My pen name is Jack Lovelace, & I've been lurking for around a year but was too nervous to start my own writeblr until now. Tbh I haven't written any fiction since I left middle school, but I've been working on a couple novel ideas in my head for years now. Once I narrow it down to 1 or 2, I'll be posting excerpts, moodboards, & drawings for those WIPs along with rambles about my writing progress. My anxiety makes it really hard to share my ideas & interact with others without worrying about what others might think; but this seems like a welcoming & encouraging community, so I'm going to try anyway. 🙂
ABOUT ME
I'm a 23 year old community college student in California taking prerequisite classes for an RN program
My favorite genres are horror, apocalyptic, dystopian, & realistic fiction
I like cats, San Francisco, story podcasts, & foreign zombie movies
I'm a non-theistic satanist & recently joined The Satanic Temple
Please like or reblog this if your write in any of my favorite genres or post writing advice so I can follow you! 😊
Even LGBT people are afraid to create LGBT rep half the time because you fucking goblins critique things with LGBT rep so harshly that the second it does something that you personally don’t like it gets treated even worse than the shows that have absolutely no rep in them.
Demonizing every show that is earnestly trying to provide the rep we’ve been lacking is NOT THE WAY TO GET BETTER REP
Remember when Dream Daddy was called homophobic because a horror-themed (and non-canon, might I add) ending was found in the game’s code? Like y'all go after everything that isn’t the most saccharine, unproblematic, nothing-bad-happens-ever shit and I’m so, so sick of it. This keeps us from getting LGBT+ rep that’s actually interesting and in interesting situations! I want actual stories, but I guess you guys don’t. You just want a perfect little picture to hang on your wall.
Treating all gay people as uwu soft beans is a form of homophobia in itself, and that’s the tea. Make problematic gay characters!! Give lgbt characters flaws!! Give them interesting, non stereotypical personalities!! We’re human, and humans are flawed by nature, so treat us as such and don’t get pissed because of it.
LGBT purity issues that make authors not want to create LGBT characters:
Characters can’t have flaws, they must be perfect (magic gay trope, as mentioned above).
LGBT characters are only allowed to have problems that stem from homophobia, like friends or family no longer talking to them, so they have a limited range of character development.
If you kill a gay character or write them out because they’ve outlived their usefulness, you’re called homophobic, even if you give other characters the exact same treatment.
If a character falls under the stereotypes trusted to LGBT (a gay man who likes theatre and fashion, a bisexual whose sleeps around), you’re called homophobic for playing into stereotypes, but if the character isn’t, you get accused of making a character whose unrealistic and that you didn’t do enough research into the lgbt community, and therefore you’re homophobic.
If it’s not a main character, you’re not being representative enough, even when your story isn’t romantic at all.
If you tell people a character is lgbt, but don’t show them kiss/dating someone, it’s considered throwaway representation and not good enough, even if no one else in the story is romantic.
If you do show lgbt characters in a romantic capacity, but they’re the only ones, you’re accused fetishizing them.
You’re accused of fetishizing romantic lgbt characters when they’re not the only ones in a relationship.
If you use specific gender terms, you may be accused of cultural appropriation.
If characters are lgbt, but their not minority, female, etc., it’s not really representative.
If you don’t include enough lgbt to encapsulate every single letter, it’s not real representation.
Also let’s be real, Problematic Books are one of the strongest arguments for libraries’ continued existence?
Let’s say you need an outdated queer theory textbook that uses biphobic and cissexist rhetoric for your gender studies thesis, but you don’t particularly want to own that book.
Let’s say you need a primary source to strengthen your argument to your college as to why a certain political figure does not deserve to be a speaker at your graduation because they perpetuate hate speech.
Let’s say you and your friends want to hateread a book by your least favorite author but you don’t want to give him your money.
You deserve the ability to access that content legally without having to purchase and own it. And so does everyone else, no matter how suspicious you might be of their motives for reading a Problematic book.
When I was doing my masters in library science, they reiterated over and over: there should be something in a library to offend everyone. Believe me. There are books in my library that I find offensive. But my job is to provide access. Not to question WHY people need stuff or to judge them. Libraries should function as a neutral space. We are providing information, which in and of itself is neutral. It’s what people DO with that information that matters. And even then, it’s not my place to judge.
When I was in college, I was doing a paper for an African-American Studies class, and I found myself suddenly in need of info on exactly what sort of self-justification white people were using during the days of slavery.
And I found one in the college library. An original slave-owner’s apologia from eighteen hundred or so.
