History SoYouWantTo / WriteADieselPunkStory

* First, the social upheavals that generated the Great Depression: the industrialized world of the Diesel Age (which, save China or Southeast Asia, matches the modern industrialized world) struggled to raise itself from the pit of UsefulNotes/WorldWarI and [[SesquipedalianLoquaciousness technological inadequacy]] ...with strikes, worker's movements, street battles, a milder form of terrorism, revolutions and so on. Nobody could claim he or she was totally safe, the barrel of a [[CoolGuns Tommy Gun or a Broomhandle Mauser]] always glinted beyond the corner. There is a reason for the dark, cynical attitude in Creator/GeorgeOrwell's characters, this being he had actually been, you know, ''an eyewitness'' to all these.

* Social upheavals: world economies experienced massive fluctuations, ranging from stock market crashes to famine, as well as changes in financial theory due to a change in government and the popularity of pitting capitalist theory versus socialist. Social revolutionary movements ousted aristocrats and promoted equality between genders, races and income brackets, while more conservative movements espoused the capitalist theory of Keynes and focused on creating an emergent middle class to balance the vast economic gap in society. A massive war between ideologies ensued, heightened in the Great Depression and during the rise of fascism in Europe and in some eastern countries (such as Japan), while communism gained popularity in other corners of the world as a counter-reaction to right-wing extremism and the preceding workers' demonstrations of the late nineteenth century. However, during all of this, colonialism was far from dead, what with India still being under the rule of the British Empire.

Or maybe UsefulNotes/WorldWarII ''did'' break out. Even without the disrupting effects of TheGreatDepression, it is likely to occur due to a number of reasons, including Soviet visions of a world-wide revolution, German revanchism, or Japanese expansionism. In that case divergence can simply be a technological difference (Diesel Weird War). The period had oodles of war-related inventions, a lot of which never saw practical use. They can in your story, though! Some of the inventions that ''were'' put to use can very easily be TurnedUpToEleven; a impenetrable Franco-Belgian-Dutch system of fortresses from the Alps to the Frisian Sea, Soviet [[TankGoodness Land Dreadnoughts]], RAF {{Airborne Aircraft Carrier}}s, StupidJetpackHitler, nuclear arms in every arsenal (with some kind of [[AppliedPhlebotinum phlebotinic countermeasures]] to avoid having the fun end too quickly).

Newspapers, magazines, and the telegraph are established forms of mass media, but the term "(mass) media" in this usage is a Diesel Age invention. Early on, a kind of telephone-based subscriber broadcasting was used; for instance theater and opera performances were broadcast by telephone. The iconic medium is radio broadcasting, with a wealth of programming music, RadioDrama shows and news. Furthermore, listening was often a communal experience such as depicted in ''TheWaltons'' with the whole family gathered around a radio roughly the size of a widescreen TV today. Television broadcasting exists in most advanced countries (beginning with ''mechanical'' television[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_television]] in the early years) as well (cable radio and cable television also exist), but only a very small scale with the medium barely out of its experimental stage.

* Terry Gilliam's Film/{{Brazil}} depicts several elements from dieselpunk from a very bleak, black comedy perspective. Understandably, considering it was inspired by [[NineteenEightyFour 1984]].

If WW2 has not broken out, expect many more flying-boats. Before the war brought an explosion of airfield-building all over the world, water-landing was widely used, especially for large aircraft too heavy to land on grass. The famous Pan-Am Clippers or the Empire Flying Boats flown by B.O.A.C. were perhaps the most famous.

AnachronismStew tends to creep down in stories written by modern people and set in the 1930s - and [[YeGoodeOldeDays raise a good bit of ridiculousness]] since there are ''still'' people who were alive back then and can quickly point out the ValuesDissonance. Generally, the RuleOfCool draws people who are untrained in history to point out the cool features of the era, the RoaringTwenties, the wild parties sprinkled with bootleg booze, shiny and chromed classic cars with bonnets long enough to keep the front wheels in Paris and the back wheels in Berlin, the newly-found sexual freedom under the Hollywoodian glamour. Two things have to be remembered, for they are the staples of the age, the foundation for both WorldWarTwo and the UsefulNotes/ColdWar:

* First, the social upheavals that generated the Great Depression: the industrialized world of the Diesel Age (which, save China or Southeast Asia, matches the modern industrialized world) struggled to raise itself from the pit of WorldWarOne and [[SesquipedalianLoquaciousness technological inadequacy]] ...with strikes, worker's movements, street battles, a milder form of terrorism, revolutions and so on. Nobody could claim he or she was totally safe, the barrel of a [[CoolGuns Tommy Gun or a Broomhandle Mauser]] always glinted beyond the corner. There is a reason for the dark, cynical attitude in Creator/GeorgeOrwell's characters, this being he had actually been, you know, ''an eyewitness'' to all these.
* Second, in the modern globalized world we tend to forget most of the [[ValuesDissonance ValuesDissonances]], as there is a modern set of things most people able to read a newspaper and use a computer have to share in business and everyday life. 70 years ago, the differences between countries, or provinces and regions inside the same country, were immense. Large American and European cities might have walked a tightrope between CityNoir and the modern ArtDeco business quarters, but rural areas were far away. Things we take for granted today, like electricity, owning a car or having a general store nearby, stood out so much on remote farms or rural towns they were reasons for public celebration. Just as we expect, at least in a "civilized" country, to have some rights and laws set in stone and only trampled upon by a few villains. This is a new invention, a product of the post-WorldWarTwo era and (in the Communist Bloc) disregarded entirely until recently. Lynchings, for example, had been commonplace ''and no lawman batted an eyelash in front of them''. Rural people were far more religious, even Taliban-like, in the recent past. Things which are thought to be unspeakable today, like mass imprisonment and murder for absurd reasons, could have raised applause from the common population. To put it in perspective, a heroine who looks too much like Music/LadyGaga and speaks like Music/BritneySpears [[CrapsackWorld might have found her life shortened to a much un-ripe age in the late 1930s]].

What strikes most during TheNewTens is the [[http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2012/328/a/8/a_typical_group_of_postal_messengers__1911__by_theroaring20s-d5m0pbm.jpg roughneck]], [[http://fc03.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2013/165/6/7/east_side_peddler__new_york__circa_1915__by_theroaring20s-d68ypyi.jpg proletarian]] [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/54/Ernest_Hadley_and_Bumby_Hemingway.jpg design]] [[http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2012/131/9/7/the_roaring_twenties__2_girls__by_theroaring20s-d4ze0kx.png of most clothing]] prior to [[TheFifties the 1950s]] in the developed world. Most people had blue collar jobs back then, which would expose them to grit and dirt, they had to take the public transport to work, walk the streets in rough weather, so the clothing choice was justified. Tough fabrics, leather overcoats or trenchcoats for protection, knitwear for warmth, hats and caps not only as the fashion demanded, but also as protective headgears. Also they had to don old, worn-out clothes while doing DirtyJobs with machinery (which was more oily, sticky and stinky compared to its modern counterparts), to protect their better and more expensive clothing. The [[SharpDressedMan elegant pinstriped suit for males]] was mostly an upper class or NouveauRiche class thing, poorer people would have donned such clothing for ceremonial occasions like weddings or funerals mostly.\\