Need help with a post apocalyptic story

I'd like to share some ideas with you and hear whatever suggestion s you may have. It's about a boy and his sister traveling through the ruins of modern America in search of civilization.

I'd like to ask you tropers about the following ideas.

1. Should cannibalism be in the story or is that too similar to The Road?

2. What would be good scenarios for when the two encounter other survivors?

3. Should I explain what the apocalyptic event was or should I keep it vague and only hint at it?

4.What are some pet peeves you have with similar stories, so that I can hopefully avoid them?

5.What would be a good title?

6.Any other suggestions?

1. Should cannibalism be in the story or is that too similar to The Road?

• if it is not a Depopulation Bomb, the people have to eat something. I wouldn't go as far as cannibal gangs roaming the countryside in search of fresh survivors, but cannibalism can get a mention, or cases/rumours of it be discussed by the characters. I'd say, ask yourself how many would die immediately (before their fridges are emptied) by reasons like medical care failing, accidents, or looting, then, for how long pets and stocks would be enough, then, how many are alive by that point, and how long would it take to start some food production after the dust settles.

2. What would be good scenarios for when the two encounter other survivors?

• excepting cannibal gangs, you can go for a Crazy Survivalist, parent (preferably mother) and child begging the two for some food for an easy Tear Jerker, street gang trying to rob the two, some survivor policemen or military trying to set up order, post-apocalyptic traders (we have a trope for that, but I forgot the name — Honest John's Dealership?), guys waiting for some other guy, guys Walking the Earth. That's I can think for now.

3. Should I explain what the apocalyptic event was or should I keep it vague and only hint at it?

• I think it can go either way, but if it's just after the event, and nobody even wonders what happened, then it kind of is bad for suspension of disbelief.

4.What are some pet peeves you have with similar stories, so that I can hopefully avoid them?

• perhaps it would be good if the survivors didn't fall into any of these groups, occasionally propping up in apocalyptic fiction, as long as you're not trying to use the Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped trope: a) tough conservative survivalists whose role is to show how much better they're than the stoopid libruls, b) conservative crazy survivalists whose role is to show how much worse they're than normal, sane liberal people, c) scientists whose role is to show how much better SCIENCE is than general public and religious people in particular.

5.What would be a good title?

• damned if I know.

6.Any other suggestions?

• take a look at survivalist websites, they may give you some inspirations — at least, an insight into Crazy Survivalist mindset, if nothing else.

1. Yes, but only if zombies are involved.
2. A group of people consisting of either only men or women. Or a band of pirates. Or even sentient zombies! XD
3. Leave it vague but at least describe the effects it had.
4. Lack of zombies. Gratuitous use of slave girls. Stripperific outfits.
5. Apocalypse After. Zombies Ever After.
6. Not enough robots!

Important things: How old are these kids, what’s there age difference, and when and under what circumstances did they lose there parents? The answers to these questions will inform there characters, their relationship, and what happens to them.

Also are they wondering the world for lack of something better to do or are they trying to get somewhere?

1.Vague references are ok. More than that is not good imo.

2.They should meet someone who is completely insane but basically harmless.

3.You should know what happened. What you tell the audience is up to you. If you have an omniscient narrator full disclosure may be in order. If you are using the first person wild speculation and/or simplistic theories could work.

4.Don’t steal from Children of Men that book was dumb.

5. No clue. Maybe something with the kids names like Alice & Bob or Alice & Bob After the End.

6.See above. Also check out this forum: http://zombiehunters.org/forum/ for info on survival and survivalism.

edited 30th Jan '11 10:36:24 AM by HistoryMaker

Thanks for the feedback thus far! In response to History Maker, here are some other details:

The boy is a teenager, the girl is 8 years old.

They were separated from their parents by a heavy storm at night.

1. Should cannibalism be in the story or is that too similar to The Road?

Cannibalism is very bad for you( physically not just morally) it can cause serious health problems, so yeah have mentioned that during a cold winter with little food happened, but don’t have it as the main source of sustenance.

