Post-Apocalyptic Fiction Peeves

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Weird-Grocery6931@reddit

Surviving after a global nuclear exchange. That's what I hate to see.

What I would live to see is something more in line with what is happening: PRC kill switches discovered in the power grid and communications hubs. PRC decides to go ahead and initiate since they were discovered. Kills the grid, activates SOF cells in the US destroying transportation infrastructure and grid infrastructure (ensuring it doesn't come back on) waits a month or two for the US population to go at one another, communities working together survive, PRC moves on Taiwan, Russia takes Ukraine securing the Black Sea, NATO collapses, Japan becomes power house in the Pacific, Pakistan and India go at it with Nukes, Israel goes after everyone except Jordan and Egypt, and Canada pissed off at the US President, decides to take the Great Lakes region and Midwest while blocking the border with WA state.

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JJShurte@reddit (OP)

Damn, I had a Jericho style series I wanted to write.

As for your idea, The Borrowed World focuses on US infrastructure being targeted. Your idea seems like a more modernised version of that.

Let’s just hope China doesn’t invade Taiwan until I can get my family out, though…

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Weird-Grocery6931@reddit

Move quickly. The central committee gave Xi a third term to realize his third promise of reunification. Xi's third term ends in 2028.

Keep in mind for the last 300 years, we were never surprised by war. No war in the US started without us realizing it was going to happen. Revisionist historians want us to believe Pearl Harbor was a complete surprise. If that was the case, why did Kimmel have all the aircraft moved closer together to protect them from sabotage? Who would sabotage them. Watch the 2019 movie "Midway" where Layton is warned by Yamamoto that the Japanese would have no choice but to go to war with the US. The same thing is happening now.

Military members have been found guilty of espionage for the PRC. Our power grid is filled with PRC kill switches. Around the world the PRC has and is moving to mitigate US military presence.

The DoD, since before 2020 has been reshaping itself for war in the Pacific.

If you haven't been serious about getting your family out of Taiwan, you should probably get serious. Even if the PRC doesn't want war with the US, they will need to neutralize INDOPACOM and the DoD before they move on Taiwan.

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JJShurte@reddit (OP)

Leaving next month, just holding out till then!

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Weird-Grocery6931@reddit

I think you'll be fine.

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OnTheEdgeOfFreedom@reddit

I was going to flame you for pestering a prep sub with something irrelevant, but you came out and said that you're an author and... now I'm going to flame you way harder. JK. As someone who has dabbled in fiction I'll give you my take, fwiw.

Here's the thing, and I'm sure you know this. Fiction is meant to entertain. It can also teach, but most folk just want to be distracted from their own lives. To do that, you need to reach for story elements that can get a little fantastic. If they wanted hard-core realism they'll close the book and go do their taxes or whatever.

But some folk (well, me) still like realism in stories. The helplessly geeky sci-nerd doesn't get to invent nuclear fusion and doesn't get the supermodel babe. The EMP attack does not set fire to the atmosphere above Los Angeles, as much as we all might wish it did. The energy of the nuke does not cause zombies to rise from the graves. (Ok, maybe Godzilla, but he's a special case.) Or knock the earth off its axis and send it careening towards the sun (upvote if you know that one). Unless you're writing hardcore parody, that kind of thing is an instant dealbreaker for me. If you're doing day 5 of the nuclear war, things are going to suck and there's far worse to come. I expect people stumbling to their knees, succumbing to infection, organ failure and dysentery from contaminated water. So I don't want a sex scene with a hyperorgasmic 22 year old blonde female instagram model and a gritty stubble-beard antihero militia dude at that point in the story. Said female is closing her legs and hiding from men because this is not a good time to get pregnant, period.

Show me the misery as a backdrop. Maybe your heroes win though and find the oddly preserved valley with the temperature inversion that kept the fallout away (Alas Babylon, wasn't it?) or the deep underground caves stocked with edible glowing fungi that can sustain them for the next ten years while madness rages on the surface, but in staying there they learn the whole place was actually constructed by hyper-intelligent aliens who foresaw the coming war and built it to preserve a few humans for their own curious purposes - or by an evil AI (oops, I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream calling on line 2). I'm ok with that - it's fantastic, but at least it's not violating known physics or everything we know about human nature. But it should be obvious they didn't cheerfully waltz through. Population crashes are ugly.

Bottom line, it's a dark time in human history, none darker, and it's going to be dark story. Not a goofy buddy story, not erotica unless you want to get that dark and I don't suggest it - leave the endemic rape in the background, and not yet another example of bulletproof heroes who slaughter their way though masses of liberals and immigrants (because let's be clear about what the hordes of monsters or masses of unwashed raiders are really representing in the minds of that particular audience). Hell, have one of the heroes succumb to an infection from a bullet wound in chapter two. There's some realism for you.

If I were doing a story like this, and I won't, I'd use this description of an EMP strike on the US. Note I didn't actually get into the radioactive aspects of the rest of the war, you can crash western civ without them.

Have fun.

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Theory_Large@reddit

I think the valley one was Z for Zachariah.

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Arglival@reddit

Or have one of the heroes succumb to an infection from a dirty pair of tweezers trying to get out a splinter. Or from a sewing needle used to repair a hole in a pair of dirty (but valuable) pair of socks.

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JJShurte@reddit (OP)

Awesome feedback, thanks!

And yeah, kinda weird to reach out to this community, but I figure it's just as well read as the Post-Apoc community but you lot are actually pretty damn active. Alongside all that, people here tend to be a bit more grounded than the people who just focus on stories, and grounded is what I'm looking for with this series.

Thanks again!

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J701PR4@reddit

The protagonist always seems to be some kind of former soldier with all sorts of special skills.

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Thatdipwadthere@reddit

100%.

I'm a retired sergeant major; served in Iraq as a medic, afg as an engineer.

I've been through all kinds of training and not once had the Army taught me how to snap someone's neck with my bear hands.

There's an old infantry saying, "there's 204 job in the Army, 203 of them support the infantry."

As an old leader I didn't need to be good at everything. I just needed to be able to recognize people's strengths and weaknesses and put them in a position where they can succeed.

So I would either put a senior military non-combat guy in charge of your group or I would put a young sergeant in the group who is a role player with a civilian in charge of your group. The military is used to civilian leadership.

The military is made up from a civilian population from all walks of life. The military just teaches you a role.

Or... Even better. Put a young soldier in charge who doesn't know everything but it's thrown into a leadership position by people who think he should given his background. Then make it a journey of discovery for the kid.

The way it usually goes... They put a captain or major who is a bad ass in charge who is used to making decisions.

Put a sergeant or lieutenant in charge and make them earn it.

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UnableFortune@reddit

My father was in the engineers and went on to college to be a psychologist. Served 3 tours in the British military. His intolerance for roughing it ever since he left the service is the funniest part I imagine in a post-apocalyptic scenario. His version of camping is we go camping, he gets a luxury hotel room nearby. His old military buddies describe a man I've never seen. Supposedly he was the tough. Most people who know him have no idea he served. I don't think he's embarrassed, he just isn't interested in people expecting anything from him. He's happy to let people think he can't change a car tire. People take the piss and he just shrugs. The only thing he's kept from his time is going to the gun club for target practice and still plays sports.

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Thatdipwadthere@reddit

Some civilian friends of mine wanted to rough it with nothing but sleeping bags in Sub-Zero weather. They thought they were tough when I said no.

What I really said, "why be miserable??

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UnableFortune@reddit

Yuck, I wouldn't want to do that either. I love camping but not in it to be tough. I have a giant tent so if the weather is miserable all day, we can have chairs, table etc... I consider myself a fairweather outdoorist.

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Thatdipwadthere@reddit

My first deployment was to Iraq. Everything was hard and dusty. Sleeping on cots.?maybe some foam if you got lucky. They opened a px and a saw one of those cheap soccer mom chairs and bought one.

I didn't think to much of it... Just might be nice to have a place to sit. I got back to my hooch and sat on it...

I had not realized until that point how uncomfortable I had been. That shitty chair was the most comfortable thing I owned.

I canoe into the boundary waters every year so you paddle and carry everything. I always take a pack chair. It's non-negotiable.

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UnableFortune@reddit

I get that. I went on an archeological dig in West Asia. 8 weeks sleeping on a mat on the floor, just stools and benches to sit on, outdoor kitchen and shower, squat toilets, literally digging soil in the hot sun, zero privacy. I'm not an archeologist but stupidly volunteered for that project because I'm interested in the origins of wine. I was kicking myself after 2 weeks. I looked ridiculous on the plane to Warsaw in dusty clothes but that tiny economy size seat on the plane was heaven. Lesson learned, wait for the summary of the research on early wine making in future.

However, my father's long past a comfy chair. He has a vibrating bed with bamboo pillows and silk sheets, heated seats in his truck, weekly chiropractor, hot tub, cuddliest fluffliest, most spoiled labradoodle you've ever seen. He's stayed in good shape but he's dedicated to his creature comforts.

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Thatdipwadthere@reddit

Another thing.. When people post pics of their bugout bags... There's never a hygiene kit in there.

The simple act of brushing your teeth cab be a great morale boost. When I take my kids and their friends into the boundary waters for a week. The first thing we do when hit town is go to an outfitter and take a $5 dollar shower.

The first year we did it, I thought "what a fucking gouge! 5 bucks for a shower??"

Now we acknowledge it's the best money we spend on a trip

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UnableFortune@reddit

I admit, we had showers. Cold but clean water is lovely.

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JJShurte@reddit (OP)

Okay, I had made him military, but it was to tie him into some real world shit the australian military got involved in a few years back. It wouldn't be his whole identity.... but goddamn this got upvoted to high heaven, so I might need to abandon this plot point all together.

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skyrymproposal@reddit

One of my favorite books had a skilled woman helping a man get home to his family. She is a skilled camper/hunter.
It’s not like the woman has to be the protagonist, but when a main character is a man, it’s nice to hear them think, “I wouldn’t be alive without this woman”—so often men are the savior.
(Hate) When it is a woman protagonist, dad always teaches daughter how to survive...

but what about a mom teaching their family to survive? Can’t the mom be the one with skills and training? Can’t the mom be the one to push for extra supplies when chatting before SHTF?

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Jim_Wilberforce@reddit

Nothing will kill you quicker in shtf then feminism. I promise you if you incorporate DEI shit into the novel, it will flop. When times get hard people turn to men because our muscles are bigger. Bigger muscles mean we can lift more and work harder. It's not sexism, it's physics.

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justasque@reddit

A community requires a lot of different skills and abilities to function well. A diverse group of people will have a wider set of skills and experiences. Rich people with resources, poor people with experience getting by on very little. Rural people with outdoor skills, urban people with people/street skills. People who have lived in the area all their lives, people who have spent a lot of time elsewhere and have seen a lot of different ways of approaching various issues. People of different ethnicities, who are familiar with different foods and how to prepare them. People who speak different languages, who can translate or speak with each other “in code” (e.g. Navaho code talkers). People with higher education degrees (engineers, medical types), and people with hands-on experience (electricians, plumbers, makers of all kinds). People with combat experience and people with conflict resolution experience. People who know how to feed a crowd with very little, people who how to mend clothing and gear to make it perform well and last longer, people who know how to keep things clean to prevent disease.

Having muscles and being able to lift a lot are good skills to have; neither are limited to men. But a community of only muscular men is likely going to be severely lacking in other skills that are necessary for the community’s survival. Diversity can present challenges, for sure, but do not underestimate the massive advantages it can bring to a community. Don’t overlook the importance of traditional women’s work to the survival of a community, and don’t overlook the education and experiences of the modern women who are soldiers, engineers, farmers, doctors, and so on.

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Jim_Wilberforce@reddit

I'm not going to commit much more time to this. When my chicken coops need to be moved, or 1500lbs of feed need unloaded into barrels. When several tons of firewood need split and stacked or dirt moved to the garden by wheelbarrow, it sure helps my 120lb wife that's she married to a brute of a man with an IQ over 100. She doesn't argue with me while I'm doing the labor over how much smarter she thinks she is. She respectfully asks me in the morning after handling me my cup of coffee.

All of this "respect for women" comes at the expense of respect for men, is my point. As if it has to be a zero sum game. We're talking about shtf. In shtf my wife will be cared for by me and my circle of friends. No one will be having arguments that day over the intelligence of women and their contributions to society. That's decadent end-of-civilization shit that will get tossed in the trash the first week the power is out.

I'm not lifting a finger for someone who hates me. You're on your own feminists. And in the context of a novel based on this subject, if you write in a Captain Marvel like character, I'm going to believe it's that level of a representation of reality. Even this argument we're in is stupid. I feel foolish having it. Mute

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justasque@reddit

All of this "respect for women" comes at the expense of respect for men, is my point. As if it has to be a zero sum game.

Where did you get a zero sum idea from my comment? Do we need people who can easily lift heavy things? Of course, I stated that in my comment. Do we need people who can do other things? Of course. No one person possesses every skill needed for a community to thrive.

Be careful about putting people into ideological boxes. Be careful about assuming what people are and are not capable of based solely on their gender or who they vote for. Be careful about assuming what people think of you based on stereotypes. Be carefully about stereotyping people based on what you read on the internet. People are much more complex than that.

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Jim_Wilberforce@reddit

I've worried about this a lot. I call them my three questions. 1). When did you figure out the collapse was coming and who did you warn(witnesses)? 2). What have you done/not done since then to prepare yourself for it? 3). What resources have you collected that will aid you and yours in surviving?

I don't understand how I'm still coming across as someone who thinks I'll be surviving on my own. I.e. Friends. Wife. Test questions for joining with others.

The point that I've apparently failed to make is wherever I find this anti-man indoctrination (feminism) often, if not always, corresponds with people who fail these tests. I'm not basing my argument on a feeling. I encounter people even on this sub, who repeat the mantras of indoctrination of division. Feminism is just one example of those.

When this collapse happens, and it's not if it's when, and if there is a feminist lesbian couple a mile or two from my house, who are also preppers, how do I not view them with suspicion? They've been taught to hate me because I have a dick. I expect them to take and not give. I expect them to betray and steal. Because all I hear is this message on repeat, girls good, boys bad.

So when the hoardes of unprepared come out from the city a half a days walk from here, should me and my boys be expected to defend them? We have the training and gear and weapons. Those women have from today to that day to prove to me they aren't blindly steered by hatred for me. Even the conversation above demonstrates not even a step in that direction. That's the point I'm making. People can't imagine today the things they will regret tomorrow. They are unwilling to look at themselves, only others. I'd like to imagine I've considered every possible thing because that's question #2. That's preparedness. But all evidence points to they won't even realize they were wrong.

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honcho713@reddit

Physiologically, women are far better suited for individual survival and survival leadership than men. This may be why our species survived fine for over 200,000 years before this male-dominance fad popped up and has managed to drive our species to the brink of extinction in a mere 12,000 years.

TLDR: Survival isn’t about arm wrestling, it’s about not being an idiot.

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Jim_Wilberforce@reddit

I'm sure you can find proof of the Amazonians. That'll show me.

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J701PR4@reddit

Sorry, man. That’s just be done to death. Maybe make him a high school history teacher who was a Scoutmaster for his kids’ troop? That way he’d have the skills without the whole stereotype ex-commando thing.

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JJShurte@reddit (OP)

Wasn't that the lead from Falling Skies?

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Hot-Profession4091@reddit

Yes. It was. History teacher I believe.

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Psychological_Taco27@reddit

Please don’t abandon the plot point, just make them realistic!

I cannot tell you how many times super duper soldier man survives the fall of mankind and NEVER makes a single mistake, it makes me instantly want to stop reading. Mistakes are good, mistakes make people likeable.

Super soldier military man with a bunker of gear who makes 0 mistakes = boring

Normal soldier dude who left the military a few years ago, has a dad bod, hasn’t got all the gear and makes a few mistakes = not boring!

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Arglival@reddit

Go with military man who was a cook or one of the hundreds of support fields and not the "sniper and hand to hand combat tactical expert... who can fly a helecopter".

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Psychological_Taco27@reddit

Yes! Give me a male character who can whip up a decent hot meal over super duper soldier man any day!

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JJShurte@reddit (OP)

Oh yeah, that's very much what I'm going for. This guy is just all flaws at this point, lol.

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doogles@reddit

He saved all his manuals for shits and giggles, but now he actually knows how to trap small game thanks to the intro to SERE booklet.

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aserreen@reddit

Make him an indie writer doing research when SHTF...that would be different.

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skyrymproposal@reddit

I agree. And let the protagonist be upfront on the areas they messed up on learning. Bonus for not being physically fit.

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Altruistic-Bit-9766@reddit

I actually think this is a great idea!

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FattierBrisket@reddit

I would read that!

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Temporary_Second3290@reddit

I would too actually that is a pretty good idea.

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J701PR4@reddit

Yes!

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SpiritualAudience731@reddit

Make him a police officer. He patrols the highways using the last of the V8 interceptors.

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JJShurte@reddit (OP)

I can actually include an old V8 - that's easily done.

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Important-Specific96@reddit

You referring to the Emu wars;)?

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TacTurtle@reddit

If anything, make him semi competent that is straining to remember his conscription training from a decade ago.

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DeafHeretic@reddit

Or 4 decades ago in my case - and I was nothing special, just a mech/tech at a USCG SAR station with just a smidgeon of LE training for boarding boats (I never went armed).

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Bored_Acolyte_44@reddit

so I might need to abandon this plot point all together

Please do. It's so overdone

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thepottsy@reddit

Yeah, I think the reason you’re seeing that is it’s been overplayed. We’ve all read that story, multiple times.

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NuclearBeverage@reddit

I'd like just once to see a story where the military-trained protagonist was in logistics or something and doesn't actually have any of those skills.

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Enigma_xplorer@reddit

Oh my god 1000X this! If there ever was a mass extinction event an archeologist were digging though the remains of our literature they would swear we were a society of spartan like warriors

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Bored_Acolyte_44@reddit

they would swear we were a society of spartan like warriors

I mean we have so many people with Molon labe flags and stickers that is gonna happen for sure. Hopefully they are smart enough to realize we were a society that thought we were, not that we actually were.

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doogles@reddit

I really hope that they conclude, "Fuck, there's so many fucking boots in this burial pile outside a Costco. "

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ichii3d@reddit

Totally agree. I don't think it's just books that have exhausted this it's a trope in movies that's extremely overplayed. In my opinion it makes characters harder to relate too when they are overly skilled. Unless you counter that with problems like A Beautiful Mind etc...

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Poundtown6942069@reddit

This is the one for me. It's always some ex-special forces guy, or someone that has a direct links to military.

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karlhungusjr@reddit

or he's quiet and stoic with a mysterious past.

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horse1066@reddit

Or the chef on a ship

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overkill@reddit

100% this, plus "I happened to prepare for this exact scenario and had all the tools at hand"

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FitRock2265@reddit

Dislikes: - things just working decades/centuries after not being touched.

-breaking physics just to give the mc a win

-people just go poof but leave homes full of supplies (also tied to point 1).

-having a MacGyver that can build bridges, know how to fix both cars and locomotives, power up an electrical plant....all because he's an "engineer".

Likes:

I'm a doom and gloom guy so having a story where the hero doesn't make it is enjoyable.

Also, "the best plan only lasts until the first encounter with an enemy"...yes, I want to see plans go south.

Ties do dislike points 1 and 4: ok, stuff doesn't work anymore but you manage to find someone with relevant know how, I want to see what solutions you can come up with now (see, pipe guns from Fallout 4).

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JJShurte@reddit (OP)

You mean like in Fallout 4, how there are still skeletons laying about even though it's 200+ years since the Great War? Yeah, I can avoid that.

Also, as much as plots need to make sense - you're right that realistically, things don't always make sense.

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DungeonMarshal@reddit

Nah! That's not an issue. Their food, cigarettes, and drinks all remain fresh(ish) after 210 years. Clearly, their reality uses some pretty potent preservatives. Decades of consuming these products likely affected them so that their bodies don't decay as quickly as ours.

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Traditional-Leader54@reddit

That brings up another one. There are often not enough dead bodies around. Where did the 8 billion people on earth disappear to? Also the roads are often never filled with a realistic number of cars.

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PhantomNomad@reddit

You would absolutely hate "Zombie Rules" books. I read them (audio book version) for something to do this past summer. They are a teen age boys wet dream of what the apocalypse is.

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horse1066@reddit

having a MacGyver that can build bridges, know how to fix both cars and locomotives, power up an electrical plant....all because he's an "engineer".

Actually, a few Engineers in a room can fix most fixable things

And we can all build a bridge

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karlhungusjr@reddit

what are the odds of having "a few Engineers in a room" after the apocalypse?

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Enigma_xplorer@reddit

Pretty good actually since they tend to work/live/associate in clusters in and around handful of companies that engage in engineering work. I work for an aerospace company, we have like every variety of engineer, in quantities, all under one roof.

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horse1066@reddit

Well I can't imagine many /politics Redditors surviving for too long once their Autonomous Zone has collapsed after a week, so it's natural selection

One Engineer would probably be enough, it's just going to take longer as they'd need to construct a robot arm to press a button while they were someplace else

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Bored_Acolyte_44@reddit

I've worked with way too many engineers to buy into this nonsense.

First, engineering isn't a one-size-fits-all skillset. There are engineers for different things and they are all fairly specialized.

Second, they need resources to do anything. Most engineers are the brains of a team where most of the work is being done by technicians. The vast majority of them are not going to all of a sudden turn into MacGyver, and they are not going to suddenly band together in a "room" and just get to work.

Engineers get paid like everyone else, they are not going to just show up and start building bridges with resources they don't have.

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horse1066@reddit

I consider "problem solving" to be the only skillset of value. I might know a bunch of obscure stuff, but problem solving was the reason I acquired it. I don't go through life assuming that I only have to understand the one field, I feel the need to understand everything I come across

Like I'm not a "Power Station Engineer", but I've worked on all their control systems and they are much the same stuff as any other control system.

Locomotives are just moving steam engines, and I've stared at enough of those to have an idea of the start up process

If you think I'd ever need paying to build a bridge then you don't think enough about Rome

Yes resources would be a constraint, I can't just order a part, but if you have two broken machines then generally you can still create a single working one

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Bored_Acolyte_44@reddit

I feel the need to understand everything I come across

You might feel that need, but there is no possible way for you to actually achieve this. Just in engineering disciplines, there is no possible way to retain or even archive all of the information you need to understand everything you will come across in a lifetime.

The saying goes that Rome wasn't built in a day, and there is truth in that. Some of those bridge projects took generations of people to complete, because of resources.

You are talking about having cursory fundamental information for many things, but that isn't going to allow you to do some of the things that you are alluding to here. You don't have the time or resources, that takes a civilization.

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horse1066@reddit

Yes there are limits based on the progress anyone has made down any one path, but we are not sending anything into space, we are repairing cars/locomotives, and having a general understanding of something is sometimes enough to fix something that is fixable

Bridges/Trains/Cars/Powerplants all used to be made from wood and metal sheet by people who knew nothing about modern technology

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Bored_Acolyte_44@reddit

having a general understanding of something is sometimes enough

The key word here is sometimes. More often it isn't.

Those workers that were using wood and metal sheets to make vehicles were instructed by engineers in their jobs. That hasn't changed.

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horse1066@reddit

Are you implying that Engineers can't make anything because they are too busy with their slide rules?

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Bored_Acolyte_44@reddit

Not at all.

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drdewm@reddit

The guy that does the Ave youtube channel or the post apocalyptic inventor also on YouTube can repair damned near anything.

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horse1066@reddit

I'm pretty sure most of us can repair more stuff than we think, it's just a matter of deciding we want to try.

And the amount of progress made after trying something new and working out why it failed, is amazing.

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chesterbennediction@reddit

Bridge building is engineer 101. There's even a magic school bus episode that teaches you about 3 main types of bridges.

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horse1066@reddit

Yep, we don't spend all day thinking about Rome to not have the Bridge thing squared away

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Jim_Wilberforce@reddit

Walk downtown your nearest city and take a whiff of any homeless person who hasn't showered or changed their clothes in a week. That's the smell of bacteria and dead flesh. Necrosis and leprosy are right around the corner. That's the benefit of washing with water on the outside. You can't survive beyond 3 days without consuming clean water to your insides. The GIs in WWII will talk about being and dead bodies all day meant the stench stayed in their clothes. Dead bodies will Poison water and amplify disease.

There is a good reason civilizations get their start near bodies of water. So it's highly likely, nuclear fallout will poison much of the water supply. So any medium city, even if it's not nuked, and located on a river, will have a tremendous death toll. The best places for survival will be near mountain ranges, away from cities, with local fresh water springs.

It's far more likely that nuclear Armageddon won't be the kind that was first imagined in the 1950s. If a typical fission bomb is cased with iron and set off, you get a EMP. I'd speculate 3 would be all that's needed to really blanket the north American continent. A week later, when that case of bottled water is gone, and people have eaten the last can of beans, the divisions that are currently present and unmitigated will come to a head. The have-nots will exact vengeance on the haves. Any landlord showing up to collect whatever rent he can will get killed. Mostly blue city dwellers will have a max exodus out of the cities and descend upon the mostly red homesteaders. The blues will lack of firearms and burdened by unadaptive world view their only advantage will be numbers at first.

I'd volunteer this analogy. The elitists right now are the vampires. They eat their victims in secret and their best strength is using the status quo and night to hide their evil acts. Werewolves are the red militia types who only prepped guns. Their plan was to kill and steal in a pack. The zombies are the city dwelling masses. Always reacting. Unthinking. Unplanning. The only thing they hate is everyone who could think better then them, beforehand, which was everyone.

The last is the people. Homesteaders. Families. Livestock. Crops. Pantries. Fences. They will get tribal very quickly, or they will get dead. Because the werewolves and the zombies are coming.

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Doom-Hauer451@reddit

Cars running perfectly fine after sitting outside for years.

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Greenfire05@reddit

Finding shit just around. No, there isn’t a shotgun with 500 rounds in the lounge. No, there aren’t 30 gas masks in the kitchen cabinet.

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Josvan135@reddit

I'm not sure about this point to be honest, particularly in the U.S. and assuming a major collapse.

If you're even a couple months in a lot of people will be dead and a lot of stuff will have been lost/abandoned in weird places.

Consider if the highway gets suddenly blocked while tens of thousands of cars are attempting to evacuate.

There would be a huge amount of stuff left behind if people had to abandon their vehicles, particularly if they loaded them up with everything they thought would help them survive.

Think about how many people might have been on vacation or even just got trapped at work "an hours drive away" that's suddenly turned into a multi day trek across now-hostile territory.

Hell, I personally have at least a couple dozen n95 masks sitting in the hall closet right now leftover from COVID.

There's definitely a balance to be had between "we're so lucky we found this gassed up tank and all these supplies" and "the first wave of looters missed the old hunting rifle propped up behind the basement stairs.

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Mala_Suerte1@reddit

Exactly. Take for example an EMP; the .gov believes that 90% of the US population would be dead in 12-18 months after and EMP according to testimony to congress.

Even conservative estimates have 7 million people dying w/i a few months.

Either way, that's a lot of stuff that would be abandoned. People would be excited to find my basement.

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SpiritualAudience731@reddit

The EMP isn't fatal by itself, so the deaths are caused by starvation, disease, violence, and accidents. Most consumables would get used up in those 12 to 18 months. I think the movie The Road kind of shows that. The only pre event food they found was in a hidden shelter. Everything else was picked clean.

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Mala_Suerte1@reddit

Correct. Studies have shown that Americans have, on average, between 3 and 5 days worth of food in there house.

Also, there are a lot of people on meds, when those run out or go bad b/c of lack of refrigeration, they will also die.

Honestly, an EMP would be nothing but a minor annoyance if it wasn't for the fact that we no longer have the knowledge that our ancestors had. I have studied a lot about this kind of stuff, but I still only know a small portion of what my pioneer ancestors knew when they crossed the plains in a wagon 170 years ago.

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SpiritualAudience731@reddit

It's not really a lack of knowledge. Our ancestors would establish settlements, villages, towns, and cities close to easily accessible natural resources (water and good farm land). With technology, we were able to spread out and build on shit land, then bring in resources even over great distances. Once we lose those supply chains, those ares on shit land are shit out of luck. That's going to affect a lot of people.

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Mala_Suerte1@reddit

But it is a lack of knowledge. Does a person know how to preserve meat, vegetables w/o a fridge/freezer. Can you make butter. Do you know how to make lard and what it is good for. Can you use herbs and plants to make medicines? There is a lot of lost (to the average person) knowledge that is critical for surviving something like an EMP.

I do agree about the land, in part. Our ancestors also built infrastructure. Look at all the reservoirs and canals that were built in the west to store water in the mountains and then bring it down to the deserts for farming. That being said, Vegas is royally screwed. Water will become a fought over resource in much of the west if the SHTF.

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No1ninjahippy@reddit

I was into The Walking Dead till one of the characters miraculously found a who'll roll of Gerber knives inside an abandoned vehicle. I mean Whaaaat???

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Mala_Suerte1@reddit

So your biggest hang-up w/ the Walking Dead was a character finding a roll of Gerber knives. ROFL.

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No1ninjahippy@reddit

Yes, seems bonkers now I think about it. Didn't realise I was so obsessive over it. Send help!

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SpiritualAudience731@reddit

Gerber was selling that roll at the time. It was product placement but a real thing somebody might find in an abandoned car.

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Mala_Suerte1@reddit

lol. If that's all you're obsessing over in life, then you're doing fairly well.

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DeafHeretic@reddit

The thing about the early episodes that got me was that it took place in the SE USA where most people have guns and ammo, and yet, the few living could hardly find any guns anywhere - as I recall anyway. I stopped watching after a few episodes.

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No1ninjahippy@reddit

I'm not overly familiar with US gun laws other than it varies wildly by State. How secure do they have to be? Gun ownership here in the UK is far less prevalent and I imagine in a shtf situation that they will either in the hands of the owners or securely locked. Even if you stumbled upon an empty house and you miraculously found the gun safe, chances are you would never find the keys to it.

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AdvancedHydralisk@reddit

I own a few guns, they're just on wall mounts. The only people in my home are my wife and I, and so they're not under lock and key.

In a shtf situation where we have to leave - I'm going to take a long arm - my AK47. My wife will take our handgun. This is already a lot to have on you when you also need food, water, tools, shelter, radio, first aid, plate carrier, etc.

Feel totally free to take my .300blk or 12 gauge when I'm gone. They won't help if you don't have the other items, and I'm not going to sacrifice essential equipment to have another gun.

In a survival situation, you're going to face the question of obtaining a clean water source far before you need a gun.

So yeah, honestly in a shtf situation in the US, if you survive some apocalypse, you will certainly be able to walk into tons of our homes and just take what gun you want. But you'll be too busy trying to not die of dysentery to care

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No1ninjahippy@reddit

This is a very valid take. And one that some people miss. Water is heavy.

For my curiosity though, why the AK over the .300 blackout? I have used firearms in the past and have experience shooting .303, 7.62, 5.56 and .22 rim fire.

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DeafHeretic@reddit

Guns in most states have no laws regarding storage. Some states/cities do have laws regarding secure storage when the owner/adult is not present.

Gun safes keep honest people honest, but are not that hard to get into - an axe or power grinding/cutting tool opens most gun safes fairly quickly.

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Positive_Income_3056@reddit

If I remember this right, the driver was dead in the car, and Carl was leery of reaching in to grab the Gerber roll. It makes total sense that if somebody’s getting in their car and fleeing a apocalyptic event that they take their gear with them.

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No1ninjahippy@reddit

I will bow to your better memory of that scene. I haven't watched it since it first aired on TV. I might try and binge re watch it.

Not getting off my product placement horse though and you'll take that gun from my cold dead hands!....

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Thatdipwadthere@reddit

What got me... All these clean, late model cars still running but not a single excavator, bull dozer, or concrete truck?

and... They sure are a bunch of fully auto weapons laying around and no one ever says, "hey guys. Easy on the on the ammo. One shot, one kill. It's not like a b52 is gonna drop new supplies on us."

Then Eugene figures out how to make extruded, high pressure gunpowder in a refurbished factory?

Why wouldn't you create lures and traps? Just dig some pits and trap them like a giant 5 gallon bucket mousetrap.

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whyamihereagain6570@reddit

Well to be honest, if you found my vehicle like they did in walking dead, you'd have a M16 bayonet, two nice tomahawks and a shotgun, with a little less than 500 rounds, but still... 😁

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No1ninjahippy@reddit

Niiice, but If I were you though I wouldn't be leaving that shit behind! At least, not in a product placement way anyway LoL! No disrespect to Gerber but their earlier stuff was the best.(I really want a Mk ii and a silver trident but you folks in the States don't like to send em to the UK!).

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karlhungusjr@reddit

Niiice, but If I were you though I wouldn't be leaving that shit behind!

i think the idea is that the previous owner of said gerber knives were dead.

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No1ninjahippy@reddit

You are correct but my take on it would be that they would be near my dead body, not left neatly on the seat.

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karlhungusjr@reddit

it's the zombie apocalypse. you would be a zombie walking around with other zombies, not laying next to your toys.

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No1ninjahippy@reddit

Oops... Still dangling from my now loosely attached arms then.

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whyamihereagain6570@reddit

Only reason I'd leave them behind would have been in the walking dead scenario, where I was dead... or a zombie at least... 😁

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Hot-Profession4091@reddit

I now want a story that includes how the “prepper” neighbor got himself unalived doing something dumb and his bunker is now a loot box.

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TacTurtle@reddit

CO poisoning because the super awesome secure generator shed happened to also funnel CO where it sinks into the shelter air intake.

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Hot-Profession4091@reddit

I was thinking more “tried robbing someone for toothpaste because he stocked everything but”, but I will accept this tbh.

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TacTurtle@reddit

Severely out of shape, had a heart attack due to stress + exertion from climbing the bunker stairs to snag the last two cases of Mountain Dew from the garage.

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Hot-Profession4091@reddit

Level 4 plates… took one to the head.

Kevin McCandles-ed himself trying to forage.

Dropped his 4x4 on himself trying to change a tire.

Lot himself on fire smoking a cigarette while trying to make biofuel.

Now I’m imaging our very pragmatic and careful main character coming across an entire string of these guys on their journey.

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JJShurte@reddit (OP)

Okay, I'm getting the impression that I need to make light of a prepper who is prepping wrong. I can do that.

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Oodalay@reddit

Dying of a tooth infection surrounded by a cache of guns and ammo would be pretty funny.

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Hot-Profession4091@reddit

Oh right! OP is actually writing a book! I was having so much fun I forgot.

Just a light reminder, the preppers on this subreddit aren’t necessarily representative of your target audience. Some folks will definitely get offended if you run with this.

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JJShurte@reddit (OP)

You ain’t living if you ain’t ruffling some feathers.

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Mala_Suerte1@reddit

You should read "Lights Out", by David Crawford, I believe. Part of the plot involves a millionaire/billionaire who builds a bunker and stocks it w/ all the tacti-cool gear thinking he'll be gtg. It doesn't work out well for him, as he makes some critical mistakes and he ends up pushing up Daisies.

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FireLilly13@reddit

I didn’t know I needed this in my life but I do

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JJShurte@reddit (OP)

I think looting/scavenging has to be in there somewhere - but you're right, you don't strike gold while out looking for cans of beans. I'll try to keep it a mixed bag.

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vercertorix@reddit

Kinda depends. If there are a lot of preppers out there and a lot with gun collections etc, and they get killed in the blast or trying to get home, or decided to leave and couldn’t fit everything in their vehicle, probably no one will know about their stashes so if a character was looking for signs of prepping, granted they might have to be careful since they may still be alive but otherwise someone else’s stash inadvertently helps someone else instead. Guessing that’s what happened in !>The Road!<.

