The Six Hundred Dollar Man - Steven R. Southard (Poseidon's Scribe)

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The Uses of Bars, Taverns, and Pubs in Fiction

Welcome to Poseidon’s Pub! Come on in. There’s an empty stool here at the bar. What can I get you?

Bars, taverns, pubs, taprooms, watering holes, alehouses, saloons, cantinas, grogshops, dives, and joints serve as frequent settings in fiction. Little wonder. They’re common settings in real life, too.

In fiction, though, they perform a different function than in real life. Let’s examine that subject.

To the reader, it should seem that your character enters the bar for any of the reasons real people do. These include (1) to have a good time in a congenial, social environment, (2) to forget or escape troubles, (3) being dragged in reluctantly by friends, (4) to meet someone the character already knows, and (5) to meet someone the character would like to know.

In real life, that’s about all there is to know. We enter for one or more of those reasons, or some similar reason, and we either succeed or fail, but we leave with less money, fewer fine motor skills, and fewer brain cells.

However, things are different in fiction. The overall point of the fictional bar scene is to advance the plot, add depth to a character, or both. A fictional bar scene might accomplish one or more of the following functions:

Show a character’s behavior in a relaxed, non-work or non-family setting. This allows the writer to display new facets of the character.
Reveal more of a character’s thoughts, feelings, and background. This scene might serve as a way to unveil the tale’s backstory.
Reduce tension after an action scene. It may allow both reader and character a chance to catch their breaths and reflect on what just happened before.
Make use of reduced inhibitions. The effect of alcohol on any of your characters might allow them to admit a truth they’ve been hiding, or propose an idea that’s just crazy enough to work.
Gain information or ideas from another character. This can be from a direct conversation with that character, or could be gleaned through intentional or accidental eavesdropping on another conversation.
Form, strengthen, or end a relationship with another character.
Show a conflict between two characters. A writer can illustrate this with a heated conversation, a game like pool or darts, or the classic bar fight.

As with any scene, you’ll need some description of the setting, the layout and ambiance of your fictional bar. Your readers already know what a bar looks like, so choose enough details to sketch a mental picture in the reader’s mind, but trust the reader to fill in the rest. You’ll want the overall mood of the bar to reflect your character’s mood, or that of your story at that point.

Bar scenes in fiction have become so typical, so stereotypical, that you’ll need to find a way to make yours unique, atypical in some way.

If your character returns to the bar later in your story, ensure something has changed. Most likely your character has learned something along the way. Seen through your wiser character’s eyes, perhaps the bar looks different now, or the character notices things missed on the earlier visit. Or maybe the bar looks so much the same that your character reflects on its sameness.

I grew up reading science fiction, and those tales contain plenty of bar scenes, from Isaac Asimov’s ‘Union Club,’ to Arthur C. Clarke’s ‘The White Hart,’ to Larry Nivens’ ‘Draco Tavern.’ No doubt you pictured some favorite bar—real or fictional—as you read this blogpost, so there’s no point in my listing hundreds of examples from written or cinematic fiction.

My story, “The Six Hundred Dollar Man,” contains a bar scene in ‘Shingle & Locke’s Saloon.’ It serves the purpose of relating the first amazing stunt of the Six Hundred Dollar Man and of raising ethical questions about whether it’s right to give a man steam-powered legs and one-mechanical arm.

Sorry! Closing time, folks. Settle up your tabs and have someone get you home in safety. And don’t forget to tip your favorite bartender—

Poseidon’s Scribe

January 30, 2022Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Creating Troubled Characters

Readers can be drawn to characters with mental troubles. All fictional characters have troubles, of course, since conflict is necessary to good fiction. But today I’m focusing only on characters with mental disorders.

Note: nothing in this post is meant to diminish or glorify the real problem of mental illness. People with such disorders should seek and obtain professional help, and there should be no stigma attached to that.

My purpose is to discuss how an author should portray a fictional character with a mental disorder. Anyone who reads books or watches movies knows that audiences are fascinated by such characters. Troubled characters ratchet up the conflict and drive the plot. They also give readers and viewers a glimpse into the complexities, wonders, and horrors of the human mind.

This week I attended a Zoom lecture by Loriann Oberlin, who writes fiction under the pen-name Lauren Monroe. Unlike me, she is an expert in psychology. Her talk inspired this blogpost, but everything in this post is my interpretation.

