7) "Mystery, suspense, danger and frequently a ticking-clock feature"
(8) time travel may be featured if the method is "Steampunkishly creative"
(9) "Beings created via magic"
(10) "Practitioners of magic"
She also adds a final guideline that "cannot, should not be broken" To wit: "The story must reflect the world of early science fiction tales in some way and it must include a being either mechanically, biologically, or magically constructed or with a paranormal, fae or spirit nature, or a person turned into a monster via a mysterious disease."
These rules seem to cover the genre fairly well; however, I would be curious to know what The Steampunk Scholar might think of them.
In the second section of the book she discusses how one might apply these rules in establishing the setting for ones tale. Included in this discussion is a rather detailed enumeration of various character archetypes and roles.
While the previous two sections are indeed useful and provide ample grist for the world building mill, I found the last two sections the most interesting. In the third section of the book Ms. Daniels provides several Research Aides covering the categories of late 19th to early 20th century fashion, coinage, weapons, slang and entertainment. She also devoted a chapter to the various markets where the aspiring steampunk author might shop their opus.
The final four chapters contain brief synopses of actual historical goings on and technological innovations for the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The book concludes with an extensive bibliography of published works, classical and modern, which fit within the author's steampunk model. These range from the works of Verne, Wells and Burroughs to those of Gail Carriger, Neal Stephenson and Scott Westerfield.
Ms. Daniels has produced a convenient and useful distillation of the steampunk genre and provided this aspiring author with an invaluable resource for adding verisimilitude and a rich background in which to weave a tale. The only thing preventing me from giving this book 5 stars is that the nook version I have does not have a hyperlinked table of contents which would make it much easier to reach a desired chapter or section.
The book is roughly divided into four sections. The first section discusses what the author considers the essential elements of a steampunk novel which she boils down into 10 "Rules of the Road". which outline various tropes that are common to the genre.
(1) "they need to be, in essence, Victorian"
(2) "the story involves steam driven machines ... doing things that similar devices were incapable of actually doing in the time period"
(3) "uses elements of magic or that appear to be magic"
(4) "historical figures can appear or be mentioned"
(5) "Paranormal creatures and the fae can become featured performers"
(6) "beings created by science are welcome"
(7) "Mystery, suspense, danger and frequently a ticking-clock feature"
(8) time travel may be featured if the method is "Steampunkishly creative"
(9) "Beings created via magic"
(10) "Practitioners of magic"
She also adds a final guideline that "cannot, should not be broken" To wit: "The story must reflect the world of early science fiction tales in some way and it must include a being either mechanically, biologically, or magically constructed or with a paranormal, fae or spirit nature, or a person turned into a monster via a mysterious disease."
These rules seem to cover the genre fairly well; however, I would be curious to know what The Steampunk Scholar might think of them.
In the second section of the book she discusses how one might apply these rules in establishing the setting for ones tale. Included in this discussion is a rather detailed enumeration of various character archetypes and roles.
While the previous two sections are indeed useful and provide ample grist for the world building mill, I found the last two sections the most interesting. In the third section of the book Ms. Daniels provides several Research Aides covering the categories of late 19th to early 20th century fashion, coinage, weapons, slang and entertainment. She also devoted a chapter to the various markets where the aspiring steampunk author might shop their opus.
The final four chapters contain brief synopses of actual historical goings on and technological innovations for the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The book concludes with an extensive bibliography of published works, classical and modern, which fit within the author's steampunk model. These range from the works of Verne, Wells and Burroughs to those of Gail Carriger, Neal Stephenson and Scott Westerfield.
Ms. Daniels has produced a convenient and useful distillation of the steampunk genre and provided this aspiring author with an invaluable resource for adding verisimilitude and a rich background in which to weave a tale. The only thing preventing me from giving this book 5 stars is that the nook version I have does not have a hyperlinked table of contents which would make it much easier to reach a desired chapter or section.
August 4, 2012
Call me cranky, but if you're going to write a How To book, you need to have something original and interesting to add to the conversation. Also, since writing a How To book on any subject is akin to announcing this is something you do very well, the book needs to be free of typos, spelling errors, grammatical errors -- and any hint of an offensive over-familiarity with Queen Victoria (AKA "Vicky").
This book boils down to a list of tropes and motifs that any aspiring writer of steampunk has surely already zeroed on in the most cursory web-crawl.
This book boils down to a list of tropes and motifs that any aspiring writer of steampunk has surely already zeroed on in the most cursory web-crawl.