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Ez_P@reddit

Also almost every business office will have a first aid kit. It might not be top of the line or fully stocked, but it probably has band aids, ointments or a wrap.

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TacTurtle@reddit

A more realistic scenario for a sudden evac area would be finding an unsecured garden shed with basic hand tools (shovel, dull axe and bill hook) and some overlooked unharvested root vegtables or raspberry hedge tucked away in a corner.

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HashtagFaceRip@reddit

I think that it depends how far in. Like immediately after, it’s possible there are opportunities, imagine a prepper who was not at home but closer to blast site and now has their stash unguarded. A few years on, i imagine things have been pretty picked over. Also i think storage lockers, there have got be at least a few preppers in there among the garden variety horders.

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chesterbennediction@reddit

Ironically in the USA with how much people hoard ammo finding 500 rounds is very possible. If it's a 22lr rifle even a single bulk box of ammo is 500 rounds or more.

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DeafHeretic@reddit

A lot of people have maybe a box or two of ammo, but most preppers have at least a case. I have 30K+ of rimfire and at least that much centerfire, so yeah, someone would find a nice cache at my place - if I am gone.

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PhantomNomad@reddit

I'm afraid to say how much ammo I have. There are a few of us in my town that have that way to much ammo. Usually it's because we are competition shooting so it goes up at the beginning of the season and way down by the end of it.

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TinFoilRainHat@reddit

Lol oh yeah, definitely no 500 rounds here.... Definitely not 1000 or more.....

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androidmids@reddit

Checks my living room, whew shotgun is still there. Checks cupboards, "were still good to go"....

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BooksCatsnBirds@reddit

Out of boredom and curiosity about the buzz, I watched The Walking Dead. Binged all the spin-offs too. I decided my next genre was going to be apoc/post-apoc. (Indie author here, too). So, I came to this group for information and stayed because I liked the thinking behind having at least the bare minimum preps around.
In all the books I've read so far, someone always knows something and there's an immediate fight involved. Mine is going to be realistic. If a sickness spread, there'd be disbelief until the zombies hit the streets. If an EMP hit, people would go about their day as much as possible and buy some stuff at the store with cash. It would take time for people to panic. People would beg neighbors for help, not immediately bug out.

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JJShurte@reddit (OP)

Oh cool, welcome to the PA genre - I'm actually a mod over over at the PA subreddit, check it out some time.

Also, yeah - I don't tend to follow the trends of what is super popular in PA circles. I like a lot of the more out there apocalyptic scenarioes... as long as they're handled realistically.

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NuclearBeverage@reddit

As a fellow PA writer, the struggle is real.

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Mala_Suerte1@reddit

To be fair, if you're a prepper at all, you should be taking training courses regularly and adding to your knowledge base. But a few courses doesn't make you an expert, just more prepared than most, especially the arm-chair prepper, who buys a lot of stuff, but never practices w/ it.

What I think a lot of books/movies miss is that if there is a firefight, the best solution, if at all possible, is to GTFO of the area. Or as my .mil friends like to say, "you un-ass" the area.

If it's TEOTWAWKI, and I see some unsavory looking characters 300 yards away, I'm not heading their direction.

If you haven't read the book, "Lights Out" by David Crawford, he actually incorporates the going to the store and buying stuff w/ cash idea. It's an EMP book, but society doesn't go from 0 to apocalypse. People still have hope that things will right themselves. People continue going to the grocery store for a while until society begins breaking down and makes it too dangerous.

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GigabitISDN@reddit

I can't stomach any more prepper-oriented fiction because in every single story, the entire bunker / country / world stood up and cheered.

Also the last book I read featured some neighbor's way-too-young daughter constantly "teasing" the protagonist. Grossed me out. I gave up on the genre after that.

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Positive_Income_3056@reddit

That was some creepy shit, I felt it was more about the authors fantasies.

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GigabitISDN@reddit

Yeah it was definitely a Mary Sue moment for the author. No doubt. Especially when he started talking about how it was his duty to be fatherly if the girl's father wasn't.

Made me permanently nope right out of the genre.

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Mala_Suerte1@reddit

Please tell me you didn't abandon the whole genre b/c of one book.

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GigabitISDN@reddit

Not one book. "Barely-legal and/or underage farmer's neighbor's daughter can't help but throw herself at the handsome, rugged, lone wolf prepper" has become a trope in preparedness fiction. I'd go so far as to say the number of books where this ISN'T a plotline is far fewer than the number where it is.

That's a hard pass from me.

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Mala_Suerte1@reddit

I've read a lot of post-apocalyptic fiction and there has only been one author he seemed to dive into sexual taboo. Can't remember his name right now, though. Only read one of his books.

I wonder if, as you say (though I haven't seen it), it's common place b/c authors imagine a post SHTF world as being something akin to the 1800s where it was common for a 15 or 16 y.o.s to wed. Or is it that they're just horny old guys living out there fetishes through their writing.

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GigabitISDN@reddit

I'm pretty sure it's the latter.

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Mala_Suerte1@reddit

It's probably both, but mostly the old horny guy.

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JJShurte@reddit (OP)

It'd just be normal people, maybe with a prepper side character or something. And it should be pretty easy to avoid having teenage girls throw themselves at the main character.

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horse1066@reddit

Everyone hates the annoying kid that won't stay where they are told to, but runs screaming out to save their dog and then gets everyone killed...

I think the most realistic scenes are the ones where everything is quiet and dark, there aren't any fully functional communes set up on day one where 200 people are fed from one potato patch

women are very unlikely to be running anything, unlike every film from the past 10 years

The scenes from Threads where the surviving authorities then found it impossible to manage anything due to the influx of wounded and breakdowns of every system

I think in general a lot of people are going to be unprepared for that level of stress and will give up

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JJShurte@reddit (OP)

A lot of interesting points, I'll see what I can include.

I think a part of how women become the managers of communities is that it keeps them in key roles but away from the conflict... otherwise it's hard to get them included unless you want them staying at home knitting or getting gunned down alongside the lads.

But yeah, Threads was great.

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horse1066@reddit

I'm anticipating that a lot of modern ideals are going to get swept away. The sort of men who might (mentally) survive an event like that are just not going to tolerate women telling them what to do, there are not going to be any HR or admin roles, there's going to be people like Negan. Ask a working man if he prefers having a female boss and most will say no, it's just a modern expansion of capitalism

Much of modern society is built around a lot of fluff jobs, an apocalyptical society is likely to be the bottom tier of Maslow’s Hierarchy, so food, shelter, sex. I don't see women having an autonomous role there?

Films are desperate to pretend otherwise, but Afghanistan has survived centuries of war by sticking to functional gender roles. It is what it is

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Mala_Suerte1@reddit

How are "functional gender roles" related to Afghanistan surviving (if you can call it that)?

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horse1066@reddit

Because their birth rate was 4-5 times the America one

It's dropped since because of cultural interference

I didn't say anyone had to like it, I'm pointing out what a fictional world would look like. There appears to be an assumption in here that everything will carry on before but minus twinkies in shops

My position is that once you remove law then violence replaces it, social and moral norms, and in particular men's ability to protect women, all goes out of the window

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Mala_Suerte1@reddit

I'm not following line of reasoning. It appears that you are saying that Afghanistan has survived centuries of war b/c the birthrate was high. Is that correct?

I do agree that in the absence of law frontier justice - aka violence - will prevail.

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horse1066@reddit

It's more complex than that, but a high birth rate in that type of country creates extended clans, akin to African tribes. This makes it hard to control because there's no king to depose. A more egalitarian society would inevitably centralise power into cities

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Mala_Suerte1@reddit

That makes sense. I'd posit that living w/ extended family contributes highly to the clan development, as well.

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Holiday_Albatross441@reddit

Men are in charge and fight to the death to keep invaders out.

That said, allegedly British soldiers in Victorian times were more scared of Afghan women than Afghan men because the men would just shoot them to death while the women would take their time.

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Mala_Suerte1@reddit

"Men are in charge and fight to the death to keep invaders out."

Isn't that almost every country throughout history, even ones that have disappeared?

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JJShurte@reddit (OP)

Yeah but there's also plenty of stories of women just straight up murdering their husbands in their sleep because it's the only time they know they can accomplish the mission. Plenty of guys are actually okay with having women around, and working for them if they trust that the women know what they're doing.

I've got a mother, a sister, a wife and a daughter, so I'm not just gonna let them get pushed around by some douche who thinks he can just because he's got the junk for it.

Also... I really wouldn't use Afghanistan as a proof of concept, it's a different region with a different religion and a different morality.

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Bored_Acolyte_44@reddit

Don't listen to this person OP, they have no idea what they are talking about

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horse1066@reddit

I didn't realise there was accreditation requirement for fictional scenarios or that Post-Apocalyptic reality required gatekeeping to stop misinformation?

Get a grip

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Bored_Acolyte_44@reddit

I didn't realise there was accreditation requirement for fictional scenarios

There isn't, but there is for being taken seriously, and you blew that with nearly everything you said here.

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horse1066@reddit

No, you just interpret what I'm saying in an odd fashion and then running with it?

Now you are getting dramatic, maybe you should move on, we appear to be using different versions of English

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Bored_Acolyte_44@reddit

in an odd fashion

My reaction to what was said was not the odd bit here. I suggest going back and re-reading what you posted from top to bottom.

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horse1066@reddit

That doesn't help you with your comprehension, I know what I said and your take aways are kinda weird

You can go away now

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Bored_Acolyte_44@reddit

Look, if you need to minimize my ability to comprehend what you have typed to make yourself feel better it doesn't affect my life at all and you are entitled to do so, but there are some serious issues on display in what you have written, and as one human to another, I hope that you take the time to analyze just what might have elicited this response.

I'm actually trying to do us all a favor as a species by calling it out here. I don't have any ill will towards you as an individual, ideologically you've shit on half the species in your posts and seem perfectly comfortable with that take, that in itself shows that you're in a pretty rough place mentally. I hope you can find your way out.

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horse1066@reddit

ideologically you've shit on half the species

See? You don't get it do you, you aren't able to separate speculation about what a fictional Post-Apocalyptic society might look like, from our current egalitarian society. In your head you can't compute that any social and moral changes might occur in such a violent lawless society, so you are desperate to white knight in here regarding this perceived slight. It's a tragic lack of imagination on your part

As with many Redditors with arrogant pomposity as their entire personality, you have no concept that other people hold thoughts and opinions that are different from yours and this appears to make you angry when they don't agree with your opinion of what they really meant, and that they must therefore be wrong, whereas in reality you just don't understand as much as you like to think you do.

And now you are concern trolling. I've politely asked you twice to move on, now I'm suggesting you fuck off pal, I'm sure the mods have better things to do

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horse1066@reddit

wouldn't use Afghanistan as a proof of concept, it's a different region with a different religion and a different morality.

Muslim states are probably outside any likely conflict zone, so I'd guess they'd end up being the global majority be default? Europe had essentially the same morality and social demarcation 500 years ago

It's a central question though, what morality and social structures will survive a full reset of civilisation. I'm guessing it will revert to a religious centred one if national identities cease to exist, the perceived authority of political leaders is likely to disappear too because they are just men doing deals. There will be cults and violence as the arbitrators of good.

if they trust that the women know what they're doing

Humans generally look to the male gender for leadership, there have been no female leaders in history that have existed outside of the sphere of male competence. Plenty of TV Island survival shows have illustrated that survival has a gender based behavioural bias, men are on average more competent at surviving so why would other men entrust their survival to a woman unless they were already living in a stable society and this was just a matter of consent or Royal succession

How will anyone protect their families in this situation? Even in modern Russia, men are plucked from their homes to die leaving their families unprotected apart from the State. There will be a resurgence of tribal extended families that will take them in. The concept of a man being solely able to protect his home from anything is a modern artifice that depends on a functional state having already arrested every bad man out there. In this degraded scenario you will die and someone else will take them

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dachjaw@reddit

Wow. Who do you think kept American families going during the Great Depression when so many men were unable to support their families?

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horse1066@reddit

the Great Depression

is not a Post-Apocalyptic nuclear society

You still had every political and social structure in place, a functional banking system and rule of law.

Women's safety is secured by male competence and centuries of social infrastructure. You take that away and everyone is back in Afghanistan

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karlhungusjr@reddit

a functional banking system

take like 5 seconds of your life and read a wiki article on the great depression.

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horse1066@reddit

Did money still work? Then that's functional

i.e. you weren't buying stuff with eggs...

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karlhungusjr@reddit

Did money still work?

lol! you just can't help yourself can you?

Like I said, if you just took 5 minutes and educated yourself on the causes and effects of the great depression, you'ld look a lot less foolish.

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horse1066@reddit

No, money was just worth a lot less, it still existed, you could still take a trillion dollars and buy an egg

That's different from bartering with eggs

You are forgetting what we are discussing here, go read the OP again

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karlhungusjr@reddit

aaaaand you're just a moron.

have a great day.

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EngineerRemote2271@reddit

I'm not responsible for your comprehension abilities. You got stuck on a single track thought and turned the lights out.

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dachjaw@reddit

Fine. You do you.

Functional banking system? Hahahaha.

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HeartOfDarqness@reddit

Any strong recommendations?

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karlhungusjr@reddit

from a book review that I think sums up my feelings on the topic.

"My issue is, like so many newer post apocalyptic books these days it seems to follow the same basic formula. it glosses over "the event", whatever that may be, with a brief description or presenting it as a mystery as to what happened, then just kind of throwing you into the story of "survivor/s" who just happens to be a prepper with all the latest and best equipment. there is no real struggle to survive beyond a few brief encounters with some bad guys who, in a world filled with whatever they want, have no real motivation to be bad guys"

...

"I hate comparing every post apocalyptic book with The Stand, but in that example, by far the most interesting part is seeing the virus spread, how the government tries to deal with the problem and contain it, and watching society slowly start to collapse, and how the characters react to and deal with it. the shock and loss of what happened and where they go from there.

here it's just a brief description of what happened, then we are dropped in the lap of our small group and are occasionally reminded of how much things sucked while society collapsed, but thank god they happened to find this prepper guy who knows exactly what to look for and where to go."

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f250suite@reddit

I liked how the show Jericho left the "event" of the attacks a mystery, with tidbits of information given as thr first season progressed. I get that it was part of the draw to keep viewers tuned in, a la Lost, but at the same time, you're kind of forced to view it from a rural American perspective in 2005 when the internet and smart phones weren't what they are today. Is it a little far-fetched that the only coms is a HAM radio (prior to EMP going off), yeah. But I imagine in reality a lot of people in that situation would be clueless until word of mouth conjecture spreads from community to community.

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JJShurte@reddit (OP)

Yeah, I'm taking a lot of inspiration from Jericho actually - I love that show.

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f250suite@reddit

If you've not read Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank, I suggest checking it out. Having seen Jericho first, when I started reading Alas, Babylon I noticed a lot of similarity between main character and Jake Green from Jericho. Also the overall premise of a 30 something year old hasbeen who is forced to take the lead in a small town after a nuclear attack, there's a lot of parallels, to the point I think the Jericho creators were influenced by the novel without giving credit.

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SpiritualAudience731@reddit

I think I read that one. It takes place in Florida, and the kids eat armadillos?

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f250suite@reddit

Don't remember the armadillo part, but yes to Florida

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J701PR4@reddit

It has other tropes, though. Military brother who gave him advanced warning. He was an ex-soldier. Located in the perfect position. Poor hard-working and multi-skilled family next door. Plentiful resources at hand. Retired admiral buddy who knew how to sail & had shortwave radio.

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JJShurte@reddit (OP)

I have read that, but it was a few years ago - I'll check it out again. Cheers!

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Mala_Suerte1@reddit

They did a good job in Jericho of slowly releasing the who and why part of the event. Though we knew the events from the get go.

The beginning where the little kid is standing on top of the shed looking at the mushroom cloud is pretty iconic.

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JJShurte@reddit (OP)

Yeah, don't worry - my biggest issue as an indie author is that I have issues following the normal trends of the genre... I don't really do the whole "write to market" thing.

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madpiratebippy@reddit

*no laundry ever. Doing laundry before machines was a HUGE chore and if you’ve never done laundry by hand you have no idea how hard it is to keep it clean. I’ve had to and it’s hard hard physical labor.

*bites through jeans in zombie situations. Two layers of denim are bite proof and you can get bite proof clothing now for people who work in psych wards and security and such. In case of zombie apocalypse good leather boots, tall socks you can tuck one pair of jeans in, and another pair of jeans over it and a decent denim jacket and you’re pretty solid. You’ll be bruised af but skin almost never breaks.

*lack of fungal infection. Underwear and socks not being washed = fungus. Yeast infection, athletes foot, ringworm.

Some dude who won’t wash his socks because laundry is womens work and thus it’s beneath him/ he refuses to do it will absolutely get messed up.

You’d want study farm workers clothes. Good boots, two pairs if possible to let one air out while you’re wearing the other pair, lots of socks, underwear, t-shirts that are easy to clean and jackets that are harder to clean but not touching the skin, etc.

Also skirts and dresses are not impossible to navigate in. Farm wives didn’t wear them for 1,000 years because they weren’t practical.

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SpiritualAudience731@reddit

Yea, I want to read a book where swamp ass is a major plot device. The main protagonist has to leave his bunker to find the last remaining bottle of talcum powder.

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madpiratebippy@reddit

In a story I wrote the path to safety was planted with zucchini which all parts are edible. The story keeps cutting to a group following that path who all bitch about zucchini non stop (stolen from a survivor story from a fring of mine who escaped east Germany in corn fields and to this day will not eat corn. Kept her family alive but goddamn).

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Enigma_xplorer@reddit

Things I hate....

Main character immediately knows what's going on and what to do from the onset. Power goes out, well obviously it's an EMP and we're going to be in the dark forever! That so unrealistic. Look at COVID, in the initial stages of a disaster there is so much uncertainty myths and rumors no one really knows what's going on. Even today with the benefit of a fully functional society we are still asking questions.

Traditional almost cartoonish antagonists. Again it seems like many stories follow a very predictable and boring chapter one meet the antagonist who does something almost cartoonishly evil just to make it clear he's the bad guy and apparently no one has anything better to do after the apocalypse than pick a book long conflict with some stranger.

Gear and prepping fantasy. Again it seems like every protagonist has a bunker and a full armory with 20 years of food because they knew this was coming. It's gear fetish/fantasy

Things I like

Realism. Uncertainty, fear, hardship and tragedy will be your only companions after an event like that. No Disney miracles or super human marvel heros coming to save you.

The human element. Focusing on people and their reactions/emotions/character quirks (again not gear)

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Mala_Suerte1@reddit

Also, if you haven't read/scene "The Road" it definitely fits your realism, hardship, tragedy model. It's dark and depressing and refreshingly different in the genre. But man is it depressing.

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Enigma_xplorer@reddit

Thank you, I seem to recall hearing about that one or seeing it while browsing but never read it? Thank you again for the suggestion!

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Mala_Suerte1@reddit

YW.

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RichardDJohnson16@reddit

Even though you are mostly right about confusion, it is not always like that. When covid started I paid attention from the first signs in the international media, so I could warn my family to stay indoors and away from groups three weeks before governments even started to take it seriously. That's why nobody in my family ever got covid.

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Enigma_xplorer@reddit

No, it's not exactly always like that on an individual level. For example our politicians knew to buy Zoom stock when they were briefed on the situation while they were telling us "it's no worse than the flu". Even with that in mind I doubt you knew the extent to which it would escalate. The lockdowns and great toilet paper shortage so on and so forth. Plus, how many times have we been alerted to illnesses or problems that just petered out into nothing? Even though you may have got it right this time in hindsight at that moment it was just your educated best guess/speculation and I doubt you knew the extent to which it would escalate.

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No1ninjahippy@reddit

Many years from now we will forget it was a COVID pandemic.. It will come to be known as the great TP shortage with Beavis doing his best cornholio on the posters.

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Mala_Suerte1@reddit

"I need TP for my bunghole" "would you like to see my bunghole?"

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No1ninjahippy@reddit

Rrrapapapaaa!!!

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Traditional-Leader54@reddit

To be 100% honest my wife called it in January 2020 and we expected it to be a lot worse so we wound up being pleasantly over prepared.

I wish I was a stock market investor I would have done pretty well buying puts. We did make a few bucks on gold though but would have done better in the stock market if I hadn’t waited to learn about stocks and options until 2021.

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Maggi1417@reddit

Have you read "Blackout"? You might like it.

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Ridiculouslyrampant@reddit

Who’s the author? I’d also like to check it out :)

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Maggi1417@reddit

The author is Marc Elsberg.

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Enigma_xplorer@reddit

No I don't believe I've heard of that one but I appreciate the suggestion!

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JJShurte@reddit (OP)

Yeah, it's kinda weird how the protagonists always run into "a psychopath!" out in the apocalypse... who makes in their monomaniacal mission to ruin the protagonists life. I can avoid that.

And yeah, I'm down with realism and the human element.

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thefedfox64@reddit

What I do not want to see or read- is romance - I lived through a bad tornado and a flood. No one felt frisky, no one felt sexy or horny. It was months after the tornado before I just wanted to not be exhausted dealing with paperwork and phone calls. Flood was just tons of physically exhausting weeks, there was no romance in the air, it was frustration, anger, resentment, and all sorts of negative emotions. End of the world, with no running water or living out of a backpack, you aren't feeling sexy, you stink. I think in a global nuclear exchange, where food is scarce, you are in a flight or fight response, there will be no romance, no finding love with the book nerd gardener who brews her own tea and knows how to sew up a gunshot wound because she was previously a nurse or really super educated kindergarten teacher.

What I do want to see - or read rather. Talk about how everything smells and how people are generally always sick, as modern-day people we forget how much stank exists, it's enough to make people pass out. People in every group you find will most likely be sick, as historically that's how we lived—coughs that lasted years, runny noses, constant diarrhea, and or food poisoning, were so common that it was seen as normal issues. "its just diarrhea"

Finally - realistic society vocations - if you are near a hospital you will have more nurses/doctors as survivors. If you are in a small town in America - there are no nurses, no hospitals, no doctors. Maybe a lawyer, some cops, and teachers, that's it.

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cleaver_username@reddit

Yas!! I hate forced romance more than anything, regardless of the medium (movie, shows, books etc). Not every partner, coworker friend group needs to devolve into love triangles. Actually, i think the newer version of Dredd did this perfectly. His respect for her grows... and that's it. No feelings outside of "I can work with this person".

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Arglival@reddit

Don't forget about the veterinarian and the midwife in small town nowhere.

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thefedfox64@reddit

Sure, though I'm 99% sure our small town has no midwife, and no vet. Let me google check the vet - yea nearest vet to in the small town I grew up in is 22 miles away. As for a midwife, no clue

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JJShurte@reddit (OP)

Realistic secondary effects of the end of the world, got it.

War Day did a good job with this, a lot of guys had erectile dysfunction after the US got nuked to high heaven... the blow to their psyche was just too great to deal with.

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Oodalay@reddit

Dialogue tends to suffer in these books, especially dialogue spoken by women and minorities. Everyone that gets ahold of a gun is automatically competent with it, no one ever has an accidental discharge and appropriate ammunition is conveniently nearby. The government immediately disappears or is replaced with strict martial law. It's almost never discussed how all of these dead bodies are dealt with. It's almost never brought up how sewage will back up into homes in the event of prolonged power outages.

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EchoReturn1111@reddit

So might sound a little mean and I very much hope it doesn't, however what I think you are saying is you are an american author writing an australian character, or a character with some time in australia given he has done some work with or for the military in australia.

If this is correct, can I please suggest respectfully that you dial down the americanised australianisms a hundredfold. I have damaged things in my house from reading a book, coming across yet another suggestion from an (alleged) australian character that a shrimp or two be thrown on a barbie and thrown said book across the room hard enough to damage things. This happens all the time.

If you want to write an australian character, have them swear more than other characters who are american, maybe be a bit more laid back and just leave it there. Please.

By way of helpful (hopefully) suggestions, can I suggest that the cool bits of this genre are the survival bits as the chaos unfolds, and if the story gets to the point where everyone is in their super bunker protected by the crack special forces team whilst a dedicated team of scientists produce unlimited food from advanced hydroponics which is cooked to perfection by a supermodel who became a chef who inexplicably fell in live with the main character, you may lose your audience. Perhaps also no more bible study disguised as fiction as a general statement?

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JJShurte@reddit (OP)

I’m Australian. I’m not a Christian.

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EchoReturn1111@reddit

Then you'll be right and I'm sorry to have bothered you. Carry on.

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an-angry-bee@reddit

This is obviously a more surface level pet peeve compared to some of the other notes here, but something that has always made me sigh with deep discontent in film/television/books depicting apocalyptic situations is the lack of “ugly” that occurs, especially with women.

The moment I see a spotless, hairless, armpit I get sent over the edge. Show me realistic body hair growth, badly executed haircuts, overgrown beards, dark circles, yellowed teeth, visible gaunt from lack of hydration/food, dry skin, cracked lips, the works. An event like this would cause unimaginable stress on the average person, and would in turn “age” a relatively young looking person. Swan Song was one of the few post-apocalyptic books I’ve read that details the effects of an ending world on the appearances of others in the most realistic way possible. There is very little beauty left, and this should be emphasized depending on how your story might lean or describe its characters.

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JJShurte@reddit (OP)

Make everyone get uglier as the series progresses. Got it.

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an-angry-bee@reddit

Precisely! 😂

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MissLyss29@reddit

The fact that first when people come across supplies they never seem to take them with them.

-leaving guns all over -stock piles of food that are just abandoned not because they can't take them or don't have time just because then they almost starving to deeeaaaattthhh -leaving a perfectly good and safe area for absolutely no reason

Never closing or locking doors ( this is more of a pet peeve of mine)

-i get it there is no one around but come on just close the heavy shelter door please

The in proper use of CPR and other energy and life saving techniques

-seriously this should be illegal because someone stupid person is going to think hey I seen this on TV tons of times I can totally give CPR, the heimlich maneuver, or stick a pen into this person's chest or throat so they can breathe. -the amount of first aid supplies that could easily be tossed into a bag the people just walk past. It's just annoying

And I'm not a hardcore preper I am more about retaining knowledge.

One more thing in SHTF situations the idea that no one would retain any knowledge on how to restore civilized life. It would take a while but I truly think that all knowledge would not be lost.

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NoxArtCZ@reddit

I think CPR is not that complicated? Nowadays you're not even recommended to breathe in, just push and push ... there are courses for the public and also in some companies they invite medics to do education

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Traditional-Leader54@reddit

This! I’ve said out loud while watching movies (at home) things like “Why would you just leave that there?” “You’re not gonna lock that door and maybe push a dresser in front of it?”

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MissLyss29@reddit

You’re not gonna lock that door and maybe push a dresser in front of it?

Exactly especially when you know people are looking for you. But no let's just leave this door wide open and start screaming while we're at it.

And the leaving supply really annoys me. I know you can't take 3 months of food with you when you're walking barefoot to the mountains but hey maybe just sit down for awhile look around for a bag and some shoes and take some stuff with you.

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thecoldestfield@reddit

I've published a couple post-apoc books, and have another one coming out this year. I know lots of other authors too, including a few who make a FT living. Happy to chat if you wanna shoot me a DM.

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BleedMeAnOceanAB@reddit

how much ammo they waste. genuinely cringes me when they spray and pray their ammunition away.

i’d like to see more single shot rifles and people sparingly using ammo.

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Queasy_Obligation_20@reddit

If you saw The Last of Us, one thing that stood out to me was that bolt action/hunting rifles were the standard unless someone was police/military. I assume because the outbreak was in the early 2000s before the AWB ended. Still, made for great cinematic

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BleedMeAnOceanAB@reddit

yea i appreciated how there wasn’t a whole lot of tactical guns in that show

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Thatdipwadthere@reddit

Must be a lot of tax stamps in Georgia...

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JJShurte@reddit (OP)

Yeah, this will be set in Australia - so while there will be guns, it wont be anything like in the states. 5% of the characters will know how to shoot, as well.

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CrushedPlate@reddit

Hate is a strong word but I generally dislike the tendency of the main character being against or even never considering cooperation with anyone but maybe their closest family.

We are stronger togheter, this is a fact. Alone you are one accident away from dying by something you would have survived if there would have been people around to take care of you.

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Kementarii@reddit

After reading Isobelle Carmody's Obernewtyn series... I couldn't imagine a better post-apocalyptic imagining.

I cry when I even think about the fact that she was only 14 when she started writing it.

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JJShurte@reddit (OP)

Never heard of that series, cheers!

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Kementarii@reddit

Probably because it isn't your typical Post-apoc.

At the risk of spoilers, it starts off reading as YA fantasy, and it's only later that the reader finds that it's set several hundred? thousand? years post-apocalypse. i.e. it's not what happens immediately, but how society has changed/adapted over many generations.

Carmody is an Australian author.

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06210311200805012006@reddit

JON SAMSON, former navy seal turned government contractor - finds himself on foot after an Al Quaideeaia sneak attack brings down the grid. Helping his worthless coworkers navigate a world immediattely turned to cannibalism, they make their way on foot. Main concern is getting home to his sweet precious baby daughter, lord jesus please take care of Becky. If anything happens to my lil baby girl (ten pages of fretting, on par with GRRM describing lemon cakes).

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Arglival@reddit

Hahaha.. yeppers!

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ThousandWinds@reddit

The idea that a huge significant portion of the population will become cannibal marauder types of some sort.

You see this notion a lot in works of fiction like The Walking Dead or The Last of Us, but it's never been the nature of humanity for most normal people to behave like this, even during extremely dire events. People have more of a tendency to pull together than apart in emergencies.

Basically the trope that "the zombies are less dangerous than other people" is probably a false one. At least in the vast majority of instances. You might see both the best and worst of humanity on display, but it won't be a one sided slide into complete degradation, indecency and disregard for all life.

Will there be all kinds of thievery and violence up to and including roving bands or bad guys during a true collapse or civilization? Yeah for sure.

Will there be a preponderance or them where they are anything other than a small dangerous band making up a minuscule number of crazies? No, I do not think so.

Starving people do some crazy shit, and ethics often go out the window on an empty stomach, but people are more likely to band together, share skillsets, and form communities for survival.

What made us the dominant species on this planet is that we are highly adaptable cooperative pack animals; and this doesn't just apply to bad people. It applies to farming communities too.

Truthfully, the people who behave like lone wolves or jackals preying upon others are likely going to be among the most desperate and first to die.

Why? because they're the people who typically exhibit poor planning and fell into the fantasy that taking from others or going it alone was a viable plan. Doorkickers have a limited lifespan, no matter how good they are. You're just one bad corner or engagement away from a gut full of lead in a world where medicine and doctors are something of a rarity.

Think more of a return to the Wild West, with vigilante justice, harsh punishments for thievery, etc. but the truth is that bushwhacking marauding behavior is almost like bad karma of a sort. Live by the sword die by the sword. People who engage in it are going to end up on the wrong side of a bullet sooner rather than later.

Which leads into another bad trope in my estimation: the idea of bugging out to nowhere. It's another fantasy. The idea of living off the land or from wild game is unlikely to work when everyone suddenly decides it's deer season. Natural food sources will vanish fast.

Smarter people will consider bugging in or journeying to a secondary well stocked remote location before things completely collapse, or having a support network in place with other likeminded families; even if it's just to trade honey for grain.

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Beelzeburb@reddit

GEAR! I don’t know how many time I’ve stopped reading a book because it’s like prepper gear porn. I really dont need a primer on what a bug out bag is and every trinket that goes in it at the beginning of every disaster book.

I also see authors who either have never held a firearm, have done little to no research. I’ve seen a lot of weird misconceptions and just wrong information.

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Arglival@reddit

The good old "he dumped 5 clips of the bolt action semi auto into the bad guy who didn't flinch and kept coming." Trope.

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Lazy_Departure7970@reddit

I would like to see more women with skills, knowledge and training who are also well-thought out and fleshed out to feel like real people. Too many books have men as the main characters, especially men who just HAPPEN to be in the right place at the right time and have all the things so, when SHTF, everyone just happens to "naturally" turn to said person to lead them.

I also don't like books where the main character is ex- (or current) special forces (not just regular ol' military) on vacation or vastly capable person with specialist skills in esoteric things or just the sort of thing that will solve the problem. What about Average Joe or Average Jane in suburbia who happened to start thinking about this and was in the middle of learning about all this when things happens and has to both get all the things and learn as they go just to stay alive?

Another thing I don't like is when the main character just happens to be in a grocery store or other "place to get all the things" when the event happens and also either gets advanced warning or happens to know exactly what happened, but keeps it quiet to get what they need and get out before everyone else finds out and starts to panic.

One series I read was a lot like this where the main character just so happened to be both a prepper AND the Emergency Management coordinator for her (yes, her) neck of the woods and just happened to get a phone call when the SHTF and, instead of doing her job, she casually stocks up on everything she doesn't have and walks out the door. The last part I remember was that she was sitting at home waiting for people to ask her to lead them because she had all the smarts and all the goods while not wanting them to know she had all the goods. Something about the FMC struck me as smug, self-important and holier-then-thou because she'd "been there, done that" and seemed peeved when people didn't acknowledge that she was "smarter" then them because she prepped, despite not wanting people to know she'd prepped.

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SelectCase@reddit

Books and shows never depict normalcy bias. The vast majority of people within a disaster tend to assume things are more normal and more positive than they actually are. Yes, COVID had toilet paper hoarders, but look at how many people pretty much just kept living the line even though it was spreading through their communities like wildfire.

The way groups of people act is also always so unrealistic. If you look at the way real people act after major natural disasters like the hurricanes in Puerto Rico, tornados that sweep across the US, and earthquake/tsunamis, people pull together and cooperate far more than conflict with each other.

Sure, there's some looters and bad behavior, but no natural disaster has totally turned everybody into a every man for himself.

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Moby-WHAT@reddit

As a female reader, I don't mind a male main character. I do hate when the wife's only charactistic is "wife."

The man is often solely motivated to get home because his wife is there and she's just sitting... waiting. She barely gets by, nearly misses being robbed and raped a time or two, and is so relieved when her hero returns.

I'd be thrilled to see my husband and relieved to learn he's alive, but the men get much better storylines in this genre. It's like the wife is an NPC.

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JJShurte@reddit (OP)

Well yeah... heaven forbid the guy go on an adventure to get home, only to find out that the wife has been on an even bigger and more badass adventure! lol

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_pseudoname_@reddit

Too much success. Too much confidence.

Show me the failures and set backs, the doubts and despair.

Plucked eyebrows. Trimmed mustaches. Well groomed survivors.

Clean cars with inflated, shiny tires, good batteries and gas.

I want to see more stuff like bicycles with trailers. Lots of walking. Duct-taped footwear. Stuff not working. The psychological transition from normalcy through the stages of grief. Packs of wild dogs.

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JJShurte@reddit (OP)

So basically, just show the hardship of a post-apocalyptic world via all the small little details of modern conveniences having been lost.

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_pseudoname_@reddit

The conveniences I mentioned are more of the things that annoy me that I see in some fiction.

Not just hardship. The psychological aspect as well. Shock. Grief. Despair. Loneliness and longing. Etc.

Not sure where your story is going, but maybe some kind of upside to it all—under the rubble. Like a return to some good things long lost and forgotten in the social constructs of modern civilizations.

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LuciferianInk@reddit

Penny says, "I'm not sure what you mean."

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Moby-WHAT@reddit

Or, I mean, even if she's a side character, but she struggles with deciding to take the kids to grandma's because there's family comfort and childcare assistance vs. staying home with an established garden.

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dachjaw@reddit

What a great idea!

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VilleKivinen@reddit

I'd like to see a lot more realistic common problems: cholera, dysentery, failing agriculture, spoiled medicine etc and much less neon orange mohawks and raiders.

