Sanctum Writing Guide How To Write Punk-Genre Stories

What Defines the Punk Genre?

The punk genres of fiction take place in either a speculative future or alternate past where technological advancements have led to major class disparities. Stories in these genres focus strongly on anti-corporate and/or anti-authoritarian sentiments while highlighting the importance of personal freedom. Punk characters and their stories explore the struggles, anxieties, and problems plaguing society through fantastical means as facilitated (or hampered) by the technology of the world. The nature and definitions of personhood and identity are also common themes in punk-genre stories. Plots tend to be dark in nature, heavily political, and may draw inspiration from the science noir genre.

If you have an itch to explore modern, historical, or theoretical future quandaries brought about by the flaws of society, the punk genre provides an excellent canvas. Of all the fiction genres, this one is probably the least accommodating of slice-of-life inserts, but that doesn't mean there aren't personal moments to be had between characters. Stories in the punk genres are often fast-paced and action-heavy, and the themes consistently lean more toward the mature side of the scale. Tenebrous settings, pervasive tension, and heavy themes do set the stage well for optional X-rated content.

Whether you're intrigued by what makes punk stories tick or looking to plug in a plot of your own, this guide will help you better understand what sort of settings you can choose to play in and how to make your own stories within them. By comparing the similarities and differences between different subgenres, you can hopefully gain a better understanding of what it means to write a punk story, and, by the time you reach the plug-n-play table, you may already have an idea of what kind of story you'd like to tell (or read).

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Subgenres

We've selected the top four most prevalent forms of punk to pick apart for this how-to guide. It is not, by any means, intended to be a comprehensive list of all the punk subtypes. Atompunk, dieselpunk, bronzepunk, and stonepunk are all additional subgenres that are not mentioned here. Some of the alternative punk subtypes exist primarily in artwork rather than as a proper story format (solarpunk, for example), but if other eras or technology levels appeal to you, there's nothing to say that you can't craft your own punk stories in a different world or a different time.

Cyberpunk

Possibly the most readily available example of the punk genre available these days, cyberpunk stories are set in a dystopian speculative future where advanced computer technology has become ubiquitous. These stories often feature strong themes of transhumanism (the belief that the human race can be improved beyond natural means through scientific alteration and hybridizing with computer technology) and highlight the combination of "lowlife and high tech." If you're a fan of stories set in seedy, high-tech urban underbellies, themes of corporate espionage, or tales of rebellion from beneath the boots of those on the top, this may be the subgenre for you. If you like seeing your characters fail with spectacular consequences or if you like writing martyrs, this also may be the subgenre for you.

Examples of cyberpunk are not difficult to come by. Netflix's Altered Carbon, as well as the Takeshi Kovac book series by Richard K. Morgan, off of which the show is based, is an excellent example. The video game, Cyberpunk 2077, is also an accessible example. You may also want to check out Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash, Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game, and what is widely considered to be the very first cyberpunk book, Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? By Philip K. Dick. All of these stories throw technology under the microscope to explore how it has been a detriment to society, largely landing the world in a dystopian state through its abuse.

Cyberpunk stories can start just about anywhere and go down any number of routes to their conclusion, but to get you started, consider this prompt: The human brain is capable of processing information at a phenomenally fast rate when it isn't limited by the lazy relay of information from our external senses. A few decades ago, advances in neural integration technology allowed people to shed their lethargic physical forms and enter a virtual world where they could live their lives on fast-forward, collecting a year's worth of experiences in only a week of real-world time. As the technology spread and more people plugged into The Circuit, the human race developed at an ever-increasing rate. People "lived" for centuries, and computer technology catapulted forward. Every system, no matter how tight, will inevitably be exploited. Enter the Circuit Breakers, a collaborative body of mental hackers working to pull the plug and return people to the waking world and see the horrifying reality their decades of unwitting servitude have created.

Biopunk

High or low-tech, biopunk is a derivative genre of cyberpunk that focuses on the abuse of biotechnology and its implications for society. Biotechnology is the application of science through organic means. In the scope of biopunk, biotechnology often comes in the form of synthesized life, bioengineering of existing life, and their effect on people. Biopunk stories tend to lean hard into dystopian themes and may be used to comment on human nature instead of social hierarchies and the struggles they facilitate.

Examples of biopunk works include the original Bioshock game, Michael Crichton's Next, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, the movie Blade Runner (which is an adaptation of Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep), and the Netflix series Orphan Black. These works all tell stories set against the backdrop of a world where science is used to tinker with biology in extreme ways, resulting in unexpected or unwanted creations that then drive the plot.