In her talk, Ms. Oberlin referenced the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5). This book, published by the American Psychiatric Association, discusses disorders such as neurodevelopmental; schizophrenia spectrum; bipolar; depressive; anxiety; obsessive-compulsive; trauma- and stressor-related; dissociative disorders; somatic symptom; feeding and eating; elimination, sleep–wake; disruptive, impulse-control, and conduct; substance-related and addictive; neurocognitive; personality; and paraphilic; as well as conditions such as sexual dysfunctions and gender dysphoria.

Ms. Oberlin stressed the importance of doing your research so you can depict a particular mental disorder correctly. I’d amend that advice just a bit. It’s easy, when conducting research, to go down rabbit holes and research too much. So, learn when to quit doing research and shift to writing your story. If your character’s behavior and speech don’t exactly match some known disorder, don’t worry about it too much. The APA occasionally comes up with new ones.

Here are my suggestions if you wish to create a troubled character:

You should include a backstory explaining the character’s behavior. You needn’t start the story that way, but perhaps work it in as a flashback. Did the disorder spring from one or more events in the character’s childhood?
You need to reveal the character’s symptoms to the reader early and throughout. Remember to show, don’t tell, these symptoms.
Is the troubled character the protagonist? If so, then some sort of change is required in the story. Perhaps the character takes steps to overcome problems caused by the disorder. Or maybe the disorder brings consequences for which the character must suffer. Perhaps the character struggles with the disorder, then finally comes to terms with it.
If a different character is the protagonist, then the troubled character need not change, but your protagonist must change, perhaps by learning to accommodate the troubled character’s disorder.

Here are examples where I’ve used troubled characters in my fiction:

In “Ripper’s Ring,” Horace Grott is a loser, barely qualified for his job carting bodies to the morgue in London in 1888. He comes upon the legendary Ring of Gyges that enables its wearer to turn invisible. In time, that new-found ability turns Horace into a serial murderer—Jack the Ripper. The story is partly in Horace’s point of view, and partly in that of the detective tracking him down.

In “The Six Hundred Dollar Man,” Sonny Houston is a nice young man with virtually no negative traits, living in the Old West. After being trampled by farm animals, he’s given a steam-powered arm and legs by an inventive doctor. These superhuman abilities change Sonny and he descends into madness. The story is told from the point of view of the doctor, who comes to realize the consequences of his well-meant invention.

In “A Tale More True,” no character has a mental disorder, but I cite the story because Ms. Oberlin mentioned how ‘Munchausen Syndrome’ has been renamed ‘factitious disorder imposed on another.’ The famous fictional character Baron Munchausen, the one with such fanciful lies, appears in my story. The attention given to the baron’s tall tales inspires my protagonist, Count Federmann, to make his own trip to the moon.

Now that you’ve read this post, if you do write a story about a character with a mental illness and that story becomes a bestseller, and you’re invited to make speeches and give interviews, don’t forget to thank—

Poseidon’s Scribe

June 20, 2021Poseidon's ScribePermalink

What’s in a Title?

Last week I wrote about the opening lines in a story. But before you read the opening, you read the title. Do you struggle to come up with appropriate, catchy titles for your stories? Read on…

Some writers have no problem with titles. In fact, there are authors who think up a clever title, and write a story to suit it.

On the other hand, some start with a ‘working title,’ intending to come up with a real title later. When that time arrives, they get stuck, unable to create a suitable title. Writing the 5000-word story was no problem, but coming up with just 1-10 words is maddening.

Author Stephen Pressfield offers some great advice in this blogpost. He says to let the theme of your story suggest the title, and he gives some great examples.

In her post on titles, author Lynne Lumsden Green goes a bit further. She says a title should (1) be memorable, (2) encompass the theme of the story, and (3) not give too much away.

I agree, though I don’t think you should agonize over your title. I’d spend more time on the story’s opening and closing lines. Even so, I often brainstorm about 20-30 titles before hitting on the right one.

Be aware, when choosing your title, even words like ‘the’ can be important. That word denotes one particular thing. To take an example from my stories, “Moonset” (from the Re-Terrify anthology) evokes a periodic event that happens daily. “The Moonset” suggests one particular setting of the moon. The one-word version was more appropriate for my story.

