Greetings people-that-have-the-patience-to-read-this-whole-long-post-with-this-whole-long-sentence-that-is-actually-one-whole-single-word, I got an idea that I'm constantly developing, constantly evolving, and taking it to the next level... But it always sounds like I'm finding a big hole in the setting, like there was something completely unrealistic and childish, that in no way makes any sense. Well, here's what I need help in to start my project. My idea is surreal. But it is supposed to have the possibility of coming real. What I mean, it should obey the way the world works. How the world works: I go to the bakery, I ask the guy for a sandwich, he gives me the sandwich and then I pay him. I get to the door, I get out of the bakery. I'm walking the streets and then I see a homeless guy, asking me for some money. I say him I don't have any money, but he could have my sandwich. He says it's fine, so I give him my sandwich and then I come back to the bakery and get another one. How the world does not works: I go to the bakery, I ask the guy for a sandwich, he takes out two guns out of his pocket and starts shooting at every place. I break the glass from the showcase, steal the sandwich, throw a grenade at the bakery and jump out of it with an explosion right after my back. A homeless guy comes asking me for money, but I give him a kick that opens his head. Obviously those two stories didn't look nothing alike. That's the purpose. I want my story to be something close to reality, something with logical explanations, and not with surreal actions that are going to take me to the setting/plot I want to, but with some pretty crappy setting; logic. So the setting I plan my setting somehow like this: A guy punches another guy in the face. The punched guy back off, he lift his head and then he cleans the blood coming out of his nose with his hand. But that's how I think it is: A guy punches another guy in the face. The punched guy flies off, breaking through every building. He falls to the floor. His nose is bleeding, but he gets up like nothing happened. Got it? I don't wanna exaggerate to the point it'll be completely unrealistic, but just to the point it'll, still within the human possibility, reach the setting I want to based on a real world on a real time. Okay, enough blah-blah-blah, I think you got the idea, so here's the setting: (It happens in a long time in the future, and it's unclear how much time passed from the time the first events begun. Take that in mind.) The setting has: Virus, conspiracy, wars, political oppression, post-apocalyptic scenario, and weird creatures I'm going to call Homunculus, which though they were supposed to be humanoids, they are not. Spoiler: Homunculus definition according to google ho·mun·cu·lus həˈməNGkyələs,hō-/ noun noun: homunculus; plural noun: homunculi; noun: homuncule; plural noun:homuncules a very small human or humanoid creature. historical a supposed microscopic but fully formed human being from which a fetus was formerly believed to develop. Long, hard reading ahead. For the ones that don't like reading, probably you won't like to read it all. Spoiler: Virus Virus: This disease goes off first in Asia, infecting everyone there. As a synthesized disease, it's capacity to spread, and kill is enormous, and it spreads through almost any blood contact. Animals that feed on infected organisms are going to transport this disease as well. Dead people are going to have the virus close to them, so they're supposed to be burn for the virus to die. The virus can start infecting once it enters a body. Symptoms: The virus doesn't devs in the body for a long time before the first signals become exposed. The first signals are hidden, and they can only be detected with a special device developed to detect this virus in the society I'm later going to describe. That's the "Alpha Phase". When the virus starts the first symptoms, the person starts having convulsions, constant nausea, vomiting, and, sometimes, loss of coordination (for a small amount of time). That's the "1st Phase". During the "2nd phase", the infected will start having amnesia, lost of their body control, lost of senses and coordination. During the "3rd phase", also called "Omega phase", he starts losing consciousness and control of the body. Living like a zombie, he is not aware of what he does, but everything he actually does is vomit, convulse, eat, and rot until something kills him. Then he's a corpse full of the virus. Spoiler: Situation Situation: All started as a laboratory virus, with the purpose to reduce world's population (conspiracy inspired), because of the overpopulation, degradation of land, sinking space, blah-blah-blah. There are a lot of reasons for them to do it. They release the virus in Asia, since a huge part of the population is located there, and it's close to Africa, which contains poor population, which is considered by the elitists, junk people. The disease spreads fast, it turns out in an epidemic along the continent, but it also reaches America. Meanwhile, government falls, civil wars happens among countries because of the sickness, the U.S. government was ready for that, and just when the illness starts reaching the U.S. they already had a state made to be isolated from the sickness, whereas the government is moved to this place, and not a single sick person is able to reach the state. Other countries that participated in the union, like some parts of Europe, and North America did the same. The union then started destroying every infected country, including themselves, with the