how to write a post apocalyptic story

Apocalyptic fiction has enthralled readers for centuries. For as long as we’ve understood our place in the world, we’ve told stories about how that world might end. That’s what drives many people to these stories in the first place — a curiosity about the nature of existence.Writing apocalyptic fiction has its own appeal as well, especially for those writers who like to envision a world beyond our own. Writing within this genre gives you an opportunity to wipe the slate clean, so to speak, and rebuild society in the manner of your choosing. It gives you plenty of room for creative freedom.Reading: how to write a post apocalyptic storyBut how do you go about it? How does a novice or aspiring writer tackle the daunting world of apocalyptic fiction? Here are some writing tips and story strategies to help you reach the finish line.

Fresh Ideas for an Apocalyptic Novel

Contents

In a separate blog post, I went over some of the most common post-apocalyptic or doomsday scenarios used in fiction. Here’s a quick A-to-Z recap of the scenarios covered in that article:

Alien Invasion: Advanced beings from another planet attack and annihilate Earth. Life as we know it vanishes.
Astronomical Catastrophe: Death from space! A giant asteroid or comet, a burst of gamma rays, or some other cosmic force wipes out much of the planet’s population.
Disease / Pandemic / Outbreak: Death from within! A deadly and highly contagious pathogen emerges and pushes humanity to the brink of extinction.
Environmental Catastrophe: Climate change and sea level rise make much of the planet uninhabitable. Massive plant death causes our food system to collapse. You get the idea.
Machine, Robot or AI Uprising: A futuristic “Frankenstein’s monster” scenario, in which our own creations rise up against us. (Think Terminator, Westworld and Robopocalypse.)
Natural Disaster: An unprecedented seismic event causes all of the world’s volcanoes to erupt in unison. A new kind of “acid rain” sweeps the planet, destroying most plant life. Inexplicable fires scorch the planet. Et cetera.
Nuclear Holocaust: There’s really no need to describe this one, is there?
Reproductive Failure: Environmental change or a virulent pathogen causes global infertility, starting a countdown to extinction for humankind (as in The Children of Men, by P.D. James).
Zombies: The undead are arguably the most popular form of apocalyptic fiction, among readers and writers alike. We love them on the big screen as well, as shown by the long-running success of The Walking Dead. (Check out my list of zombie story starters for more on this one.)

These aren’t the only doomsday scenarios — just some of the most common. I would imagine somewhere around 90% of all apocalyptic fiction stories fall within one of these nine categories.But there’s still plenty of room for writers to innovate within the genre. With a bit of imagination, you could come up with something people haven’t seen before. Something fresh and original.Here’s an example. In his unsettling novel Bird Box, Josh Malerman created a post-apocalyptic world where people are driven mad just by seeing “something” outside. We don’t know what that something is, and that’s partly what makes this story work. It’s fresh. It’s something we haven’t seen before. It brings an element of mystery to the apocalyptic fiction genre.What can you envision? What kind of civilization-ending “thing” can you dream up? Close your eyes. Turn off your internal critic. Let your thoughts travel. See what you find out there, lurking in the dark. Harness it. Deliver it to us with clarity and force.Need more inspiration or ideas? Check out this informative but chilling study on the collapse of civilization, by researcher and author Luke Kemp.

Where to Begin: Before, During or After

When writing apocalyptic fiction, you could start your story before, during or after the shit hits the fan. Only you can determine which option is right for you. It really depends on what kind of story you want to tell.If you’re writing a dystopia-style novel, where a new and harsh world order has been established, you’ll probably want to start your story after the apocalyptic event. This allows you to spend more time in the dystopia you’ve created, which is the real story.If you’re writing an apocalyptic horror novel, you could start before, during or after the “event.” Again, it depends on what kind of story you want to tell.One of my favorite aspects of apocalyptic fiction is when society breaks down. Everything is normal at the start of these stories. People are going to work and school, following their normal daily routines, when something terrible begins to unfold. Maybe it’s zombies. Maybe it’s a lethal disease or aliens. Whatever “it” is, we get to see it unfolding in our mind’s eye. We get to see the ordinary become extraordinary.Read more: how to flush water out of hydraulic systemThat’s the kind of apocalyptic fiction I’m drawn to, in books as well as movies. So that’s the variety I’d want to write as well. How about you? What kinds of stories do you like to read? How and where do they begin, before or after the apocalypse?From a fiction-writing standpoint, there are advantages to both options:

Pre-apocalypse: By starting your story before the apocalyptic event unfolds, you can depict the sharp contrast between normality and upheaval. The reader gets to see the apocalypse unfolding. They go along for the ride. It also lets you show how your characters change during those trying times. You can show us what they’re made of.
Post-apocalypse: Starting after the apocalyptic event has occurred plunges the reader into a new and unfamiliar world from the first chapter. It might be less thrilling than the “pre-apocalypse” starting point mentioned above, but it serves other purposes. This approach to apocalyptic fiction writing gives you more freedom, in terms of world-building. You’re not limited to what the world was before — especially if your story begins long after the apocalypse that ended the old world order.

Think about the kind of story you want to tell, and the “new” world you want to create. Think about the challenges you want your characters to face. If you do that, the question of where to start your apocalyptic tale should answer itself.Let’s look at some examples of novels that start before and after the apocalyptic event, and how those differences shape the stories.In Swan Song, the Bram Stoker Award-winning novel by Robert McCammon, the story begins just as the world is hurtling toward an all-out nuclear exchange. We are with the main characters when this occurs. We go along for the ride, and it’s truly terrifying. After the missiles and bombs have fallen, the story shifts into post-apocalyptic mode. By starting his tale before the apocalypse, McCammon created a broader story that’s epic in scope. We see the horrors of a nuclear war unfolding, along with its harrowing aftermath.In The Road, the Pulitzer Prize-wining novel by Cormac McCarthy, the story begins after an apocalyptic event has literally scorched the earth. McCarthy provides a few flashbacks, via the main character, but they offer scant details about the nature of the event. He makes the apocalypse a mystery, so we can focus on “the man” and “the boy” as they navigate the post-apocalyptic landscape. It’s a narrower scope when compared to Swan Song, but deeper in a human sense.These authors had clear goals about what they wanted to accomplish with their stories, so they choose the best starting point to support those goals.

