Thread: I am having troubles with a Post-apocalyptic story

Hi Guys,

I am about to begin writing a Post-apocalyptic story where I want to talk about how would be the daily life of civilization after a disaster.

My problem is that the tragedy has occurred worldwide and I don't know if I should stick to the people in ONE specific city/country or should I shift from place to place, in order to tell a wider story.

For example: How would be life on earth after all animals extinct? Should I tell the story on how would be life on TOKYO or LONDON or COLORADO after all animals died or would be better to tell how life is on different places around the world?

My main concern is that I don't want to write a story with 50 main characters and if I talk about different places, I must write about many, many different people.

What do you suggest?

By the way, as I am new here, I don't know if this is the right place to post this.

Thanks!

Well it depends a little on what type of apocalypse occurred. From a food standpoint, we absolutely must have animals to survive at anywhere near our current population, the earth just cant sustain the intensive farming it would require to grow enough to support everyone. So i personally would show starvation, certain types of events would also leave the area unusable (such as a nuclear event, you wouldn't want to eat corn anywhere near where that happened). I think (and this is just my opinion) that you could tell the story with a main protagonist and a cast of a few supporting characters that dont know each other, and are located in extremely varied parts of the world. Such as a businessman from Europe, a tibetan monk, a humanitarian in north africa, etc. And then show how these people although varied and facing unique struggles, are also sharing a common human experience.

Hope this helped, good luck!

You could cheat, having one single location and focusing on it, or maybe two or three, but using elements like a traveling merchant with an airplane bringing news of other countries or someone finding a message in a bottle, or a stray radio signal from a ship. Without modern communications we would become quite isolated, and anything that reminded survivors that there were others out there would have a big impact on the emotional life of the community.

I'd stick with one main location, with a handful of manageable characters. I like the idea of traveler's delivering some info. The information should be contradictory and chaotic, reflecting the uncertainty and fear present with such an event. Personally, I'd consider introducing a mysterious visitor with some information that's "too good to be true." Sure, that's a clichéd approach, but the elements that you can introduce that way will add some real drama to your story.

Oh, and include a "ham'" short-wave radio. It's easy to understand and believable (just watch the language contradictions). Think of the possibilities of a faceless, tortured, haunting voice describing the horrors that they have encountered. Buenas Surete.

The question if more, what is the plot? Chapter upon chapter of people leading miserable lives will get boring fast, and really tick people off when they figure out the story isn't going anywhere. So if you tell the story from multiple places, then there should be some connection among the people that moves the plot from each one. They don't all have to meet directly, but one would have to influence something that impacted another, and so on. What people will be doing is trying to survive, so, that aside, what else? The movie 'the post man' started off with someone just trying to survive, and by chance, and some opportunistic choices, made the world better in the long run. 'The road' did quite the opposite, and the future was about as bleak as you could get....not much hope there.

After you figure out how you are destroying your world, then you need to find a plot. Stories start where the day to day routine stops and the characters are driven out of the ordinary into the story. So you need to find that to determine how many pov characters you might need, and how much of the world you have to cover.

Hi

What is the ultimate objective/ending of this story?
Whether it is one city or multiple cities, they are platforms that you use or choose to progress your storyline. It is helpful if you are clear in the ending and where you want to bring your readers to at the end of the book.

The book Battlefield Earth (better than the movie, I promise) handles this pretty well. The story is set 1000 years after humanity has been nearly wiped out by an alien invasion. It begins in just one area (Denver), and as the story goes on, the main character meets more and more groups of people in Scotland, China, and Africa. Each has adapted to the near-extinction differently, and each has their own legends and histories as to why the earth is in the state it's in now. They communicate with each other in the aliens' language, which (IMO) is a pretty decent way of removing language barriers while remaining mostly plausible.

Similarly, you should be sure that your main characters have some sort of link to the other areas you want to talk about. Maybe one character has a relative who moved to a different country before the apocalypse happened. Maybe the main story takes place in some smaller town, so everyone is constantly talking about what's going on in the more (ex-)metropolitan areas. Maybe refuges from another area arrive looking for help. Maybe in order to survive, a group of people have to travel to the city with a stockpile of food or weapons or whatever is most crucial.

It's your story, so obviously the details are up to you. Just find a way to include the other areas logically by making them plot points.

I'd recommend the following books and short stories.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy (Novel)

A Boy and his Dog By Harlan Ellison (Short story)

You could also watch the Book of Eli starring Denzel Washington.

Samuel R. Delany's Dhalgren and Edgar Pangborn's Davy (among many others) center around such a scenario as well. So does Richard Matheson's I am Legend.
I'd think, given the inexperience that is underlying your question, that it would be best to stay in or near one location, with a manageable cast, and just use them to comment on the "world at large" beyond the focus of your narrative. The readership will fill in the rest if given sufficient impulse.
Everything depends on the where, how, and when of your disaster.

Definately sort out a plot. Start with one or two characters who live in the same place and work with them. Also I would be concerned about how people are surviving with no animals on the planet. You need to be clear (to yourself) what happened to them and why are humans still alive.

Hi Chewi,
don't know if you are still out there, or if you have given up, but I will chuck in my 5 cents worth.
Do you have a point to your story?(i.e. Look how bad things could be).
Do you have a time frame? (detail the collapse, or a hundred years after)?
Do you have a time line? (Including the history of what happened).
Do you have one - three main characters mapped out? (Less important roles can be sketched, or invented as you need).
Do you have an idea on how society is structured? (Small enclaves or anarchy or somewhere in between).
Will it be a bubble or exploratory?

I find I start with an idea of where I am going, but something better occurs as I write, so be prepared to try out things.
And I was once advised to make a map. I found it helped me.
Good luck.
Bazz

Guys: THANK YOU!!!

I am amazed about all great comments and advices you gave me.

Due to my inexperience (as Moderan pointed out) I was missing the point of "what happens after all tragedies?"

I will read again and again your advices and I will figure out a plot that goes somewhere

I am writing this in Spanish (my native language).

THANKS!!!

Just have to say to Preston, I also loved A Boy and his Dog By Harlan Ellison (Short story)

Back to topic. All good advice, and any of these plans should work fine, depending on how ambitious you are. I think I prefer a story in thirds to compare and contrast reactions, etc., bringing them together somehow at the end. Just keep it limited to three main characters, perhaps all with a different perspective and approach to dealing with it, such as the scientist, the politically/socially oriented one, and perhaps a common housewife or a college student for the third.

Just please, please, don't use the same plot (yawwwwn) that has been used over and over in books and movies. Please try to give it a different feel with a few unpredictable twists. Ideally more of a personal view rather than grotesque warriors fighting each other... been done to death.

I rather liked Stephen King's approach to the Apocalypse in two instances. Wipe them out with a Super Flu in THE STAND and use an alternate world as he did in THE DARK TOWER series.

Medicine and medical conditions would need a mention if to be realistic, all man-made medicines would cease to be available so natural remedies would be the norm. There wouldn't be as many cancer causing items, products and technologies around so may be the people will live longer by their being no industry, unless like mentioned in one of the posts above people are close to wrecked nuclear power stations. I'm sure people would be much healthier on the whole, doing much more for themselves thus keeping everyone fit and active. Healthy, fit and active people are usually happier than others, so I think giving the story a bright, happy and communal tone would appeal to would be readers more than doom and gloom.