exception of these states. Internet was completely disabled and fragmented because of the war, and so the union started losing communication. Because of the destruction of the environment, photosynthetic organisms were not enough to absorb greenhouse gases, and Earth started getting hotter and hotter in some places, and due the pollution and smog of the safe states, it started getting colder and colder (temperature inversion). The air became full of dust, almost incapable of being breathed, which causes animals to die as well, but the states have machines capable of filtering the air that enters the state, removing excessive dust. The air is still very polluted, but it was able to breath it. Most of the water in the world was contaminated, most of the air as well, and most of the places had the virus. The states had no roads, no cars, but they had metros, which was the main transportation at the time. Mining was very important during this time, since metals was the main material they used during this time, and there was no internet, no wireless communication and energy. The only wireless communication available was used by military power and government. People would eat mostly artificial food, supplements to keep them alive, but the rich were able to eat synthesized meat (available by the technology at the time). The states were very poor, they were basically divided between riches and poor, still most of the people were poor. Sick people would be immediately executed, and there would be scanners to check illness in one person everywhere. Military operations happened to eradicate the sickness from the world by burning every infected place, every infected corpse, killing every infected person, and whereas relies a controversy within the military operations... Possibly kill survivors. Airplanes and helicopters still existed at the time, and were the main transportation during military operations. People used special clothes not to get infected. Most of the people would go serve the military power to gain money to get out of the poverty, or at least, take their family out of poverty. Getting out of poverty meant being safe from criminality, sickness, having good food, comfort, and most importantly, not being executed for getting sick. If I had some unreal statement, something that is scientifically impossible to happen there, please, tell me and I'll try to adapt it. Any english errors, please, correct me as well. English is not my first language. Any help at all is welcomed. Thanks. If you enjoyed the setting, please, tell me. It's very motivating to know my work is enjoyable by someone else.
Word of advice, remove the hyphons from your introductory sentence and folks might be able to make sense of your post.
A setting exists for the story. It is not itself the story. The characters, the scenes, the narrative style, these also contribute, but the story is more than just the sum of the individual components. What I'm saying is, I don't have opinion about the setting, or scene, or concept - whatever you want to call this. It's a work in progress, and very rough as it stands. I don't have an opinion on the brand of flour you use to bake a cake, either. Too many other factors will play a role in whether the cake is a culinary delight or an unpalatable brick.
I agree that you have too many hyphens. Otherwise, the English is good. I didn't think surreal had the possibility of becoming real. What I read did not seem surreal, but rather something presented as real but entirely too impractical to happen that way. How did the originators of the virus plan to protect themselves? Their isolation states don't sound pre-planned, but they should have thought of the effects beforehand. They expect it to spread from Asia to Africa, but didn't they expect Europe that is adjacent to Asia to get it? Or travelers to bring it to America? Their state would have to be totally self-sufficient in food (or artificial food that also requires resources), fuel, power, drug manufacture, etc. That sounds impractical, not surreal. Their borders would somehow have to be sealed off before a single infected person or animal entered it - sounds quite impractical, not surreal. How do they keep sick animals from crossing the border? Worse, how do they keep sick birds out? As shown by the recent ebola outbreak, a virus can spread everywhere if people aren't on guard for it, as they might not be with thea long incubation period you suggest. Why no wireless? Radio waves would still work. You have some ideas that could be made into a story, but my reaction to the material you presented is that it is just too impractical to happen. That's not surreal, but it loses my interest.
Too much detail, not enough book. Stick around, post enough to earn entry to the workshop and give us the opening paragraphs. I can't make sense of your story as it is here.
I understand what you were doing with the hyphens. It got a chuckle out of me. Keep it. You seem to have spent a lot of time setting up the analogy to the meta-philosophy of your stories creation, and nothing on the setting. It's a very nice analogy, and I'm glad you spent time on it, but non of the philosophy has been applied to a tangible result, so we don't really have any feedback at this time.
I'm sorry, I'm not able to reply everyone else right now, but thanks for the feedback. I'd just like to emphasize that the actual setting are inside the "spoilers" (spoiler virus and spoiler situation). Everything before it is just me explaining how I plan my seeing to be; my criteria. Thank you, everyone.
