Pride and Sensibility - starting a new book

It's that time again.  Everything is new once more, fresh, unexplored.

Terrifying.

While the outline for Book 3 of The Sleepwar Saga marinates (it will be called "Shadow Cabinet", by the way) a new project begins.  Something I plan to write a swift first draft of before getting back to my main series.

"Cogs & Cognizance".  A regency-era tale inspired by Jane Austen, but set in a clockpunk England, with themes taken as much from Philip K Dick as from Austen.

And, as usual, I have no idea what I'm doing...

I want to get this written (a quick initial draft that will let me see the broad outlines of what this story is) to take it from the forefront of my brain while I get back to The Sleepwar Saga.  But I have difficulty writing without a solid outline.

And I mean solid.  I generally need to know exactly what will comprise each and every scene in the book before I begin writing.  This time, however, it's not working out that way.

Why?  I'm having trouble getting a sense of the thing from my notes.  Getting the (yes, you anticipated it:) sensibility.

How does it work?  Not just "what happens" but does the general form of the thing even function?

My pride generally will not let me waste time and words typing out a terrible first draft.  I have no interest in producing something so bad that it needs by and large tossing on the scrap heap.  And yet, that may be what happens here.

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Because I can't tell.  I honestly can't tell from this outline, these copious notes, what the story even feels like.

I want it to be a fun adventure with the two leads (Hattie and Mr Somersby) on the trail of a series of attacks targeting local manufacturing agencies - a field which both of them are invested in for hugely different reasons.  I want to have a blast with the clockpunk sensibilities of this world, to explore the society these advances have shaped, and the moralities such things bring up.

And yet, this is all structured around a Jane Austen-style heroine who is endeavoring to escape her mother's wishes for Hattie to marry into money before the family's dwindling fortune ultimately expires.  About a fumbling romance between her and her mother's prospect for her - the dashing but arrogant Jack Somersby.

There must be clashes over the arranged suit.  There must be twists in how certain characters' moralities are perceived.  Balls filled with dancing, sisters with opposing viewpoints, societal norms both accepted and undercut.

And all this with a science-fiction adventure plot happening throughout.

Can such a thing even function?  Looking at the outline it seems just fine.  But how much do those elements actually play against one another?  Can either be truly successful while vying for attention from both the writer and the reader?

In my opinion, the book "Pride & Prejudice & Zombies" utterly failed.  What should have been a triumph was a disgusting and offensive disaster.  But why?  Because the two elements simply could not co-exist?

Noooo, I don't think so.  Or, I hope not.  Largely it appeared to falter because Seth Grahame-Smith had no intention of honoring Jane Austen's style and character sensibilities throughout his additions to the text.  Lizzie would swing from being a young woman forced to abide by society's strictures to someone who casually slaughters her opponent in a sparring match and eats the man's heart raw in front of his employer!

It was sick, inconsistent, and appalling.

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Along these lines, then, how much ought I to ape an Austen style?  For my first draft, at least, I don't intend to.  I shall remain somewhat old-fashioned and formal in my prose, and have characters inspired by the archetypes she would draw from, but will not attempt a strict pastiche.

I'm no Jane Austen, for one.  For two, I am not at all certain how well a strictly regency-era tone to the text would marry with a rollicking science-fiction adventure story.

In the rewrites, we will see.  From beta readers I will likely hear more on this.  Now?  I shall stick with a style not unlike what I attempted in my Victorian pulp SF series "The Star Travels of Dr Jeremiah Fothering-Smythe".

Yes, there's a century-odd difference in era.  But my point is that I didn't quite go full-on pastiche there.  I semi-adopted the tone of the era while embracing the fast-paced style of slightly more modern pulp such as my beloved Flash Gordon serials starring Buster Crabbe.

In the same way, I hope to adopt a general Jane Austen-like manner while prejudicing myself toward a more light and modern grammar and flow of prose.

A balancing act.  That's what all of this is.  And one I cannot entirely comprehend without getting out there and just... doing it.

Or, you guys could talk me out of it.  I could do with a little... persuasion.

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