edonil Posted September 30, 2011 Report Share Posted September 30, 2011 You talking about Nanowrimo yesterday...had completely forgot it existed. And then my muse got thinking on it a little as I was going to bed...a few ideas, but nothing that I could turn into 50,000 words, so I let her do her musing, no harm done with that. And then last night, I was reading the rules for Dystopian Wars...and all of a sudden, BOOM! Inspiration. Now I've got an idea for a plot I could work out to 50,000 words if I tried, and it seems to be original/interesting enough to, if I get it written, published...which means I'm going to try to pull that off. (glares at Fell) I blame you... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LonelyPath Posted September 30, 2011 Report Share Posted September 30, 2011 Heya edonil, I'm okay ta. How're you? Chocobo, looking at the DC reboot, does that mean that Bruce Wayne never got replaced by Dick Grayson as Batman? Also, didn't Barbara Gordon die or something? I';m not that clued up on DC, always been more of a Marvel fan (except for Supergirl, heh). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheOneWhoFell Posted September 30, 2011 Report Share Posted September 30, 2011 Babs got shot by the Joker and becomes "oracle".... the information and coordination girll Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LonelyPath Posted September 30, 2011 Report Share Posted September 30, 2011 Thanks Fell Like I said, I'm not clued in on DC history, just a few things here and there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheOneWhoFell Posted September 30, 2011 Report Share Posted September 30, 2011 @edonil: *laughs evilly* You're welcome *Steps into a shadow, steps out of Abs' grinning from ear to ear* Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sliver Chocobo Posted September 30, 2011 Report Share Posted September 30, 2011 Babs got shot by the Joker and becomes "oracle".... the information and coordination girll she's now bat girl again Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheOneWhoFell Posted September 30, 2011 Report Share Posted September 30, 2011 Batman ALL the Way I don't have the income to spend on Comic books anymore... but Christmas is coming, so I might ask for some Novels Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LonelyPath Posted September 30, 2011 Report Share Posted September 30, 2011 I just get The Walking Dead, The Avengers and New Avengers. Those take up my monthly comics budget. Oh, I do also collect the UK Panini reprints since they're cheap £2.95 for 3 of the original issues in each one where individual Marvel costs about £3 a issue on import these days) and the occasional TPB, but that's about it. Fell, for X-mas ask for The Walking Dead - Rise of the Governor. I've read the first bunch of chapters and it's really good Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edonil Posted September 30, 2011 Report Share Posted September 30, 2011 (semi-whine) But I was okay with being a hack writer who'd never get published... Bah. In all honesty, my complaint comes down to I either have to screw with history more than I'd like or come up with a completely new world in order to do the plot idea...steampunk is a wonderful genre, but historical steampunk is fairly locked on nations... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edonil Posted September 30, 2011 Report Share Posted September 30, 2011 Only comic I ever followed was Sonic the Hedgehog...cause it was awesome. Still is, incidentally, once you get past the first 25 issues and it takes over the SatAM story... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheOneWhoFell Posted September 30, 2011 Report Share Posted September 30, 2011 hmmm... you have the EU, Indo/China, NA, Russia... those are your typical groupings for Steampunk... within that, I'm sure you could make some space for your history.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteamHammer Posted September 30, 2011 Report Share Posted September 30, 2011 2 options: either keep the story on a small scale so nations don't come into it. There's always plenty of criminals, corrupt officials and evil doctors to have as baddies. Or pick a point in history you like and just invert your alternate past from then on. That way you don't have to do much world building but get the nations you want. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheOneWhoFell Posted September 30, 2011 Report Share Posted September 30, 2011 of course, the easiest way to alter the history of Earth that is, is to make a giant war between nations that nearly wiped us all out... or something to that effect... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheOneWhoFell Posted September 30, 2011 Report Share Posted September 30, 2011 (in case anyone was wondering: we've had almost 100,000 views on this thread 0_0) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edonil Posted September 30, 2011 Report Share Posted September 30, 2011 Thanks for the advice Steam and Fell. Only problem with doing that is I turn Britain into the bad guys...although that could be interesting considering the number of times they're made the heroes of steampunk... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edonil Posted September 30, 2011 Report Share Posted September 30, 2011 Hadn't thought of wiping everyone out...hm. I think this is going to be one of those things where I'm going to have to do a balancing act of my instinctive avoidance of other people's ideas and integrating them in... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LonelyPath Posted September 30, 2011 Report Share Posted September 30, 2011 edonil, go for creating your own world! \or do something along the lines of what a friend of mine did for his steampunk anti-grav ship game. Take real history up to a certain point, then have it all change from there on, that way even though you have the set nations, you can change key figures and rewrite history from that point on. What if during some steam machine demonstration it exploded and killed Victoria only a few years after she ascented to the British throne? Or how about some scientist in the South managed to invent machines that turned the war so that the outcome of the American Civil War was very different? Maybe China, using stolen European technology built mammoth engines of war and built the Great Asian Empire that now envelops half of the world? Whilst they struggle to maintain control and dominance, other countries are banding together to overthrow them and restore the natural order of things (of course the Brits are thinking about rebuilding their Empire again once the dust settles and take advantage of the chaos). Or, maybe Lovecraft's writings come to life in a steampunk stting and the Old Ones possess these engines and start to lay waste to the Earth? Actually, a couple of those ideas might be pretty fun Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteamHammer Posted September 30, 2011 Report Share Posted September 30, 2011 We're always the bad guys (curse you Hollywood) so we're used to it. Maybe I should grow a moustache in November so I can twirl it menacingly to inspire you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheOneWhoFell Posted September 30, 2011 Report Share Posted September 30, 2011 "The year was 18--. The war had just ended, with the Brits the obvious winners. With their financing and technology, it was inevitable. Most of North America was decimated in the bombings, but some small pockets of survivors began popping up in the midwest. [paragraph] James lived in Boston during the war, and fled to western PA to escape the worst of the attacks; while there he was pressganged into working in the coal mines..." Doesn't have to be a lot... just a short intro explaining the state of the world... flesh it out in Character Conversations... Conversations are a GREAT way to up your word count... 0_0 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheOneWhoFell Posted September 30, 2011 Report Share Posted September 30, 2011 @Steam: AWESOME! But only if you post pics of you twirling your 'stache evilly Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edonil Posted September 30, 2011 Report Share Posted September 30, 2011 Apparently you and I aren't reading the same books, Steamhammer...I can think of a ton of psuedo-Britains right now, and none of them the antagonists, lol. Thanks for the advice everyone. I've got a month off before I can really start anything (well, per the rules...I'm probably going to do a three page write up to see if I'm really interested in it) so I might work on some world building techniques. Never was any good at it anyway, should probably work on strengthening that weakness... Well, that was fun! Haven't had a group brainstorm chat in years...anyone else got any ideas they're working on? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edonil Posted September 30, 2011 Report Share Posted September 30, 2011 "The year was 18--. The war had just ended, with the Brits the obvious winners. With their financing and technology, it was inevitable. Most of North America was decimated in the bombings, but some small pockets of survivors began popping up in the midwest. [paragraph] James lived in Boston during the war, and fled to western PA to escape the worst of the attacks; while there he was pressganged into working in the coal mines..." Doesn't have to be a lot... just a short intro explaining the state of the world... flesh it out in Character Conversations... Conversations are a GREAT way to up your word count... 0_0 I love conversations...increase word count, great ways to develop characters and diversify them, and quick ways to advance plot. I probably use conversations more than anything else to move things along, as evidenced in Bloodforged... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteamHammer Posted September 30, 2011 Report Share Posted September 30, 2011 +1 for conversations (from a reading point of view at least). Nothing puts me off more than your Tolkienesque 1000 word textbook descriptions going into minute detail. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edonil Posted September 30, 2011 Report Share Posted September 30, 2011 Yeah...there's a reason my stories tend to be description light...I used to rival Robert Jordan for describing a setting...not only was it boring to read, but holy crap was it boring to write Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LonelyPath Posted September 30, 2011 Report Share Posted September 30, 2011 Hmm... more ideas eh? People are infused with steampunk technology to stave off a pandemic that is slaughtering the human race, these machine help keep the key organs and internal body systems required to keep a person alive (circulatory, respiratory and digestive for instance). Slowly these machines begin to break down and with the loss of the inventors (they succumbed to the plague) there is little hope in replicating the technology. As the story goes on it's more about the plight of humanity facing its final hours as more and more people die and the dread of hopelessness tightens its grip on those still alive. Oh, why did the inventors die? They were the only people that really understood the technology and had to oversee every operation that had someone fitted with the devices. In the end it was to late for them to save themselves, even after teaching others enough to fit the machines (though not enough to sustain or maintain them indefinitely and certainly not enough for them to replicate the tech). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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