Nasty stuff. But studying the mechanics of evil is a useful pursuit. One that has relevance in today’s world, certainly.
(My African-American Studies professor thought so too; he gave me an A.)
The point being, no matter how bad a book is, there is value in preserving it—if only to demonstrate, “This, this right here, this is a bad thing.“ Mein Kampf? Worth picking through to note the psychology of a depraved leader. (Did you know that Hitler framed every damn thing as a war, including farming, which he characterized as wrestling food from an unwilling land, or some such bullshit? Might be a characteristic worth paying attention to. Be cautious about leaders who use “war” rhetoric for things that aren’t actually wars, such as … oh, to pull an example out of a hat, how about “drugs.”) Slavery apologia? Leans heavily into Biblical justification, from the one I read, so maybe, just maybe, we should examine Biblical justifications very carefully. Even the worst stuff teaches us things.
Your child literally cannot function without making up and playing out fictional fantasies in their head, disconnecting from reality and therefore not getting anything done because it’s a way for them to cope with reality and the trauma they haven’t been able to address.
hi abby! how do you flesh out your ideas into chapters? what i mean is that i have a full story, but i don't know how to divide it into chapters. thanks!
this might be the first writing advice ask i’ve gotten that i feel i have a concise enough answer to address it right when i get it—this is a great question!
the easiest response is that it gets intuitive the longer you write. i often write my outline and then break the book into chapters as i draft it, so that i’m not held to any specific structure before i start.
a good chapter ending serves one of two purposes: either it’s a place to stop and rest (the place a reader can stop and go make dinner) or it’s a command to Keep Reading Right This Second So Help Me God (hooky). what a chapter ending should aways do: keep readers interested.
you’ll notice that the flavours of chapter endings vary by genre (i.e. thrillers tend toward the second sort of ending, whereas a lot of contemporary novels will tend toward the former)
wordcount doesn’t matter. a chapter is over when it feels over.
your chapter might be over if:
you can use the last paragraph to ask a big ol ‘what if’ question in the narrative (hooky).
you’re at a resting point for your characters, which could be literal, like nightfall, or more figurative, like a mental resting point (dinnertime)
your characters just found out some HUGE information (HOOKY)
your gut says it’s over (can be either)
like i said, my strategy is to divide into chapters as i write, rather than while i’m outlining. you definitely don’t have to do it that way though. up to you!
Rudy was the first to walk past the gate towards the empty roller coaster seat waiting for him towards the front. The safety bar went over his head & locked in place as soon as he sat down, the padded foam digging slightly into his stocky frame. His fingers wrapped around the restraints as everyone else filled the seats around him. His eyes couldn’t help but drift upward. The steep, almost vertical tracks shot up into the sky so far it was impossible to see the top. He couldn’t see past the drop either, as the ride had none of the twists & turns he was used to seeing on other roller coasters. Instead it had a series of loops going straight forward. The person who offered him the chance to test the ride told him it was the tallest, fastest one ever built. The mere sight of it made his palms sweat & sent a shockwave of panic through his chest.
As much as his body screamed to get off, Rudy forced himself to stay put. It’s too late now, he thought to himself. You volunteered for this. You promised to get over this fear before you died. For them. A loud buzzer went off, the men escorting the passengers stepped off the platform, & the roller coaster made its way up the tracks.
He knew it would take a few minutes to reach the top. As long as he kept looking ahead, this part of the ride was almost pleasant, as if he were on an escalator going higher & higher until it reached heaven & God himself. His focus stayed locked on the stars scattered across the clear night sky & glanced around for constellations he could recognize. He gave up after finding the big dipper & Orion’s belt.
A man in front of him jerked on his restraints, his panicked sobs growing louder.
“I can’t do this! Let me off! Let me off, PLEASE!”
By then they were too far up for anyone on the ground to hear. Only the other passengers heard his pleas; other voices joined in seconds later. Rudy bit his trembling lip & looked over the side. He teared up when he saw they were already halfway to the top. He shouldn’t have looked down. How did his sons ever think these were fun? Even after years of taking his twin boys on every roller coaster they were tall enough to ride, he never made it through one without soon racing to a trash can on his wobbling knees. But Rudy’s love for them far outweighed the fear that made him scream through each gut-wrenching twist and nosedive.
Rudy didn’t make any noise this time. His heart raced faster than it ever had before, but he kept his mouth closed & simply let the tears roll down his face. He forced himself to breathe slowly to push back the increasing feelings of doom. Breathe in for five, hold it for four, breathe out for six. Just as his therapist taught him. He shut his eyes. He visualized a candle & watched the way the flame flickered in the darkness, hoping the image would help him calm down. To his surprise, it did. He moved on to his boys again & every good memory he had of them. He recalled their excitement when he’d saved enough overtime pay to take them to their first big amusement park, their first day of school, even the time they jumped off the roof of their two-story house onto the trampoline while playing superheroes. Rudy loosened his grip & cracked a smile. Perhaps he’ll be alright after all.
Another passenger screamed. It was a woman this time, her high-pitched shrieks piercing through the darkness. They sounded so much like his wife’s. No, don’t think about her. Not. Her. The screaming continued. Rudy’s breaths grew quick & shallow, but he at least resisted the urge to jump out of his seat & escape down the stairs. He didn’t know whether he wanted to break down & cry or fly into a rage & hit something. The memories he tried so hard to suppress came rushing back.
On the last day they ever spent together as a family, his wife Elaine made him breakfast before he went off to work. The boys were quietly scarfing down cereal in a rush to wait outside for the school bus. Rudy thought he noticed one of them glancing between his cereal & stepmom like he was on guard. Once she married Rudy in the same church they met in & moved in with them, his sons had grown more withdrawn & distant. He chalked it up to them being slow to accept such a big life change, as it had only been the three of them since their mother died giving birth to their sons eight years ago.
Rudy kissed his wife on the cheek & walked out the door towards his car. As he drove off to work, he watched his boys run to the curb to wait for the bus from his rearview mirror. Just as the bus was about to stop at their house, he saw one of them bend over & throw up on the sidewalk. He rushed back into the house, his brother following close behind him. Rudy, being the anxious father he was, considered turning back to check on him. Knowing his sons, they had to be seriously ill before they started feeling nauseous. He had someone else to help care for them now, he reminded himself.
But despite his praying & attempts at self-reassurance, Rudy made a U-turn back to the house twenty minutes later. He was so worried about how his kids have been acting that he’d left his work badge on the kitchen table. Without it, he couldn’t get into the building he worked in.
He knew something was wrong when he saw two things; a puddle of red where one of his sons had thrown up, & his wife’s car still in the driveway. If he’d known it was blood earlier, he would’ve driven his son to the ER immediately. He parked in his usual spot & ran through the front door.
Elaine was struggling to drag a large black garbage bag down the stairs. She jumped when she saw her husband standing in the doorway. It slipped from her hands & tumbled down the last of the steps. Blood leaked out from the side where a tiny finger poked out through the plastic.
The shock & sheer rage of what he was seeing clouded Rudy’s memory of what happened next. Different snapshots flashed across his mind’s eye. The nearly-empty bag of rat poison pellets spilled on the kitchen floor. His wife crying about how this wasn’t supposed to happen, how he wasn’t supposed to be back so soon. How his existing kids were keeping them from having one of their own. His hand grabbing the knife she’d used to prepare breakfast that morning. The sirens that surrounded their home long after his wife stopped screaming. With no other witnesses to prove his innocence, Rudy was charged for all three murders. Not that he protested. With his biggest joys in life now gone, nothing mattered anymore.
The roller coaster slowed to a crawl once it reached the top. The frigid night air stung his tear-streaked face. He couldn’t hold in the urge to cry anymore, but not because he was afraid. Ten years since he was convicted, & he still couldn’t forgive himself for failing to protect his sons. All he wanted was a second chance at love, a mother figure for them. Rudy said one last prayer for God to forgive him for what he did. Rudy was taught even a serious sin like murder could be forgiven if one was truly remorseful. But Rudy couldn’t be sure he was, or if he’d ever be. Elaine took what mattered most to him in life. God knows what it’s like to see his child dead. Surely he understood how it felt!
He closed his eyes, drew a sharp breath, & opened them again just as the car shot down towards the earth. He was finally ready to accept his fate.
Rudy stayed silent as he was surrounded by the screams of everyone else on the ride. He gripped the safety bar so hard his knuckles turned white as the ride flattened out & sped upwards into the first loop. The rush of wind deafened him; his vision blurred & lost its color. He knew he wouldn’t make it past the second loop. His terror then gave way to a sudden rush of happiness.
Everything went black.
He now floated in a white void with the murmurs of dozens of voices around him. Two of them rose above the rest, growing louder & more excited.
“Yay, Daddy’s home!”
“You’re here, you're here!”
He couldn’t see them now, but he knew they were there -- his sons had been waiting for him the whole time, right where he knew they’d be. They had no anger or hurt in their voice, only love. They were finally together again. The Lord must have forgiven him, & so did his sons. Rudy willed himself to float towards the voices, his heart threatening to burst from the joy.
The prison staff in the control booth watched the roller coaster speed through the other five inversions, each one smaller than the last. The man in a white coat made a quick glance at the panel above the array of buttons & switches – it displayed the heart & breathing rates of every person on the ride. Every single one was flatlined. The doctor knew what was going to happen, but he couldn't help but sigh as the prisoners circled back to the same spot they left just minutes ago, their bodies hanging limp. The job never got any easier. At least he didn't have to watch their faces writhe in pain from injections anymore. This new method made them euphoric instead. The force of the loops killed them through prolonged cerebral hypoxia, starving their brains of oxygen in seconds. Some of them had short, vivid dreams right before they died. These facts offered him little comfort though.
He declared the time of death out loud – 4:32am – before leaving the booth in silence.
How do you decide on how to open your book? I have my plot outlined and ready to go but I can't figure out how to open the book with a good enough opening line or sentence to lead through the first chapter
Deciding How to Open Your Book
The beginning of your story can make it or break it, so it’s important to start with a strong beginning. Here are some tips that will help you figure out where and how to begin your story.
1) WHERE to Begin
Before you decide on the all important opening line, you first need to figure out where your story should begin. An easy way to do that is to look at your story’s inciting incident--the thing that happens and kicks off the events of the main story, or in other words, the event that turns your character’s life upside down--then, back up a little bit from there and show your character in their “normal world” before everything goes crazy.
2) HOW to Begin
The inciting incident is the moment your characters life, world, or desires change in a major way, but if your reader doesn’t know who your character is or what their life was like before the inciting incident, they won’t care when everything changes for your character. So, there are specific things you want to include in the beginning of your story:
- create a “snapshot” of your character’s normal life
- illustrate their strengths and their flaws
- touch on their internal conflict and emotional wound
- show who and what matters in their world
- touch on what’s not working in their situation/world that needs to change
- give an introduction to the setting and/or world
3) Start with the Basics, Refine Later
Don’t worry too much about the beginning of your story until your first draft is finished. Choose the best possible “where” and “how” to start that you can, but don’t worry if it’s not perfect. Right now, you’re just looking for a way in. Once your story is finished, you’ll know the story, your characters, and the world so much better, it’ll be easier to figure out the best place to begin. In the first draft of my novel, Ashes Swept, which is loosely based on the tale of Cinderella, I originally chose to open the story as the protagonist, Synda May, is visiting her dying father’s bedside. In a later draft, I backed the beginning up several minutes to allow for the introduction of information about the setting, situation, other characters, and Synda May’s state of mind. This gave the scene at her father’s bedside a little more weight than it would have had otherwise. But I really needed the hindsight of having written the rest of the story to know those details needed to be there.
4) Crafting a Strong Opening Line
When it’s time to go back and revise your first draft, you can start crafting a strong opening line. You want your opening line to:
- hook the reader’s attention via tight, vivid, intriguing imagery
- give your reader something to connect with on an emotional level
- leave the reader with questions they want to find answers to
In other words, you want that first line to be the jet fuel that propels your reader into reading the rest of the page.
5) It’s Okay to Struggle
Opening lines are hard, and to be honest, you may never feel like you’ve hit pay dirt with the one you chose. Sometimes you have to settle with the best possible option.
For many writers, crafting the final version of the opening sentence is something that happens in later drafts. You want to be careful not to over tweak your opening line, but you may need to let each version percolate for a bit before you know what you want to change. Beta readers, critique partners, writing groups, etc. can provide valuable feedback on your opening line.
Sometimes, when I’m really struggling to write an opening line, I like to sit and read through the opening lines of my favorite books. Something about seeing how other writers did it can be very motivating and inspiring.
Good luck with your story! You’ve got this! <3
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Have a question? My inbox is always open, but make sure to check my FAQ and post master lists first to see if I’ve already answered a similar question. :)
Hello! I’m Caravage, 23 years old, biracial, French, a bit of a killjoy.
I write a bit of horror, a bit of sci-fi, and a bit of literary fiction. I was raised on pulp sci-fi cartoons and psychological horror, and I think it shows.
I’m gay; most of my writing includes a lot of homosexual behavior. Hopefully, that’s a selling point for you!
◇ AVAILABLE TO READ
Baby - 1K words short story, horror.
Growth - 1.9K words short story, urban gothic.
