2013 - Steven R. Southard (Poseidon's Scribe)

Home » Posts Published in: 2013

The Publishing Times, They Are A’Changin’

To distort a line from a Bob Dylan song, times are indeed a’changin’ in the publishing industry. In the long march from storytellers to clay tablets to papyrus scrolls to bound books to electronic books, each technology has brought a revolution and we’re now in the middle of one.

After Gutenberg’s printing press and right up until the Internet, the book publishing industry had optimized into a fairly lean and stable operation, full of specialized tasks. Each task was fairly well understood.

The writer wrote, and sought an agent. The agent sought a publishing house and handled all the contractual details for the writer. At the publishing house, of which there were only a few big ones, the editor polished the prose. Upon agreement about the text, the publisher took care of cover design, printing, distribution, and marketing to booksellers. The bookseller catered to the reading public, offering books for sale from their stores.

Despite all the middlemen, that process had been pretty well honed such that readers could still obtain books inexpensively.

With the advent of the Internet, much has changed, and it’s got all of the middlemen wondering what their future role will be, if any.

For the writer, there are software word processors and Internet research options, but not much else has changed. A writer still must create the prose.

At the other end, the reader has more options, including e-readers and audiobooks, but for the most part reading is unchanged.

But agents, editors, cover designers, marketers, distributors, and booksellers are all left wondering what’s going to happen to them. These days, writers can connect directly with readers, bypassing all the former steps. An author can work with a single website such as Amazon, Smashwords, Kobo, and others, to get e-books directly to the reading public.

These websites offer many services, but the writer must do most of the tasks formerly accomplished by middlemen. This includes reviewing the contract, editing, cover design, and marketing.

So where is all this going? At what sort of equilibrium state will all this turmoil settle out?

It may be too early to tell, but I think there will be places for all the publishing middlemen in the future, assuming they adapt to an Internet-based world. Some writers still need agents, editors, cover designers, and distributors. Some readers still want bound books. Much like the continued (but low) demand for horseshoes and oil lamps, there will be niche markets for all these functions.

As for me, I have yet to take the full plunge into self-publishing. So far, with my short stories, I’ve been dealing with an independent ebook publisher, and with publishers of anthologies.

If Bob Dylan’s right, and the times they are a’changin’, where do you think the book publishing industry is headed? What change would you like to see? Leave me a comment and perhaps we can change things together, just you and—

Poseidon’s Scribe

December 29, 2013Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Dear Ray Bradbury

I just had to write to thank you, thank you, for the great times, the pleasures of reading your work. There’s no sense letting a little thing like your death in 2012 prevent me from expressing my gratitude, is there?

Sorry, I haven’t read all your books and stories. I’ve read less of your canon than I have of Jules Verne’s, Isaac Asimov’s, or Robert Heinlein’s. But, oh, the few of your books I digested left lifelong mental imprints: Something Wicked This Way Comes, Fahrenheit 451, Dandelion Wine, The Illustrated Man, Now and Forever, and The Martian Chronicles. In high school, I read your short story, “The Flying Machine,” and my recollections of it inspired my story, “The Sea-Wagon of Yantai,” written decades later.

At one point, you declared you wrote fantasy, not science fiction. In my view you blended the two. You made science sound like fantasy.

Moreover, your flowing style of writing contrasted with that of the hard-science fiction writers. Their stories conveyed a love of machines, of science. Yours proclaimed a love of word imagery, of the magic of English, of poetic prose.

The authors of hard science fiction told me tales of technical detail. You sang me stories of marvel and wonder.

I guess I’m trying to say that I write more like those other guys, but wish I could write like you.

On occasion, you related a particular memory from when you were about twelve. At a carnival, one of the performers known as Mr. Electrico touched an electrical sword to your nose which made your hair stand out. You claimed he told you, “Live forever!”

In a very real sense, Mr. Bradbury, you will. Thanks again.

