Recently someone asked me why I chose for my 'Legacy of Abigail' series, a Steampunk setting rather than, as they stated it, a more conventional setting. I suppose by "conventional" they meant the typical contemporary, even urban, setting. After all, are not most popular novels, including those making the best seller lists, urban and contemporary? I suppose for that individual, that's expected of novels, even those the person prefers to read. That's what it's all about, isn't it? What do readers prefer to read?
Choice is also going to be about what an author prefers. As authors, we assume that there are others, readers, who just happen to like the setting we put our stories into. I suppose there are - actually, I'm sure of it - authors who simply write what they have determined what the typical reader of their genre prefer. I can't do that. I am not interested in reading contemporary fiction. Crime dramas, murder mysteries, corporate drama, and the like, none of those fall within my preferred personal reading taste. I am not opposed to those styles, settings or genres. They simply do not interest me. And as an author, I cannot write something that does not interest me.
But for the settings for my novels, I could have chosen any number of types. I could have created the story within a contemporary setting. But as I said before, I am not interested in contemporary fiction. I could have made it into a western. Or a Medieval world. Or a Fantasy. Or even perhaps Science Fiction. Or any number of other possibilities. With the appropriate planning of the story layout, I think it would have worked in other styles and settings as well. Of course it would have to be entirely different story. The basic plot could remain as it is, but otherwise, nothing within the books would be the same.
When I set out to write the story, which was in the beginning, simply going to be one book, I had one criteria I was going to follow. I was responding to the suggestion from several people that I should write a book telling the story of Patsy's and my widowhood, and our individual desire to find love again after our loss, and how that led to our finding each other. And our falling in love, marrying and beginning a new life together. I did not want to write the story in memoir form. Nor in any biographical form. I wanted to write it as a work of fiction. I did not want to make the story directly about us. But within the story, which would be the story of two fictional people, our story would live.
Had I wished to make the story live within a contemporary setting, I would have had to create a fictional location. To place the story of two people, even fictional people each described in a way entirely different from us, to have set it in the location she and I lived at the time would have been something of a dead giveaway. Readers, especially those who knew us, would easy guess who the story was about. Thus it was important to avoid any local representation entirely.
But why Steampunk? I'm not sure I can even recall the thoughts which came to me which said that was the setting to use. I have had a curiosity about the sub-genre of science fiction which Steampunk is for some time and when the idea came to me to use that form, I simply answered, "why not?"
Once the novel was underway, my choice was validated. It was the right choice and even as the story expand into the following sequels, that choice of setting continued to make sense.
One point on my other novels. Those which are not a part of the series. Although the setting for these stories is not Steampunk, there are similarities. Although there is no hard indication of the actual setting, these two stories, 'Mister Weatherspoon's Unfortunate Clock,' and 'Miss Penny's Wedding Dress,' closely fits into the Victorian or post Victorian era. Perhaps into the Edwardian era.
Dan Dooley