Here are some explanations for the titles of my stories:

“Broken Flute Cave” is also the setting of the story, a cavern so-named because a modern discoverer found what looked like broken flutes inside. My story is the origin story, or pourquoi story of the last Native American flute player to occupy that cave.

“Reconnaissance Mission” (in the Not Far From Roswell anthology) has a double meaning in this story. The tale follows Army Sergeant Major Edgar Allan Poe as he participates in a recon mission to Nuevo México. There he finds his is not the only team conducting such a mission.

“The Unparalleled Attempt to Rescue One Hans Pfaall” (in the Quoth the Raven anthology) is a sequel to Edgar Allan Poe’s story “The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall.” I could hardly have titled it any other way.

“Instability” (in the Dark Luminous Wings anthology) is another title with double meanings. A medieval monk builds wings and tries to fly, but can’t control his flight. Moreover, some of the other monks question his sanity.

“Time’s Deformèd Hand” is a phrase from the Shakespeare play “The Comedy of Errors.” My story—in the clockpunk genre—has many references to time, clocks, and calendars, and errors associated with time measurement. The grave accent mark (`) means to pronounce that usually-silent ‘e’ as you would in ‘ranted.’

“Last Vessel of Atlantis” (combined in one volume with “Rallying Cry”) evokes the wonder of that legendary lost continent. The word ‘vessel’ has two meanings in the story—a ship and a container of liquids. In fact, the first published version of that story was titled “The Vessel.”

“The Six Hundred Dollar Man” references the 1970s TV show “The Six Million Dollar Man” but mine is a steampunk version taking place in the American Wild West.

The next time you’re stressing about how to title a story, you’ll remember the profound and timeless advice of the one who titles himself—

Poseidon’s Scribe

March 28, 2021Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Technoethics and the Curious Ape

In the movie Jurassic Park, the character Ian Malcolm says, “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.” Today, I’m focusing on another technology topic, namely ethics in technology, or Technoethics.

Our species is innately curious and inventive. We possess large brains and opposable thumbs, but lack claws, shells, great speed, camouflaged skin and other attributes employed by animals to attack prey or to avoid becoming prey. These circumstances make us natural toolmakers.

From the beginning, we found we could use our tools for good or evil. The same stick, spear, bow and arrow, or rifle we used to kill a rabbit for dinner could also kill a fellow human. The different outcome is not inherent in the tool, but in the heart of the person employing it.

For each new technology in our history, there was at least one inventor. This person took an idea, created a design, and often used available materials to assemble the new item. Were these inventors responsible for, in Malcolm’s words, stopping to think if they should?

With some technologies, like the plow, the printing press, the light bulb, and the automobile, it’s certain their creators intended only positive, beneficial outcomes. The inventor of the automobile could not have foreseen people using cars as weapons, or that one day there’d be so many cars they’d pollute the atmosphere.

With other technologies such as the spear, the warship, the canon, and the nuclear bomb, the inventor’s intent was to kill other people. Why? The usual rationale is twofold: (1) My side needs this technology so our wartime enemy does not kill us, or (2) If I do not invent this technology first, my enemy will, and will use it against my side. Given such reasoning, an inventor of a weapon can claim it would be immoral not to develop the technology.

I’m sure there are unsung examples of would-be inventors refusing, on ethical grounds, to develop a new technology because they feared the consequences. The only example I can think of, though, is Leonardo da Vinci. Although he had no qualms about designing giant crossbows and battle tanks, he drew the line at submarines. Though at first excited about giving a submarine design to the Venetians for use against the Turks, da Vinci reconsidered and destroyed his own plans, after imagining how horrible war could become.

That example aside, the history of humanity gives me no reason to suspect future inventors will hesitate to develop even the most potent and powerful technologies. It’s our curious ape nature; if we can, we will. Only afterward will we ask if we should have.

As a writer of technological fiction, I’ve explored technoethics in many of my stories:

In “The Sea-Wagon of Yantai,” a Chinese submarine inventor intends his craft as a tool of exploration, but an army officer envisions military uses.

In “The Steam Elephant,” a British inventor sees his creation as a mobile home for safari hunters, but then imagines the British Army employing it on the battlefield. Only the narrator character fears what war will become when both sides have such weapons.

