Steampunk is a unique and interesting subgenre of sci-fi and fantasy and has been around for quite a long time. The idea of steampunk is often associated with its aesthetic that takes from the 19th Century and Victorian Era alongside steam and clockwork mechanisms to create its iconic look. However, steampunk transcends cool cosplays and is a wide and vast subgenre on its own. So, if you’re interested in writing your own steampunk story, let’s get into today’s post which will cover what steampunk really is and how you can write a fantastic and captivating steampunk story.
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What is Steampunk?
Steampunk isn’t really just a simple subgenre of speculative fiction like sci-fi and fantasy. It’s more of a movement that blends history with technology and the fantastical depths of our imaginative minds. The original term was coined back in the 1980s to describe retro-futuristic works written by K.W. Jeter and other writers like Tim Powers.
In their worlds, the idea of steam power is the most prominent form of technology and it draws on much of the aesthetics of the Victorian and Edwardian eras of England. There’s a lot of reimagined things about these societies, but steam power is pretty much why the idea of steampunk exists. It creates a world where futuristic technology is not so sleek and hyper technical like ours is, but rather is fueled by steam. There’s a lot of clockwork and retro-futuristic machinery depicted in these stories as well.
Key Characteristics of Steampunk
There’s quite a few things that are key to steampunk, and firstly that is the Victorian and Edwardian aesthetics. Almost every single steampunk story borrows the style of fashion from those days like top hats and waistcoats alongside Gothic architecture and lots of brass and copper machinery with intricate clockwork and steam powered machinery. These things are practically essential to crafting steampunk, as this is what most people recognize about the subgenre.
Furthermore, steampunk worlds are typically set in a world where technology is advanced, but it’s not advanced in things that we see today. There are things like robots and mechanical limbs and more, but it’s all pretty much powered by steam.
Steampunk stories are also very heavy on exploration and adventure, often involving expeditions to unknown lands, journeys to far and difficult-to-reach places and more. The idea of discovery and innovation is the heart of many steampunk stories.
Additionally, like most sci-fi and fantasy subgenres, steampunk explores a lot of social issues and seeks to provide a commentary on things in society. This can include imperialism, industrialization, the division of the rich and poor, racism, sexism, etc…
How to Write a Steampunk Book
Understanding what steampunk is, we can now proceed with actually figuring out how to write a steampunk story. Most of this part of the article isn’t going to focus on the basic conventions of storytelling and world building that I’ve discussed before because steampunk is more specific than things like grimdark fantasy or epic fantasy.
I will provide a list of helpful articles if you want to learn about some other story elements, so stay tuned for that in a few paragraphs.
Setting
Firstly, we need to choose the setting for our story and there are quite a few options that we can pick from to do this.
- Victorian London: You can pick the classic option for a lot of steampunk, which is Victorian-era London. The Victorian era is one that is often featured quite a bit in steampunk because it serves heavily as a basis for the steampunk subgenre. There’s a lot you can do with this and it does require some proper research into understanding how the Victorian era is like. I would say that even though you are writing speculative fiction, you will still need to research the era you’re writing in to understand the societal customs and norms, the way things looked, and the patterns of speech so that you can curate realistic dialogue.
- Alternate History: The idea of alternate history means that you can set your story in any distant place you want at any point in history but you need to branch off from there and essentially create a “what if” scenario for the story. If you want to learn more about how to write alternate history, check out this post. For instance, alternate history can be something like what if the American Civil War was fought with steam-powered automatons or what if the Soviet Union won the Cold War and developed steam-powered robots to do so, etc… Basically, you can do anything in alternate history but you have to integrate the steampunk elements into it.
- The Future: Steampunk often sees stories where it’s set in the past, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t have your story set in the future either. The future could be a dystopian one where society must revert to steam powered technology, thus providing a good and solid backing for why things are so steampunk now. This is more imaginative because you will have to create the entire setting and everything rather than base it off of something or build from a historical event.
Realistically speaking, you can set your story anywhere you like just so long as you are incorporating the steampunk aesthetics and elements and can provide a justification for why the society looks like this if it’s in another country you’ve chosen to write about.
