Welcome to Gaia! ::

Just thought that people here might have some useful feedback for me. I'm currently working on a novella with a clockpunk theme, which is going quite well. One thing which I'm unable to decide currently however is how to power the clockwork. I have considered using a bit more of a fantasy flavour, and saying elemental spirits, or other spirits, can be pinned in the mechanisms to keep them wound and provide rudimentary intelligence to the constructs.

The other option is to scale the technology down to be a little less anachronistic, and using treadmills, windmills and watermills to wind huge springs (or small springs of some unnamed metal which takes a lot of force to wind, but still returns to its shape without deforming) which can then be placed into devices, in the same way as we treat batteries.

The setting I'm after is Renaissance, but I'm not sure which would suit it better. Both have their pros and cons, so any advice or feedback is appreciated. Other ideas are also welcomed.

I've never heard of clock punk before. What exactly is it?

Generally set further back than steampunk, but with similarities. Rather than Victoriana I'm going for a Renaissance feel.

Clockpunk, as Atra says, is with clockwork powering everything. Basically an envisioning of how things might have gone if we had not moved on, but instead developed clockwork to an extensive degree. Da Vinci's one of the best references for this, as he actually developed a clockwork car for a stage play.

I see. well then, to address your original topic, I'd say your choice should depend on how far into traditional fantasy you want your story to go. If you plan on having magic and different creatures as a part of it than go with the spirit idea. If you want it to be strictly clockpunk minus all the usual trad fantasy characteristics than go with the purely mechanical idea.