Icu4dzs
Super Self-Sufficient
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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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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!
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)
