# Dystopian novel premise...is this new?



## Joseph Turkot

Ok here it is...it starts to rain and...it never stops.

I would need a plausible scenario where Earth's weather did this, so I might be screwed right off the bat. 

It would be a fight for food, small boats, tallest buildings, etc. also, rumored places where "it isn't raining."

What think?


----------



## SunHi Mistwalker

Check out Flood by Stephen Baxter, it may be similar.

I haven't read the book(s) (it's a series) so I don't know if what the flooding is caused by, rain or other environmental factors. But you may want to check out environmental scifi/post-apoc for similar stories. Anyway, I love this type of story, so I would definitely check it out if you wrote it.


----------



## WordSaladTongs

Joseph Turkot said:


> Ok here it is...it starts to rain and...it never stops.
> 
> I would need a plausible scenario where Earth's weather did this, so I might be screwed right off the bat.
> 
> It would be a fight for food, small boats, tallest buildings, etc. also, rumored places where "it isn't raining."
> 
> What think?


I'm soooo not a science person but there has to be some evaporation in order for the clouds to gather (soak up? Collect?) rain water--right? So it might have to be humid constantly in order for that to work... I think. As for other books, I seem to recall one where it was raining--maybe not all the time, but a lot. There was a teen girl living alone in a tent but then _something happened _ and she joined a faction.

You're welcome for the least helpful post ever.

Editing to include something helpful: http://www.amazon.com/The-Flood-ebook/dp/B007XF8SHC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1381789143&sr=8-1&keywords=The+Flood+by+Maggie+Gee


----------



## BatCauldron

Joseph Turkot said:


> Ok here it is...it starts to rain and...it never stops.


They may have covered this in the bible 

(Besides that, no I can't think of another book like this)


----------



## Vivi_Anna

It's a cool concept, but I agree with the other poster, you'd have to have some evaporation to get the back in the clouds to get full to rain again. But if you had it rain for like 5 days of every week. Or some kind of cycle that would make sense.  Places would flood quickly, all low lying coastlines would be underwater definitely, no coastlines would emerge. Mountainous areas would be the place to live.  Not sure how you would grow food without the sun.... though


----------



## Matt Ryan

A KBer has a book about "the big flood" Raft People http://www.amazon.com/Raft-People-Apocalyptic-Flood-ebook/dp/B00BEMZ5TY/ref=la_B009DHLCXK_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1381789545&sr=1-2

There is actually some science behind a superstorm and they have happened in the past. In 1861-1862 there was an "Arkstorm" that caused wide spread flooding for nearly a 300 mile area and lasted a long time. Here's a wikilink: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARkStorm

Good luck with it!


----------



## brie.mcgill

1) God's wrath.

2) Chemtrails.

3) Government attempts worldwide spraying of chemtrails in vain attempt to avert God's impending wrath.

  

In all seriousness, weather modification gone wrong would be interesting to explore and could have some delicious man vs. nature overtones. Not sure how far down the conspiracy hole you want to go, but I love listening to Nick Begich talk about HAARP--whether it's TRUE or not, it makes my brain tick with thousands of terrible what-ifs. People are already shooting barium up into the sky and electronically stroking the ionosphere.

It's always snowing in my dystopia.  

I think Animatrix had a good short about the sun-blocking weather mods. And I totally recommend digging out your VHS copy of Water World.... because you should.  

Just trying to hit you with a tsunami of ideas.


----------



## Joseph Turkot

Ok, so...the oceans are somehow steadily evaporating due to a change in the magnetic field that surrounds the Earth, caused by a massive solar flare. This means that there is a steady uptake of vapor over the Pacific ocean, and it is dumping rain everywhere and continuously, and will not stop because it's an endless source. 

I am thinking like The Road, or The Last of Us, but the enemy being the steady rain, and the slowly rising water. Of course there'd be the occasional flash flood, and the tornado here and there. 

Pruned hands, hypothermia, and a near uselessness of electric devices would be some of the conditions our protagonists would face. And they're questing to the mysterious mountain in Wyoming where it is said that there is no rain. But, like a cure for a zombie virus, most think it is a lie. 

Always on the move, always to higher ground. And of course there'll be the rogue Mad Max types who want to take what you have, including mayhaps your body for its flesh?


----------



## brie.mcgill

^I would take notes on that post of yours for blurb-time.  

Sounds exciting!


----------



## vrabinec

Wow, this thread is like a cool rainy oasis in a desert. An actual content thread. Let me take a look around. Hmm, I love the smell here, it's like fresh leather seats and a wicked perfume. 