Eugenics is a subject that lends itself well to the biopunk subgenre. We'll run with that premise for this writing prompt: Productivity makes the world go round, and with industry running the planet, CEOs effectively dictate the lives of the human race. In an effort to boost productivity, they began human engineering programs to create the best possible workers. Companies sponsored neighborhoods, provided meal plans, and built a society in which to house their perfect workers. Crafted and bred to be the best they could possibly be at their respective jobs and trained from birth to excel in their fields, society functioned as the perfect human machine. Part of the educational program exists to maintain the illusion that nothing is amiss and that this is how society had always been, but your character struggles to believe that. How do you navigate a world that, with every passing day, reveals itself to be a more and more unnatural scheme?

Steampunk

Right up there in popularity with cyberpunk, steampunk is an incredibly popular subgenre, particularly as a fashion style. Visually and literally, steampunk features retrofuturistic technologies and fashions inspired by 19th-century steam-powered machinery. Specifically, many of these stories are set in Victorian-era England, but that is by no means a requirement. Tales of worker revolts, the underserved masses, and little people making big waves are common in the steampunk subgenre. If you're interested in writing a story that revolves around bringing those at the bottom up against the few at the top in a low(er)-tech, fanciful world that leans more on the shoulders of science fantasy than science fiction, steampunk might be the subgenre you've been looking for.

If you're looking for examples of steampunk fashion, you won't have a hard time finding it. Googling the term on its own brings up a slew of relevant image hits, and going to a costume store around Halloween time will provide much the same experience. A large sampling of early science fiction falls into the steampunk genre by nature of the time of its creation (before the digital era). Many of H. P. Lovecraft's works, Kevin J. Anderson and Neil Peart's Clockwork Angels (also a progressive rock album of the same name by the band Rush), and Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials series are literary examples of the subgenre that use the backdrop of steam-powered technology to set the tone of a divided society and define the struggle of the individual. Some critics of the genre also consider the popular manga and anime series, Fullmetal Alchemist and its offshoot versions to also be an example of steampunk

If you're struggling to get your gears turning on a steampunk plot, try this on for size: The wealthy own the factories, the working class runs those factories, and society's deviants and criminals work the Basement. The overcity yawns and screams with the constant grind of "progress," but underneath her roots, New Cheiropolis' belly groans and burns with the fires of hundreds of massive boilers. Keeping the city running is a job of penance, but even once your sentence is up, there's no guarantee that you'll be let out. Your character is a worker here, sentenced to serve in the Basement for a crime they did not commit. After being cast in among the boilers, they quickly learn that they are not the only one down there unjustly. Escaping alone isn't an option -- getting caught will earn you a fate worse than death, but if you all banded together, you might have a fighting chance.

Aetherpunk

This subgenre of punk is somewhat more nebulous in its time period, and it shares many common themes with steampunk. What sets it apart is the use of magic as the driving power behind the world's technology. Aetherpunk technology is often portrayed as low-tech, and the common settings seem to settle somewhere between late-medieval and Victorian. More of a "punk lite" subgenre, aetherpunk stories tend to be magic-driven low-tech adventures rather than tales of social struggle and class disparity.

Examples of the aetherpunk subgenre are somewhat more difficult to come by but include the webcomic Empyrea by OHKATES, A Dead Djinn In Cairo by P. Djèlí Clark, and Thief's Magic by Trudi Canavan. The stories take place in low-fantasy-style worlds powered by magical technology and follow protagonists that are out to either prove a point or solve some greater mystery plaguing their world.

Just about any steampunk prompt can be retrofitted to work in an aetherpunk world, but if you're looking for something to get you started consider: The world relies on aether to make its societies run. Factories, cars, lamps, and entertainment devices all require its power to come to life. Contained within modified quartz crystals, aether is considered to be stable and safe to handle. That is, until the first child appears with the ability to manipulate aether without the use of a crystal. Media flock to cover the story, but the government wants to silence the speculation before it can spread. The ability is considered to be a birth defect, and all accounts of it are marked as "fatal," with obituaries appearing in the papers within weeks of the child's discovery. You are one of the rare few who developed the trait while growing up in an orphanage, but you'd heard the reports, and you were old enough to fear what might happen to you. You pretended that nothing was different about you, and as a result, no one else knew about it. Weeks, then months passed and you remained alive, every morning feeling like a gift. Now, as a young adult, you've learned to hone this skill in private. What will you do with it?

