Who are its enemies, and how much power do they have? How does it keep power? – Fear? Economic means? Technological means?Ħ. How did it come to power? – Bloody battle between two powers? Multi-faction war? Economic overthrow? Superior technology? Did the opponents fight, or simply give up?Ĥ. Going further, you need to ask questions about the supreme power and its motive.ģ. You don’t need to tell the reader all of the specifics, but as the author, you need to know them so you can give depth and breadth to your plot. It doesn’t matter if it’s the Emperor, Voldemort, the machines, or the Capitol, you need to know who the supreme ruler is. Why do you need to know this? Well, the end of pretty much every epic story is the overthrow of the ruler, so you’re going to be building up to it over your series. When you are going to create a world, probably the most important thing you need to know is: The mid-1800s fit the bill nicely in that respect – now I needed to build my government. A wild land that had yet to be fully explored would give me the opportunity for exploration, new technologies, and a lot of places for the rebellion to hide from a New Alliance. I wanted the world to be a lot smaller than it is today – with a populated eastern seaboard but the west as a yet unknown frontier. But I wanted to provide a unique perspective on steampunk, and give my characters room to grow in a different setting, so I set the work in the United States. Most steampunk work is set in England, which is fair, since a lot of it the clothing and setting is derived from Victorian culture. I wanted a time and place in history that would have been interesting to write about, where many of these themes would have come up naturally. There are also the sci-fi themes of new technology, discovery of new worlds or new frontiers, and encountering strange and/or dangerous unknown phenomena.Īfter reading, I began to think about the setting. Those two encyclopedias went through the history of steampunk and the main themes: rebellion against a tyrannical government, individual freedom, and the equality of women being a few. I went to Barnes and Noble, because I was too impatient to wait for Amazon delivery, and bought Steampunk: An Illustrated History by Robb and The Steampunk User’s Manual by Vandermeer and Boskovich. The first thing I did when my magazine submission was rejected (so I got serious about writing steampunk – damn you, competitive nature!) is research. In this blog post I will tell you some of the themes of steampunk, as well as a bit of how I created my own world. This post is the second in a series about Steampunk Worldbuilding.
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