Grimm’s Steampunk
Once upon a time, there was a call for Steampunk stories to be included in the new anthology from Xchyler Publishing. Having been to several of the X Team’s launch parties, and having read some of their books, I was intrigued. I had become acquainted with several of the X writers, and they spoke very highly of the company, so I thought I would give it a shot.
I am a sucker for Steampunk. Ever since I was a small girl, I have been a fan of anything and everything Victorian. Something about the period has piqued my interest for decades. I grew up reading biographies of Lillie Langtry and Oscar Wilde; speculating about Jack the Ripper; loving lace and pearl buttons. The period is fascinating and full of inspirational nuance.
When Steampunk began to pick up traction as a genre, I was ecstatic. It was a genre made for me. My first Victorian publication isn’t Steampunk, but was my jumping off point. Bloody Rain is a musing on Jack the Ripper. Once I got started, I really enjoyed writing in the genre.
I have a second Victorian tale in the upcoming Terror by Gaslight from Fantom Enterprises Iron Clad imprint. A poem appears in Issue 10 of Gearhearts Steampunk Glamor Revue, with a short story slated for a future issue. My latest novel, The Marvelous Mechanical Man” is Steampunk. I thought I was really good at Steampunk . . . but I had a lot to learn. The X Team editorial staff helped me polish my story to a true gem.
A little side note here: I have never worked with a more thorough editorial staff. My story was turned in at 6,335 words. By the time we were through with the edits, it is 12,955. It wasn’t easy to get there. We started with version 1, and finished with 11. Along the way, it went through a content editor, a line editor, and at least two more pairs of eyes.
I learned a great deal from the process (fighting all the way—I admit, I am not easy to edit) and in the end, after a fifteen hour final proofreading session—where I apparently impressed someone—I was invited to join the editorial staff. I am looking forward to my first assignment. I hope to be worthy. End side note.
Besides Steampunk, another one of my favorite things is a good fairytale. And I am not alone. When television gives us Once Upon a Timeand Grimm in primetime hours, and the big screen is full of films like Frozen, Maleficent, and other recent adaptations, I decided to take another lesser known fairytale and base my Steampunk offering on it.
Fairytale revision is one of my favorite things. I have an entire collection of fairytale poetry, Straying from the Path. “Beauty Within the Briars” and “Chains of Straw”—Sleeping Beauty and Rumplestiltskin respectively—are short stories that have found homes with other publishers, and The Head Above the Gate—The Goose Girl—is in the short fiction slush pile at Tor.
So I was really excited to try again. This time, I looked for something that would lend itself to an around-the-world adventure. Some stories, like Cinderella, have been done recently (Cinder by Marissa Meyer, for instance) and very well. I wanted something more obscure . . . a story that would intrigue people because they might not have read it before.
I chose “Bearskin.” Basically, a young man comes home from war and makes a deal with the devil for riches. The fairy tale was a very simple story and quite short—about twelve pages on my phone. I had the main characters and plot to work with, and then I began to have fun.
What was the soldier coming home to? What effect had war had on him? I made my soldier a Confederate veteran making his way back to his Tennessee home after the War. He needs a new start, so he sells his family farm and sets out to travel around the world. I don’t want to give the entire story away—I want you to read it—so I will leave it at that.
It was fun indeed, even before I worked to make it specifically Steampunk. I added some little details, like a winter spent in Switzerland with Heidi and her grandfather and an allusion to piloting a steamboat on the Mississippi. And I tried to put some bits of cultural interest in as well, like information about the Mongols and their horses, and Egyptology in the 1860’s.
Now that I had my basic idea, I had to make it Steampunk. How could I embellish things to bring that element into the story? One of my decisions was to give Toby—my hero—a robotic companion, a silent contraption that follows him on his travels. Toby was a munitions tech in the War, working with vile contraptions that didn’t exist in the real world of our timeline. Another aspect that was easy to Steampunk was the methods of travel. Toby takes an automated steamship to Europe. He hops an airship to Ireland.
Having read the entire anthology, I wish I had gone bigger with my Steampunk . . . given Toby an artificial limb as a result of his time in the War. Or put him to work as an airship technician, working on the big ships traversing the aether. Perhaps he could have used his expertise as a demolitions officer to devise a new fuel, or craft a new mode of transportation. The wonders of the Toymaker’s gadgets and what Toby learned of them could have been expanded.
I should have started with the Steampunk and then added other details. I learned a valuable lesson, and I think it will serve me well going forward with The X. Still, I am pleased with the way my story turned out, and I hope that you enjoy “The Seven Year Itch” as much as I did writing it.
Rie Sheridan Rose has been writing professionally for over ten years. Rie’s short story, “Seven-year Itch,” will appear inTerra Mechanica: a Steampunk Anthologyslated for release May 31, 2014.
She has published six novels, one short story collection, two chapbooks of collected stories, and five poetry collections as well as contributing to numerous anthologies like Reloaded: Both Barrels, Shifters, Nightmare Stalkers and Dream Walkers, and A Bubba in Time Saves None. She also wrote lyrics for Marc Gunn’s “Don’t Go Drinking With Hobbits” CD.
She has a poem in the next issue of Gearhearts Steampunk Glamor Revue, and upcoming Steampunk stories in this magazine and Fictionvale. Her latest novel, The Marvelous Mechanical Man is the first in a Steampunk series called The Conn-Mann Chronicles.
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