2. What would be good scenarios for when the two encounter other survivors?

Gangs who will take whatever these kids might have. maybe a protective adult who wants to take care of the one of the kids, but he/she wants to find his/her sibling

3. Should I explain what the apocalyptic event was or should I keep it vague and only hint at it?

Why would a couple of kids know how the world ended?

4.What are some pet peeves you have with similar stories, so that I can hopefully avoid them?

lord Gacek already said my major pet peeves, but I can add the military as the badguys, its not clever or original to have the protagonist think they’re saved only to reveal the army is just as cruel as a rape gang anymore it’s just offensive.

5.What would be a good title?

Only you can do that; titles are part of the story and you are writing the story

6.Any other suggestions?

These are kids not survival experts or trained combat troops, so no instant expertise with guns or any other amazing feats that you probably couldn’t do if you were in their situation.

edited 1st Feb '11 9:34:26 PM by GenericGuy

1. Should cannibalism be in the story or is that too similar to The Road?

Unless you had nuclear winter or mass extinctions, it's not all that hard to to grow stuff or catch fish. Hunting without firearms can be a trick but it's not out of the question. And if your story is not set too long after the event, there would be lots of canned goods floating around. It would be a weird sort of apocalypse that killed off animals and plants, but not humans, which is basically what you'd have to have to make the cannibalism question come up.

3. Should I explain what the apocalyptic event was or should I keep it vague and only hint at it?

I think that you should know what happened even if you don't reveal it directly. The nature of the catastrophe will create the "rules" of the aftermath and character survival. Everything else would flow from that. A mass EMP strike (like at the end of Escape from LA) would drop us back into the Iron Age but orherwise leave the planet and its inhabitants unscathed. A meteor strike would be a worst case scenario (perhaps even worse than a nuclear exchange) if the fallout blots out some substantial percentage of sunlight. With little or no photosynthesis happening naturally, the food chain would be buggered from the bottom up. But what anout the continents that weren't at ground zero? How much could technology save us? Mass volcanic activity could have much the same effect without turning the US or Europe into a big crater. Disease? It's unlikely that it would affect plants, fish, terrestrial animal, avians AND humans.

4.What are some pet peeves you have with similar stories, so that I can hopefully avoid them?

While of an apocalypse in motion story, The Happening bugged me. It was just a gimmicky excuse to show people offing themselves in rather gruesome ways. There was some attempt to have a theme about how humans should take care of the aney, but it seemed TOO contrived. That leads back to you figuring out what triggered the apocalypse and habing things flow logically from that.

5.What would be a good title?

Solstice. The Mayan calender ends on December 21st. Otherwise, write the story and pick a title once it's done.

6.Any other suggestions?

Just puck your disaster and go from there.

How long ago was the event at thye time of the story?

In reply to Zolnier: At least one generation

I the disaster happened before your characters were born it could be really cool to mythologize it.

Confronted with evidence of what the world was once like (perhaps in the form of a magazine ect.) the little girl asks her brother what happened and why. So he tells her a story. It sounds like a fairy tail or legend but it’s actually a simplified version of what really happened (as told to him by his father).

It could be a fun way to do exposition.

Thanks again for your feedback, you guys have been a big help.

I've got a few more questions.

1. In this setting, given that's it a generation after the shit hit the fan, would people wear whatever clothing they scavenged from the ruins or would they have gone to making their own clothing by then?

2. I was thinking of making the boy go through a moral dilemma of sorts. Like, he wants to be a role model for his sister and he wants her to be a good person, but is forced to do things he regrets to survive and keep her safe. Is this idea worth developing?

3.Any post apocalyptic clichés that I should be aware of? What's been done to death in stories like this?

4. I was thinking of having them visit various settlements on their journeys,one of them is a group of survivors who took shelter in a metro tunnel and have been living down there in the dark for the past generation or so, would these survivors look any different/ be any different after spending that amount of time living in dark tunnels?

Ad 1. A generation is some twenty years, it would require setting up some production of any kind basically, clothes included. Normally I see it believable to wear the same set of clothes for twenty years, but wear it continuously and during physical labour, and with little service, it is going to be quite a rag. Lots of patches. I'd take a guess clothing would be a mix of leftovers and simple new designs.

