The Rise of YA Steampunk (and Book Giveaway!)


I am working currently on a novel with a lot of steampunk elements. Yet, when I tell people this, most ask, “What’s steampunk?” Since steampunk is rising in popularity and has been consistently present in the market for the past several years, with books such as Clockwork Angel (Cassandra Clare, 2010), The Girl in the Steel Corset (Kady Cross, 2011), Incarceron (Catherine Fisher, 2010), and Boneshaker (Cherie Priest, 2009), I thought it would make sense to answer that question for YA Fusioners.



I usually tell people steampunk is written as if the Victorian world were thrust into the future. H.G. Wells, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Edgar Allen Poe, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and Jules Verne were the original science fiction writers, and their works about fantastic adventures to other worlds and times have inspired modern-day steampunk, which is filled with airships, mad scientists, corsets, brass goggles, air pirates, and lots of gears and cogs. Steampunk worlds tend to be darker, and as an off-shoot of science fiction, they are filled with amazing gadgets and gizmos that use Victorian materials and resources. Often, there is a paranormal or fantastical element to these stories, as well.

                                                                                   

What attracts writers to this genre is its versatility. Steampunk can be set in the future, in the past, all over the globe or even on another planet. Because of this, the characters may have extremely Victorian traits or they may seem more contemporary than their Victorian-like surroundings. Whatever weapons, vehicles, or machines they use can be wildly creative and fantastic as long as they are gear-, steam-, or natural gas-driven.



Suzanne Lazear



Suzanne Lazear is an up-and-coming YA steampunk author whose book, Innocent Darkness, Book 1 of The Aether Chronicles, was released in August of 2012. The Aether Chronicles Series mixes the airships, weapons and wardrobe of steampunk with the paranormal darkness of faeries. Suzanne is also a part of the steampunk group blog, Steamed!, at www.ageofsteam.wordpress.com, which has tons of information about writing steampunk and immersing yourself in the very cool elements of the steampunk world.

Suzanne has been kind enough to answer some questions about YA steampunk and share a bit about her own work. Thank you, Suzanne, for talking to us on YA Fusion!

How did you get into steampunk?

I have liked steampunk books for quite awhile, but I didn't know that it had a specific name until I discovered steampunk clothing.

You are currently working with Flux for The Aether Chronicles series. When you began pitching your first book in this series, did you find steampunk was a tough sell?

Yes, when I first started pitching steampunk, I spent more time explaining steampunk than pitching the book. I got rejections because people "just didn't understand this steampunk stuff." I also got some pushback because I'm not just writing steampunk, but steampunk faeries, and some people didn't understand why I needed to have both in the same book. Fortunately, my editor at Flux liked the idea just fine.

What are your favorite YA steampunk books?

My favorite YA steampunk book is Kady Cross' The Girl in the Steel Corset.

What do you see as steampunk’s future in YA?

Steampunk is such an incredibly diverse genre and there are so many places it can go. Like YA, steampunk is often about grey areas and pushing limits. I think not only is YA steampunk here to stay, but we're going to see a lot more steampunk mash-ups as authors continue to get creative and push boundries of their own.

Can you tell us about your upcoming book in The Aether Chronicles?

Yes! Charmed Vengeance continues to follow Noli, V, Kevighn, and James. I love this book even more than Innocent Darkness -- there were a lot of scenes that were super fun to write. Also, most of this book takes place on an airship. There's plenty of adventure -- and air pirates. (Yes, one of them is Noli's brother). I can't wait for you all to read it when it comes out next summer.

~Suzanne

To find out more about Suzanne’s The Aether Chronicles series, visit http://www.aetherchronicles.com

WIN A COPY OF SUZANNE LAZEAR’S BOOK, INNOCENT DARKNESS!

Leave a comment below with the title of a YA steampunk book you’ve read that we haven’t mentioned in this post or with an explanation of what you think readers love about steampunk. Leave your email in the post so I can contact you if you win. A winner will be randomly drawn and announced on YA Fusion on Saturday, November 17. Good Luck!!

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I am happy to annouce that YA Fusion reader Nuzaifa has won the drawing for Suzanne's book, Innocent Darkness.

Congratulations, Nuzaifa!!

Query Hell

I did a post several months ago about queries and how difficult they can be. Since then, I've gotten a lot of emails from people wanting help with their queries, I thought I'd take this opportunity to talk about queries again, as I know there are a lot of writers obsessing over that dreaded query right this second.

One of the hardest things to do other than writing a query, is actually critiquing a query without reading a story, so whatever advice you get, keep in mind that without someone reading your novel, they don't know the ends and outs like you. Does that mean you should discount their feedback. Absolutely not, but you should be able to take their advice and tweak it with you own extensive knowledge of your book.

