Writing.
Writing never changes.
The end of originality occurred pretty much as we predicted.
Too many cliches, not enough creative or innovative ideas to go around.
The details are trivial and pointless.
The reasons, as always, purely lazy ones.
Which is why authors can use my handy guide to the end of the world!
The idea of the end of human society has been around since society itself.
Nothing motivates people to dream about the end of world quiet like being a cog in the
machinery of civilization.
The daily grind of a 9 to 5 job can make even the most complacent person wish for a zombie
outbreak.
So let us begin the beginning of after the end.
The first instinct of an author is to address how the world ended.
Choosing to detail how the world fell should hinge entirely on the themes of the story.
A bleak, nihilistic story should have no clear answers and thus specifics of the apocalypse
can be left vague.
Or we could create a sophisticated timeline that documents the fall of civilization to
reflect the cyclical nature of history.
However, both of these approaches are flawed.
Having deep themes resonate within the story will only distract the reader from admiring
our awesome anti-hero.
And having a detailed timeline simply wastes too much time.
A much better focus of our writing effort should be spent glossing over how everything
ended and instead be used to show the logistics of our main character’s survivalist bunker.
That sounds much more exciting!
With all that said, we should spend some time showing the environment.
One of the biggest stars of any post apocalyptic story is the setting itself.
While researching a well thought out environment that thoroughly showcases the ravages of radiation,
nature, and time upon the decaying ruins of the old world can be difficult, stealing a
setting from an established work isn’t!
Let’s just steal the most common stock post apocalyptic set, the desert wasteland!
Who cares that the ash from a nuclear war would likely result in a global cooling trend.
Because you know what else is cool?
Deserts!
And that’s all we need!
With the Earth reduced to a sweltering wasteland of sand and ruins, we need to populate it
with survivors!
Now the first group of people to succumb to the harsh world of the post apocalypse is
obviously the fashion designers.
Without any fashion experts to guide people, the survivors are forced to model their clothing
on heavy metal bands instead.
In spite of critical resource shortfalls, there will be enough neon colored hair dye,
protein shakes, and animal hide to style an entire army of buff, leather wearing biker
gangs with Mohawks.
Speaking of leather, this will be our most common attire in the wastelands.
Black leather is a great choice of clothing when wandering in the scorching hot desert!
With our survivors dressed and looking the part, we need to give them something to do.
Most post apocalyptic stories have only two kinds of people, scavengers and raiders.
As soon as society falls apart, the remaining survivors shouldn’t bother to create new
communities and should immediately turn on one another even if it lowers their odds of
survival.
Now we need a way for them get around.
They obviously can’t use bicycles with their easy maintenance and lack of a need for fuel.
Instead, they should drive around on gas guzzling motor vehicles.
It doesn’t matter that gasoline has a limited shelf life when we can ride in style on 18
wheelers decorated in metal spikes!
Our survivors are not the only ones stalking the wastes.
We should also fill our desert with monsters and mutants created by radiation.
We all know that fictional radiation gives people superpowers or mutates them into deformed,
but powerful monsters, unlike boring real radiation that just kills you.
It kills you slowly.
It’s just terrible.
But let’s not dwell on that!
Instead, let’s introduce our main character.
The main character should be a lone survivor anti-hero who drifts from town to town like
the old gunslingers of the west.
He should be a rugged individualist who constantly rejects communal acceptance in favor of wandering
the wastes.
Why does our anti-hero wander the wastes?
Well I don’t know, it’s like revenge or something... who cares!
He’s cool!.
Just stick to the old brooding and mysterious trait so we can skip his dialog and characterization.
Also be certain to ignore the long term psychological effects of prolonged isolation.
We can’t have our main character show traits that the audience might identify with like
loneliness or uncertainty.
While our lone hero roams the wastelands, slaughtering bodybuilders with bad haircuts,
we should also take the time to establish the tone.
Stick to an extremely cynical outlook on human behavior and be sure to wallow in darkness
while completely failing to add any kind of contrast.
It’s not like the audience needs anyone to root for.
Leave the audience hopeless, helpless, and alone.
Subject them to a bleak future of silence and desperation as they struggle to make their
voices heard only to face a dark empty and uncaring universe.
There is no hope, only empty despair as one trudges past the broken works of those who
came before, the silent ruins a testament to their false pride.
Kind of like my facebook feed.