After the Apocalypse

 A sharp wind evaporated the sweat from Janet’s arms. She felt a chill, like a passing ghost. Her heart settled from a hard drumbeat in her chest to a low rhythmic thump as she walked, recovering from her run. 

She felt cleaner now. 

Refreshed. 

The familiar ache of bone and muscle comforted her.

She wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her shirt and looked ahead at the vehicle in the road. 

What was going on with this overheated camper van? 

It was an older, boxy model. The hood was propped open, and she could smell the metal of the overheated radiator. 

Janet could hear snippets of argument as she cautiously approached. 

It was hard to get all of it. The wind was gusting, creating white noise that washed out the voices, making them fade in and out like a bad phone connection.

She approached the van on the opposite side from where the people were arguing. Better to stay unnoticed. Was this even something that she wanted to get involved with?  

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Hello and welcome back my survivor friends. How are we all doing? How’s the apocalypse treating you?

What did you think of the episode? Frankly I struggled writing this one and my editing team helped A LOT! Thank you Duane! If anyone wants to help with writing or editing please feel free to reach out. 

I didn’t want to just have action. The action turns into “he-said-she-said” type motion-without-meaning after a while.  And that get’s boring. 

There are no stakes. Not snakes, stakes. You always have to ask and answer that question: what are the stakes here?

On the flip side you don’t want to bulk up with too much exposition and emotions – because that gets boring too. 

The key is to marry the exposition and stakes with the action. Have what the characters do and say make your points for you. 

Language is a powerful thing. Story telling is a basic, human, powerful thing.

So – long story short (pun absolutely intended) I had to wrestle with that in this episode. 

I wanted to make sure that we were understanding the motivation of the characters and moving the broader narrative forward and even exploring some deeper themes. 

And, as it turns out, this is a common theme in apocalyptic literature – how does your current pre-apocalypse skill set translate into a post-apocalyptic world?  It’s not just preppers and backwoodsmen who will do well. It’s also the resilient, the fast, the smart and those willing to lead. 

And to show this we take individuals out of the real world and drop them int the apocalypse – in our case Janet the type-A lawyer and the old man, a disgraced doctor turned ultra-runner. 

That’s the theme that I’m trying to play with. And that’s what makes science fiction so much fun. Because you can create these mashups and play with them. What would a pre-school teacher do in an alien invasion? What would the ballet-teacher do in an alternate universe? I don’t know but you could write that story. 

One of my favorite versions of this is when Rod Serling dropped a book loving bank teller into the apocalypse in episode 8 of the original Twighlight Zone titled “Time Enough at Last”. First aired in 1959 and based on a story by Lynn Venable. 

In this episode Henry Bemis played by Burgess Meredith,. loves books yet is surrounded by those who would prevent him from reading them. (You know Burgess Meredith as the original Penguin in the Batman TV series and as Rocky’s crusty old coach Mickey in the Rocky movies.)

The episode follows Bemis through a post-apocalyptic world, touching on such social issues as anti-intellectualism, the dangers of reliance upon technology, and the difference between solitude and loneliness. In the end he breaks his glasses so he can’t read the books even though he’s the last one alive. 

This was one of the most popular episodes of the original Twilight zone. 

Anyhow, that’s an example of how you can make an episode compelling without much action at all. 

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Congratulations to all of you my surviving friends in the apocalypse. We are over 5,000 downloads strong now. Let’s push it to a million! Tell some friends, keep it moving. Post the link to the show in your social. You my friends are our personal agents of chaos spreading the apocalypse love. 

I do need more of you to join the patreon page as members. I want to be able to keep the storygoing. And you can help me survive with your support.

As Patreon Members you get full access to scripts and show notes. 

But I am going to sweeten the pot. 

If you go and join Patreon at any level I’m going to give you special, members only episodes.

https://www.patreon.com/AftertheApocalypse?fan_landing=true

Starting with this one here from one of my other apocalypse universes. 

Insert clip here.

So if you want to hear more of that, and get other shows I’m going to drop go join the patreon page so I can keep the show going.

Thank you all very much and until next time…Keep Surviving!