World-Building Possibilities

What will the world be like, once your fictional apocalypse unleashes its fury? What will people be like? How will they live? Will there be any kind of social structure remaining, like clans or villages? Or will humanity be reduced to a kind of nomadic existence, with bandits prowling the landscape?There are a lot of questions that need answers when writing apocalyptic fiction. The good news is, there’s no right or wrong answer to any of them. You, as the writer, get to determine those things. You get to create your own unique vision. And that’s part of the thrill of writing apocalyptic fiction.Consider the difference:In literary fiction and non-genre fiction, the writer gets to create characters and put them into unique situations. But those situations usually take place in a world we recognize. There is little to no world-building potential in non-genre mainstream and literary fiction.In apocalyptic fiction, the writer gets to create a whole new world order. She can erase the scoreboard and restart the game, with a totally new set of rules, conditions and circumstances.Writing apocalyptic fiction gives you more creative freedom. Not all writers are up to this challenge. It’s a daunting task, creating a new-world vision. But for certain writers, apocalyptic fiction scratches a certain itch. It satisfies a creative yearning.Read more: how to clean louis vuitton damier azur canvasWorld-building tips for writers of apocalyptic fiction:

Take us somewhere we’ve never been. Show us something we’ve haven’t seen before. You’re the artist here, the creator. You have a blank canvas. Paint something incredible.
Think about your characters and how they will interact in the new world. What type of society (or lack thereof) supports your storytelling goals? What kind of world will challenge your characters, pushing them to their limits? The more challenges you throw at your characters, the more drama you’ll create. Drama and conflict keep readers turning pages, straight through to the end.
Think about your ending before you begin. With apocalyptic fiction, you’re changing the world order. The question is, where will you take the story after the old order crumbles and the new one begins? How will you bring your story to a close? How will your characters change along the way? You might save yourself some rewrites by answering these questions in advance, or at least considering them.
Create a world that challenges your characters at every turn, a world where they must adapt in order to survive. This will make your novel easier to write, because the situations and complications will unfold naturally based on the world you’ve created. It will also draw readers deeper into that world.

Creating Believable Characters

In a sense, all fiction forces characters into a challenging situation. Those are the building blocks of any good story. The protagonist sets out on a quest, but encounters a series of challenges and obstacles. It is through these challenges (and the suffering they produce) that your character changes and grows during the course of the story.With apocalyptic fiction, the primary obstacles are somewhat obvious:

Holy crap, the world has ended!
Where do we get food and water?
How do we survive?
I don’t like the looks of those nomads coming our way.

Threats and obstacles abound in post-apocalyptic fiction. They are ever-present. And then you have the subtler obstacles like interpersonal conflict, moral dilemmas, fear, etc. These obstacles will draw out your characters, testing them in ways they’ve never been tested before.The point is, you have a lot of ways to make your characters suffer when writing apocalyptic fiction. And it’s important they do suffer. That might sound sadistic, but it’s really just good storytelling. That’s what readers expect. One of the reasons we read fiction is to see characters pushed to their limits, emotionally and physically. Went want to see them adapt to challenges and come out stronger in the end.In his insightful book Immediate Fiction: A Complete Writing Course, author and writing coach Jerry Cleaver explained it this way: “If the characters are having a good time, the reader is not. If it’s going well, it’s going nowhere.” That’s sage advice for authors who want to write apocalyptic fiction — or any type of fiction, for that matter.Think about some of your favorite novels. Think about the events that took place in those stories, particularly those involving the climax. I’m willing to bet the main character suffered in some way. Maybe they suffered through heartbreak … or the loss of a loved one … or a career failure … or an apocalyptic zombie outbreak. I’m also willing to bet that’s when you felt most connected to the main characters in the story, and most concerned for them.Most humans are empathetic by nature. (At least, I like to think that most of us are.) When we see another human in pain, even a total stranger, we feel something for them. We feel a little bit of their pain. We want to ease it. We are drawn in.The same is true for fiction. When we see characters we care about go through tough situations, we feel something. It arouses our emotions. It draws us deeper into the story.You can make your characters seem more genuine by getting inside of their “heads,” with character journals. Try writing a few diary or journal entries in the voice / POV of your main character. Just let the words flow, like a stream of consciousness. You’ll probably discover some things you didn’t already know. Use them to breathe new life into your characters.There are other ways to create believable characters when writing apocalyptic fiction, other tools of the trade. Realistic dialogue is one of them. Try to make your characters “sound” like real people when they talk. This skill comes from practice, of course, but also from listening to the rhythm of everyday conversations as they unfold around you.Lastly, make sure we know why your characters do the things they do. This will make them seem more real. If we can understand your characters’ motivations, we’ll also understand the choices they make throughout the story. Maybe we can even relate to those choices. Maybe we can empathize. You can reveal these motivations through interiority, first and foremost, but also through dialogue and action.So there you have them, a “few” tips and ideas for writing apocalyptic fiction that grips readers and keeps them turning pages through the end. If you liked this article, you might also enjoy my in-depth guide to writing good science fiction. Good luck, and thanks for reading!Read more: how to fix a slow leak in a tubeless bike tire