post-apocalyptic story ideas needed

Icu4dzs

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What a cool project. This forum is already filled with stuff to support your project.

Obviously, you have the characters chosen but it would seem to me that you have limited this to the immediate location of these few people. Did you ever see all of the Jericho episodes? The basic project you are doing fits nicely into "already done that" in the Jericho series. They included other towns who had different resources and actually fought a war of sorts with the other town over those resources. They traveled over a wide area trying to get help and re-create society after they got their own town re-organized as it were.

The essential plot scheme you have chosen was written into a book called "The Stand" by Stephen King. If you haven't read that, you might want to do so to get some ideas.

I agree that this sounds like a good replica of "The Road" and it should be forward looking and have some hope so that folks are put at ease. Actually, "The Road" did have hope but it wasn't until the end. Not all that happens will be happy or hopeful, but human beings are as you said, resilient and can do amazing things with little resources when pushed between the "rock and the hard place".

The crew of a submarine always comes to mind as does the story of "The Swiss Family Robinson" among others. Each person in a town such as this has skills. Some more useful than others. Some just intelligent and capable of learning new ones. Use those folks to become integral in the overall success of the story. Teach everyone in the group to do all the skills necessary to "make the ship sail".

Too much "drama" will slow the movement down and folks will not read it. "Heavy interpersonal interactions" such as romantic entanglement might well be left to short spurts rather than long passages.

You might also read "The Postman" since it had some good, light moments and very nice approach to the future. It is "narrated" by the adult daughter of the main character who in the movie was played by Kevin Costner. (Still my favorite movie)
Your selection of characters is interesting. I'd recommend that once they become assembled they let the "Ag secretary" know that he was APPOINTED, not elected and as such, has no authority in the current setting. The folks you have assembled should "elect" their own form of leadership. It might add some interesting twist to what folks expect when "TSHTF" or TEOTWAWKI.

There is a particularly poignant scene in a movie called "Cold Mountain" with Nicole Kidman and Rene Zelwegger. Nicole Kidman plays a young woman during the Civil War who was raised by her Preacher Father in the city but moves out to the rural area where he has become the pastor. He dies in his chair in the warm sun, and leaves the home to his daughter. Rene Zelwegger's character comes along and offers to help Nicole with the "chores of life".
The scene I am thinking of involves seeing these two young women building a fence. Nicole says to Rene in an obviously exasperated tone of voice, "Do you know that this is the first thing I have ever done in my life that produced a product? I can read, I can play music, I can arrange flowers but this is the first thing I have ever done like this in my life." (or words to that effect.) I can see that happening to our friend the Ag Sec'y who was probably raised in a wealthy family in the east, educated at the best Ivy League college and probably never got his hands dirty even once. I now see him attempting to milk a cow for the first time. Such scenes afford several places to go. The trial of learning, the humor of the event and the hope of overcoming the adversity requiring such an effort in the first place.

I got lots more if you want it.

You describe the "love triangle" with the lost boyfriend who is the father of the child and are trying to reconcile the situation.

Why not change ALL THE PARADIGM'S we currently use/accept and make new ones with your own way of how you would handle it if YOU were that woman.

There are many societies who did not require "monogomy" as such. The Native Americans did not enforce it. That way, there was no person who was not "spoken for" in the tribe. Use different sets of rules to describe a "Brave, NEW world" that you are describing here. It would be much more fun than forcing folks to adhere to the same rules they already may not really like all that much.

Your basic premise is a disease. If we assume that the Marburg or Ebola virus were to become respiratory transmitted, this would be the very scenario one could expect. Fortunately, that has not happened but if you describe a hemorrhagic fever, you will at least have some ammunition for the description of your "disease".

Since your description of the situation shows only a very few folks left after a catastrophic pandemic, it would seem un-necessary to "quarantine" folks who wander through because if they survived that long, it is going to seem obvious that they are immune to the causative agent as are the folks in your cast. Just a thought.

More later...I love this project. It is going to be fun. :ya

Her is another idea. Pick one of each of the folks you know here to be your characters and have them write a script "as you go" like in a chat room. It would take no time at all to get oodles of dialogue!
What fun. There is a movement among young folks back east called "LARP" (live action role playing" which could be done in this setting and you'd have your book and lots of ideas in no time at all.
:clap

One more suggestion: Decide on exactly how you want this to go and write the ending first. Then find a way to get yourself there with the help of your friends here!
 

bibliophile birds

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wow, Icu4dzs, that's tons of good stuff for me to look into! thanks! most of those references i'm not familiar with, so plenty of new things to experience.

as for the love triangle, i have definitely been leaning towards them finding some way to be a family in a polyandrious vein. i just want to make sure that i find a way to do that and stay true to what the characters would actually be feeling in the circumstance. the old friend she falls in love with is very much a man's man, but he's also an intelligent, passionate man who knows that the world has changed.
 

fancy

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Gosh, I hope she has horses on her family farm. In all of my post apocolyptic dreams we use the horses for transportation to get out of southern florida. In the dreams we always rip the engine out of my husbands truck and we load the back with all our animals and stuff. Oh yeah, we take the windshield out so we can drive the horses.