February 3, 2019
I was able to find suggestions on different areas I hadn't thought of. It is very helpful in assisting with style.
November 19, 2011
Many emerging and even experienced genre writers are looking for a functional book for writing steampunk. Daniels is ambitious but understands the limits of what such a book can do.
That said, it's a little disconcerting to find so many typographical errors in a book about writing. Readers are directed to extensive hyperlinks throughout the text, which would be tedious to type in if you don't have an e-book version. Overall, the print version's formatting leaves a great deal to be desired in terms of physical readability.
Regarding the actual text, it's functional with some humor interspersed throughout. It really tries to provide the barebones and brass tacks to get an emerging writer up to speed on the themes, tropes and elements found through much of Steampunk fiction.
Over time, this isn't going to be hailed as a breakthrough or a classic primer for steampunk writers by any stretch of the imagination, but it does provide a place to start while we're waiting.
That said, it's a little disconcerting to find so many typographical errors in a book about writing. Readers are directed to extensive hyperlinks throughout the text, which would be tedious to type in if you don't have an e-book version. Overall, the print version's formatting leaves a great deal to be desired in terms of physical readability.
Regarding the actual text, it's functional with some humor interspersed throughout. It really tries to provide the barebones and brass tacks to get an emerging writer up to speed on the themes, tropes and elements found through much of Steampunk fiction.
Over time, this isn't going to be hailed as a breakthrough or a classic primer for steampunk writers by any stretch of the imagination, but it does provide a place to start while we're waiting.
September 17, 2012
Despite the urgent need for a proofreader (typos are abundant), this was a very engaging, entertaining, and informative read. My friends and I enjoy steampunk, including cosplay and cons, and are in the midst of creating an RPG utilizing our characters. I thought it would be fun to use National Novel Writing Month this November as a catalyst for writing my steampunk character's back story and this book helped to give direction in where to research and how much research needs to be done in order to twist history to suit my purposes. Well worth the read!
September 27, 2018
A Treasure Trove
This book is full of tips, knowledge, and key points needed to write a solid steam punk story. Respect to Beth Daniels.
This book is full of tips, knowledge, and key points needed to write a solid steam punk story. Respect to Beth Daniels.
August 17, 2017
This is best described as a source book for those interested in writing steampunk stories. There is far more here than most readers will need, given how the genre has grown since this was published. You will find useful lists of ideas and options to think about in terms of fashioning your setting, characters, plots, devices, world-building, etc.--sort of a shopping list. There's a very general overview (by decade) of the background history. There are many references of books and links to websites that can help you research fashion and other topics for the Regency through Edwardian eras. There's also a listing of notable steampunk novels. (At least as of early 2014.) Organization is a bit haphazard but the table of contents can help you find your way.
August 15, 2019
First edition of this ebook
This is a reread for me as I prepare another novel. I believe the author has now published an updated version and this version may be OOP.
I still gave this 5 stars for the comprehensive overview, even with it being a bit outdated as far as current steampunk trends are concerned. Of course, when my budget permits, I will buy the updated title.
This is a reread for me as I prepare another novel. I believe the author has now published an updated version and this version may be OOP.
I still gave this 5 stars for the comprehensive overview, even with it being a bit outdated as far as current steampunk trends are concerned. Of course, when my budget permits, I will buy the updated title.
January 11, 2026
Very good resource book! The amount of information and sources are a bit overwhelming. Excellent to keep on hand as you're in the brainstorming process/browsing process for writing steampunk. Guide to aesthetics, atmosphere, locale, and historic landmarks. Is a little difficult to include some of these ideas after the fact so it's a book you'd want early in the process.
June 20, 2014
Very helpful guide and beginning point if you're developing your first steampunk story. Daniels offers handy references throughout so you can continue your education. And be prepared to take notes/ highlight the heck out of this book! Lots of good stuff here to fuel your steamy imagination.
October 2, 2011
Wonderful reference book with many unique points of information.
March 4, 2013
I finally finished this book and I have to say it holds a lot of great information for a writer like me.
October 31, 2012
Very interesting and helpful.
July 14, 2013
Great guide to steampunk writing! Do know that this is not a writing guide, it is a world building guide and a good one at that.
March 18, 2014
It's a nice reference book. Though some parts were just a little too bulky and I couldn't motivate myself to read through some parts. It's still pretty good though. The beginning especially.
October 17, 2016
Very useful as a reference and an inspiration.
September 3, 2013
Fabulous resource.
January 18, 2016
Well researched, and helpful.
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews