Title pending. (Just the start of an idea that I would love opinions on.)

[TeranikaSloane]

In this time we can connect with people all over the world. We have global issues, global cultures and a global civilisation. All through ancient history the fall of a civilisation can be decided by two things, by being conquered or by the civilisation becoming so big, and the resources so stretched, that the civilisation collapsed in upon itself. In this 'modern' world, with our global civilisation, can we expect history to repeat itself? And when our society does crumble it won't be politicians, kings and queens or any adult in power who survives. It will be the teenagers and children with no clear sense of who they are. It will be the teenagers and children who fight back, it will be these members of society who will become the pioneers of the new world, it will be them who question what went wrong and build, they hope, a better life, a better society, a better civilisation. A better world.

The day everything ended, it started the same. There was no warning about what was about to happen. No one really looked for the reason why it happened either, there was no reason too, and no way too, after it occured. At 10:09 am on the first of August every electrical device in existance exploded. Phones, computers, tvs, pacemakers, observation machines in hospitals. If it had electricity coursing through it then it exploded. Glass rained down on everyone, fires raged into being. Chaos reigned as people paniced. But it didn't end there, at exactly 10:50 am of the same day earthquakes hit every part of the world. Skyscrapers collapsed, buildings fell over, even earthquake enforced buildings collapsed like they were made of twigs. Millions of people died in the first hour and a half. Over the next week or so there was a series of sever weather events, at least I believe it was a week, there were no clocks, or course, and it was raining so hard it was impossible to go outside. My newfound friends and I were sheltering in a half collapsed building, one of the rooms was still completely intact. The idea of time disappeared for us, we slept, we woke, we theorised on what everything had become, we ate a little of our limited food, we told stories, we made each other laugh. We never allowed each other to become depressed. We knew we had to leave eventually but somehow we always avoided that topic of conversation. In truth, I believe it was a good thing that topic never came up. We didn't have expectations of what the world was like when the rain stopped, we didn't have plans that we wanted to complete. It was easy enough to find water (it had been raining for days, I would've been disturbed if it was hard) but food was a problem. Perhaps we had been in that room for longer then I believed or perhaps all the water was speeding the process but everywhere we looked mother nature was reclaiming what she had lain to waste. Maybe survival wouldn't be as hard as we had believed.

[Jack of Hearts]

Well a fine idea it is, complimented greatly by your writing ability. But can you flesh it out and still be this good, is the question- the challenge.






J

[TeranikaSloane]

-pulls face-
Thats what I have trouble with haha, so I am not entirely secure about my writing abilities.

[Jack of Hearts]

You're in for adventure.







J

[TeranikaSloane]

What do you mean?

[hillwalker]

You have the bare bones for an interesting story - the 'adventure' is discovering where your characters take you next since you presumably have no fixed idea on the actual plot.

I must admit I found the first paragraph where you set out the basis for the story very heavy going indeed. It only got interesting when you refer to 'the day everything ended'.

Good luck with this

H

[TeranikaSloane]

I think the start was just me attempting to explain why everything everywhere was connected and failed at the same time.

[hillwalker]

I think the start was just me attempting to explain why everything everywhere was connected and failed at the same time.

Agreed. But the story itself should do this for you as it unfolds. The way it's presented here it's rather a rambling prologue that would not persuade many of us to keep reading much further.

H

[TeranikaSloane]

Considering I started writing this because I didn't want to die of boredom in my math class I think thats not such a bad thing. But I will consider revising it.

[TeranikaSloane]

In this time we can connect with people all over the world. We have global issues, global cultures and a global civilisation. All through ancient history the fall of a civilisation can be decided by two things, by being conquered or by the civilisation becoming so big, and the resources so stretched, that the civilisation collapsed in upon itself. In this 'modern' world, with our global civilisation, can we expect history to repeat itself? And when our society does crumble it won't be politicians, kings and queens or any adult in power who survives. It will be the teenagers and children with no clear sense of who they are. It will be the teenagers and children who fight back, it will be these members of society who will become the pioneers of the new world, it will be them who question what went wrong and build, they hope, a better life, a better society, a better civilisation. A better world.