I've been reading sci-fi since the late 70's and I haven't seen the premise used. Another scenario you could think about would be a cloud of ice in space, born of a super nova maybe, the Earth is drifting through it. As the ice enters the atmosphere, it melts. The small stuff vaporizes in the atmosphere, but the bigger stuff falls as rain, and there's a lot of bigger stuff. It would create huge global problems. The sun's rays wouldn't hit the Earth with the same heat because they'd reflect off the ice, so you've got cooling going on, but you've also got rain. You never know what we'll encounter at the core of our galaxy.


----------



## Jill James

Flood by Stephen Baxter used the premise of undersea oceans. The crust broke and released new sources of water with nowhere for it to go. And the one with the weather and the girl in the tent is I believe Ashes, Ashes by Jo Treggiari


----------



## dkgould

Check out "The Long Rain" in The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury.  One of my favorites, it will help with trying to capture the maddening effect of the rain, but it takes place on Venus and they have things in place to save folks.  Really, really great story


----------



## Jennifer R P

It's been done.

It's not been done by YOU. Don't worry about whether your idea has been done - just make sure to add your own twist to it.


----------



## Joe_Nobody

Waterworld?

I only saw the movie, which wasn't as bad as most critics thought, but wasn't there a book?

I don't know if it went into how the water rose or not.

Other than that...

You could have some guy building an ark - bring the bible story into the plot so no one thinks you're ripping anything off.


----------



## dotx

I'm working on a book where it's always snowing. I haven't done much research into the science yet, but it obviously has to make sense.


----------



## Joseph Turkot

Spurred on by your enthusiasm, and the notion that this might be a content thread, I give you my first words...

The Rain - tentative title

There are a lot of stories about how the rain started.

The thing that always comes to my mind first isn't the how though, it's the how much. Back when they were taking measurements still, according to Russell, it was 15 to 5400. Now there's a new number at the end of those two: 8,550.
15 inches a day, 5400 in a year, and 19 years since the rain started. That's 8,550 feet of rain.

We're camping again tonight in the Bighorn mountains as I ponder these numbers for the millionth time. Our tent isn't much-a tatter of canvas. The bandits that have been trailing us these last few days don't seem to know where we're at anymore. Russell says they used to call this mountain Hesse. He thinks we have a good two thousand feet between us and the water. All I know is it's cold as hell up here, and down there, it looks like the dirty canvas that our tent is made out of, but it goes on forever. I can see a couple other spikes rising out of the canvas-other mountain tops. Our boat's no good though. We can't make it to them. Ice has been forming on the water for the past few days.
When I can get Russell to talk about it, the time before the rain, he doesn't give me too much. He only likes to talk about why it started. Which theory he buys.

When he found me, and my dad died in the rain, he took me because he was worried someone might try to eat me. That was fourteen years ago. He said it didn't matter that I was a pretty baby girl, with bright blonde hair and a smile that didn't match the gloom of the rain. They'd eat me as soon as they could.
He usually mentions the solar flare first-he says it was a sunburst, something that comes once in a long time. The scientists talked about it on TV he said-TV is when there are pictures of people that move. So the sun shot out a long branch of invisible something, messing up the Earth's magnetic field, currents, or jet streams, or something like that. And then it happened-the great Pacific started swooping up into the sky, as he says. And everywhere else, the rain started.

It came slow at first, and sometimes, not even every day. Russell seems to like telling this part, but I have a hard time believing it. He said no one even wore plastic gloves yet, covered their skin, worried about exposure, hypothermia. And then it became clear to everyone that the rain wasn't going to stop. It was just going to keep on coming. And everyone thought that there'd be some explanation, something that would help fix the problem. But that didn't pan out.
The other theories were [bullcrap], he's told me a thousand times. Conspiracy theories. Weather manipulation, manmade causes related to pollution. All of it [bullcrap]. Only the sun could cause this, he says.

I don't really care too much about the reason it started. I guess, since it's been this way my whole life, it would be like contemplating that you fall down after you jump up. You accept that it happens, and you move on. 
And that's what we've been doing for the last fourteen years. Moving. One place to the next. I remember when I was little, and we would walk on the roads a lot more. Russell says where we're going, there are whole towns that are still above the water. And there's a place where it's stopped raining. That's when I know the [bullcrap] has started coming from him instead of the conspiracy theories. It's raining everywhere. I've never seen anything to make me think otherwise. And we've traveled from New Jersey to Wyoming. But now we have to move 518 miles south he says. Leadville, Colorado. He hasn't stopped talking about it for the last year. We're going to Leadville, there's a whole city there, thousands of feet above the water.

