Let me talk about a dirty secret many fantasy or sci-fi writers hide at times.

We’re gamers.

Well, some of us are. Or have been. And we have the bruises to prove it. We bleed inside because of it and oh how we whisper about our battles in the cold aisles of a gaming store when no one else is around.

Not slap a cartridge into an old console or slide a disk into a game system. No, I’m talking about the kind of gamer that sits in the dark and dreams of dungeons and monsters that go rawr in the night. The gamer who owns their weight in dice and knows the frustration of having to use a crayon to get a contrasting wax into the engraved numbers of an old D20 whose paint has worn off. Where a gaming marathon runs an entire weekend and by Noon Sunday, the body can’t take any more Mountain Dew and you’re peeing a violent green most people only get when they OD on B12.

The gamer who can rattle off Method V in their sleep or moans about the loss of THAC0 and screams about how Magic the Gathering is like the Twitter of the gaming world, thus ruining gaming forever because it all is boiled down to a piece of cardboard and a Black Lotus.

That kind of gamer.

In the thick layers of tabletop gaming, there is a thin strata of steampunk but oh it is a rich vein. I suppose you could toss in Lovecraft into the mix and call it a dash of ichors and gold but there’s always an argument whether or not the Elder Gods aren’t firmly entrenched into the horror swamp.

But that is neither here nor there or elsewhere. More to the point, gaming provides a kind of a background in “get out of shit” skills a writer really needs when constructing a story. When constructing a steampunk story, this is key because if you’ve ever wondered what you can actually do with rotating gears and a magical energy source, it was on the fly and something huge and vicious was coming to chomp down on your character’s head.

If you’ve never played AD&D or any other pen and paper gaming system, there comes a time when you break loose of the packaged modules sold in gaming stores and venture out into making your own little world. Some gaming groups are hardcore and continue for decades while others fade off after a few times. Sometimes even once. The most successful gaming groups take into account the fairness of the game and the players’ experience—and it should be a positive experience.

The person creating the world —and then the adventure their players will go on —needs to have several cardinal rules. The first and second are; don’t take yourself too seriously and lose any ego you might have. Your players aren’t going to do what you expect and don’t try to herd them with cattle prods. No one likes that. I would say the same kind of rule applies to writing. Yes, create a vibrant and interesting world but don’t expect to follow this linear path from Point A to Point B. The mind hates a straight line and even if you’re the one who made the world, your brain’s going to fuck with you.

Because the brain is the ultimate player behaving badly.

Which is why—when you are a writer—it’s best not to fight your brain on everything. Choose your battles. Especially where steampunk is concerned. I chose to create a world that could have been with just a few alterations of history and well, the presence of magic. These were important elements because it allowed me to have a British Empire that stretched out to California, giving me a wealth of cultures and also a sustainable energy source to fuel the imagination and machines my inventor, Robin, could build.

Always give your inventors a way to get energy. Coal and wood burning does not fuel a thing for very long. Just saying.

Now, that’s something I picked up through gaming. Gaming allows the mind to come up with workarounds for very logical problems. How am I going to move that behemoth of a zeppelin? Will it catch on fire? How is it powered? How long of a trip can it make before refueling? And why would someone use one?

All of these questions come into play in steampunk if you’re writing about the logic of the world you’ve built. For the reader, these things have to make sense. You can only explain so much away with magic before they call shenanigans.

I call shenanigans a lot in my own writing. Really. Because there has to be checks and balances.

Gaming teaches that. A good system teaches that. And oh, if you’ve ever played a game against a really skilled storyteller, your imagination and wits are taken out for an ass beating you come back for time and time again.

And so will a reader who is left wondering; why does the penguin only have one eye and how did it get a laser on its head? Always explain the lasers. But leave them wondering about the penguin.

Enter the Rhys Ford Giveaway!

Leave a comment below of what mechanical or tech device you’d have liked to have when you were a kid and be entered to win  a copy of any book from Rhys’ backlist.

Contest ends Feb 26th at 8 am.

Clockwork Tangerine Blurb

The British Empire reigns supreme, and its young Queen Victoria has expanded her realm to St. Francisco, a bustling city of English lords and Chinese ghettos. St. Francisco is a jewel in the Empire’s crown and as deeply embroiled in the conflict between the Arcane and Science as its sister city, London—a very dark and dangerous battle.

Marcus Stenhill, Viscount of Westwood, stumbles upon that darkness when he encounters a pack of young bloods beating a man senseless. Westwood’s duty and honor demand he save the man, but he’s taken aback to discover the man is Robin Harris, a handsome young inventor indirectly responsible for the death of Marcus’s father.

Living in the shadows following a failed coup, Robin devotes his life to easing others’ pain, even though his creations are considered mechanical abominations of magicks and science. Branded a deviant and a murderer, Robin expects the viscount to run as far as he can—and is amazed when Marcus reaches for him instead.

Preorder Clockwork Tangerine at: http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=4718

I’m Rhys Ford. I am an author and also a reader. You can find me at the following places:

My Blog: www.rhysford.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rhys.ford.author

Twitter: @Rhys_Ford

And at the Starbucks down the street. No really, they’re 24/7. And a drive-thru. It’s like heaven.

My books can be purchased, folded and first chapters read at Dreamspinner Press. http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com