Poseidon’s Scribe

December 22, 2013Poseidon's ScribePermalink

The 7 Types of Genre Writers

Some time ago I stated there were two types of great writers—pioneers and giants. What about all the writers who aren’t great? Today I’ll expand on my pioneer/giant idea and discuss seven types of writers, as they apply to genre fiction. I’m not going to list any authors here, but I’ll bet certain names will come to mind as you peruse each type below.

1. Pioneers. These are writers who start a new genre of fiction by themselves. They discover it. They often have difficulty finding a publisher initially, since the publisher doesn’t know what to make of a book that doesn’t fit established categories. Such authors may never be known for the quality of their writing, but will always be remembered as the first to discover a genre.

2. Copiers. Authors in this category pretty much follow in the footsteps of the Pioneers. They recognize a new, ripe genre and suspect it might appeal to readers; they don’t stray from ground already trod by earlier writers. Their books need not be outstanding, just available right away, and designed to appeal to readers hungry for that genre.

3. Formulists. This type overlaps Copiers a bit, and consists of writers who use a standard plot and only a few basic character types, and stick with them in novel after novel. Sometimes Formulists develop these models on their own, and sometimes they pick up formulaic plots and archetypal characters from others. Often such authors can develop a loyal following that remains with them.

4. Surveyors. While the Copiers and Formulists ply their craft along well-traveled paths, the Surveyors are interested in exploring the far reaches of the genre. They look to the boundaries, experimenting with stories that barely fit within the genre’s borders.

5. Giants. These are authors of great skill who begin writing in an established genre and make it even more popular. It is these authors whom we look back on and identify them with the genre itself.

6. Combiners. After a genre is well-established and explored, and perhaps starting to get a bit stale, Combiners come along to mix the genre with other genres. Such books can take the form of mashups and be intended as humorous. It’s possible for Combiners to end up creating new subgenres.

7. Nostalgists. Some genres eventually run their course and die out, or at least trail off to a minimum. Westerns seem to be headed this way. Nostalgists can come along with books that harken back to the dying genre, attempting to revive it, perhaps with new twists.

I don’t mean to imply there’s anything wrong with any of these types of writers. All are legitimate. There’s room in the various genres for each of them, and they can all make money.

Which type of writer, you’re asking, am I? At first I dabbled in various genres, responding to my muse’s whisperings. Lately it seems I’ve written mainly in the Alternate History subgenre, and my stories focus on people’s interactions with technology. I’d have to say I’m more of a Copier than any of the other types. Maybe most authors are of that type.

My turn: which type of writer are you, or which do you aspire to become? In my listing, did I miss any types? Leave a comment for—

Poseidon’s Scribe

December 15, 2013Poseidon's ScribePermalink

The Life Story of a Short Story

Hello. I’m a short story. Since Poseidon’s Scribe never got around to blogging about the whole short story process, he invited me to guest blog today. My title is “Alexander’s Odyssey,” and I was written by Steven R. Southard. My life story is typical of other tales, and might be obvious to many of you, but the steps weren’t clear to Steve when he started.

1. Idea. I started as an idea. You did too, I suppose, but with stories you only need one human with an idea, if you know what I mean. Getting a story idea isn’t as difficult as most believe. Ideas are all around you.

2. Outline. This can take many forms, not just the standard I-A-1-a-(1) type. It can be a mind-map, for example. An outline can keep you focused as you write, but don’t be afraid to deviate from it if the story takes off in a different direction. Steve used an outline for me, but if you don’t want to, just skip this step.

3. Research. You might have to conduct research for your story like Steve did for me. Use the most authoritative sources you can. Steve didn’t include all the researched data when writing me, just a tiny fraction. You might enjoy research, but don’t get stuck at this stage. At some point, enough is enough.

4. First Draft. Steve wrote my first draft fast, without caring about quality. He didn’t even stop to correct typos. He got it all down, the emotions, the drama, and the character interactions.

5. Edit. Steve did several drafts of me where he corrected typos; deleted extraneous stuff; added in foreshadowing, metaphors, similes, and symbolism, etc. Don’t get stuck at this stage either; some stories never even get submitted.