Customer service - 5K words short story, sci-fi.
Tunnels - 1.2K words short story, introspective, unreality.
◇ FULL-LENGTH WIPS
The Vermeer House - 1970s dark academia. Main project, 50K words.
The Family - Horror, introspective. Side project, 8K words.
Letters from Dolaa - Art nouveau sci-fi. Under construction.
After months of barely writing bc of my depression, I’m finally typing out a short story I randomly thought of the other day. I thought I'd be working on my main wip this week, but something's compelling me to write this instead
This list is obviously subjective. There is no “right” or “wrong”, but as an emotionally reserved person, these are some things I thought were worth mentioning! You don’t have to do everything on this list, it’s simply here for inspiration/a bit of help.
Show your character’s struggles with holding in emotions. Just because your character won’t let themself go in public, doesn’t mean they don’t struggle holding everything in.
Find a motive. Pride and/or consideration for those around them can make emotionally reserved people hold back more than would be considered good for them. There are other reasons too. Think of something, perhaps the initial cause and the reason now are different, but try to give them a reason.
Show side-effects. Everything you bottle up shows itself in another way, whether it’s physical or mental. This can be long- and short-term, depending on the severity of the emotions.
Give them coping mechanisms. Everyone who wishes not to show certain emotions has a trick or two to keep themselves in check. Taking a sip of water, not looking people in the eyes, clenching their fists, breathing just a bit too deeply/shallow. There are a few lists of these online, I believe.
Write subconscious signs that they give off, which their close friends or family might pick up on. Just because these characters want to keep their emotions to themselves, doesn’t mean they don’t give off signs. Some manage to keep said signs well hidden from those closest to them, but it’s more common for their environment to pick up on something at the very least.
Perhaps make some characters perceive your OC as unable to feel certain emotions. There’s bound to be at least one person in their environment who thinks the character just doesn’t feel some emotions.
Convey their confusion/bewilderment when they’re confronted with others’ emotions. Most of the time, it’s difficult for an emotionally reserved person to understand why on earth someone else can’t keep themself under control.
Pick one main emotion to hide. This is the one they’re most uncomfortable showing, one they decide they’d rather go through physical and emotional pain than showing. Depending on whether their keeping to themself has to do with pride, your character might not even want to let this emotion surface when they’re alone. Generally these are the “weakest” emotions: sadness, fear, etc.
Let them cover up one emotion with another when they really can’t keep a straight face anymore. Generally speaking, anger is an amazing cover-up for a variety of emotions. Your voice is less likely to break when you raise it, that upset look on your face will suddenly make sense, and the fact that fear made you shaky suddenly seems to correlate with anger instead.
Learn the difference between suppression and repression. They’re two very different words often used as synonyms. I’m not a professional, so I don’t think I can explain it properly, but there are some great articles online!
Try to steer clear of making them unsympathetic. Not every reserved person is unsympathetic, but they can come off as such because they just have no idea on how to deal with emotions or show them to the outside world. Focusing on their internal conflicts, both with what caused them to feel strongly about something and keeping it concealed.
On that note: you don’t have to make them cold-hearted and stoic. Not every emotionally reserved person is the same. In fact, depending on the emotions they wish to keep private, they might be very cheerful and empathetic friends.
Do not, and I repeat do not, let them “give in” to their emotions the moment they’ve found their true love. This isn’t realistic. It’s laughable to any emotionally reserved person. Finding someone they’re really comfortable around is great, and your character might be able to let go later on, but things like that take time to develop. A month won’t suffice; a few years are more likely to be realistic.
Not everyone who is emotionally reserved has some kind of trauma that caused it. Yes, some people become quite guarded after experiencing a trauma of some sort, but other people just are the way they are. No specific reason, no tragedies, they are just who they are. There’s always our society to rely on for steering them in the “right” direction.
Keep in mind that everyone is different. I write from my own experience, as would anyone else, so my post is by no means complete. Try to find different views on the topic – from real people instead of scientific articles.
I probably get this question every day, so I think it’s about time I did a post on it. Many writers are concerned with writing their first chapters and they have trouble figuring out what they should include and what they should leave out until later.
When you’re submitting a manuscript in order to get an agent or find a publisher, it’s important that you hook them from the opening paragraph. A lot of agents have admitted that sometimes they ONLY read the first few sentences and if they’re not intrigued, they won’t read the rest of it. That might sound cruel, but why should they continue to read something that they think is boring when there are so many other stories in their “slush pile” to read? You need to engage the reader right from the beginning if you want them to care about your novel.