The day everything ended, it started the same. There was no warning about what was about to happen. No one really looked for the reason why it happened either, there was no reason too, and no way too, after it occured. At 10:09 am on the first of August every electrical device in existance exploded. Phones, computers, tvs, pacemakers, observation machines in hospitals. If it had electricity coursing through it then it exploded. Glass rained down on everyone, fires raged into being. Chaos reigned as people paniced. But it didn't end there, at exactly 10:50 am of the same day earthquakes hit every part of the world. Skyscrapers collapsed, buildings fell over, even earthquake enforced buildings collapsed like they were made of twigs. Millions of people died in the first hour and a half. Over the next week or so there was a series of sever weather events, at least I believe it was a week, there were no clocks, or course, and it was raining so hard it was impossible to go outside. My newfound friends and I were sheltering in a half collapsed building, one of the rooms was still completely intact. The idea of time disappeared for us, we slept, we woke, we theorised on what everything had become, we ate a little of our limited food, we told stories, we made each other laugh. We never allowed each other to become depressed. We knew we had to leave eventually but somehow we always avoided that topic of conversation. In truth, I believe it was a good thing that topic never came up. We didn't have expectations of what the world was like when the rain stopped, we didn't have plans that we wanted to complete. It was easy enough to find water (it had been raining for days, I would've been disturbed if it was hard) but food was a problem. Perhaps we had been in that room for longer then I believed or perhaps all the water was speeding the process but everywhere we looked mother nature was reclaiming what she had lain to waste. Maybe survival wouldn't be as hard as we believed.

"I don't know about any of you guys but I wonder if theres anyway we can have a bath." I smiled, of course Jade would want to have a bath first. Jade, with her short brown hair and dark brown eyes, was beautiful and she knew it. Before the world had turned into one big disaster zone she was the prissy, popular girl I reckoned, now, though, she knew she was out of her depth. We all were but we we're going to keep tredding water until the tide went out.
"I think sorting out where our foods coming from is more important then bathing right now." Dylan was a jerk, at least he had been. I had the sense that every single one of us were about to go through a metamorphisis. We were all going to become very different people.
"Hygienes just as important as food! We were all stuck in that room for ages, who knows what kind of bugs were in there with us! We need to bathe so that we don't get sick." Jade and Dylan clashed a lot, Jade was an airhead most of the time and Dylan was down-to-earth and practical. Unfortunately that practicality mean't he believed everyone should do what he wanted.
"ALRIGHT!" I yelled, pushing my long brown hair out of my face. It was oily and gross but I did agree with Dylan that food should be our top priority. However Jade had a point as well and I did believe that she wasn't going to be much help gathering food, and Celeste was still growing. Celeste was a little seven year old girl who had gotten seperated from her parents in the chaos. She was part of our family now and I knew we needed to treat her differently to the rest of us. Everyone was staring at me after i had yelled.
"Ok, Dylan, you and I are going to go searching for food. Jade, see if you can start a fire, if you can, find something thats big enough to pass as a bath and can hold water." I'm still not enitrely sure why everyone just did as I ordered them, i guess because I had found a compromise or something. Whatever the reason I had just become the leader, whether self-appointed or not I am not sure.
"Emma." I looked down, Celeste was staring up at me with her ice blue eyes. I squatted so I was the same height as her and smiled.
"Whats up?" I asked, half expecting her to complain or ask for her parents. She was seven after all.
"I can make a bow and arrows. Do you want to go hunting?" I just stared at her for several moments, completely baffled. Note to self: don't write off someone just because they are young.
"I don't know how to hunt with a bow and arrow." I noticed, I had to, that the high pitch baby voice that we had all adopted when talking to Celeste had disappeared. I was talking too her as an adult, as someone who truly understood what had happened and that nothing was going to be the same. I knew that Celeste was not going to go hunting but she was also going to be the only one not doing anything.
"Learning to use a bow and arrow is not hard, you just need to build up your strength." So matter-of-fact, that tone of voice coming from someone so young was slightly un-nerving but I had the feeling that Celeste was going to become a highly important member of our society.
"Ok, I am guessing you need to look for stuff for them. If you find some food while your looking collect that as well." Celeste nodded and ran off to the side of the forest bordering the destroyed city. Finally I had a really good look around. Most of the buildings had crumbled and vines were growing over the ruins. Gardens were over grown and slowly taking over. I spotted an out of control vegetable garden and made a mental note to point it out to Celeste later.
"EMMA!" I jumped before spinning to where Dylan was. He was pointing at something and I jogged up to him, being careful not run into any of the rubble around us.
"I think theres a river in there."
"Are you sure?" The forest looked forbidding, unweilding. It looked terrifying, but that might be contributed too the fact that we had always had it drilled into us to not go into the forest. There were wolves in there.
"Ok then, even if there are no fish in there, hopefully its fresh water." Dylan nodded and, taking a rather deep breath, we dove into the forest.


((Ok thats what i've got so far.))

[J Kelley]

Not bad for a rough draft. It held my attention, and I felt like I wanted to know more. The first paragraph doesn't seem to me like it belongs there, and I agree with Hillwalker the story gets interesting at the start of the second paragraph. I'd suggest scrapping the first paragraph and saving it as a person note to remind you of your vision. This sounds like it will be a character-driven plot. At this early stage I'd suggest really thinking through the back story for your characters, even though you don't need to provide this information to the reader. How did they get there and what dangers or horrors did they encounter on the way? Where were they when the disaster struck and how did they cope with it? This would have been a very traumatic experience, accompanied by tremendous loss for all involved. Even though this information might not be necessary to the story, knowing it as the author will add more depth to your characters as you proceed. There are a few technical things I could point out but in developing a rough draft it's sometimes better not to worry about the minor stuff as it may interrupt the flow of creativity. At least that's my experience. Just as an example, maybe you could say that your narrator began to see the little girl as an "equal" (or some equivalent word) instead of an "adult" as it sounds like your character is supposed to be a teenager, and that might give the reader a confused impression. Also, how long has it been since the catastrophe? Vines should not be growing over the ruins before they search for food.

[TeranikaSloane]

The idea of the vines is to add to Emma's complete baffled conseption(sp?) of time and later on Celeste discovers these are actually strawberry vines that were out of control even before the catastrophe. I have a bad habit of adding characters just because I feel there isn't enough in the story, like right now I feel like there should be another guy, consequently though it means that I have hollow characters, while others I have a complete background for. I am attached to my characters so I also make up extremely detailed backgrounds fo the ones I really like.

[J Kelley]

Weird. I kind of felt like there might be another guy there, too. It's a good start. Can't wait to read more.

[TeranikaSloane]

AH! I got to thinking after you said that and now I've got an idea for two new characters and these ones aren't hollow. Thanks! I'll have the next part soon!

[TeranikaSloane]

The day everything ended, it started the same. There was no warning about what was about to happen. No one really looked for the reason why it happened either, there was no reason too, and no way too, after it occured. At 10:09 am on the first of August every electrical device in existance exploded. Phones, computers, tvs, pacemakers, observation machines in hospitals. If it had electricity coursing through it then it exploded. Glass rained down on everyone, fires raged into being. Chaos reigned as people paniced. But it didn't end there, at exactly 10:50 am of the same day earthquakes hit every part of the world. Skyscrapers collapsed, buildings fell over, even earthquake enforced buildings collapsed like they were made of twigs. Millions of people died in the first hour and a half. Over the next week or so there was a series of sever weather events, at least I believe it was a week, there were no clocks, or course, and it was raining so hard it was impossible to go outside. My newfound friends and I were sheltering in a half collapsed building, one of the rooms was still completely intact. The idea of time disappeared for us, we slept, we woke, we theorised on what everything had become, we ate a little of our limited food, we told stories, we made each other laugh. We never allowed each other to become depressed. We knew we had to leave eventually but somehow we always avoided that topic of conversation. In truth, I believe it was a good thing that topic never came up. We didn't have expectations of what the world was like when the rain stopped, we didn't have plans that we wanted to complete. It was easy enough to find water (it had been raining for days, I would've been disturbed if it was hard) but food was a problem. Perhaps we had been in that room for longer then I believed or perhaps all the water was speeding the process but everywhere we looked mother nature was reclaiming what she had lain to waste. Maybe survival wouldn't be as hard as we believed.

