Alternate history.
The novel that I started for the NaNoWriMo now has 69K words, which is kind of pathetic since I had planned to have 100K by the end of this month. On the other hand I've been working on the alternate timeline that the world takes place in by reading about the Caribbean and pirates. Since the story takes place in the "Age of Steam" I figure it's around 1919. The so-called Age of Pirates, or Couple Decades of Pirates, really, has been over since Port Royal sank into the sea in 1669.
You know, I went through a pirate phase like any other healthy kid, and in all the books I read I don't remember Port Royal, Jamaica, sinking into the sea. According to Empire of Blue Water (admittedly about 1/3 through it, though I skipped to the end to read about the destruction of Port Royal) Captain Morgan was the man and the destruction of Port Royal ended piracy. Also pirates were democratic corporate types whose primary weakness was dysentary. In my youth I swear I've read better books on pirates.
Anyway, I've mostly been editing the royal families and upping the laws on trade in the British Empire from 1700 to 1919 so that you have to get anything you need on the black market, aka from pirates. My pirates are going to be smugglers and the Central Asian warlords of the high seas. Lawyers guns and money. The final product of the timeline, where the novel plot starts, has 2 empires: British and Oriental. (I know it's not politically correct to say Oriental, but it's what the Brits would've said at the time. It's highly improbable that Britain would have successfully annexed France - though they had been trying for years! It's also highly improbable that the Catholic Spanish and angrily post-Cromwell protestant British would have formed such a close alliance in 1700 that by 1919 the Brits are doing all of the governing. ALL OF THE GOVERNING. ALL...Mostly because stereotypes about the Spanish annoy the bejeebers out of me.
Tangent.
You know I had a guy the other day arguing with me about how the Irish are all lazy drunkards? I said what about the Celtic Tiger? He said that their banking system was collapsing NOW. I said it wasn't really their fault and the Celtic Tiger had been flourishing for the better part of a decade. Nobody calls the English or the Germans lazy drunkards and yet there are clear indications that many of them drink and they have people "on the dole." I have yet to hear some one call the Russians "lazy drunkards" and yet they have a clearly documented problem with widespread unemployment and widespread alcoholism. (Ok, the alcoholism I'm sure about and the unemployment numbers I have not checked, but I wasn't about to tell this guy that.)
I have not tackled the technology bits of the timeline. Er, not really. The islands of the Caribbean are going to have more investment dollars from the Royal Navy. Have you heard of Ascension Island? The Royal Navy brought in a whole bunch of non-native species to this island - and yes, usually we hate that. Stink bugs, those wossname fish in the Great Lakes. Mongeese. Those frogs in Austrailia. Anyways, they brought good stuff to this desert island and changed its whole environment so that an island that was basically a brown field before is now covered in rain forest.
It's steampunk, so it has to have airships. Especially for the pirates. Aether cannons? I dunno. Biological warfare, definitely! I was thinking about adding zombies since Haiti is Right THERE and several of my characters are Haitian...but then a lot of steampunk novels have zombies. That was weird when I did a quick survey of it. I mean, you think zombies in a novel only really happen in "Queen Victoria: Demon Hunter" or "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies". Zombie novels. However, "Domino Men" has zombies. "Whitechapel Gods" and "Boneshaker" have zombies. Of course Jules Verne has no zombies...that I'm aware of, since I find the man deadly dull. Steamboy doesn't have zombies, but that's a movie! Might as well say that Batman - oh wait, sometimes Batman has zombies. Anyway, steampunk is such a loose genre that I swear you can totally fit some Batman stories into it. Batman is only a little modern for steampunk. You have Batman up against Rache Al Ghoul or any "We SWEAR He's NOT FU MANCHU!!" lookalike and the line blurs really fast. Ah, "Stress of Her Regard" has ghouls. Sort-of zombies. Vampire addicts, really.
Which reminds me: drugs or no drugs? There wasn't a lot of opium going through the Caribbean in real life but it goes with the genre.
(If you're going to include Jules Verne, why not include Sir Arthur Conan Doyle? Sherlock Holmes fits really well into steampunk if you ask me. Do we have people doing steampunk style Sherlock and Watson? Noooo! We have steampunk Star Wars ALLLL OVER the place though. Way to take something classy (steampunk is classy...usually) and turn it into junk. I like Star Wars. Just saying, Star Wars is a bit over exposed. Wanna re-write the movies steampunk style? That'll never be published anywhere but a web site. Better luck with steampunk Alice in Wonderland. That story's been so mangled over the years...but I digress. Hey, is Wizard of Oz steampunk? IT'S GOT A TIN MAN! Ah, perhaps not gothic enough even with flying monkeys. God I love those monkeys. Don't you just want one of your very own? With a shock collar.)
In the Caribbean there was in 1919...probably...and is..definitely... a LOT of WEED. De sacred herb is not so goffic for dem dark an' goffic types mon. Then again, it was gothic enough for Poppy Z. Brite and you don't get much more gothic than her. Huh, wonder how she'd write steampunk? Prolly with a lot of boy on boy since she's not too strong with the technology side of things. "Pay no attention to my gross inaccuracies about EVERYTHING ELSE! There are pretty boys getting it on over here!!" That's our Poppy.
My characters aren't really the types to go for opium or cannabis. I'm afraid I've made them too boring. Rum though. Maybe can sneak in some absinthe for the gothic side of things. Absinthe is SO French though, and the alt timeline has the French being subjugated by the vengeful Brits.
Uh, anyways. Hypnotism. Um...oh, crystal radios just for the look. Holographic lenses. Hydroponics. Sea turtle farms. Clockwork animals. Clockwork constables. Corsets, tall boots, and stockings that don't slip. Ridiculous hats. Stripes. Outlandish jewelry. Honestly, if you have rappers wearing zoot suits now it would make sense for pirate fashion to be adopted too.
I still say that steampunk is more of a fashion statement than an actual genre. To be a genre you need published materials. We're working on it.