A Steampunk Tale

A Fiverr Project

This is a Fiverr.com collaborative project. Each of the image, each of the characters, and each of the stories is a Fiverr gig. You can join this project by searching for the request, "leave your mark by writing a Steampunk story ..." and replying to the request.

International Steampunk

There are several goals for the project:

To create an anthology of Steampunk stories
To create a virtual team of artists and authors who can work together to create something greater than its parts
To have a collection of interrelated stories that will create a sense of whole out of individual pieces
To take Steampunk out of the boarders of Europe, creating an international feel
To create a major project from a collection of $5 gigs
To have fun
To make connections that can lead to future projects

Status

Job	In-work	Complete	Needed
Drawings	0	23	0
Characters	2	21	0
Pitches	0	2	30+
Stories	0	0	30+

How the project works:

A variety of artists will be commissioned to create original drawings of International Steampunk Characters. These drawings will act as the catalyst for the project. Each drawing will include both a black & white line drawing and a color drawing. The drawings will include both "heroes" and potential villains. Artists will be paid 3 gigs for each character; 1 for the line art and an additional 2 for the color version.

Authors will claim one of the drawings as their hero on a first come basis. The author will create characters based on their selected drawing – adding in details such as description, history, desires, and fears. Once completed, these descriptions will be posted on this site for all the authors to view. The author will be paid 1 gig for their character description. If an author has a character in mind that does not work with any of the existing drawings, they can request a new one be created and supply the details.

Once the characters are all claimed and described, each author will review the available cast and create a one or two line pitch for the story they want to write. The story will feature their character, and are encouraged to include other characters from the cast with the understanding they will honor the description provided by the other authors. The pitch can also include one of the unclaimed characters as a villain, for which the author will be paid 1 gig to define, or can include one of the villains already defined.

As the pitches are approved, one at a time, authors will write a short stories, 1500 to 2000 words each, based on their approved pitches. They will be told where in the sequence of stories their story will be and what other stories are using the same characters their story is using. After reviewing the already written stories and the pitches that interact with their story, on a private website, they will submit an updated pitch and then be paid 4 gigs to write the story.

Once the stories are written, artists will be commissioned to create images based on the original drawings and the stories as black & white line art. These will be merged with the stories in the final book. The artists will be paid 2 gigs for each drawing.

Finally, one artist will be commissioned to create an image for the cover of the book as a color image with input from the project lead who will provide the text for the cover. The artist will be paid 4 gigs for the cover art.

All art and text will become the property of A Good Tale, who will publish the book. All contributers will be entitled to buy copies of the book at cost plus shipping and handling, but are not required to. All contributers will be listed in the book.

Drawings

The artist supply an image as a pen and ink, and as full color drawing. One artist may supply more than one drawing. The image can be a busts, 3/4, and full body image. The images as a whole are intended to communicate the following:

Diversity and national pride
The excitement of discovery
The individual artist's feel
A variety of occupations i.e. not all aviators

With the collection of drawings already submitted to the project, future drawings should have a villain feel to them.

If you are interested in doing a drawing, provide a couple line description of your idea. How is it different than the ones already here. What nationality.

Drawings will be created at 300 dpi and designed to fit in a 2.757" circle with bleed lines. The linked template should be used to create the image and it will be delivered as a Photoshop .psd file. The template shows image (green), edge (blue) and bleed (black) lines. The detail of the image should be within the green line and the image background should extend to he black line.

Character 14 below is a good example of the desired color drawing.

Characters

When creating a character for a drawing, the author will fill out the following template. All of the items do not have to be filled out, but the more information that is provided, the easier it will be for other authors to work with the character. The description should be more than 250 words in length. This template is 40 words.

Character number:
Name:
Nick Name:
Gender:
Age:
Nationality:
Ethnicity / Race:
Religion / Beliefs:
Physical description:
Occupation:
Goals:
Desires:
Fears:
Background:
History:
Famous for:
Setup for story (things other stories can foreshadow)
How the character might grow through the story
Other useful information:
Stories

Each story will be a stand alone story, containing at least a main character, a location, a problem, an obstacle, and a resolution to the problem. Authors may sign up for more than one story, and have the stories deal with a larger problem, but each story must still be stand alone. Each story will be 1500 to 2000words in length. It is encouraged that a story references details in previous stories, which can reduce the word count in the current story by invoking history. As stories are written, they can also foreshadow problems that will occur in future (already written) stories or details listed in completed character descriptions. Authors are allowed (encouraged) to use other author's character in their stories as support characters as long as the respect the other author's description and intent.

As with the drawings described, there are several goals for the stories as an overall collection: