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Nuclear Apocolapse (my story)

FinnMacCool

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I've had this idea in the back of my head for a really long time to try and write a story about the aftermath of some kind of modern day nuclear war which destroys two thirds of the population of the world.

It is currently in the prewriting stage and I was wondering what your thoughts were on how the people might act and what kind of weaponary would be needed to send this country back almost into the stone age.

Basically the story is that this man named Daniel MacAndrew who lives in present day New York city when he was warned of a nuclear strike. Basically the whole city is destroyed and his whole family died. He wanders around for awhile and encounters some thieves but he is rescued by a man named Matthew. Matthew and him become companions.

Matt is a completely different character then Daniel. Daniel lives only to survive but Matt took this destruction as a unique opportunity to rebuild the world and create a society where there is justice, equality, and fairness. Matt is an optimist and Dan is the pessimist.

Vannessa is another character that they meet and she is the one I'm most worried about. The thing about her is that she is like Daniel meaning that she only wants survival pretty much but Daniel lusts after her and Matt actually encourages them because he feels that its the first step to making a civillization. It sounds pretty stupid but I wanted to try and get some kind of sexual tension between those characters but also bring it back to a stage where its actually neccesary for the survival of their species.

Let give basically an outline of the problems I had in mind and I want to see if they are authentic as I imagine them to be:

Tribal Warfare
Matthew forms a tribe and gathers about him all these people who follow him but there are other tribes that want to fight them also and who possess better weapons then they.

Guns and Ammo: Matthew carries an Ak-47 but only has two mags of ammo and Dan carries a pistol (probably a glock. haven't decided yet) with only two mags of ammo. Eventually they run out and have to resort to building spears and other kinds of primitive weaponary.

So basically I was hoping you guys could tell me if these kind of problems would be realistic and on what scale would a nuclear war have to be in order to bring about one single apocalyptic event that would reduce mankind to this stage. I want to be as authentic as possible. Any kind of suggestion would be appreciated. Thank you.
 
Actually, I just wrote this thing now. I dunno if its any good. This is what I envisioned though when I thought of the aftermath of a nuclear apocolapse

Silence
And then, the snow came down from the heavens. He saw this as he crawled out from under the pile of rubble which was once his home.

He looked around; nothing. He started to run but it was the same thing. It was all grey. Grey everything.

He stopped.

His knees buckled and he dropped to the floor. Then he wept. For what was once his was now gone. His world had ended.

This is probably a compltely innaccurate way of portrying the aftermath of a nuclear apocalapse specifically because I don't think he would've been able to survive from the basement of his home. I'm still contemplating that but any suggestions would be very much appreciated.
 
There was a movie out about 20 years ago on TV called "The Day After"...

I don't know how accurate they were, but I would assume they had some experts giving the producers advice on what it would be like...

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085404/
 
Oh wow that looks like a must see movie for me. I browsed through the forum for a bit and it sounded lke it was very controversial and they actually cut a lot of material. I wonder if I could find the whole thing somewhere. very interesting.
 
FinnMacCool, you're a writer?
Don't let the fact that it's been done before (The Day After) stop you... it hasn't stopped Stephen King (The Stand) or Robert MacCammon (Swan Song) or a few others who ventured into that territory.

All you have to do is read the papers for authenticity... with nuclear ambitions once again at the forefront of our culture- between enemies like the U.S. and Iran no less- you can allude to the reality of what could happen quite easily.

And like you've suggested in your outline, I'm betting people would act just the way they did pre-apocalypse; some would be lowered to their jack-ass nature, some would be elevated to do the good they're capapble of.

If you want sexual tension, you're going to need an antagonist (unlike the encouraging Matthew) to thwart Dan's and Veronica's possibilities...

Good luck with your story.
 
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