In “Leonardo’s Lion,” da Vinci actually builds his inventions, but hides them away and gives clues to the King of France about where to find them. The King never sees the clues, but decades later a ten-year-old boy does, and must decide whether the world is ready for these amazing devices.

In “The Six Hundred Dollar Man,” a doctor imagines how steam-powered prosthetic limbs would have saved crippled Civil War soldiers, but fails to foresee how super-strength and super-speed could turn a good person bad.

In “Ripper’s Ring,” a troubled Londoner in 1888 comes across the Ring of Gyges that Plato wrote about, an invisibility ring. Possession of that ring changes him into history’s most famous mass murderer.

In “After the Martians,” the survivors of an alien attack in 1901 take the Martian technology (tripods, heat rays, flying machines) and fight World War I.

As we smart apes start playing with bigger and more deadly sticks, maybe one day we will stop and think if we should before we think about whether we can. Hoping that day comes soon, I’m—

Poseidon’s Scribe

March 10, 2019Poseidon's ScribePermalink

What Hath Smashwords Wrought?

Amid all the holiday rush, you meant to buy three of my books as gifts (or for yourself), but somehow forgot. Good news! That same $12 you were going to spend now buys four (4) books, or even more.

Smashwords is holding an End of Year Sale, but they’re letting it run over one day into 2019. All the books in my What Man Hath Wrought series are 25% off.

For $2.99, you can get After the Martians, Ripper’s Ring, Time’s Deformèd Hand, The Cometeers, To Be First/Wheels of Heaven, Rallying Cry/Last Vessel of Atlantis, A Tale More True, Against All Gods, Leonardo’s Lion, or Alexander’s Odyssey.

For just $2.24, you can get The Six Hundred Dollar Man, A Steampunk Carol, Within Victorian Mists, or The Wind-Sphere Ship.

These stories explore the theme of people dealing with new technology, a problem to which we all relate. I put my characters and technologies in historical settings, so these are all alternate history stories or secret histories.

Take advantage of Smashwords’ End of Year Sale, and enjoy some books by—

Poseidon’s Scribe

December 26, 2018Poseidon's ScribePermalink

½ Price Sale on Many of My Books!

You’re looking for some great beach reads for your Kindle this summer. You keep hearing about that author—what’s his name?—who everyone is talking about. That’s right, it’s Steven R. Southard, the one who calls himself Poseidon’s Scribe.

You’ve been meaning to read my books, but you keep thinking they’re so darned expensive. Well, you’re in luck. Your wait is over.

For the month of July only, Smashwords is offering many of my books (the ones in the What Man Hath Wrought series) for ½ price! That’s right, get two for the price of one.

Here’s how to take advantage of these great prices. When you click on any book at my Smashwords site, a message will appear telling you to use a specific code at checkout to get the discount.

Here’s the list of stories and their prices during July:

After the Martians
$2.00

Ripper’s Ring
$2.00

TimesDeformedHand3f Time’s Deformèd Hand
$2.00

The Cometeers
$2.00

To Be First and Wheels of Heaven
$2.00

Rallying Cry and Last Vessel of Atlantis
$2.00

A Tale More True
$2.00

The Six Hundred Dollar Man
$1.50

A Steampunk Carol
$1.50

Against All Gods
$2.00

Leonardo’s Lion
$2.00

Alexander’s Odyssey
$2.00

Within Victorian Mists
$1.50

The Wind-Sphere Ship
$1.50

Better take advantage of this limited time offer before Smashwords wakes up and realizes what they’ve done. Heck, you could buy all 14 books for a cool $26. How’s that for value?

Remember, go to Smashwords and grab these deals while they last. Tell ‘em you were sent by—

Poseidon’s Scribe

July 4, 2016Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Secrets of the Past

Is it possible that some amazing things happened in historical times, but never made it in the history books? Today I’ll discuss the subgenre of fiction known as secret histories.

Wikipedia’s entry provides a good definition: “A secret history (or shadow history) is a revisionist interpretation of either fictional or real (or known) history which is claimed to have been deliberately suppressed, forgotten, or ignored by established scholars. Secret history is also used to describe a type or genre of fiction which portrays a substantially different motivation or backstory from established historical events.”