During my writing career I’ve probably sent well over 150 queries. Yep. You read that correctly. Some of those queries were for agents, others for the agent to submit to editors. I’ve written a total thirteen, unique queries for different books. Each of those thirteen has been rewritten so many times I cringe to even think about it. Out of all those rewrites, there’s only one query that I’ve ever been truly proud of and that was CURSED.

 


Here is some advice I can give you on writing the query.

• Start off with your synopsis. And trust me, that sucks worse than a query, but typically you can pull a query out of a synopsis. Also, if you can’t write a synopsis for your book, you’re not going to be able to write a query. Why? Because you either don’t know your book well enough yet or there’s flaws in your book that still need to be worked out.

• Make sure your query has your character’s voice. You query should read like your book.

• Write your query in first person. GASP.  That was the Internet gasping at that suggestion. Keep reading. Writing your query in first person can help you get into your character’s voice. Once you have your query finished, go back and change it from first person to third person. Now the Internet can calm down. It’s a trick that’s worked for me.

• Have unbiased, complete strangers reader your query. Not your beta partners. There are forums like Query Tracker that is a great place for this.

• Rewrite your query until your eyes bleed. Don’t be like me and submit the very first version of the query you’ve written. It’s embarrassing.

• Once you’ve written and rewritten your query and submitted your query, the next thing you need to do is prepare yourself for rejection because it’s going to happen. Some of the most popular writers have been rejected dozens and dozens of times. It’s just the nature of the process. 

      There isn't one perfect way to write a query and no one person can tell you how to do it. I kind of compared queries to the Big Mac sauce. No one knows quite what's in it, but they have their theories. In the end, it taste damn good. So it's a bit talent, bit timing, and a bit luck.

 

How Does One Cry Underwater?

World-building is one of my favorite parts in the writing process. You can be as creative as you want, you can make civilizations and histories and literally move mountains, but you have to follow the rules.

What rules, you ask? The rules of the world you create.

Let me explain.

Let’s say a mermaid falls in love with a charming, but broody young merman, and they spend their days frolicking in the seaweed (much to her father’s dismay), daring each other to swim too close to the jellyfish (which only stings if you’re a wimp), and trapping tuna (which are slippery, but not altogether too bright). They don’t have a religion, apart from worshipping a metal hairbrush from the surface (we’ll just call it a Dinglehopper), and their biggest dream is to win the all-star synchronized swimming contest.

But building a world isn’t just about combining brilliant (award winning, really) ideas, it’s about consistency. A story is only believable if the characters have some limitations – gravity maybe, or human restrictions, like the one I always neglect, sleep. It needs to have rules, just like a body needs to have bones in order to stand.

For instance, let’s just say our mermaid friend finds her dark brooding merman catching crabs with the mergirl from across the pond. Would she burst into tears? Well, that depends. If she’s submerged in water then probably not. You’ve just bumped up against one of the constraints of your world. You need to find another way for your characters to show the emotions behind the tears.

Maybe she’s not sad. Maybe she wants to stand her ground and tell him off. Would she say, “What the hell? Get your filthy paws off of my merman!” Maybe. But probably not. Because 1) what would our underwater heroine know of paws (I doubt she had a puppy growing up)? And 2) you’ve set up a world where mermaids worship Dinglehoppers, and to reference Hell implies a traditional, surface-dweller’s religious belief system. Anyway, she’s probably not going to “stand” very well with a tail, and I don’t know about you, but the last time I tried to say anything underwater it didn’t go very well.*

You get my point.

When it comes down to it, we use words and phrases every day that reflect the world we live in. I was breathing like I’d just run a mile. Don’t be such a baby. Piece of cake. He’s born again. That costs an arm and a leg. I’m having a bad hair day.

Most of us know what they mean, so we assume our characters do too. But we have to be careful. Just 

because it’s fiction, doesn’t mean anything goes.

Welcome to some of the joys of world-building!

*Anne Greenwood Browne has created a very unique communication style for the mermaids in her book, LIES BENEATH (2012). Check it out! It's awesome!

What's your real job?

Sometimes, when I tell people I’m an author, they get this kind of look in their eyes. It’s usually followed by something like, You’re so lucky you get to work from home! It would be so cool to watch TV all day! 

(huh??) 

And sometimes it’s followed by silly questions like, Do you have a real job, too?

Writing is a real job. It’s my only job. This is a full time gig for me, and even though I love it, it’s still work. 

Definition of Work

1. exertion or effort directed to produce or accomplish something; labor; toil.

2. something on which exertion or labor is expended; a task or undertaking.

3. productive or operative activity.

4. employment, as in some form of industry, especially as a means of earning one's livelihood: to look for work.

5. one's place of employment

I may not have to deal with rush hour traffic every day or trek to the car in two feet of snow during the winter, but that doesn’t make it any less challenging or stressful.

