Forum: Story Ideas

By having a group of kids of different ages, you could have a nice mix of experiences, maturity and physical capabilities, while also presenting various levels of naivité. By mixing farm, city and suburban kids--say a small church weekend trip to the big city--you'd also have various outlooks to bounce off each other.

Lord of the Flies with Zombies doesn't quite sound too interesting to me, although I'm sure others would jump on it.

What make "Lord of the Flies" compelling, and what ultimately dated it so severely, was the way the kids formed their own political structure which reflected the 50s U.S. society at the time. A more modern story wouldn't fall into the same pitfalls. Nowadays, we have all of our own pitfalls. In fact, there are now so many guidelines and rules for zombie apocalyptic stories that I'm afraid many of them are written on autopilot, rather than putting real thought into them. The emphasis is on the day-to-day struggle, rather than how the events occur or how the groups organize.

@bluerazz

I mostly meant the lack of fear young people they have a thing for thinking thier the main hero in a story how everthing revolves around them you know the that wont ever happen to me thought or i would never be that unlucky and my favorite i could do that just give me a liitle bit of time

Youngsters 'lack of fear' is easily countered by their first encounter with an undead horde. Nothing quite convinces people that they aren't invulnerable than watching your friends being slaughtered and there's nothing you (or they) can do about it.

@Not an Id

Or (sub)urban kids at a nature/"unplug" camp, putting them near a farm community, or with the camp boasting some "local" volunteers/assistants.

I don't think the location is so essential as the mix of backgrounds/ages is. The location is often what drives the story, so I suspect most authors will want to pick the meatiest locations. Simply having the kids traveling to a camp, only to be waylaid mid-route, should be enough to supply a divergent cast capable of covering each other. And of course, the more outrageous (and usually minority characters) are usually the first to be offed in most zombie flicks.

In my opinion, that is where the emphasis should be in the early stages for any apocalyptic / post apocalyptic story. Groups beyond family/clan or small tribal groups centered on an alpha/leader type character will not form before day to day survival is relatively secure.

That's why I like introducing a mix of characters early on. I've always liked forming such groups early, so the survivors have the resources to aid others and pull in new recruits. In the case of the kids, they'd have the skills resources while also being reluctant to trust the adults who--without controls--might be likely to abuse anyone they take in. In that case, they'd likely only accept other kids, or single women who've run away from other groups.

Again, another interesting dynamic to play with and another conflict over the course of the story.

It seems to me that there are existing organizations where survivors would be able to trust each other and form groups larger than a couple of dozen people. Examples might be Boy Scouts, members of a particular church, kids who go to the same school

Richard has a point there. If you start with a bunch of scouts on a regional or state jamboree or other multi-troop activity. Same could be said for any large school or church camp, or a summer holiday camp. Sure you start with a few adults, but only a few. If a camp and a number of adults are in town getting supplies you'd have a very low ratio of adults. Also, with the scout camp start you'd have a large group used to working together and living in camping conditions.

Depending on what qualifies as struggling to survive, about 30 is an army infantry platoon, three squads of ten men plus a platoon leader, platoon sergeant, and maybe a radioman/driver for the platoon leader. Not always up to full strength, but combat experience has driven decisions on unit size.

And that amount is a largely unworkable number in fiction--even for an author who includes hundreds of characters in his stories.

Ideally, a core group of characters will range from 5 (best) to 10 (weaker), otherwise readers will continually be scratching their heads, wondering who is who--especially if a posting takes longer than a week. Even though I posted twice a week, my fans would typically reread the previous chapter so they could remember what was happening from one chapter to the next. Adding that many characters make a story unmanageable.

@DS

Not knowing where your next meal will come from or when. living on the edge of starvation, not for a few days, or even a few weeks, but for months with no end in sight because you lack the necessary skills to survive without modern infrastructure.

A basic premise of most PA stories (zombie apocalypses included), is that there's a wide variety of leftover food in stores, people homes and warehouses that's simply there for the taking. Thus scrounging for meals isn't as tough as if the kids were dumped in the middle of an isolated forest.

Generally, survivors in most stories move from the security of one house they can defend to another, minimizing the amount of time they remain in the open.

Also, one of my pet-peeves about PA stories is that they fly in the face of most real-life experiences. According to the collected wisdom of most PA stories, civilization collapses within days without the constant rule of the government. But in most widespread disasters, where the government is unable to reach anyone for weeks or even longer, most people pull together, helping each other rather than fighting tooth and nail. Thus the entire premise of most of these stories falls apart. They are not reality-based stories, but pure fantasy about how essential the rule of law is to human society. If a government collapses, another steps into it's place. In most places where this principal fails, it's because the government refuses to back off once it's lost control, becoming worse than the people working to upset them.

Still, PA stories are fun, no matter how ridiculous they are, so I think I 'll keep reading them.

In my opinion, the formation of any large (beyond a couple of dozen people) or complex group structures in the early aftermath of an apocalyptic event is completely unrealistic. It won't, it can't happen until people feel secure about living through tomorrow.

That's not what I was suggesting. In a few of my stories, the story starts with random encounters, and as events unfold, the draw others into their universe. Some die, but a certain core group survives, which then provides the support to attract new members. A 'core of strength' which others are drawn to, such as David's access to electricity and medical supplies in my "Great Death" series.

In the case of kids, it would be a group of other kids who are just as likely to protect other kids, but who wouldn't pose the threat a group of unregulated adult men might pose. After all, the entire premise of the apocalyptic stories is that all the rules of society get thrown to the winds and readers get to see what life without structure offers (usually uniformly bad).

Richard's idea sounds good, but then you've got to deal with a group of kids trying to reach a (to them) remote group without knowing whether they've survived or not, where I was imagining starting with a coherent group who'd have the necessary skills to grow over time. Five or six kids to start would be plenty, or you could start with a few kids who find themselves in the same position when things turn south, who later become the essential core group other come to rely on.

Try Bird Song,no zombies

Thanks. I'll check it out.