Free the Princess: Query

Thursday, October 8, 2009

New Query

There's going to be this short-ish post and a longer one later today (maybe), but I wanted to draw attention to my new query over at Public Query Slushpile.

The hook for CALLARION AT NIGHT is giving me a lot of problems. For SON OF MAGIC, the hook's easy -- "Engineering student Swain Kirby remembers things that never happened to him." BAM! Done, and it tells you what the main crux of that volume is.

Moriah Rowani's story (CALLARION AT NIGHT's MC) is more difficult to encapsulate. Her father's death is the catalyst for the story, but I don't know how to get across the fact that he dies on her first day back in the city without getting too detailed. That's why, if you look at version 1 and version 2, the hook is So. Effing. Long.

I might just need to finish this revision of the story and get it out of my head for awhile. That's what allowed me to come up with the hook for SON OF MAGIC so readily. It's a thought at least.

What is This Thing Called Steampunk Anyway?

Steampunk, in its most simple definition, is a type of fiction that places contemporary technology in the Victorian Era with Coal (and thus Steam) as the primary power source instead of Gas or Electricity.

Wikipedia defines it as "works set in an era or world where steam power is still widely used — usually the 19th century, and often Victorian era Britain — but with prominent elements of either science fiction or fantasy." Mike Perschon, The Steampunk Scholar, calls it "an aesthetic that mixes elements of technofantasy, and neo-Victorian retrofuturism."

At Free the Princess, I subscribe to both definitions. Defining Steampunk isn't my concern though: telling you the information needed to write it is. And here I give you this practical literary guide to writing Steampunk. The guide may occasionally deviate into commentary on events in the community, but hopefully not too often.

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Thursday, October 8, 2009

New Query