I’m generally at my desk between 6 and 7 each morning, and other than an hour or so for lunch, am usually there until midnight—sometimes longer. There’s a lot to do. The obvious—the writing. But there’s also editing, plotting, synopsis and query writing, emails to answer, social media to stay on top of, interviews and blog posts to write…

*comes up for air*

A friend once said to me being author must be awesome because you sit at your desk all day because you can watch funny dog videos or play Warcraft. Think of all the daytime TV!

I’m not sure about the other authors out there, but I don’t have time for those things. Luckily daytime TV never interested me, and while I will admit to getting distracted at times by other things around the house, I can proudly say I have willpower of steel! Okay. Not entirely true. There might occasionally be a funny dog video stuffed in there.

But only occasionally.

Really.

 

The popular misconception about working from home is that it’s easy. Yes. Most of the time when you’re working from home, you can make your own hours. This is sometimes awesome, but also has serious disadvantages. See, when you love your job as much as I do, and work is only a few rooms away, it’s hard to take a real day off. I can’t speak for anyone other than me, but I find it impossible to walk away. Even on the holidays, my brain is like, I can squeeze in a few minutes before company gets here, or Well I’ll just get a chapter or two done while you hit the food store. And those middle of the night sparks of inspiration? I can’t tell you how many times in the beginning (he’s used to it now) my husband came downstairs at 4 a.m. and found me glued to the computer with no concept of time.

Then there’s the stress. Everyone’s job has it. Being an author is no different. Trust me. Will the readers like my next book? Will my agent? What about my editor and the reviewers? I don’t think I’ve ever met an author that didn’t stress about how their work would be received by the public. That epic project you’ve been obsessed with at the office for the last six months and are about to unveil to your boss? Yeah. Same thing. There’s business travel (conferences and out of town signings). I’m a homebody at heart. Leaving my husband and four-legged kids behind is hard—but it’s part of my job and needs to be done sometimes. And deadlines? Don’t even get me started…

So you see, we’re just like everyone else—except maybe just a tad more caffeinated with weird sleeping patterns and conversations with people who aren’t really there. What about you guys? What stresses you out at your job?

Winner! Getting Somewhere Giveaway

Thank you for all of the kind and thoughtful comments on my post about reading for resilience and empathy.  The winner of Getting Somewhere by Beff Neff is....

Annie Cardi!

Annie's debut YA novel, Queen of the Air, will be out in spring 2014 from Candlewick Press. Check out her blog to learn more.  Congrats, Annie!

Have a wonderful week-
Kristin Lenz

Why is Writing a Sequel so Hard?

Over the years I've heard writer friends bemoan the horrors of writing sequels. At the time, I was completely underwhelmed by their complaints, blinded by the belief that having multiple books under contract would make everything in the world better and more worthwhile. And while having multiple books under contract DID make the world better and more worthwhile...sort of like this...

Or maybe like this....

You will never hear me complain about writing my books. I feel lucky to be able to write, lucky that some people out there are crazy enough to love and want to read the weird stuff that makes my brain happy. And while not complaining, let me explain that in 2012 I've done the most difficult thing (writing wise) that I've ever done. Writing a sequel.

Maybe it was particularly hard because I didn't believe it would be so hard. So I got frustrated when I wrote 2 pages in the amount of time I used to write 10. At periods of intense writer's block that I didn't think I should have. Maybe it was difficult because I'd never planned to do a series/write a sequel. Really, it wasn't until Masque was halfway written that I realized I wasn't possibly going to get to the masked ball in volume one, that I'd need a volume two...and that, ladies and gentleman is what we call a sequel. Something I hadn't really thought of writing before. Not only that, the sequel had to finish the story/series. And because of the way the books split it was difficult to give it a conventional story arc.

I don't know...I just know that it felt nearly impossible. I love the story, love the characters love the scenes, and yet somehow they resisted gelling together, and making everything work took more effort than...well, anything ever?

Maybe it was where I was in my life...putting my house up for sale made things very difficult...going on book tour this summer for book one (while awesome) took my brain power for several weeks, the week of the tour, the week beforehand, resting up the week afterwards...maybe I spent too much time clicking on reviews for book one. Oh, maybe choosing a new house, going through the mortgage process, changing my kids' schools, and moving all of my stuff, maybe that made it even harder, I don't know?

All I know is that I've come out the other side, I've turned in the second round of revisions, and while I'm sure I have more work to do, I am so proud of book two, and also so glad to have a bit of a reprieve from working on it (though I should be working on a short story in the same world...and I will be as soon as I finish my blog obligations for today :D)

So, tell me about your sequel experiences. Difficult? Easy? Fantastic? Terrible? Wonderful? 

I'll tell you what really got me excited about my sequel...seeing the awesome cover. How about you guys?