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mopharm417@reddit

At first I thought you were describing Oregon trail

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JJShurte@reddit (OP)

Yeah, no punk aesthetics... what do punks have to rebel against after world has ended anyway?

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cleaver_username@reddit

I don't read a ton of pepper fiction, so I'm going to make points about a specific book (One Second After) that i think everyone in this sub has read.

Likes: while some of the circumstances seemed a little contrived (our town just so happens to be gravity fed water, so we don't have to worry about that), i thought they did a pretty good job of selling the realism of a small town coming together to face the issues together (socialism works really well in this small town scenario). I thought the descriptions of the "waves" of deaths they could expect was very interesting, and some I hadn't even thought of, like organ transplants etc. Liked that so many people died (ok, i didn't like it, i was a crying mess at the end, and the doooooggie!!), but in reality, you can't have everyone live just because we like that character.

Dislikes: Mr ManlyMan somehow ends up at the center of every decision making session despite not being part of the small town government, because... history? Like he knows about history? I also remember being weirdly put off by his writing of the younger daughter (is been awhile since i read it, but i just remembered being like "wait, how old is she supposed to be? Three? Four? Oh shit she's almost a tween" like calling him daddy and just overall infantalization of her). Also, his constant "this is America, we're awesome" rousing inspirational patriotic speeches got annoying and a skimmed over a lot of that.

Basically, i loved the premise and the story and a lot of the big overall details but disliked his actually writing and character development/descriptions.

Also, that chick that moves in with him on day one. My sister hated that plot point (oh save me big manlyman, I'm helpless) but I thought it kind of worked. Shit hits the fan, a lot of women are going to be a little calculating on their situation, and best path forward for survival. Better the voluntary route, than an involuntary one later down the line.

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JJShurte@reddit (OP)

You just reminded me of a pretty dark story in Australia. There was actually some issues during the really bad fire season where guys would put out ads offering women who'd lost their homes a place to sleep if they'd sleep *with* them... some guys see an opportunity to get laid and they go for it.

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mopharm417@reddit

My favorite is the McClane Apocalypse series by Kate Morris. It has a multi-generational family, lots of medical, military, making food from scratch for a large group, and gardening/harvesting/preserving (my favorite). There aren't many pepper books that delve into homesteading very well. Then again, it's hard to have a suspenseful plot line and worry about beans.

I can't imagine a book about a post-nuclear environment being anything other than hunkering down in a bunker as everything would be contaminated. You'd have to geologically plan it out to map fallout and only have a few pockets unaffected and the rest is toxic like The Handmaid's Tale or some districts in The Hunger Games. Then you'd have secondary nuclear accidents and fallout from every remaining plant after generators run out of fuel.

I don't like when books cycle through 4-5 different characters in different locations. It's hard to follow and remember names. If I have to write out character notes on paper then I'm going to stop reading.

Bad grammar turns many away . Surely someone here will proofread for you. 😉

I love when the author narrates through doing or making something and presents it almost as if you're sitting there teaching you. Field-dressing game, making soap, or wiring up solar panels, french press coffee, etc. I've seen authors leave recipes in the back of books of something that was made during the book. I always appreciated those.

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WrenchMonkey47@reddit

The main character is either rich and manages to buy crates of military gear because he knows someone who can get it, or finds entire armories of people who died or just aren't there anymore.

"Bad guys" who avoid the main character because he's too much of a bad-ass.

Everyone who picks up a rifle can use it proficiently with no prior training.

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JJShurte@reddit (OP)

Yeah, the main characters won't be rich, though there will be people in the town who *were* right but now arent... it's always a good dicotomy to see the winners/losers before/after the apocalypse.

And as I've said elsewhere - it's set in Australia, nobody will be instantly proficient with firearms.

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DagsAnonymous@reddit

Hang on… you also said it’s set in a small town. Is the town servicing mining, forestry, or farming? If it’s farming then a shitload of people will be farmers who own and use rifles. And the rural indigenous people I met in Kalgoorlie (mining town) kept an unsecured rifle under the driver’s seat in their vehicle for hunting.

I’m guessing that (compared to cities/suburbia) even non-farming small towns have more people who grew up on farms. People who can cope with rural Australian life.

Out of interest, are you writing about an area that you’ve lived in for at least a year?

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pwn_plays_games@reddit

The religious people are evil.

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generogue@reddit

One I ran across recently is having gasoline siphoned from cars be useable 20 years post-event.

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chesterbennediction@reddit

When watching the last of us that actually upset me. Even after just 2-3 years that gas won't be running well. Propane however contains no oxidizer so will last forever.

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Aliteralhedgehog@reddit

I remember that scene in the videogame and it drove me nuts.

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DeafHeretic@reddit

I have fuel - both gasoline and diesel - that works fine after a couple of years. Of course, I treat it with Pri-G & Pri-D.

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karlhungusjr@reddit

was it Earth Abides? because man....that was a frustrating book.

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generogue@reddit

No, it was in a fantasy series called the Chronicles of the One. The specific book was Rise of Magicks, which is set roughly 20 years after a magical plague that wipes out about 75% of the global population.

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JJShurte@reddit (OP)

I'm very familiar with that issue - fear not.

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WeakAfternoon3188@reddit

whatever is on the radio.

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Simp_Red@reddit

There's always a hidden bunker full of food and supplies. Don't add that.

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sleepydog404@reddit

Gang\Faction wars - Yes there would probably be confict in real life but in fiction all you're doing is filling pages with tropes regurgitated from just about any other genre.
Dealing with credible post-apocalyptic problems e.g. Your community is surviving but people keep getting sick. Or crops or supplies keep going missing but the culprits are just kids.

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JJShurte@reddit (OP)

Yeah, I'm going to bring it down to focus on the day to day stuff. There will be those be tense action scenes when they go out and do stuff, but that's not the main draw. I'm trying to keep things grounded.

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FattierBrisket@reddit

Oh man, if you want a great example of a close-focus daily life post-apocalypse novel, I highly recommend Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer. It's so closely focused that it feels nearly claustrophobic at times, but that's part of what makes it really, REALLY good.

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iamfaedreamer@reddit

Only the first couple in that series, it falls off after that pretty bad. But the first one was really well written, I thought.

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FattierBrisket@reddit

Agreed! First one is amazing, second one is pretty good once you get into it, last two are meh.

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sleepydog404@reddit

I look forward to it :)

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rotatingruhnama@reddit

Yeah I hate when it's all lone wolf macho fantasy competitive bs.

I lived in postwar Sarajevo when I was younger, and when people talked about the siege (a long term shtf) it wasn't that dumb prepper fiction fantasy.

They'd discuss retrieving water for an elderly neighbor, the brigade of young men in VW Golfs who served as ambulance drivers, and visiting friends.

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Mala_Suerte1@reddit

Selco Begovic is that you?

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No1ninjahippy@reddit

I read On the Beach by Neville Shute.

It was a particularly good book that dealt with futility and the mundane waste of the last few months of people's lives, waiting for the end of their days as lethal radiation slowly encompassed the world.

It wouldn't happen like that in real life but what is not often portrayed is just how much of a state people's minds would be in as they grasp with the enormity of what happened / is happening and what the future will be for them.

PTSD. The average spod is not used to seeing charred dead bodies and other horrors.

Preparedness. Unless you practice regularly with your gear, you aren't going to be very good with it. No matter how much you think you are or have read.

Main characters are often portrayed as competent and familiar with everything they find along the way. There aren't many real MacGuyvers in the world.

For the sake of fiction though it has to be somewhat this way otherwise it could be rather dull. As long as it's plausible.

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Motor_Kitchen_783@reddit

Probably the biggest thing, not even prep related, is dynamic characters. People’s values and nature can take a real turn when shtf.

Breaking Bad is the best example imo

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buttsmcfatts@reddit

I hate when post SHTF fiction gets into the writing of huge lists. What I mean is there will be a point when the main character will just list all the types of food he has in his basement. It's not interesting, show don't tell.

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Traditional-Leader54@reddit

How are you supposed to show if it’s a novel though?

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iamfaedreamer@reddit

not physically show like visually, but it means to show with the writing, usually by integrating the information in a more natural way. Like having the MC use the items rather than just listing them off, in that way you've shown the audience what he has stored but haven't just info dumped all over the place.

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buttsmcfatts@reddit

It's a metaphor for writing. Like instead of writing out a whole list of things you can just have the protagonist have whatever he needs or exude confidence in his preps or whatever

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Mala_Suerte1@reddit

Rawles early book read more like a prepper list than an actual novel, yet people bought it. It was horrible. But I did copy down some lists from it, Lol.

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JJShurte@reddit (OP)

That very much seems to be a trope of prepper fiction, not post-apoc fiction as a whole.

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TinFoilRainHat@reddit

Hello, I'd like to be added to your mail list when this book comes out.

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jumpingfox99@reddit

I hate it when the women are wearing revealing clothes and are perfectly coiffed and shaved. Without running water, we would all look like homeless people within a few weeks.

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Previous-Apricot-701@reddit

One thing I personally would love to see is what happens in the IMMEDIATE hours/days/weeks/months after a disaster. Most of the time, the story skips forward years or even decades later. Give me the gritty details as society collapses! I think deep diving the psyche behind it is fascinating. Also accepting reading recs that do this. ;)

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lewd_chicken@reddit

there was an old 4chan post from a guy who went thru the kosovo shit and he talked about how individual preppers all got picked off and ppl who bunched up in 4-5 families survived/ even survivors were starving, raped, lost family, sick, etc. he also said ammo, fuel, food, anitbiotics, water, cigarettes, and pussy were some of the best commodities for trades. u shud look into that one its a good primer

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Important-Specific96@reddit

An average shmuck whose main priority is saving his glasses while trying to survive. Plus, the so called preppers just die because they won't move from their stashes is radiation zones.

What I'm trying to say is that no one is the ultimate anything.

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very_mechanical@reddit

Someone else already mentioned "The Road" but I wanted to chime in, as well. I was playing around with a post-apocalyptic setting for a story of my own. Then I read The Road and it immediately put me off my own project. Because McCarthy painted a truly apocalyptic scenario that was so much better and bleaker than anything I could have done. I mean, it's Cormac McCarthy so of course it's better than anything I would write. But it was just leagues above.

I like the Mad Max movies a lot. They certainly got sillier after the first one. None of them make much sense, if you're thinking about realistic scenarios.

I guess how I feel about it is: write what you want to. You can even do silly cliches, as long as you do them well.

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loadedstork@reddit

Well, I don't hate to see it, but I always chuckle when everybody's clean-shaven and showered all the time.

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Mala_Suerte1@reddit

I forgot to cancel my subscription to Dollar Shave Club, my wife just kept throwing the refills under the bathroom sink. I think I have a couple hundred razors stored up. So if if the SHTF, I can't guarantee that I'll be showered, but I will be clean shaven - at least my neck and head, I've had a beard for years.

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Galaxaura@reddit

I'd read the book The Dog Stars by Peter Heller.

It's my favorite. It's not your scenario, but it'll give you some ideas about after and what people would do to search for others, protect themselves and how the characters dealt with having to cooperate with another to survive.

It's poignant. Many books about after a huge event, don't focus on that the way this author does.

It's also not a long read.

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Traditional-Leader54@reddit

When no one ever suffers from psychological shock I.e. the main protagonist in every action movie ever.

Also unrealistic time frames which I guess pertains more to movies. Like when they have to get the place fortified before sundown which is 2 hours away yet they get about 8 hours worth of stuff done and everything goes perfectly according to plan and every booby trap works perfectly as intended.

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boisheep@reddit

People going rogue rather than returning back to the means.

Look at how people live in places with huge crisis, they go back into sort of tribal structures of "hundreds" of members, and even when they do have conflicts, the level of conflict with each other is surprisingly not that high; in fact there's often cooperation between factions.

It's highly likely farmers and not military becomes the leaders of these groups and it starts to revolve around that, farming and agriculture.

Therefore It's BORING, because this post apocalypctic thing in reality will just end up being a slow and painful recovery, there's no wasteland, it'll be like an agricultural community; there won't be thrilling action; just a return back to the means, people will adapt, and a lot will die of famine without really fighting, the few that do will meet the tribes, and they will stand no chance.