Ad 2. Go for it, though I'd add yet another of my Pet Peeves: "OH NOEZ! Yet again, I killed a dozen men and robbed their bodies for my cute, innocent little sister! She mustn't know lest she becomes evil!"

Ad 4. They have to be different, 'cause frankly, how sane you have to be to live like this, no light at all? Not to mention that people who've stashed thirty years' worth of food for each of them are kind of nuts to begin with.

Sarcasm Mode off: they would need some kind of light (possibly kept for special occasions if its sources are scarce, though) and get out once in a while. So, to me, they'd at the very best prefer to stay indoors and be less afraid of the dark.

edited 3rd Feb '11 8:51:37 AM by lordGacek

1.Depends on what kind of shit hit the fan. If you had a depopulation bomb with minimal physical destruction (such as a plague) you would have a lot more clothes than people, so scavenging would still be a really viable option. Otherwise making clothes would become more necessary sooner. However what would they be making clothes out of? I can make clothes (poorly) given a fabric store but doubt if you have those in this setting. Therefore most “new” clothes would be made from “recycled” fabric (old clothes, drapes, towels etc.).

2.Dude, you stole my idea but seriously I like this and I use it. Go for it. One of my main characters is a girl who has adopted her orphaned cousin. She dose lots of questionable things, worries about being a bad influence and says things like “just because I’ve done it doesn’t make it a good idea!” However there are a few things (like prostitution) that she won’t ever do because “that’s no kind of example for a little girl”.

3.I don’t know. The military being bastards maybe.

4.They’d be pale. Also any isolated group develops there own culture. What that culture is depends on the circumstances and the people.

Again, thank you tropers for your input. I've now begun writing the story. Tell me, what do yout hink of these lines? I want your opinion on whether or not their effective at conveying mood and atmosphere, whether they're veering too close to purple or beige prose, things like that.

"The lonely stretch of highway led them to a small town. A bent and rusted shopping cart lay on it's side in a vacant parking lot."

"They looked at the figure staggering around several paces in front of them. It was a man,his skin was pale and his body was thin,like a skeleton cloaked in an ill fitting sheath of atrophied flesh. Close behind him was a crooked black buzzard,waiting for the man to collapse to the ground."

"She paced around the empty storeroom a bit before pulling the hood of her jacket down, revealing shaggy locks of curly dark hair. Bits of twigs hung in the curls where she had spent her life sleeping on the ground. She bent down and traced her name into the layer of dust on the hardwood floor."

"The first winters after were the worst. Stores of food were exhausted and beloved family pets were butchered and eaten."

"The sun had not yet risen and the sky was an ethereal cobalt blue. Glassy droplets of morning dew sat on the dead leaves covering the earth. She picked up a small leaf and crushed it in her hand, opening her hand again to watch the pieces fall back to the ground. There was no sound but the rushing of a nearby stream. She could hear the crackling of footsteps over twigs and leaves. She turned and peered through the rows of gaunt trees with outstretched limbs like the arms of beggars."

Dude, you want to keep references to dog eating to a minimum. I used to hang around survival websites and references to eating ones own dog would get someone flamed if not banned. General conscience was that people might eat a stray, but eating your own dog was tantamount to cannibalism, and eating someone else’s dog would get you shot.

I'll keep that in mind. Thanks. What did you think about the other excerpts?

The first three I like: interesting, descriptive, certainly not beige. I think they are good.

You know how I feel about the fourth.

The fifth confuses me a little. I’m not sure what’s going on, but it paints an interesting and pretty picture. Maybe it’s too descriptive, or maybe it makes more sense in context.

Just my opinion I’m no expert.

Oh and just out of curiosity, is the girl who sleeps outdoors a mute?

edited 13th Feb '11 8:56:02 PM by HistoryMaker

That was a bit of an oversight on my part, I forgot to mention that the girl was the boy's sister. She was just writing her name in the dust for no reason, but no that you pointed that out, I think I might have the two encounter a mute person in the story.

edited 14th Feb '11 2:18:16 AM by Catarrh

Not sure what catagory, but them encountering a person who thinks that they are the last person alive might make for some good drama.

Once again,Thanks for the feedback. You guys have been a great help. I should have the first part completed before long. I'm going to post it when it's done.