First Story: Complete

Finished the first short story earlier today. Took me about two and a half days to complete it, and it clocks in at about 7,800 words.

I'm not really sure how I feel about this one. It took me longer than I would have liked, ended at a longer length than I would have liked, and all around was more difficult to write than I would have liked.

That being said, I'm still excited about the world that this story comes from. It's what I like to describe as a clockpunk western. It takes the feeling of isolation and lawlessness from frontier American life, and mixes it with the crazy inventions that rise out of the Steampunk genre, without relying on too much of the fantastical magic.



As you might imagine, this makes the world difficult to pin down, genre-wise, and thus makes it difficult to write.

Is it western? Sort of, but I don't know how to write that, as I'm not a big reader of the genre.

Is it steampunk? Sort of, but it lacks a lot of the Victorian aesthetic and over-the-top contraptions that I associate with the genre.

Is it historical fiction? Sort of, but it's also alternate universe, and I don't know the time period very well.

Is it fantasy? Sort of, but the fantasy elements don't enter into it very often (fantasy-lite, I guess).

Is it SF? Sort of, because I'm trying to make the technology plausible.

I could go on, but I think I've gotten my point across. I think I definitely need to do some more research and world-building before the stories are ready, but I'm going to keep writing just to try and find some characters and storylines, and then let my alpha readers decide if the project is worth fixing up and continuing beyond this first week of stories.

For now, though, I've got more stories to write, and some papers to research for.

Sigh. Busy, busy, busy.

Until next time...
-josh k.

First Story Stats
Title: "The Clockworker of Red Valley Settlement"
Genre: Historical fantasy.
Length: 7,813 words / ~27 pages.
Premise: Richard, a clocksmith, is the only one who can help the sheriff save five trapped miners.