Pick-Your-Own Punk World

Now that you've had a chance to peek at some of the many forms of the punk genre, why not take a crack at building a world and story of your very own? This table lays out a selection of options to get you started, leaving plenty of room for interpretation. Go down each of the columns and choose the listed number of options. Put everything together and use it to build a world in one of the subgenres (determined by the tech level/power source column). From there, retrofit a writing prompt or go look at some relevant art and see what strikes your fancy.

Origin (Pick one)​	Goal (Pick at least one)​	Embodiment of "Evil" (Pick one)​	Tech Level/Power Source (Pick one)​	Era (Pick one)​	How will you make a difference (or fail to)? (Pick at least one)​
Aristocracy	Take down those at the top	Technology itself	Advanced digital technology	Pre-Renaissance	Become a formidable power
Working Class	Become one of those at the top	Greed/Money	Organic biotechnology	Victorian/Industrial Era	Fight against the system from within
Military	Provide for the underserved	Power	Early digital/late analog	Mid-1900s	Rally the masses
Poverty	Start a rebellion	Corruption	Early analog	Alt-Modern	Become a martyr
Crime	Survival	Beacons of false hope	Magic	Future	Become a terrorist

Still grinding your gears? Try out these prompts to start your engines!

What started as a hobby of body modifications among the wealthy has rapidly devolved into an arms race to become the ultimate human being. Through unchecked surgeries and alterations, these ultra-rich tech-fetishizers have turned themselves into a group of dangerous social pariahs whose experimental technology is being tested on live subjects before the final version is applied to their own bodies. Where do the test subjects come from? If you were one of the human lab rats, what would you do?

Nobody suspects the newsies. They're the eyes and ears of the street, gathering the gossip from all tiers of society as they go about their daily routines, and they're the first to hear of big news as it breaks. Working for breadcrumbs, business is best when headlines are good. With so many newsies scattered throughout the city, creating false news would be a breeze if they all worked together. When one of their bestselling conspiracy theories starts to come true, some of them decide to find out what's really going on behind the headlines.

Aetherism, among some, is an inborn ability. It generally manifests as giftedness in certain skills -- Adept swimmers, skillful mathematicians, expert craftsmen, etc. For a very limited few, the aether does not merely touch them, they touch the aether. These rare individuals can manipulate the world around them in unexpected and often uncontrolled ways. Fate bends around them, sometimes as bouts of good fortune and sometimes as strokes of bad luck. You are one of these rare individuals. How do you navigate a life where you must constantly expect the unexpected? How does your aetherism weave your world? Can you manipulate the odds?

Identity theft is no joke, but what happens when you never had an identity of your own to begin with? Your life story takes an unexpected twist when police kick down the door of your run-down little apartment one evening and drag you into custody, arresting you under suspicion of committing murder in the first degree. You protest that it wasn't you -- you don't even own a gun! You're a bodega worker by day and asleep by night. Nevertheless, into a cell you go. Days pass as you await your trial, and more people with your same face and name show up, also arrested on suspicion of murder. With five of you in neighboring cells after two weeks, you and one of the guards get to talking. It clearly wasn't you that did the deed; they know that, you know that. Together, you do some undercover sleuthing of your own to figure out what's really going on.

With increased production comes increased waste. Sprawling to the horizon at the fringes of cities lay fields of rubbish. Discarded parts, bits of old tech, and roving pickers seeking an escape from the urban tumult litter the landscape. Your home is a glorified trash heap of scrap metal and spare pieces of cast-aside machinery. You make your living building robots to do work for other people -- farming, foraging, fixing, whatever people need. One day, a scavenger bot returns with an unusual piece of tech. When you plug it into a new bot chassis and flip the switch, the robot wakes up with a start, fully-sentient and terrified. The horrors it remembers make no sense, but it wants answers and so do you.

They said joining the Liberation Force was a way to help the world. When you enlisted two years ago, you believed them. Since the day you first laced up your boots, you've burned towns, riddled bodies with bullets, and been responsible for the merciless shelling of blocks upon blocks of city streets. Never once have you left a scene feeling like your work was "for the better." Your biggest mistake was the first time you decided to question orders and really look at your target before pulling the trigger. A pattern rapidly emerged. These targets weren't random, nor were they in need of anyone's "help." They were homes of dissenters, suspected hideouts of rebels, and the locales of competitors. The war you'd enlisted to fight was never about the greater good. It was about securing profit at all costs.

If you're interested in learning more about some of the other punk genres out there that aren't listed in this guide, check out these links: A to Z of Punk Genres and A Genre-Punk Dictionary.

Be sure to check out our genre guide for a general overview of how to approach writing different genres!​