6. Submit. Steve located a suitable market, and had to modify me a bit to conform to the submission guidelines. After much hesitation, he submitted me. These days, you writers have the option of self-publishing us stories, so you could skip this step.

7. Rejection. Actually, I didn’t get rejected the first time, but I know the feeling. I don’t understand why writers take rejection so personally; the editor is rejecting me, not you. Just shake it off and submit your story to some other market. Keep us moving!

8. Accept. I was pretty happy when an anthology editor accepted me, but Steve was positively giddy. I’d never seen him so thrilled and, frankly, the details are embarrassing, so I’ll just move on.

9. Rewrite. The editor suggested Steve change me a bit. He agreed the changes would do me good, and made them. I’ve seen Steve agonize over suggested changes to other stories, though. I’ve even seen him push back against the editor. In the end, they always reach agreement and Steve signs the contracts. I guess he could always refuse and walk away if he wanted.

10. Launch. These days, publishers don’t just publish us, they launch us. It does make me feel like a rocket going off, sort of. Again, Steve seems really happy when a story launches, and again it’s awkward to watch.

11. Market. If I’d been picked up by one of the top publishing houses, they’d spread the word about me. Steve didn’t send me there, so he had to do it. Boy, does he hate that part, though I’ve heard some authors like marketing. Use social media, newsletters, writing conferences—anything to advertise.

12. Read. My favorite step. When a reader buys me and reads me cover to cover, that’s what I live for.

13. Reprint. When the rights to me reverted back to Steve, he submitted me for publication as a reprint. After three rejects, another market accepted me, but asked for significant changes. My reprint version states where and when I was published the first time.

14. Spin-off. Oh, I hope, I hope I can get spun-off into a novel, a play, or even a movie. Hey, a story can dream, can’t it?

That’s my story. Forget about Steve, or Poseidon’s Scribe. Address your comments to—

Alexander’s Odyssey

December 8, 2013Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Dear Arthur C. Clarke

Though you’ve been dead these past eight years, you live on in your stories. That’s true for me and for millions of others.

Throughout my life I’ve read many of your works, including more of your short stories than I can remember, and the following novels: Childhood’s End, The Deep Range, 2001: A Space Odyssey, 2010: Odyssey Two, 2061: Odyssey Three, Rendezvous with Rama, Rama Revealed, The Songs of Distant Earth, and The Hammer of God.

I recall purchasing your book 2001: A Space Odyssey (or maybe my dad bought it) just two weeks before the movie was due in the theaters of my childhood town for the first time. I was about ten years old, and determined to finish the book before seeing the movie. Finish it I did, and I enjoyed the book much more than the film.

At that time, the year 2001 seemed a long way off, and fantastic things would happen by then. To a boy growing up starry-eyed in the Sixties, the future appeared extraordinary. Your books helped me see it that way. More than most authors, you conveyed the pure wonder of a scientific future.

That’s what comes through for me in your tales, the positive vision of science as a way to solve man’s problems, and to explore. You even believed science could solve political problems. In The Songs of Distant Earth, you depict human societies living under a utopian “Jefferson Mark 3 Constitution,” suggesting a political evolution toward better government. In Rama Revealed, you show an alien race with enormous military power but a staunch unwillingness to enter into conflict. The reason becomes clear when one of the aliens says their politicians can declare war, but anyone voting for war is put to death. Strong disincentive, indeed!

Another thing I learned from reading your work is that aliens might not be bent on invading. When many other authors wrote of aliens attacking Earth, you wrote about creatures who either helped mankind (Childhood’s End), led mankind on series of strange advancing paths (the Odyssey books), or completely ignored us (the Rama series).

It’s possible that your novel The Deep Range influenced me, in some subtle way, to serve in the submarine force. That story took the Old West struggles between cattle ranchers and crop farmers and set it under the sea, where whale herding competed with plankton farming. Science fiction stories with an oceanic setting are rare gems, for me.

A reviewer of my stories would be hard-pressed to find your influence on my writing. However, your fiction has been described as technical and the style as somewhat dry at times. As a trained engineer, I strive to include sufficient technical detail so that people can understand how my gadgets work. My fellow critique group members say the details sometimes get in the way of the story-telling.

Like you, I’m enamored of the science. I love it, and can’t help including a sense of awe and wonder in my tales. There will be those who grasp that, and those who skip those paragraphs and feel unfulfilled by the rest of the story.

That said, thank you so much, Sir Arthur, for passing the wonder to me. In 2010: Odyssey Two, Heywood Floyd asks, “What’s going to happen?” Dave Bowman answers, “Something wonderful.” That says it all, or so it seems to—

Poseidon’s Scribe

December 1, 2013Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Meet the Punk Family

If you’re into science fiction, particularly alternate history or speculative fiction, there are some interesting sub-genres to be aware of. They all have -punk in their name: cyberpunk, clockpunk, steampunk, dieselpunk, and atompunk.

I’ve blogged about steampunk before, but here I’ll step back and introduce the Punk family.

Cyberpunk. This term describes fiction involving a world of the near future where computer technology has made life miserable and degraded society. Author Bruce Bethke is credited with coining the term in 1980 in connection with his short story “Cyberpunk.” Major writers of cyberpunk include Pat Cadigan, William Gibson, and Bruce Sterling. Some cinematic examples of cyberpunk are 1984, Blade Runner, Mad Max, the Terminator movies, and Tron. In my graphic I’ve depicted it as the parent of the Punk Family since it came first.

Clockpunk. This refers to fiction set in a time when metal springs are the primary technological energy storage mechanism, an era prior to the invention of the steam engine. A player of the Generic Universal RolePlaying System (GURPS) invented the term. Clockpunk authors of note include Jay Lake, S. M. Peters, and Terry Pratchett.

Steampunk. This subgenre depicts settings with steam-powered mechanisms, often in time periods similar to the nineteenth century. Author K. W. Jeter invented the term in 1987. Early giants of steampunk literature include James Blaylock, K. W. Jeter, and Tim Powers, though there are many, many writers continuing in their footsteps. Movie examples of steampunk include Atlantis: The Lost Empire, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, The Prestige, Sherlock Holmes, Van Helsing, and Wild Wild West. I think it’s fair to say this child of cyberpunk has surpassed its parent and all its siblings in popularity. It has spawned a culture all its own with jewelry, clothing, art, music, and dedicated conventions in addition to books.

Dieselpunk. In Dieselpunk we see the gasoline-based technology of the 1920s, 30s, and 40s. Game designer Lewis Pollak came up with the term in 2001. Authors of dieselpunk include David Bishop, Robert Harris, Brian Moreland, and F. Paul Wilson. Some examples of dieselpunk movies are Rocketeer and Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. As with steampunk, dieselpunk also comes with its own visual style — art deco.

Atompunk. This refers to fiction set in the exuberant post World War II age, the Atomic Age. I couldn’t find anything about who coined the term. Some atompunk authors are Adam Christopher and Dante D’Anthony. I don’t know of any atompunk movies made since the sub-genre emerged, but many science fiction movies of the 1950’s can be thought of as proto-atompunk. There are associated visual styles with atompunk, too: Googie Architecture, Populuxe, and Raygun Gothic.

There are other, lesser known, members of the Punk family: Decopunk, Biopunk, Nanopunk, Stonepunk, Nowpunk, Splatterpunk, Elfpunk, and Mythpunk. Perhaps if these attract sufficient readers, I’ll blog about them too.

The ‘-punk’ aspect of each of these is meant to convey that these are not celebrations of the technology in question. The idea in these stories is to convey dark and disturbing faults in the societies driven by the technology, and by extension, to point out analogous problems with our own modern society.

My steampunk stories include “The Steam Elephant,” “The Wind-Sphere Ship,” (call that one Iron Age steampunk), “Within Victorian Mists,” “A Steampunk Carol,” “The Six Hundred Dollar Man,” and the upcoming “Rallying Cry.”

I’ve written a couple of clockpunk stories too: “Leonardo’s Lion” and “A Tale More True.”

Perhaps you’ll enjoy getting to know the Punk Family. They’re an odd bunch, but they’re getting more famous every day. Leave a comment and explain what you think about them to the world and to—

Poseidon’s Scribe

November 24, 2013Poseidon's ScribePermalink

10 Reasons You Really Are Good Enough to Write Fiction

Perhaps you have a story inside you, but you feel too scared or intimidated or inadequate to believe you could ever write fiction. Here are some ways to banish those feelings.

First, there are at least three levels of fiction-writing. (1) These days you can write and publish something yourself without an editor, at near zero cost. (2) You can get your writing accepted by a publisher, but not make enough money to live on. (3) You can write fiction as your sole means of support. I’ll limit myself to discussing level (2) today.

True, some people aren’t cut out to be writers at all. My purpose today is to keep you from cutting yourself out of the running at the start. Let’s look at ways you might think you’re not fit to be a writer:

I just know I could never be a writer. Where is your resistance to writing coming from? Do you immediately think “I could never do that” when presented with other opportunities in life? Maybe this isn’t about writing at all, but your general negativity toward trying new activities. How many amazing human initiatives haven’t happened because somebody said, “I could never do that,” hmm?
I don’t know anything about writing. Don’t let this stop you. That’s the part you can get help with, through critique groups, writing courses, books about writing, writing conferences, etc.
I’d never write as well as [insert your favorite famous author’s name here]. Stop comparing yourself to the great authors. You can’t know today how you’ll stack up against them one day. So what if you’re not quite as good? You can still get published and win over some readers.
I’m unknown, and people only read books by known authors. Think about it; all published authors started off unknown. What if your favorite author had talked herself or himself out of writing?
No editor will read my stories because I’m unpublished. Not true. Consider that latching on to a new, undiscovered top talent is every publisher’s dream. All they need is one (you?) to make their career.
Novels seem so hard to write. No need to begin with a novel. Try a novella, a short story, flash fiction. Do blog posts for a while.
My teacher told me I’d never be a writer. Is one long-ago English or Language Arts teacher still in your head criticizing you? Keep that teacher in your mind, but dedicate yourself to showing how wrong he or she was; sweet revenge will be yours one day.
My story idea seems trite, or already used, etc. At this point your idea is just a story concept; it might match hundreds of already-published stories. Once you flesh it out and write it down, it becomes uniquely yours, different from all others, and possibly publishable.
It takes too long to write a story. True, writing takes time. But, of all the skills and abilities you’ve developed in life, how many did you master in a day? Let the strength of your story idea sustain you. If it’s truly grabbed you, you’ll persevere until you write it all down.
I couldn’t stand being rejected or getting a bad review. That does stink, no denying it. Any creative endeavor requires a thick skin. Look at editor’s rejections as permissions to send your story elsewhere. As for bad reviews, remember it’s far easier to be the critic. At the worst, the reviewer may actually have a valid point you can use to improve your writing for the next story.

See? You are good enough to at least try being a writer. Shake off those negative emotions. Let your imagination soar. Allow yourself to try it out. Someday, when you’re a famous author, be sure and give partial credit to—

Poseidon’s Scribe

November 17, 2013Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Dear Robert Heinlein

Yeah, I know the records say you’ve been dead since 1988, but I figure you found or inherited some way to cheat the reaper, like your character Lazarus Long did. By some weird and inexplicable means, I think you could be reading this.

Over my lifetime, I’ve read several of your novels and short stories. In my high school and college days, I read “By His Bootstraps,” Time Enough for Love, Star Beast, The Man Who Sold the Moon, Starship Troopers, Stranger in a Strange Land, Farnham’s Freehold, and The Number of the Beast. In later years I read Friday, Grumbles from the Grave, and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.