But we couldn't go directly there, because the route across the Great Plains was flooded. Thousands of feet of water, but moving water. I don't mind the still water. I hate the moving water. And the worst are the water spouts. Used to be called tornados, Russell says. But there were too many of them on the Plains, tall and clear and deadly, spinning arms to heaven, and we had to move north first. And that's how we picked up this crew of face eaters, as he calls them. They've been following us for days, but suddenly, they haven't been in sight. Each time we cross a valley of water along the Bighorns, they would be behind us, rowing after in their boat, a canoe similar to ours. Same speed. I thought we'd hit the patch of water too wide, and they might overtake us, but we didn't. We kept them at bay. But now they're gone. Russell thinks they drowned. But I haven't seen any bodies floating by.


----------



## dalya

When I was a kid, I saw a short film about children who lived somewhere it constantly rained. One day, it stops raining, and all the kids went outside to play amidst blossoming flowers, except one kid, who missed out.


----------



## John Blackport

I think The Conqueror Worms has a premise like this.

Anyway, maybe you could get continuous rain if the rain was something other than (pure) water? Maybe part Tritium or Deuterium, or even silicon, that changes the fundamental rain patterns without making it so toxic that everything dies?


----------



## dalya

Googled and found the source of the film. Ray Bradbury, of course.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Summer_in_a_Day


----------



## Joseph Turkot

This would be different from Waterworld and the like because it's about staying on the move as rain falls, not a world covered with water. Also, the other stories don't seem to have a steady rise...I'm gonna keep going with this one.


----------



## Nope

.


----------



## 13893

C.C. Kelly said:


> I'm pretty sure _The Lathe of Heaven_ had perpetual rain as one of it's themes.


I think it was the opposite - the psychiatrist manipulated the "lathe"'s dreams to stop the rain in Portland.


----------



## Nope

.


----------



## jvin248

.
I kept thinking "Seattle"...

Check out Asimov's "Nightfall", both the short story and the novel. A world with six or seven suns so it's always daylight and a feared alignment happens where the stars come out and madness ensues....

The source could be an asteroid that strikes the north or south pole, flashes off the ice into rain and initiates volcanoes that continue the burn and spew more water vapor. Otherwise the water cycle is a closed-loop system. Could tip the planet and create weird tumbling patterns so a new effective equator cuts around England, Alaska, and Argentina or make a new "pole" at an interesting place like Disney World in Florida or New York city (someone paints the Liberty Torch with a Santa Claus candy-cane spiral). Of course the magnetic pole is still up in Canada which causes navigation problems. The tipped planet would then continue to burn off ice "every day" from the poles like firing an engine piston. An asteroid large enough to cause this tip would be much larger than the dinosaur-killer asteroid however... 

Don't use the plastic gloves against wrinkling - unless you wanted to make more problems by having an acidic asteroid or the volcanoes so the rain actually dissolves things. A lot of people work in jobs where they or at least their hands are wet all the time.


----------



## jnfr

If you want to sound authentic, check out the hydrologic cycle. You'll need to really fudge the details if you want to sound plausible.


----------



## Cherise

Joseph Turkot said:


> Spurred on by your enthusiasm, and the notion that this might be a content thread, I give you my first words...
> 
> The Rain - tentative title
> 
> There are a lot of stories about how the rain started.
> 
> The thing that always comes to my mind first isn't the how though, it's the how much. Back when they were taking measurements still, according to Russell, it was 15 to 5400. Now there's a new number at the end of those two: 8,550.
> 15 inches a day, 5400 in a year, and 19 years since the rain started. That's 8,550 feet of rain.
> 
> ....


I LOVE this! Keep going! I'll buy it.


----------



## Jill James

Sounds great, keep on writing!


----------



## Jan Thompson

Joe_Nobody said:


> You could have some guy building an ark - bring the bible story into the plot so no one thinks you're ripping anything off.


Didn't they make a movie called 2012 starring John Cusack in which they built arks when the world got flooded again??

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1190080/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

http://www.imdb.com/media/rm812812544/tt1190080?ref_=ttmi_mi_all_sf_24

I can't find the post now but someone asked where they would plant things with all that water rising. Well, aerial roots and hydroponics might help. Here's a possibility: upside-down or hanging vegetables:









http://www.plowhearth.com/product.asp?r=product_listing_ads&pcode=10961&gclid=CMXl7fvsl7oCFXRp7Aodwx8Atw


----------



## Joseph Turkot

I have just finished the first 6k and I would LOVE it if someone read and decided if they think I have something here. This is all from tonight, and a result of this thread. It's like this has been an inspira-thread for me, or a creata-thread.

The Rain

There are a lot of stories about how the rain started.