Yes, I am aware of my insanity and I enjoy it thoroughly
 

bibliophile birds

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fancy said:
Gosh, I hope she has horses on her family farm. In all of my post apocolyptic dreams we use the horses for transportation to get out of southern florida. In the dreams we always rip the engine out of my husbands truck and we load the back with all our animals and stuff. Oh yeah, we take the windshield out so we can drive the horses.

Yes, I am aware of my insanity and I enjoy it thoroughly
hehe, great dream!

i think horses are going to be something they "scavenge" from one of the neighboring farms.
 

Blackbird

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Oooh yeah, I'm all for kinky threesomes and polyamory.

I'm thinking a lot of it is going to have to focus on the metamorphosis and finding oneself in such a situation. Really I think you need a character that commits suicide.

Anyway, you're the girl to write such a story! Keep us in the loop!!!!
 

bibliophile birds

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Blackbird said:
Oooh yeah, I'm all for kinky threesomes and polyamory.

Anyway, you're the girl to write such a story! Keep us in the loop!!!!
thanks for the vote of confidence!!

i'm hoping to steer away from kinkiness. i don't want it to seem like a gimick, but rather something deeply emotional and sustainable long term. but i sure do love exploring polyamory!
 

i_am2bz

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Icu4dzs said:
Your basic premise is a disease. If we assume that the Marburg or Ebola virus were to become respiratory transmitted, this would be the very scenario one could expect. Fortunately, that has not happened but if you describe a hemorrhagic fever, you will at least have some ammunition for the description of your "disease".

Since your description of the situation shows only a very few folks left after a catastrophic pandemic, it would seem un-necessary to "quarantine" folks who wander through because if they survived that long, it is going to seem obvious that they are immune to the causative agent as are the folks in your cast. Just a thought.
It might be interesting to leave the actual cause "unknown" or ambiguous...you know how much confusion & contradictory information comes out right after a crisis. If you assume our usual modes of news-gathering are disrupted (internet, TV news, newspapers, etc.), the only info available might be "thru the grapevine", rumors from other refugees coming in or maybe ham radio operators. I recall a scene from "War of the Worlds" (the Tom Cruise remake) where he runs into a TV news crew who shows him film footage of the aliens coming to earth in a lightning bolt - they discuss how the "tripods" have been buried for years, "..but who's driving the damn things??"...you know, trying to make sense of things without any "official/government" announcements...even with 24 hour news channels we often don't know what the H is going on!! :/

It also might be fun, if you have time, to do things with natural medicine. Since one of your characters is a nurse, maybe s/he has an interest in "alternative" treatments, since the usual antibiotics, painkillers, etc. aren't readily available. S/he would have to "make do" with plants, etc. found in the environment.
 

patandchickens

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It might be interesting to leave the actual cause "unknown" or ambiguous...
That's an excellent suggestion IMO. Not only does it greatly free BB's mind to work on other aspects of the story ;) it also IMHO usually makes for a much more interesting and real-feeling and complex story. (Mind you this is a very well-represented subgenre of science fiction... and thinking back, I think my more-favorite stories of the type are indeed ones where the exact nature of the collapse-of-civilization event is unknown or poorly understood, for most or even all of the book)

Pat
 

bibliophile birds

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i agree with you both. of course, i want to create speculation and possibilities, but i don't want to dwell on the actual how and why. for me, that was the biggest downfall for the BBC show Survivors (the remake). they spent a LOT of time talking about the virus, showing the lab that was trying make a vaccine (but also may have caused the outbreak), and generally worrying about immunity and all that.

that stuff is interesting, to a certain degree, but it's the personal experiences and struggles that really drives me. at some point you'd just stop worrying about how it happened and get on with surviving.
 

i_am2bz

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patandchickens said:
I think my more-favorite stories of the type are indeed ones where the exact nature of the collapse-of-civilization event is unknown or poorly understood, for most or even all of the book)

Pat
One of my all-time favorite reads was "The Handmaid's Tale", where it was never quite clear what actually happened to that society (Gilead, if I recall), & the narrator divulges only small bits & pieces throughout the book.

BB, I agree with your point that you just stop caring about "why" & are only concerned about what happens next...
 
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