Dragons and Steampunk: Too Gimmicky?

I have this idea to do a story with dragons in the Victorian era. A secret "we know dragons are real, but they're all dead now" organization hears about a young child living in a small village China with a strange birthmark (or some other sign on her person) that shows she's a dragon seeker. The child is in danger from the more superstitious people in the village, so one member of the organization offers to take her away and raise her in safety. Years later, the girl starts feeling "the pull" and sets off on a quest to find either a dragon or egg.

The story is still in it's very early stages, but I like the idea. I thought about doing a little bit of steampunk as well. I have this image in my head of the classic steampunk sky ship with a dragon flying nearby. Maybe the ship gets attacked by a dragon, I'm not sure. I could just as easily make it a normal ship and have an aquatic dragon attack (that sounds so much more terrifying, now that I think about it) but again, it's all up in the air.

My problem is that I don't want to shove too much into the story. I don't want it to come across as "it's dragons AND steampunk!" like I'm trying to make the inherent popularity of those two ideas do the work for me. But having different technology than what was actually in the Victorian era could play into it fairly well.

What do you think? Would making it steampunk add something more? Or would it be too much?

 

The steampunk would pull me in, while the dragons would make me go "Meh."

Edited to clarify:

Victorian dragons alone: "Meh."
Victorian steampunk: "Oh."
Victorian dragons plus steampunk: "Ooh."

 

Speaking as a Doctor Who fan who loved the episode "Dinosaurs on a Spaceship," I think you're good

Nothing in fiction writing is ever "don't do this," there is only ever "don't only do this." "Formulaic" doesn't mean "has a basic formula," it means "doesn't have anything except for the basic formula."

What else - in addition to the initial hook of "Steampunk and Dragons" - is going to be unique about your Steampunk and Dragons story?

 

If it's well-written, it's never gimmicky. I even made a thread in Writing Prompts where people pitched the most random premises ever. Example: Hyperintelligent cows who blew up their planet with methane farts and a match escape the explosion via spaceships and travel to a new home. They stumble upon Earth. Don't forget the prequel where the methane caused global warming leading up to the explosion.

Also, the title "Dragons and Steampunk" is what made me click this thread in the first place.

 

Strange, I've usually found dragons are a draw for most people. But there's always an exception. xD

Oh yeah, there's going to be more themes. The main character, the "seeker", is going to come from China, but grow up in London. There will be some undertones of racial prejudice and such as well.

Oh wow, that sounds like an insane premise. xD
Good to know. I just didn't want to be one of those writers that relied on the popular genres to make their job easier.

Well the steampunk technology would be used in fighting the dragons. I mentioned before that I wanted a dragon attacking a sky ship. So they would be using their "advanced" technology to fight an ancient mythical foe.

 

That put an awesome image in my head.

Would they make a steampunk dragon to fight the real ones?

 

You know, I actually was thinking about that. It would be such an epic battle scene.

 

Not to every rule

Good to know

Don't be one of those writers either who disregards genre entirely: David Fincher made a movie starring Morgan Freeman in the 1990s, and the agency built a test audience by using Driving Miss Daisy as an example of a movie that Morgan Freeman had been in.

David Fincher at one point noticed some middle-aged ladies walking out of the test showing and overheard one of them telling her friends "Whoever made that movie should be shot."

Can you guess the agency's mistake?

1) Are dragons in your world beasts or people?

2) Will there eventually be dragons trained/hired to power the airships?

 

A very important distinction. (Though I'd include smart beasts in the category. Smaug and Saphira are dragons who can speak or display human intelligence especially in communication, but otherwise behave as beasts.)

 

Those two actually strike me as "people who act like beasts" more than "beasts who talk like people."

If you're sentient, then in my book you're a person

 

1) They're sentient beings, but treated as monsters. They're coming back from what is essentially a super long hibernation to find all these strange new structures and vehicles they've never seen before, so they're freaked. The people, upon seeing giant flying reptiles, immediately think they're in danger. Think of the line from The Mob Song in Beauty and the Beast: "We don't like what we don't understand, in fact it scares us". The MC, and the small organization she's with, know they're more than monsters. But they have a bitch of a time convincing others. So they're caught in the middle, trying to stop the violence that both sides think is justified. The MC, as a seeker, is the only one that can bridge the communication gap.

2) I hadn't thought of that, but it would be cool to mix dragons and the technology directly. I thought about the MC finding a small cat-sized dragon that's missing a wing or something. They can use the technology to replace the limb, a la Toothless from How to Train Your Dragon. Only in this case, the prosthetic would work on it's own and wouldn't need her constant involvement.

 

I don't know, I think the dragons of Eragon display intelligence in much more than just communication. Saphira threatens to tie Eragon to her back out of worry for him. And she roars as Brom is dying, knowing that's the sound a dragon rider would want as the last thing he heard.

 

... That is beautiful.

Dragon-powered boilers on the outside of the hulls would certainly require less coal that would otherwise weigh the ship down

 

That sounds like an awesome idea, but it would probably be a bit into the story before they were working together enough to do that. xD

 

The supernatural and exotic alone have no interest for me--in fact, I would almost say they repel me. Their interest is when they are contrasted with the ordinary, and viewed by people accustomed to the ordinary. (Edited to add: Or when you can see the contrast with the ordinary in some other way--such as the very ordinary elements of the Mayor in Buffy.) I think that's why I tend to stop reading fantasy series when they're a book or two past the ordinary--when the village boy or girl has been the Big Powerful for more than a book or so, I shrug and move on.

Now, that doesn't actually explain why I need the steampunk--you'd think that Victorian society and dragons would fulfill that contrast nicely. I suspect that the issue is that I am unable to identify with Victorian attitudes, while I expect to find the attitudes in a steampunk setting easier to identify with.