The thing that always comes to my mind first isn't the how though, it's the _how much_. Back when they were taking measurements still, according to Russell, it was 15 to 5400. Now there's a new number at the end of those two: 8,550.
15 inches a day, 5400 in a year, and 19 years since the rain started. That's 8,550 feet of rain.

We're camping again tonight in the Bighorn mountains as I ponder these numbers for the millionth time. Our tent isn't much-a tatter of canvas. The bandits that have been trailing us these last few days don't seem to know where we're at anymore. Russell says they used to call this mountain Hesse. He thinks we have a good average of two thousand feet between us and the water on the Bighorn range, but right now we're just a few feet from the bank. All I know is it's cold as hell up here, and out there, on the water, it looks like the dirty canvas that our tent is made out of, but it goes on forever. I can see a couple other spikes rising out of the canvas-other mountain tops. Our boat's no good though. We can't make it to them. Ice has been forming on the water for the past few days.
When I can get Russell to talk about it, the time before the rain, he doesn't give me too much. He only likes to talk about why it started. Which theory he buys.

When he found me, and my dad died in the rain, he took me because he was worried someone might try to eat me. That was fourteen years ago. He said it didn't matter that I was a pretty baby girl, with bright blonde hair and a smile that didn't match the gloom of the rain. They'd eat me as soon as they could.
He usually mentions the solar flare first-he says it was a sunburst, something that comes once in a long time. The scientists talked about it on TV he said-TV is when there are pictures of people that move. So the sun shot out a long branch of invisible something, messing up the Earth's magnetic field, currents, or jet streams, or something like that. And then it happened-the great Pacific started swooping up into the sky, as he says. And everywhere else, the rain started.

It came slow at first, and sometimes, not even every day. Russell seems to like telling this part, but I have a hard time believing it. He said no one even wore plastic gloves yet, covered their skin, worried about exposure, hypothermia. And then it became clear to everyone that the rain wasn't going to stop. It was just going to keep on coming. And everyone thought that there'd be some explanation, something that would help fix the problem. But that didn't pan out.
The other theories were [bullcrap], he's told me a thousand times. Conspiracy theories. Weather manipulation, manmade causes related to pollution. All of it [bullcrap]. Only the sun could cause this, he says.

I don't really care too much about the reason it started. I guess, since it's been this way my whole life, it would be like contemplating that you fall down after you jump up. You accept that it happens, and you move on. 
And that's what we've been doing for the last fourteen years. Moving. One place to the next. I remember when I was little, and we would walk on the roads a lot more. Russell says where we're going, there are whole towns that are still above the water. And there's a place where it's stopped raining. That's when I know the [bullcrap] has started coming from him instead of the conspiracy theories. It's raining everywhere. I've never seen anything to make me think otherwise. And we've traveled from New Jersey to Wyoming. But now we have to move 518 miles south he says. Leadville, Colorado. He hasn't stopped talking about it for the last year. We're going to Leadville, there's a whole city there, thousands of feet above the water.

But we couldn't go directly there, because the route across the Great Plains was flooded. Thousands of feet of water, but moving water. I don't mind the still water. I hate the moving water. And the worst are the water spouts. Used to be called tornados, Russell says. But there were too many of them on the Plains, tall and clear and deadly, spinning arms to heaven, and we had to move north first. And that's how we picked up this crew of face eaters, as he calls them. They've been following us for days, but suddenly, they haven't been in sight. Each time we cross a valley of water along the Bighorns, they would be behind us, rowing after in their boat, a canoe similar to ours. Same speed. I thought we'd hit the patch of water too wide, and they might overtake us, but we didn't. We kept them at bay. But now they're gone. Russell thinks they drowned. But I haven't seen any bodies floating by.

I think the canoe has about had it-it's made out of some kind of manmade stuff, fiberglass, I think. He says that it will make the trip. How long will we have to be on the water, I asked him. A week he said. We've never been on water for more than a day, and we stop when we can.

Exposure is our worst enemy. It's creeping down again today, I can feel it. And this is the longest we've been without a fire. Russell says he'll find what we need for it tomorrow, and while the sun's up, he's sleeping. A waste to me, but he needs it after all the rowing. 
The frostbite on my left foot is getting a little bit worse. At elevations this high, we can't stay long in Wyoming. Going south to Colorado won't be much better. As the winter comes, we won't have a chance. It used to be that we could camp on rooftops for months at a time, keep a fire throughout the winter. Back in Philadelphia we did that. And Pittsburg. Then again in Chicago. Indianapolis. Sioux Falls. Rapid City. But Wyoming is like no man's land. To the east, like a high island, is Yellowstone. But Russell says we can't go that way. There's nothing on those mountains. But when I look south, I don't see any more peaks. Just the canvas water. Little dancing splashes all over it, letting me know the rain is at medium. When it's on high, there is a mist that rises off the water, like a low-lying cloud. The rain never goes to low anymore. The last time I saw a drizzle was when I was six.