Create Memorable Characters
Next up is the characters and there’s a lot of different archetypes that exist in steampunk stories. The goal is to create characters that are memorable and that readers will like. There are many character archetypes we can pick from, but knowing that steampunk books tend to revolve around discovery and innovation, here are some popular ones that you can choose to write about:
- Inventor: The inventor archetype is a person that creates the technology in the world and will be a master at creating steam-powered items. This character will likely play a role in the story’s conflict and can be a protagonist or antagonist.
- Explorer: Since a lot of steampunk talks about exploration and the unknown, it makes sense to have a character that is driven by their curiosity for the world around them and is willing to go on a lengthy journey to discover new things about the world.
- The Automaton: a machine that is sentient and has some sort of identity, struggling to figure out its place in society is another great archetype you can choose to include in a steampunk story. This character can easily be a main character, an ally, a protagonist, an antagonist, etc…
Relatively speaking, there are many other character types you can create such as a rebel or an aristocrat and showcase different themes through the archetype you’ve chosen. Furthermore, the archetype that you pick matters greatly to how the characters develop and what arcs you will give them, so if you want to learn more about character arcs, then you should check this post out.
Outline an Engaging Plot
The next thing you want to do is to create an interesting plot for your story. Now, with steampunk, the plots can be a bit more specific and based on tropes in the subgenre or you can go with your own original/blended plot.
For the most part, steampunk plot lines take from a lot of popular elements in the subgenre such as an invention gone wrong, rebelling against authority, a murder mystery, exploration and discovery, a post-apocalyptic world, survival, etc… At the end of the day, you should think about what role the steampunk elements of your story are actually going to play in your plot because simply making a story steampunk for the sake of it being steampunk doesn’t really make much sense and will feel a bit cheap and tacky.
Incorporate Creative Technology
Technology is also a really big deal in steampunk. It’s pretty much the basis for steampunk and why a story is steampunk. The technology needs to be steam powered because this is what defines steampunk technology. Additionally, technology needs to be integrated well into the story. Try to think about what sort of technology is relevant to your story, what role it plays, how it functions, and what it does for your story.
The technology in steampunk can be things like steam-powered vehicles, automatons, prosthetics, weapons, industrial machinery and so much more. I think a pretty good example of steampunk in modern TV is actually The Legend of Korra, which strongly integrated the steampunk automatons into the conflict and showed an interesting way for people to harness bending into technology (like the metal bending police officers). There were also cars and automatons and more that played a big role in the world building of the show.
Society and Politics
In addition to all of this, the idea of the social and political landscape of your world is very important because a lot of steampunk covers things within this realm. For instance, steampunk talks heavily about class structure and themes like imperialism and colonialism. There’s also a lot of things in steampunk like survival and the use of steam power for that (like the video game Frostpunk). There’s also things like industrialization being discussed quite often in steampunk and the impacts of it on society and the world around that society.
Magic and Technology
If your story is set in a fantasy world, then magic and science can conflict in steampunk. For instance, Arcane shows a world where magic is considered dangerous and scientific discovery powers most of the technology until one person starts to incorporate magic and soon the two intermix into one unit in the world.
If you want to learn how to create a magic system for fantasy, check out this post! It was made originally for high fantasy stories, but it can also work. You just need to tweak the system you have in your story to fit the confines of your world.
Themes and Morals
Steampunk also likes to cover the ideas of authority and power, as well as if people should be obedient to authority and the government or if they should rebel and take rights back.
The themes of steampunk revolve heavily around the progress of society but also the simultaneous harm that such progress might be making. For instance, the reason why the concept of Communism came about was as a reaction to the industrialized world and the inequality that came with it where factory workers lived in shoddy conditions while factory owners were eating all the wealth in a nation up.
Additionally, class and social inequality are great themes to incorporate in steampunk. If you need help figuring out how to create themes for your story, then check out this post.
Conclusion
Steampunk is a really unique and interesting subgenre that exists in sci-fi and fantasy and has a lot of elements to it. Although a lot of steampunk stories tend to have similar aesthetics and themes, at the end of the day, putting your own spin on the story is an important thing and it can let you create something really unique. Don’t forget to create compelling characters and to focus on technology, even if there is a magic system in your story that exists and is prominent.
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