I learned this the hard way. The first few stories I wrote lacked an engaging opening. I think the best way to learn is to revisit some of your favorite books. Most of the time, they had something that caught your attention right away. There was something to it that made you keep reading. You need to make sure you have “that thing” in your own novel.
Here are the dos and don’ts of writing an engaging opening hook:
Do:
Construct a scene that best represents your character
I’m not going to tell you there’s a wrong and right way to open your novel, because it really all depends on your novel. You need to know your character before you can begin writing your story, so only you will know how you should start it off. The best advice I can give is to construct a scene that helps us best understand your character. If they’re on the run, show us that they’re being chased. If they’re sad and lonely, construct a scene that lets us feel their isolation. You don’t necessarily need to open your book with action, but you do need to introduce the conflict. Think about what your character wants and go from there.
Help set the scene
The first chapter is a good time to explore the setting of your novel. You’re not going to use this chapter to completely describe your world, but you need to give your readers a taste of it. Use all your senses to present the setting to us. What does your character feel? Are they afraid? Are they happy? Are they cautious? Putting emotion into your scenes from the beginning will not only help set the tone, but we’ll get an immediate understanding of your world.
Introduce only important information
The first chapter is not the time to give us a long, drawn-out explanation of your world and characters. You need to find the simplest and most exciting way to get information across to your readers, so that they’ll be hooked from the beginning. Get your audience to care about your story. Don’t drag it down with details that don’t matter yet. Think of your first chapter as an introduction to an essay. You don’t go right into the points immediately, but you set us up for something good.
Don’t:
Describe your main character in detail
We don’t need to know everything about your main character in the first chapter. We don’t need to know everything about what they look like, their best friends, how they would describe themselves in the mirror, etc. If you want to do these things, they’re best left for later chapters. Your readers do not need to know everything from the beginning to get into your story. Give them a taste and draw them in.
Give long explanations
When writing a scene, it’s easy to get caught up in everything that you want to talk about all at once. You have to remember that you’ll have time to explain things later and it will probably be much more interesting if your readers have to wait. You don’t need to mention everything that’s happening and why it’s important. Present the information in the most engaging way possible and avoid these long explanations. We don’t need you main character to make a page long speech in the first chapter of your novel.
Fill your readers with unnecessary back story
Again, too much back story in your first chapter will kill your momentum. Anything that’s unnecessary to know from the beginning can be put off until later. I know it’s exciting to get into the meat of your novel, but your readers have to care about your world and characters before you keep talking about it. Don’t be afraid to cut something or push something back to later chapters. You’ll also improve the pacing of your novel if you keep these things in mind.
It’s super important to remember that all of these things won’t apply to every novel. There are times when the opening of your novel will break all these rules and there will be exceptions to every single one of them. However, if you keep getting feedback that people “can’t get into your novel”; it might be because your first chapter is weak. Also, if you’re having trouble with your first chapter and can’t seem to get it right, leave it for later. You can always go back and change something if you don’t love it.
THEMES & TROPES: survival / companionship as salvation / man against nature / found family
WARNINGS: death / some violence / PTSD / mentions of emotional abuse/neglect (will be updated as needed)
SYNOPSIS:
It’s been over three months since Emm’s life was uprooted by the zombie-like virus that decimated the American population in a matter of days. She happened to be in the mountains on her way to her high school when someone on the bus succumbs to the virus, forcing everyone inside to flee further into the mountains. They soon teamed up with the surviving locals & formed a settlement on an abandoned ranch far from any roads or highways, eking out a life from the seeds they scavenged, the stray livestock they captured, & the wild animals they hunted.
Everyone has a specific role in the settlement, & Emm’s job is to go out with the other scavengers every morning to search for supplies. look for other survivors, & monitor for any new zombies in the area. When their well runs dry, her group is forced to travel closer & closer to the highway in their search for more water. What they find eventually leads to the settlement’s downfall & kick-starts Emm’s journey from the Sierra Nevadas to her grandparent’s home in the forests of northern Idaho.
CHARACTERS:
Emm - Short for Emily, although no one calls her that anymore. She was on her school’s track and field team before she became one of the settlement’s scavengers. Prefers to keep to herself & is slow to trust anyone besides her doomsday prepper grandparents.
Valéria - An extroverted & strong-willed 5th grader whose intelligence helped keep her alive when the rest of her family became infected & nobody else was around to help her.
Private Aldo - A good-natured but impulsive man who is on the run from the National Guard.
