Mormon Steampunk: Put Your Shoulder to the Wheel

Guest post by John M. Olsen

It was a pleasant surprise to see Mormon Steampunk was more popular than I’d guessed. It all started when Dave Butler and James Wymore thought it would be fun to put a collection together after the success of Butler’s book City of the Saints. The call for stories went out and they found themselves buried in submissions. The one volume turned into three and they asked me to edit the second volume.

Each volume is named after a song. The first, All Made of Hinges, is a song designed to get the wiggles out of Primary children, but the appeal as a steampunk title was too good to pass up. I didn’t remember it, but my wife has spent enough time teaching small children at church that she remembered the tune.

When it came time to name my volume, I considered the submitted stories and how they played into the pioneer spirit and the work ethic of early settlers. The commonalities between the steampunk can-do spirit and the ability of pioneers to innovate and build in the barren west spoke to me on a personal level, and Put Your Shoulder to the Wheel carried that same theme. I love stories about ordinary people doing extraordinary things through grit and determination.

Early in the life of the Steampunk movement, some wanted it to be a dark, dreary thing with equal measures of dirt and despair more reminiscent of cyberpunk. I consider it a huge win that people piled onto steampunk with a much lighter feel incorporating Victorian dress and manners, and giving the genre an uplifting feel where clever people make the world a better place through fantastical inventions. I blame cosplayers and their elaborate costumes for bringing a nobler feel to the genre. I’ve been known to dress up in a bowler hat and goggles at events as well, donning a tuxedo or a nice vest along with a shiny mechanical spider perched on my shoulder.

I used that bright outlook of the genre as I chose which stories would make the cut and enter into the editing process. Those rejections were the hardest part of the whole process. I don’t like having to tell people they didn’t make the cut, yet that’s part of the process. With my final list in hand, I worked with everything from a first-timer with no prior sales to an officially recognized grand master storyteller with decades of experience. Some people are easy to work with because they’re used to the process, while others do well because of their enthusiasm.

After editing, I had a small dilemma. Have you ever considered why stories appear in a given order in anthologies? I hadn’t given it much thought until I found myself needing to assemble the polished short stories into an actual book. Despite having done edit passes on several novels besides my own, this was my first shot as editor of a collection. There’s a bit of magic to arranging things so you don’t have too many long stories together or similar themes next to each other. Just like the ebb and flow within a novel, you want to vary the pace and feel from story to story. Sure, they were all steampunk, but there were stories of relationships and remembrance to mix in with gunfights and mysteries.

In the end I decided that the two most humorous pieces would fit at the front and back as bookends to frame the rest of the stories. Soon I had everything arranged, and off it went to the publisher.

Once the book came out, I did all the new-editor things, which are a lot like the new-author things. I watched the rankings on Amazon as people found this new and unusual book and pushed it up the rankings. There’s great satisfaction in seeing others enjoy something I’ve helped to create. That’s something I’ve discovered about my hobbies. I like to build and fix things. Editing an anthology was satisfying in both respects as I helped authors fix and enhance their stories, and then built the collection from a collection of parts.

It only dawned on me later that I’d taken the theme I love so much of ordinary people doing extraordinary things, and I’d done exactly that. I’d helped a dozen authors to create something new and interesting by combining their efforts into a greater whole. In the process, I’d also helped to promote several authors and launch an enthusiastic beginner. You might think to yourself, “It’s just a book.” You would be right, but you would also be missing out the potential power of the written word. I hope you’ll allow me to consider the process of creating books to be a thing of beauty and hope rather than a mechanical process merely adding one more thing to Amazon’s endless lists.

Some say that anthologies and short stories never pay enough to be worth the effort, but that only takes one aspect of success into account. Every author has good reasons to write short fiction. Some write to experiment with new ideas. Others write to promote themselves or to give a boost to others. Whatever the reasons, both authors and readers reap the rewards.

I’ve been happy to help with this Mormon Steampunk project where the task itself followed the principles of work and creativity seen in the genre. It took a lot of effort but the end result is something that will hold a special place in my heart. I hope it can find a place in the heart of others as well. I think it went well enough that you can expect more from me in the future.

Stories in Put Your Shoulder to the Wheel:

Scott William Taylor, “Goat in the Machine”
Angie Taylor, “A Reckoning in the Night”
Megan Rupp, “Rachel’s Prayer”
Scott E. Tarbet, “Sister Sorenson and the Mechanical Man”
Finlay Lofthouse, “The Shop of the Clockwork Master”
Christopher Baxter, “Blackhand”
Bryce Moore, “An Incident at Oak Creek”
D. J. Moore, “The Miracle of the Gulls”
Mindie Erb, “Solids Don’t Evaporate”
Heidi Wessman Kneale, “Many Hands”
Kurt F. Kammeyer, “By Ailad’s Bootstraps”
Kim May, “Painted Ghosts”
Judith and Michael Collings, “Dame Ginny McLaserbeam and the Dastardly Duke”

Amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/Shoulder-Wheel-Mormon-Steampunk-Anthology-ebook/dp/B07MZTPZZR/

John M. Olsen edits and writes speculative fiction across multiple genres, and loves stories about ordinary people stepping up to do extraordinary things. He hopes to entertain and inspire others with his award-winning stories as he passes his passion on to the next generation of avid readers.

As the President-Elect of the League of Utah Writers, he encourages others at every opportunity and hopes to see the local community produce many more great authors.

He loves to create and fix things, whether editing or writing novels or short stories or working in his secret lair equipped with dangerous power tools. In all cases, he applies engineering principles and processes to the task at hand, often in unpredictable ways. He usually prefers “Renaissance Man” to “Mad Scientist” as a goal and aesthetic.

He lives in Utah with his lovely wife and a variable number of mostly grown children and a constantly hanging subset of extended family.