Writing a PA book, need advice/input

Prolix · Post by **Prolix** » Mon Oct 31, 2005 11:41 am

Hi, everybody. I'm liek teh newbie.

I'm writing a post-apocalpyse themed book- not really because I prefer PA over other genres, but because the plot wouldn't make sense otherwise.

A problem I'm having, though, is that the only good PA media I've seen is Wasteland (which is different from the sort of PA I want, ie fewer criminals, robots and mutants). Also, my book is going to be semi-comedic.

Alright, so here is my question: what sorts of things do you find interesting in a ruined Earth?

It's a vague question, so I'll help by giving you bare-bones of the plot.

The story takes place in Texaco, with second-generation doomsday survivors. It focuses around three characters.

Isaiah Loduca is a narcissist, who has decided that a fifty-year lifespan isn't enough. He might settle for immortality, though. One day, news comes that some scientist-types have found the cause of old age and a way to destroy it. He packs up, heads across the desert to their lab-thingy to get the treatment done.

Marty Black is unimpressive-incarnate. He's a farmer around the immortality-scientist's base. Well, boring and hard as his life is, it manages to get worse a few days after the immortality treatment is discovered. The base is attacked, the equipment is stolen, and everything is burned to the ground. Marty is slightly pissed. He joins with Isaiah to try and find those responsible: Isaiah so that he can negotiate a way to get the treatment, and Marty so that he can get revenge.

Alister Namarra is a professional killer for the people who attacked the base, a religous survivalist group called White Glove. White Glove believes that immortality is sacrileige (at least the lower-ranks believe that

). Alister's job is to find the people who recieved the immortality treatment and kill them (it defeats old age, not death). Papers recovered from the base show that Isaiah was the last to recieve an immorality treatment, though the base was actually destroyed before he got it.

So, again: what PA elements would be interesting to add into this story?

Thanks for you time.

ApTyp · Post by **ApTyp** » Mon Oct 31, 2005 3:17 pm

Every time a character has to travel a long distanc (like, to another state, or longer), because you usually get cool descriptions of hellish landscapes. They're like story ideas that didn't make it, but were cool enough to write down.

Megatron · Post by **Megatron** » Mon Oct 31, 2005 5:57 pm

Isaiah Loducca, Alister Namarra and Marty Black? One of those names don't quite fit. Also, what kind of apocalypse is it?

Cities should be like beautiful forests full of dogs and lions :'(

St. Toxic · Post by **St. Toxic** » Mon Oct 31, 2005 6:00 pm

I'd like a carchase. You never see em' in books.

vx trauma · Post by **vx trauma** » Mon Oct 31, 2005 6:27 pm

Radioactive Black-Leather Nazis w nasty drug related problems.

Blargh · Post by **Blargh** » Mon Oct 31, 2005 8:12 pm

Forget the malevolent penguins who can kill with a thought at your own significant peril, Prolix.

Prolix · Post by **Prolix** » Mon Oct 31, 2005 9:15 pm

Megatron wrote:Isaiah Loducca, Alister Namarra and Marty Black? One of those names don't quite fit. Also, what kind of apocalypse is it?

Cities should be like beautiful forests full of dogs and lions :'(

I got the names randomly off of a census thingy

... I'm not really that attached to them, they'll probably change. Not even sure what countries Namarra and Loduca stem from.

EDIT: Okay, Namara is Irish and Black is English- loduca is a real name but I can't find a country-of-origion for it.

I'm thinking of a Y2k type apocalypse, where the economy just sorta collapsed and people starved to death. Because, radiation is not my friend.

Radioactive Black-Leather Nazis w nasty drug related problems.

Adding nazis will break my triteness-detector, sorry.

Every time a character has to travel a long distanc (like, to another state, or longer), because you usually get cool descriptions of hellish landscapes. They're like story ideas that didn't make it, but were cool enough to write down.

Awesome, thanks.

I'd like a carchase. You never see em' in books.

Car chases are so 80's... I'm about 50/50 on this one.

Forget the malevolent penguins who can kill with a thought at your own significant peril, Prolix.

I'll try, but the editors might not let it slide...

PiP · Post by **PiP** » Mon Oct 31, 2005 9:17 pm

St. Toxic wrote:I'd like a carchase. You never see em' in books.

lol that'd take quite an imaginative mind with just extraordianary command of language and a sense of using it to create linguistic special-effects - i.e. rendering the emotional and kinaesthetic experience of a car chase into the medium of written text. He'd get some prize for that, no doubt.

Prolix · Post by **Prolix** » Mon Oct 31, 2005 9:34 pm

PiP wrote:
St. Toxic wrote:I'd like a carchase. You never see em' in books.
lol that'd take quite an imaginative mind with just extraordianary command of language and a sense of using it to create linguistic special-effects - i.e. rendering the emotional and kinaesthetic experience of a car chase into the medium of written text. He'd get some prize for that, no doubt.