I’m not sure what it was about your work that stuck with me most. Maybe the cool future technologies. Perhaps the gritty, wise-cracking, rough-and-ready characters, all of whom pulled themselves up from humble backgrounds. The writing style, full of well-turned phrases, could have been part of it. Or possibly the hard-nosed, no-excuses, freedom-loving philosophy undergirding it all. I can’t say, and likely I’ll never know.

Though I didn’t realize this until later, there is some similarity in our backgrounds, yours and mine. I was born about fifty years after you, but also grew up in the Midwest, also graduated from the Naval Academy with an engineering degree and also served in the Navy. After leaving the service, both of us turned to writing fiction.

I’m not comparing my writing to yours, just pointing out reasons I can relate to your life experiences. After I began writing, I began to appreciate your approach to authorship even more. I liked your rules for writing with their linkage of hard work to eventual success.

I also began to see how different a writer you were from some of my other author heroes. Jules Verne lucked into a new field; no one else was writing science fiction. Isaac Asimov took the established model of the time (publishing short stories in pulp magazines) and churned out an enormous output following that model.

By contrast, you rejected the status quo and uplifted the whole genre. You believed science fiction should be regarded as respectable literature and worked to bring that about. Your success benefitted not only you, but other authors too. Without question, your stories inspired generations of engineers, scientists, and writers.

When I pondered over my own portfolio of published work, I had to confess I didn’t see the Heinlein influence there. My story themes and characters differ quite a bit from yours. But when I thought about it more deeply, I realize now what I took from your example wasn’t a writing style, but the hope that a guy like me could sell stories.

For inspiring me to be a writer, not necessarily to write like you, thanks. And if you don’t mind, I’ll ask a favor. How about taking time off from shaking up the status quo in your current plane of existence, to sprinkle just a bit of your writing talent on—

Poseidon’s Scribe

November 11, 2013Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Books in the Shadows

Recall the brouhaha in February and March 2012 between PayPal and Smashwords? It’s been a year and a half since then; time for a retrospective look.

It started when PayPal told Smashwords to remove all content referring to bestiality, rape, and incest from its website or else its customers could no longer buy books using PayPal. The problem for PayPal was that it was backed by major credit card companies; all of whom had reputations to uphold. They couldn’t be seen as permitting, let alone advocating, what many customers saw as smut.

That put Smashwords in a real bind. PayPal wasn’t just a means for paying for books on the site; it was integral to the site. Accordingly, Smashwords notified all its authors of the change in policy and engaged in negotiations with PayPal. The negotiations got into the minutiae of defining bestiality, rape, and incest.

Meanwhile a funny thing happened. People reacted. In a big way. The internet backlash campaign against PayPal rose up with the power and immediacy of a tidal wave. By the thousands, people signed petitions, wrote angry blog rants, and cancelled their PayPal accounts; whole organizations formed to fight this one issue.

By mid-March it was over. PayPal reversed its stance.

So, problem solved, right? We can all move on?

Not really. Just a couple of weeks ago, the British bookseller W.H. Smith shut down its website due to a problem involving pornographic books. Using the search term ‘daddy,’ like a child might do, resulted in some book choices that were, let’s say, inappropriate for children.

So the fight continues and will likely go on as long as there are books, and people. Each side in this war has a valid point and a principle worth defending. One side seeks to keep adult-themed books out of the reach of minors. Failure, as they see it, leads to moral decay and the collapse of civil society. The other side strives to defend freedom of expression. Failure, to them, leads to book-burning and thought control.

The boundaries of what’s acceptable have been shifting for centuries, even millennia. What is appropriate for children? To what lengths shall we go to protect them? These questions are ageless.

What’s new today is the explosion of adult interest in pornographic books, the ease of electronic searches for books, and the fact that children are often more adept with the internet than their parents.

I don’t bring this up because I have some magic answer, nor am I taking sides. I’ve written one story that young children shouldn’t read, and that’s “Blood in the River” in the horror anthology Dead Bait. I’m trusting parents not to purchase a book of horror stories for their toddlers. So far I haven’t written anything else that could be described as erotic or pornographic. If I do, I’ll publish it under another name.

