A pitch to the aether 04jan23

©2023 michael raven

Genre: weird pulp w/elements of gaslamp, dieselpunk and/or teslapunk with a hint of grimdark

Proposed: a series of short stories with an over-arcing cross-story plot related to a secret society of occultists who are seeking to quell incursions of cryptids. Nemesis organization has opposite goal, seeing these invasions as a chance to make radical change needed to “save the world from itself”.

Location/Milieu: as above, circa late-19th century alternate Americas; NW Coast and surrounding areas (from San Francisco to Juneau to Bozeman). Streets and skid row to neo-aristocracy (e.g., emergent lumber barons).

I feel a bout of infodumping (probably TMI) itching in me noggin as I ponder which of my many fiction threads to pursue. This is modified from a concept I developed in 2015 or 2016, originally planned for an Old World analogue, but I think works as well either in the Pacific NW or Great Lakes area (although my internal leanings are more towards the NW). One pitfall might be is that I could easily get too clever for my own good and end up campy or disastrous with my plot lines. One positive is embracing the concept of short-fiction with a narrative arc over the novel format — embracing that approach allows for more flexibility and compartmentation of the overall story elements. It may allow me to pull in related ideas from other stories I’ve started or plotted, as each story can be a different facet of the world, as long as it is internally consistent.

Moving forward, I may just toss out the occasional pitch on the off-chance it triggers something for me, or for someone else. No overthinking — just a blood spatter of an idea tossed onto the wall to see if it sticks.