Making It Personal

My novel, "Apocalypse Springs," is about the zombie apocalypse. A physically disabled and mentally ill veteran who has accepted his lot in life as a number in a system finds himself in the middle of an outbreak in Colorado Springs. As Vincent "Jester" Achan fights the monsters and mercenaries on his doorstep, he struggles to keep the monsters in his head at bay.

There are three plots:

1. The love story. Jester meets Blair, Padre, and Tommy at an evacuation point when the shit hits the fan and Colorado Springs is closed down. Over the next year, Jester and Blair grow closer together, eventually falling in love.
2. The survival story. Far from "fight and retreat, rinse and repeat," the survival story of "Apocalypse Springs" focuses on Jester's struggles with bipolar disorder and PTSD. He fights to survive himself, much less the zombies and mercenaries trying to kill him. He also has to fight through loss, depression, old addictions, and the temptation of suicide.
3. The mystery story. Someone wanted Colorado Springs to become ground zero for the apocalypse. That much becomes apparent as Jester and company (collectively known as Apocalypse Springs City Management, or ASCM) war against the mercenaries (Hellion Battalion). After survival, the next priority is to find out who's pulling the strings.

The problem is with that third plot. Even if ASCM hunts down Michael Sterling and puts two in his head, the damage has been done. The world isn't going to recover easily from the outbreak, and while justice is nice, hunting down Sterling would amount to a revenge mission. The members of ASCM realize this, so what's the point? Why would they bother hunting Sterling down?

I need a reason for ASCM to hunt down Sterling and discover the plans behind the apocalypse. Because Sterling controls a private army he calls The Pantheon--comprised of a wide array of private military forces--he could become the larger enemy Jester has to fight. But in the end, the world is going to fall. So again, even if they vanquish Sterling and The Pantheon, what's the point?

 

True. They don't need a reason to survive. I guess the problem (which I somehow failed to mention) is that Sterling and Jester are a few hundred miles apart. I've got to get one to go to the other if they're going to fight. Maybe that's book two. The tangible antagonist for book one is a Hellion mercenary. A baddie, for sure, but hardly the kingpin behind it all.

 

I would say that it's better to have that last plot point as the teaser at the end of the main survival plot, that only by taking down the mercenaries do they actually see that there's someone else involved here and that they won't be safe until they go and figure out what else is happening. That's a good twist right there. They fight and think that maybe if they can clear out these jerks then they can start to build lives and make a society and then just as they win they see that they can't, that there is something more than that and even if the rest of the people want to stay and make a home here the MC needs to go and find out the truth.

If it was me then I'd have them assault the mercenary camp, kill everyone, celebrate together and start looting the place but the MC (being a military man) recognizes that this tent has maps and radios and that these guys are part of something much bigger than just some band of jerks, they are organised, there's stuff marked on the map that they don't know the meaning of except that it hints to go wherever you need the MC to go to meet the big bad. And just as someone is telling him that he should celebrate because they won there's a call on one of the radio asking for a status update from the mercs, that damnit come in because Sterling wants to know what the hell is going on down there. And the MC has a name, and a place and he's going to find out what happened here. And that's the next book.

 

@LostThePlot: That plays really well. Thank you. I'm going to drop in hints to Sterling along the entire way. Two of Jester's group are former special ops, and because Colorado Springs is a military town (we have five installations within spitting distance of each other), there's a higher incidence of active duty and retired military within Jester's group. Collectively, they see something bigger is going on, but they don't quite know the shape of it until toward the end.

 

One route you could take, is that of a 'cleansing ritual'. There are many people who believe that humanity is a disease to this planet and that, herefore, they have to be wiped out. The zombies were created by these believers and have done the hard labor. Now, it's up to the mercenaries to finish off any remaining survivors. This would link to our current society, the maps and radio mentioned previously, as well as giving your antagonist a 'faction', just like your protagonist, which evens that aspect out. You could even call the second faction a church of some sorts, which would add a whole new area of religion and cultural development for you to explore (though this would probably come to play in the second book). Let me know what you think

 

A cheque in the mail is all the thanks I need