It shouldn't really be that hard. Any action scene is easy to write out, since the audience is interested. It's the scenes where there is a transition between conflicts or lots of dialouge that are tricky.

PiP · Post by **PiP** » Mon Oct 31, 2005 9:51 pm

I'm not talking about just "writing it out", I'm talking about writing it in such way that it actually IS carchase. Crap like 'they chase each other in cars, speeding like rockets, corners like mad, sweep through the streets, engines roaring, oil boiling, buildings blend into pale lines on the sides...etc" just won't do.

Nicolai · Post by **Nicolai** » Mon Oct 31, 2005 10:31 pm

It's not PA if you don't have a gang of rednecks with a penchant of cannibalism in there somewhere.

vx trauma · Post by **vx trauma** » Tue Nov 01, 2005 12:05 am

Epic duel between the hero and the bad guy with giant jet driven dildos.

Megatron · Post by **Megatron** » Tue Nov 01, 2005 12:49 am

Prolix wrote: It shouldn't really be that hard. Any action scene is easy to write out, since the audience is interested. It's the scenes where there is a transition between conflicts or lots of dialouge that are tricky.

I'd have thought the opposite, since how would you describe in great detail a piece of action that is something visual? While a thought or a discussion is a lot easier. I punch him and he punch me and I punch him.

Can you name a character John Matrix after the famous civil war hero, John Matrix?

MadBill · Post by **MadBill** » Tue Nov 01, 2005 1:05 am

PiP wrote:I'm not talking about just "writing it out", I'm talking about writing it in such way that it actually IS carchase. Crap like 'they chase each other in cars, speeding like rockets, corners like mad, sweep through the streets, engines roaring, oil boiling, buildings blend into pale lines on the sides...etc" just won't do.

You wouldn't like my rendition of a carchase:

"A carchase."

Too bad, I think it is concise.

Prolix · Post by **Prolix** » Tue Nov 01, 2005 7:47 am

PiP wrote:I'm not talking about just "writing it out", I'm talking about writing it in such way that it actually IS carchase. Crap like 'they chase each other in cars, speeding like rockets, corners like mad, sweep through the streets, engines roaring, oil boiling, buildings blend into pale lines on the sides...etc" just won't do.

If you mean writing a car chase like God would write a car chase, then yeah, it would be hard. Reading a book is never going to be the same as watching TV.

I'd use less cliches and more sound/ feel description than that, too.

I'd have thought the opposite, since how would you describe in great detail a piece of action that is something visual? While a thought or a discussion is a lot easier. I punch him and he punch me and I punch him.

Can you name a character John Matrix after the famous civil war hero, John Matrix?

Writing a discussion is easy, as you can see here:

Joe walked into his living room, searching the room for his wife. Damn, where was that bitch? "Joette? Where are you?"

"In the weed, dear," her voice echoed weakly from across the house. "I'm baking cookies for the girlscout meeting."

"Where's my fishing rod?" he yelled back at her.

"Whaaaat?"

"Where's my fishing rod?"

"I can't hear you!"

Joe growled to himself. "Where... Is... My... Fishing Rod!"

"I'm baking cookies!"

And the scene ends with Joe beating the crap out of his wife...

It's easy to come up with stupid dialouge like that, it's hard to come up with witty and interesting dialouge.

And no, because then I'd have to re-write Commando.

St. Toxic · Post by **St. Toxic** » Tue Nov 01, 2005 8:52 am

Alright, forget the chase. Instead, include a scene where one of the main heroes is lying in a pool of his own blood, contemplating about where he went wrong. Also, a wasteland bar in the middle of nowhere, with a badass bartender and a chickenshit regular, and make them share some of their stories.

Post by **Retlaw83** » Tue Nov 01, 2005 10:57 am

I had an idea for PA book centered around an economic apocalypse. Basically, the U.N. takes over the world and sets up a socialist paradise. A little bit of math is fuzzy in applying the economic program and BOOM - the only economies that survive are those of the Australian and Japanese islands.

Feel free to steal the idea if you want. Just promise not to sue me if I publish a book entitled "Nightscape" with a similar background in about a decade or so. Also, a book I'm planning called "Terraraptor" takes place in the same universe, so don't sue me for that one, either.

MadBill · Post by **MadBill** » Tue Nov 01, 2005 2:45 pm

An epocalypse as it were.

S4ur0n27 · Post by **S4ur0n27** » Tue Nov 01, 2005 3:08 pm

I'm also writing a book

Or rather, a bunch of stories.

Geno · Post by **Geno** » Tue Nov 01, 2005 11:28 pm

S4ur0n27 wrote:I'm also writing a book Or rather, a bunch of stories.

It can a book if it's an amalgation of short stories.

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Make it hardcore with gore and all. People dying and trying everything to survive. Make a lot of character developement. And then make the characters die. No mutants. Just desert, gore, people dying and destruction. Or whatever you prefer.