If you want something truly different, then make a nuclear winter, keep Latin America intact; and force Americans into searching for refugee in the deep south as things turn more and more frigid.

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Mala_Suerte1@reddit

The last part has actually been done in the movie, The Day After Tomorrow. Based on the book, "The Coming Global Superstorm". North America becomes an uninhabitable frozen wasteland and the surviving citizens move to Mexico.

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JJShurte@reddit (OP)

This will be set in Australia, and I was basically going to do that - nuclear winter, no real chance for awesome atomic battle royales - just back to basics survival.

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DeafHeretic@reddit

1) All the protagonists are special forces, ex-SEALs, ex-LEO, etc. - as if those are the only people who stand a chance of surviving. Personally I believe it is the author fantasizing they are the protagonist.

Then there is the "long walk home" story line where the "special" protagonist must reach/rescue a spouse, GF/ex-GF, child, etc.

2) EMP/CME used as the premise for anything and everything suddenly stop working. Sure it would cause chaos/havoc, but there are a LOT of mechanisms, including electronics, that would survive.

3) Warlord/gangs/etc. forever attacking innocent survivors - non-stop.

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11systems11@reddit

All the usual tropes.. The good guys always win. Bad guys are terrible shots with firearms. Roving gangs of cannibal bikers. All bikers are bad. Pregnant women are only on the side of the good guys. Former military guys are all good.

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Mala_Suerte1@reddit

Most post-apocalyptic books/movies end w/ a few peripheral characters dead, but rarely a main character. They almost always have a rosy end. That being said, I think The Road is one of the best books/movies that not only bucks this trend and but also shows a more true-to-life view of what things will be like. TEOTWAWKI is going to suck beyond all comprehension - The Road was dark and bleak and you could feel the hopelessness, even the ending left me saying, "well that sucked" - many people will off themselves b/c they simply can't handle the mental aspect of it.

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FIbynight@reddit

What i hate: good old southern boy talking shit about urban or blue states they’ve never fucking stepped foot in or making assumption about its occupants. Immigrants are scrappy AF and in some cases used to a way lower quality of living. They’ll find a way.

What i love: non-absurd plot details and resourcefulness that i may not have thought of. Bonus points if there’s some research done

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JJShurte@reddit (OP)

Yeah, it's not gonna be US based... so I don't know how the whole red vs blue or "immigrants" thing would even play into it.

But yeah, lots of people putting their pettiness aside and working together.

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FIbynight@reddit

That is my bad. To be more general stay away from the ethnic/regional/religious good group/bad group trope. It’s overdone.

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Thatdipwadthere@reddit

I was at high school football game once. The game was paused for a thunderstorm, the players went to the locker rooms, the fans were hiding under a small pavilion.

One... Maybe mentally challenged woman was wet and panicking, some power mom's were bitching about why they just didn't call the game off, dads were sent off to the car to get umbrellas and blankets or were just standing there trying to look unaffected. And no one, me included, was helping the panicking woman.

I thought... What a group of misfits. If the world ended right now, I would have to go through the apocalypse with these people...

That was before COVID. What I saw at grocery stores made that look like a picnic.

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Torch99999@reddit

I hate "Ensign Sue" characters. Heros should have relistic flaws. Heroes should have to work, train, and study. They can (and probably should) be above average, but should be realistic.

I think a couple great examples of what not to do are Matthew Bracken's "Enemies Foreign and Domestic" where the main character is an Olympic-quality athlete in multiple areas without practicing. Another bad example is Tom Clancy 's later novels where the hero is independently wealthy because he bought stock in a local small coffee shop which turned into Starbucks.

Make characters with motivations. Too often I see books where the bad guys are one dimensional just because they're "the bad guy". People should all have a story and motivation, a reason for who they are and what they're doing. I think Game of Thrones (the books) did a really good job of this, where even the villains had a good reason to do what they did.
Do some research. The vast majority of stuff I see on this forum about nuclear war is all myth and misinformation. Do some research on what modern nuclear arsenals look like, what an exchange would look like, how emp and fallout would behave. Current Russian nuclear arsenal is about 13% of what they had in the 1980s (and only a quarter of those current nukes are deployed) and their biggest currently-in-inventory warhead is only 5 mt (compared to the 100mt they had in the 60s) with a lot significantly smaller than that.
Think about the complete supply lines, from raw materials to finished goods on a store shelf. A war is going to have huge effects, from sourcing raw materials, fuel, transportation, etc., that a lot of people ignore.

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dachjaw@reddit

Guns. Guns guns guns guns guns guns guns. Somebody please write a story that isn’t about guns.

Or just shoot me. Oh wait…

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Austechprep@reddit

The balance of technology by different shows or groups within shows seems to be off a lot. I really don't like when their is an apocolypse that takes the grid down through hacking or natural disaster etc and then suddenly thats just the end of all technology. Then you'll have some advanced group in there with helicopters and drones and fantastic tech thats not very realistic either.

It's very plausible to even get cell phones back up and running with the right community, a smaller version of the internet very possible etc, your not going to be opening steel mills but you sure as hell can have some basic entertainment and comms going.

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JJShurte@reddit (OP)

Yeah, I'll be focusing on a small town so I'd like to have some sort of electricity for entertainment once things settle down a bit.

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dachjaw@reddit

Please don’t! Instead describe how the little bit of electricity that is generated is used for refrigeration. Describe how everybody goes to bed early because there are no lights and candles are ridiculously expensive/rare. Describe how DARK it is without electricity so nobody goes out at night. Weave these things into the story or make them part of the plot.

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TacTurtle@reddit

Writers without hands on medical, small arms, survival, military experience, or mechanical repair experience writing about them using vaguely buzzwordy internet research.

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Abject-Idea-7804@reddit

Leather clothing drying in anything less than a week, women characters wearing shoes that are clearly uncomfortable, styled hair, being clean in general….

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No1ninjahippy@reddit

Purely the TV stuff. Apart from a few, why does everyone have perfect hair and clean clothes? Where's all this hot water, shampoo & detergents coming from?

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Psychological_Taco27@reddit

The shaved legs and pits always gets me!

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No1ninjahippy@reddit

Mmm Smooth... Mmm brains.... Mmm Smooth brains!...

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thepottsy@reddit

I read a book series years ago, that was not only very entertaining, but the main protagonist wasn’t the whole ex-military guy. He was a rather normal guy, wealthy, but otherwise lacking in knowledge. He attempts to prepare for the worst, but never expected what happened.

No Easy Hope, by James Cook

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toot_toot_gigo@reddit

My main grip with "Patriots" was how the guy had ALL the gear. That is just not real, and your group will have some talent, but will you really have a specialist in every skill? what is the saying no man is an island.

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theotte7@reddit

Don't forget the hiding in the grain silo eating corn. Umm what.

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JJShurte@reddit (OP)

Yeah, no. Having a wide spread of skills across multiple characters is just good storytelling.

That, or you have everyone rely on one over-skilled character... only to kill that one character off just to see how everyone else fares afterwards.

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2_F_Jeff@reddit

I’m also trying (emphasis on trying) to write a post apocalyptic book right now.

Biggest problem I have is when trying to write about real problems, things like water shortages, food rationing, etc. feels hard because objectively, it doesn’t make for great stories by itself. I’ve turned to using those as motivation for some pretty desperate acts by various characters, but am still learning what makes a good story good and how to make the characters feel real and not tools to move the story forward. Good luck in your writing!

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JJShurte@reddit (OP)

Cheers, you too!

I find that it's easy to focus on those mundane essentials when they're not so everyday anymore. Need some water? What *wouldnt* you do for some drinking water when you and your kids are dehydrated?

It only seems petty in the modern world, with all the modern conveniences... but in an age of survival - you do what you gotta do.

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Psychological_Taco27@reddit

I have read A LOT of EOTW books.

1) despise the “I’m a super strong ex marine who knows what he’s doing and will do it at any cost” please give it a rest. Also, anything that involves keeping a group of women to rape/torture/repopulate the world. We are not just wombs. I don’t want to read GRAPHIC depictions of things that happen in the “real” world, I am aware of them already. Some of the books I have read are waaaay more graphic than they needed to be, almost like some sick porn disguised as a novel. Please please avoid. Gangs. Boring. Just finding caches of stuff anywhere - “oh no, we’re all starving. Hang on, what’s that? 10 years worth of MREs and canned goods! We’re saved!” Please for the love of all that is holy, not USA based, I am from Europe, I don’t have access to guns and ammo directly, nor would I be able to access them in literally any emergency situation. I don’t have acres of land etc etc.

2) More female protagonists, in the style or similar to “The book of the unnamed midwife.” Years ago I read “mom’s journal of the zombie years” that was excellent (if a little religious) but truly that was an eye opening read of a normal run of the mill person surviving. The author covered literally 99/100 topics (including sexual assault) I could think of and they were all done very tactfully.

I have about 1000 ideas but these are my no thanks/yes please!

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JJShurte@reddit (OP)

Yeah, so I've got no issue including women in my PA stories. I tend to keep it an even 50/50 split just to appease all the weirdos who want it one way or another.

Also, it won't be set in the US - I tend to write all my real-world PA stories in Australia.

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Psychological_Taco27@reddit

This has formatted terribly, apologies but I am on mobile :(

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Rude_Veterinarian639@reddit

I read the Black Autumn series recently. I really liked it and it got great reviews. It's a KU book. Check it out for comps.

Also, hey there fellow indie author!

I stick to writing trashy shifter romance novels tho. Society falling down around us eventually hits just a bit too close to home.

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Rude_Veterinarian639@reddit

also for an anti military type but still military adjacent check out Jack Widow. I liked the first half of this series but it got boring around book 13-14. I think it's on book 20 now but i haven't kept up.

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JJShurte@reddit (OP)

Nice to meet another indie!

Yeah, I just love the genre... but I actually don't like what indies are mostly doing with it. So I'm trying to make a mark.

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EffinBob@reddit

Want a realistic way for society to meander into the apocalypse? Read Dusty's Diary. Yeah, it's complete fantasy about the cause, but the way the author describes how society breaks down piece by piece instead of overnight is a rare phenomenon in the genre. It was quite refreshing.

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JJShurte@reddit (OP)

Never heard of it, I'll check it out - cheers!

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__jenkins@reddit

While it was Zombies and not Nukes, The Last of Us was the most recent post apocalyptic tv show I had issues with.

Ron Swanson has a bunker full of guns and gear and only grabs a pump action shotgun and a bandolier to fight off an invading gang. A gun that holds just a handful of rounds vs an unknown number of enemies. I get that the pump action probably looks cooler on film 🎥
Joel leaves his m16/ar15 under the floor boards saying something like “ain’t gonna be ammo for these”. Even though 556/223 is a very popular round for both the military and civilians, would def still be around. I can’t really think of a justification for this decision

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chesterbennediction@reddit

For joel the only justification I can think is that since they are walking so far he doesn't want to carry a gun with almost no bullets. What upsets me though is when he comes across recent dead with guns on the ground and doesn't immediately check for ammo which would be insanely valuable since ammo is used regularly against the infected.

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karlhungusjr@reddit

oh...and one more thing.

the protagonist who survives the apocalypse just by staying in their house for a week or two.

I can't count the number of books I've read/listened to where this is how the story begins.

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JJShurte@reddit (OP)

That or they were out camping at the time.

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SoloHunterX@reddit

Considering something like 5 to 10 years post.

Hate to see: Fuel being usable well after it should be bad, batteries in vehicles having charge, ammo being used like they have a never ending supply, lack of haphazard melee weapons, most have too many well fed people when in reality starvation would be the norm.

Would like to see: tricked out survivor type with all the skills an gear being taken out easily by an unassuming grey man, ruthless transient scavenger gangs that go viking through territory, a counter parallel story of a primitive uncontacted tribe that is forced from their typical habitat.

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pudding7@reddit

I can't stand any kind of plot or antagonist who's central feature revolves around politics, usually that they're some kind of evil Liberal/Socialist. And at the end when they've been vanquished everyone stands up and says the Pledge of Allegiance to the tattered but beautiful American flag. Ugh.