"I don't know about any of you guys but I wonder if theres anyway we can have a bath." I smiled, of course Jade would want to have a bath first. Jade, with her short brown hair and dark brown eyes, was beautiful and she knew it. Before the world had turned into one big disaster zone she was the prissy, popular girl I reckoned, now, though, she knew she was out of her depth. We all were but we we're going to keep tredding water until the tide went out.
"I think sorting out where our foods coming from is more important then bathing right now." Dylan was a jerk, at least he had been. I had the sense that every single one of us were about to go through a metamorphisis. We were all going to become very different people.
"Hygienes just as important as food! We were all stuck in that room for ages, who knows what kind of bugs were in there with us! We need to bathe so that we don't get sick." Jade and Dylan clashed a lot, Jade was an airhead most of the time and Dylan was down-to-earth and practical. Unfortunately that practicality mean't he believed everyone should do what he wanted.
"ALRIGHT!" I yelled, pushing my long brown hair out of my face. It was oily and gross but I did agree with Dylan that food should be our top priority. However Jade had a point as well and I did believe that she wasn't going to be much help gathering food, and Celeste was still growing. Celeste was a little seven year old girl who had gotten seperated from her parents in the chaos. She was part of our family now and I knew we needed to treat her differently to the rest of us. Everyone was staring at me after i had yelled.
"Ok, Dylan, you and I are going to go searching for food. Jade, see if you can start a fire, if you can, find something thats big enough to pass as a bath and can hold water." I'm still not enitrely sure why everyone just did as I ordered them, i guess because I had found a compromise or something. Whatever the reason I had just become the leader, whether self-appointed or not I am not sure.
"Emma." I looked down, Celeste was staring up at me with her ice blue eyes. I squatted so I was the same height as her and smiled.
"Whats up?" I asked, half expecting her to complain or ask for her parents. She was seven after all.
"I can make a bow and arrows. Do you want to go hunting?" I just stared at her for several moments, completely baffled. Note to self: don't write off someone just because they are young.
"I don't know how to hunt with a bow and arrow." I noticed, I had to, that the high pitch baby voice that we had all adopted when talking to Celeste had disappeared. I was talking too her as an adult, as someone who truly understood what had happened and that nothing was going to be the same. I knew that Celeste was not going to go hunting but she was also going to be the only one not doing anything.
"Learning to use a bow and arrow is not hard, you just need to build up your strength." So matter-of-fact, that tone of voice coming from someone so young was slightly un-nerving but I had the feeling that Celeste was going to become a highly important member of our society.
"Ok, I am guessing you need to look for stuff for them. If you find some food while your looking collect that as well." Celeste nodded and ran off to the side of the forest bordering the destroyed city. Finally I had a really good look around. Most of the buildings had crumbled and vines were growing over the ruins. Gardens were over grown and slowly taking over. I spotted an out of control vegetable garden and made a mental note to point it out to Celeste later.
"EMMA!" I jumped before spinning to where Dylan was. He was pointing at something and I jogged up to him, being careful not run into any of the rubble around us.
"I think theres a river in there."
"Are you sure?" The forest looked forbidding, unweilding. It looked terrifying, but that might be contributed too the fact that we had always had it drilled into us to not go into the forest. There were wolves in there.
"Ok then, even if there are no fish in there, hopefully its fresh water." Dylan nodded and, taking a rather deep breath, we dove into the forest.

"Dylan, your slow!" I cried as I slid down the surface of a small hill. If i was going to learn how to hunt I was also going to have to learn how to walk silently on all these dry leaves!
"I'm coming, I'm coming!" There was something about Dylan that made me think he wouldn't be a good hunter. He wasn't slow, in fact I thought he was a bit of a brainiac with his blonde-brown hair and dark brown eyes, but he almost gave off that sense of dim-wittedness. That so isn't a word but I can't think of another way to put it, Dylan is paitent in some aspects (not when people are disobeying him - go figure). I don't think he'd be one to move through the forest quickly, hunting food. Honestly, I sincerely hoped there was fish in the river, if there was a river. That'd be perfect for him. Then, the sound of rushing water met my ears.
"AH!" And I ran, hearing Dylan cry out in startlement at my sudden departure. that was funny, perhaps he couldn't hear the crashing sounds that filled my ears? How strange. Then the sight of a great river met my eyes. i think it was flooded from all that rain.
"How are we going to fish in that?" I yelled over the sound as Dylan caught up too me.
"We're not!" He yelled back and he took me up river some. And there we found some calmer water.
"Here's another question for you! How are we going to fish?" I asked and Dylan looked at me.
"And your green eyes make you look so smart as well! Aren't you supposed to be our leader?" Dylan was making fun of me and it would've been funny too, if i had any incling at the time that I was the leader.
"I'm the what?" I asked, completely and utterly baffled.
"Ah, never mind." Dylan said, laughing at my expression. He seemed to relax a bit, away from everyone else. He was quite nice when he wasn't busy acting like a jerk. He grabbed some sticks from the forest and sharpened the tips on a rock.
"Spears?" I asked, watching him make roughly sharp sticks. He nodded, immersed in his work. I took a proper look around. It was like paradise, only without the guarantee of being able to curl up in a warm bed that night. Only without the guarantee of ever seeing your family again. Thinking about my parent's sent a shockwave through me and suddenly i wanted to scream and cry and hurt something. I suppresed the feeling. Right now was a terrible time to lose my head.
"Here." i turned just in time to catch the spear Dylan had thrown at me.
"See if you can catch a fish.' I nodded and made my way into the water, before looking around me for some fish.

I aimed the spear a little to the left of the fish, remembering someone telling me once that things in the water weren't exactly where you saw them, raised my arm, tensing as I got ready to strike. The scream that ripped through the air then made me jump violently, dropping the spear with a splash in the water, half soaking myself. And then I was running. Honestly, I cannot remember making the decision, and then starting, to run. I was just running at full speed towards the others, towards the direction of the scream. the trip that had taken over half an hour now took only ten minutes. There was a large fire crackling, I could see picture frames.

((I'll write the rest later, i have to go to sleep.))