Elfpunk?

Well, apparently I'm writing elfpunk. Didn't realize it until I clicked on that link, but that describes my story pretty well-- I've got faerie-creatures in the real world, themes of going against soiciety, and, yes, dragons.

I'm kind of in the same boat as you, I guess. I'm working on fleshing out the faerie culture, even though the protagonist is human and her antagonist is a human organization and for the most part the fae remain in the background.

As far as cliches and such, if you haven't looked at them already I'd suggest some TVTropes pages, like Our Fairies Are Different and Our Elves Are Better. Those and the associated pages linked to them can give you an idea of how these elements are often handled, so you can try and take a more original approach.

Note that even if a few aspects of your elves and fairies are trope-like or unoriginal, well, that's okay--otherwise, they would be unrecognizable as elves or fairies, no?

Personally, I don't have any cliches that I *hate,* though I am a bit weary of Faerie Courts and tricksy Queens... and I see the Persephone-esque "don't eat anything here or you'll be stuck forever" almost too often...

I see no real reason to retrospectively call those stories "elfpunk" when the authors who wrote them and people who bought them at the time had never heard of the word. I mean, modern fantasy with elves, there is no "punk" in it. A punk too far, me thinks.

I was discussing a new genre based on a typo with some pals recently - "stempunk". We figured it'd be grungy fairies in leather jackets.

My favourite thing in this neck of the woods is The Iron Dragon's Daughter by Michael Swanwick. Never before or since have elves been such bastards.

Torgo said:

I was discussing a new genre based on a typo with some pals recently - "stempunk". We figured it'd be grungy fairies in leather jackets.

Click to expand...

Stempunk? I imagined something like this.