With secret histories the author can deviate from actual history as far as she’d like, but she must return things to status quo or else explain why historical accounts don’t align with her story.

For this reason, secret histories are not to be classified as alternate histories (as I mistakenly did here. There is no permanent altering of history. Rather the world returns to the one we know. The thrill for the reader is seeing how close the world came to actually changing in some dramatic way.

Secret histories work well as thriller stories with assassins or spies, since they work in secret anyway. Frederick Forsyth’s The Day of the Jackal and Ken Follett’s Eye of the Needle are two examples.

I’ve written secret histories myself, but my stories involve technology, not spies or assassins. In each one I leave it to the reader to speculate how much further ahead we’d be if some inventions had occurred earlier.

In “The Sea-Wagon of Yantai,” an inventor creates a submarine in China in 200 B.C. There are obscure references asserting that something of that sort actually happened, and those references inspired my story. The tale ends in a way that explains why more submarines weren’t made as a result of this invention.

My story “The Steam Elephant” (which appeared in Steampunk Tales magazine) is a secret history in which a traveling group of Britons and one Frenchman are enjoying a safari from the vantage of a steam-powered elephant invited by one of the Brits. They get caught up in the Anglo-Zulu war of 1879. This is intended as a sequel to the two books of Jules Verne’s Steam House series.

In “The Wind-Sphere Ship,” Heron of Alexandria takes his simple steam-powered toy and uses it to power a ship. If there had been a steamship in the 1st Century A.D., it boggles the mind to think we could have had the Industrial Revolution seventeen hundred years early and skipped the Dark Ages.

Another secret history is “Leonardo’s Lion” which answers what happened to the mechanical clockwork lion built by Leonardo da Vinci in 1515. In the story, humanity comes very close to seeing all of da Vinci’s designs made real, which would have advanced science and engineering by centuries.

I’d categorize “The Six Hundred Dollar Man” as secret history too, when a man fits steam-powered limbs on another man who’d been injured in a stampede. The story takes place in 1870 in Wyoming and it’s pretty clear by the story’s end why that technology didn’t catch on.

“Rallying Cry” is a tale about a young man who learns there have been secret high-technology regiments and brigades in wars going back at least to World War I. Members of these teams cannot reveal their group’s existence, so it fits the secret history genre.

In “Wheels of Heaven” I take what is factually known about the Antikythera Mechanism, and weave a fictional tale to explain it.

As you can see, I like writing in this sub-genre. Imagine something interesting and imaginative happened in history, write about it, then tie up all the loose ends so that our modern historical accounts remain unchanged. Leave the reader wondering if the story could have really happened. History that might have been, courtesy of—

Poseidon’s Scribe

December 7, 2014Poseidon'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

A Review of “The Six Hundred Dollar Man”

My story, “The Six Hundred Dollar Man,” received a favorable review by Lototy over at Coffee Time Romance. Check out her review here; she really understood the message of the story, and knows how to craft a fine review.

I don’t know if Lototy even likes coffee, but someone should buy her an urn-full. Someone like—

Poseidon’s Scribe

October 26, 2013Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Two New Stories!

I’m pretty excited! Gypsy Shadow Publishing has just put out two of my steampunk stories at the same time.

Let’s start with “A Steampunk Carol.” That stuffy Victorian inventor, Stanton Wardgrave, is back again, eight years after inventing holograms and meeting the American Josephine Boulton…Within Victorian Mists. Married now, with a son and daughter, he’s dealing with rather too much balderdash and poppycock this Christmas Eve. Conversing with his dead father? Expecting three visitors? It all seems so very Dickensian. But he knows he’s not at all like that Ebenezer Scrooge fellow…is he? What, this story asks, would Christmas be without a bit of steampunk in it? This story (published in time for the holidays…hint!) is available here.

The other story is “The Six Hundred Dollar Man.” Wait, is that a smokestack over his right shoulder? What’s with his left hand? Sonny Houston, cowpoke. A man barely alive. “I can rebuild him, make him the first steam-powered man. A darn sight better than before. Better, faster, and a heap stronger, too. I’ve got the know-how.” A century before any bionic man, a doctor in the Wyoming Territory attached steam powered legs and an arm to a man trampled in a stampede. Get ready, Pardner, for a rip-roarin’ steampunk adventure! This story is available here.