My point is only that this ain’t over. Battle lines will shift; skirmishes will erupt at the borders of the eternal culture conflict; periods of peaceful equilibrium will end with further clashes and uprisings.

For me, the danger lies at both extreme ends of the spectrum. I think there should be a way for parents to protect their young children from exposure to porn (and parents need to define that term ‘porn’ for themselves). Similarly, I don’t want society (especially the government) to ban porn for adults.

That’s my take on the books of the shadows. What’s yours? Leave a comment and let your views be known to the world and to—

Poseidon’s Scribe

November 3, 2013Poseidon's ScribePermalink

The Seed and Twist Revisited

I’ve mentioned a couple of times before (here and here) my method of coming up with story ideas. I call it the seed and twist. The seed is some humdrum, everyday thing. The twist is where you look at the seed in a new way, give it some novel alteration.

By way of illustration, I’ll discuss the seed and twist for each of the stories I’ve had published to date. Don’t think of it as a glimpse into how my mind works; you don’t want to know. Think of it as a jumping off point for coming up with your own story ideas. Sometimes my seed ideas aren’t very everyday things.

“Target Practice”
- Seed: a prison
- Twist: It’s a prison of the future, underwater, and prisoners are made to drive weaponless mini-subs to serve as targets for the country’s submariners.

“Alexander’s Odyssey”
- Seed: the legend that Alexander the Great descended in a diving bell
- Twist: How would the sea-god Poseidon react?

“The Sea-Wagon of Yantai”
- Seed: some obscure references I found that someone had made a submarine in China around 200 BC
- Twist: make it a tale pitting war against peace

“Blood in the River”
- Seed: your standard vampire
- Twist: This is an Amazonian vampire-fish known as a candiru, that shape-shifts between human and fish forms.

“The Finality”
- Seed: the disaster to come in the year 2012 foretold by the Mayan calendar
- Twist: The disaster is the universal end of time itself.

“The Vessel”
- Seed: a ship and its crew returning home
- Twist: It’s a ship from Atlantis, and their home has sunk beneath the seas.

“The Steam Elephant”
- Seed: the huge, mechanical elephant from a Jules Verne story set in India.
- Twist: Take the same characters, with a newly built steam elephant, and set them in African in 1879, in time for the Anglo-Zulu War.

“The Wind-Sphere Ship”
- Seed: the little steam toy invented by Heron (also spelled Hero) in 1st century Alexandria
- Twist: What would happen if he’d used steam to power a ship?

“Within Victorian Mists”
- Seed: a steampunk romance
- Twist: Lasers and holograms get invented early, in the late 1800s.

“Seasteadia”
- Seed: a story of young love between opposites
- Twist: The story is set against the backdrop of the world’s first permanent sea colony, or seastead.

“A Sea-Fairy Tale”
- Seed: a man learning that the world must have some fantasy in it
- Twist: He learns this from an oceanid, a mythological sea fairy.

“Bringing the Future to You”
- Seed: a fortune teller
- Twist: The crystal ball is an accurate scientific instrument.

“Leonardo’s Lion”
- Seed: the life-size clockwork lion built by Leonardo da Vinci in 1515
- Twist: It’s about fifty years later and the lion is found by a small boy who finds a secret hidden inside the lion.

“Against All Gods”
- Seed: a journey to visit all seven wonders of the ancient world
- Twist: The gods of Greek mythology are angry with a pair of mortal lovers and will stop at nothing to ruin their love for each other.

“A Steampunk Carol”
- Seed: Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol
- Twist: The story is played out using the characters of “Within Victorian Mists.”

“The Six Hundred Dollar Man”
- Seed: the 1970s TV show, “The Six Million Dollar Man”
- Twist: It’s set in steampunk times.

“A Tale More True”
- Seed: the notion of man travelling to the moon
- Twist: The story is set in a time even before steam power, when the most powerful man-made source of energy was the metal clockwork spring.

It’s one way of coming up with story ideas. So far, it’s worked for—

Poseidon’s Scribe

October 27, 2013Poseidon's ScribePermalink