Maybe.

 

I totally understand what you mean. In classic fantasy, the supernatural beings were these incredible "other" things compared to the humans going up against them or even teaming up with them. When you make almost all the characters in the story something magical, then magical is just the new normal. It's like how everyone's always saying we need to have an average joe competing at the Olympics to show just how impressive the athletes really are. Or that line from the Incredibles: "When everyone's super, no one is."

Victorian attitudes were insanely different than what we have now. And they will be playing a part of it in the story. For example, the fact that a Chinese woman can speak in a posh English accent will be an "endless source of amusement" for characters that think of China as "the poor uncivilized Orient". Which was an attitude a lot of people in that era had. In that way, dragons play directly into that. They're something different, something the people can't explain/understand, so they respond like assholes. But steampunk usually comes with a softer, more modern approach to the era. One where people weren't fighting a series of wars so they could keep selling addictive drugs to a poorer country.

 

EDIT:

I am unspoiling my previous comment for now being on-topic
...

Would you ever go in the opposite direction? In the Urban Fantasy series I'm planning, the lead hero of the second book has known about magic her whole life, but the lead villain is able to make her mark on the world (and resist the hero's efforts against her) despite having no idea that magic is real and that the hero can use it.

 

Rule 34.

Yeah, that really sounds like HTYD in steampunk. ^ ^ Or like a more serious version of it.

So, years ago I read the first book of "Temeraire" and since it plays in the early 1800s it settled only a bit earlier than what you are planning.
I liked the setting, and the flavour it gave to the story, at lot.

Markus Heitz has also done it. His "Die Mächte des Feuers" starts in 1925 and mixed WWI weapon technologies and dragons, at least in the third book. I think it could be classified as dieselpunk.

Your story would settle inbetween and I am convinced it would also fit nicely. IMHO steampunk and dragons go together like peaches and cream.

All in all: Go for it!
Tell us what Charles Darwin said when he encountered dragons.

 

That could work, yes. Even if I'm not inside the head of the person who is discovering magic, having that discovery in the landscape might do the job.

 

I like the idea.
Make sure you have a lot off brass, leather, wood and fine mechanics.
(I have done some cosplay photography shoots, and I love steampunk costumes, furniture and props)

I have a very shallow knowledge of steampunk but someone said, think of it as a world where no one invented electricity and there is no plastic.

 

Okay, slightly off topic, but I just thought I'd give you the warning

The moment I read that, the first thought that popped into my head was "white saviour" and it killed me inside

Granted, you didn't explain dragon seekers, so they might just appear randomly in whatever civilization or ethnic culture at any time, but

I heard "superstitious (Oriental) villagers" and pictured these posh, superior, somehow more knowledgeable white men come & save the misunderstood child from her own savage, simple people

I am sure that isn't what you mean at all, but it was how it came across.

Because my first feeling is—it reinforces Victorian era stereotypes of the mystical, superstitious Asians that don't have the good, solid English common sense & rationality

My second feeling—because the Chinese villagers are "superstitious" they'd be more likely to understand the sacred nature or importance of her position or calling.

Also, in China, dragons are benevolent, givers of prosperity, and symbols of nobility and the emperor himself. If ANYONE is going to have a culture to revere or respect dragon seekers, it's the Chinese. It's Western/European culture that tends to make monsters of dragons as creatures to be slain (although really old Japanese stories had evil dragons—the norm reflected Chinese style as time went of benevolent creatures of blessing). I'd be more inclined to believe the Westerners more likely to distrust or attack her from misunderstanding or superstion

So that an English Secret Society has to rescue a poor Chinese girl from the threat of her superstitious village just reads wrong to me on so many levels inherently.

All that said YOU CAN write this story and it not come across this way. All I got was from a sentence or two of quick sum up—so long as you're aware of perceptions & knee jerk reactions like mine, you can make sure to avoid those traps & pitfalls. Perhaps there is more context that paints the whole situation in a different light.

Anyway, I got excited at Victorian Steampunk Dragon. Also at a female Asian protagonist.

＼＼\\٩( 'ω' )و //／／

 

There is an element of racial prejudice on the hand of the British, although the main character's adoptive father does his best to defend her against it. But it is a theme in the story, where some people treat her like a side show just for being a Chinese woman dressed in London fashion.

The reason for the nervous supersition on the hand of the Chinese is that the majority of them don't know what the mark (still to be determined) means. Seekers disappeared when the dragons did, and all anyone has left is stories. The MC also acts strangely (i.e learning to speak long before she should be, rarely laughs, a piercing knowing stare, etc.) which adds to it. I had also intended for more knowledgeable villagers (probably elders) are the ones that inform them in the first place. But I could edit it to say her mother is afraid someone in the village, or a bigger authority, is going to use her and needs her far away to keep her safe and dies later, so the MC just stays with her adoptive father. Like I said, the story is in the early stages. I haven't even started the first draft yet. But it would make sense that an organization all abou dragons would have a working relationship with a culture with so much emphasis on them.

I picked China specifically because they look so well on dragons, so it made sense a Chinese person would be a seeker. The journey she goes on will likely lead back there, either in finding the mini dragon or an egg or something. Maybe she stumbles across the lair of all the sleeping dragons from all over the world and wakes them up, setting the conflict off. ... Actually, I really like that idea.

 

I've never heard of those stories, but I'm glad they're around. I get annoyed with how some mythical creatures are relegated to the same time and places. I've never read a story about werewolves on the Scottish Highlands, for example. And there aren't many stories with non-Santa elves in the 21st century. Or a medieval setting with vampires. I just want to see things shaken up a bit more.

 

Viking Vampires and Techno-Elves. Also paläolithic werewolves.