If the skin is left out, it prunes at first. Then it becomes rubbery. Eventually, the skin slides off. It's like it's been all filled up, like it absorbed all the rain, the constant sloshing, and there is no other way for the body to expel the moisture. So the skin slides right off. 
It happened to Russell's left leg. He keeps the plastic on that leg real tight. But the infection comes and goes. He says he's never seen the rain this bad. He thinks it's getting worse.

I wear plastic gloves, but there are a few small holes now, as always come. My fingers are constantly pruned, and when we're in the rain for too long, I start to think of Russell's leg. He showed it to me once. Normally I just look away when he changes the plastic. It looked like a dark red hump, as if it was still swollen. Only the skin is gone. And the hump is something else. I don't know if it's muscle or tendons or what. I never really asked for the science on it, and he's never volunteered.

Although Russell hasn't said anything, I know we're almost out of food. Our last major pickup, a high rise apartment in Rapid City, had a crate full of hardtack. That and some cans of beans, rice, lentils, and some kind of powder soup. But we lost half the hardtack. The canoe tipped over. I can't believe Russell managed to get it on the hull in time to save any of it. 
The waves were what really scared me. They used to be called avalanches, Russell says. It would be sliding down the mountain. Now, it's the waves. They rise up, and the blank stretch of brown canvas gets rolly, like something is boiling down there. And then the white foam starts up, and the howling wind. And he calls it a gale. We both row, and I do my best. I'm sixteen years old and as strong as any boy I've ever seen. Stronger. He says we have to point into the waves, and I listen, although it doesn't make sense to me. 
Once there was a waterspout right next to us. It started in the sky, coiled down, touched the water, then disappeared like a sharp snarling tendril of storm cloud. Then it came back down, stuck, and started to draw up water. It threw us away from it. I was afraid it would drag us in, down, to the forgotten cities below us, the graveyard, as Russell calls it. It was beautiful though, clear, miraculous, powerful, like something apart from the rain, something that was fighting the rain. It kept up the fight for ten minutes almost. Then it fell away, just like everything else does.

I'm still stronger than any boy, but I'm a lot skinnier than I used to be. I can tell by looking at my legs, my arms. I'm glad we don't carry the mirror anymore. That was when he shaved. I still try to. But the razors are lines of rust now, useless, dangerous. 
Russell thinks the antibiotics are no good from the rain. He thinks the leg infection might come back. And he worries about me. I'm not sure why, but he's always worrying about me. He thinks that if I get sick now, the antibiotics won't work. He doesn't want me to use the razors anymore, so I do it at night. It helps keep me sane. If he's noticed my legs are bare still, he hasn't said anything.

I tried to get an age out of him twice, and from his reply, I gathered he must be twice my age. Maybe older. I can't tell. But all he said was, "Old enough to be your Dad." And I told him that no he wasn't. Then he said, "Close to it." We don't celebrate birthdays. But we used to celebrate food. Whenever we found a new stash, we would celebrate. He would sing, I would try to. We tried dancing sometimes too. He was no good. He thinks I'm pretty good, but I know he's full of [crap]. But now that we're out past the Great Plains, we don't celebrate anymore. It's like we're too close now, too close to something that can save us.

It took Russell a long time to figure out we had to keep moving west. He thought we could stay in the cities. We did for a lot of years. But the soil stopped draining the water. And the rain kept going. 
We lost the contact we had with the radio. It's hard to keep anything working in the rain. When we find a pack of batteries in an apartment, Russell goes nuts. Only thing is we have nowhere to put them, nothing to use them on. I kind of remember the electricity, when it was everywhere, like Russell says. He even goes on about the invisible internet, and how it connected everything with moving pictures and sounds. It sounds pretty made up, and I think he's been sacrificing food on account of me for ten years, and it must be adding up. He has to be losing his mind a little bit. Maybe we don't get the vitamins, he says.

He thinks they're dead, the bandits. We've had a couple close calls, and it seems they've come more and more since we passed into South Dakota. Higher elevation, Russell says. Before we hit Rapid City, it was low country. But the water hadn't risen so high then. There were more dead bodies. They were everywhere. We saw a raft of them once. A boy and his dog on the raft, floating somewhere. All tied together, the bodies. Some drift wood, probably a house. It looked pretty safe and sturdy. I wonder about how far he made it sometimes.

Our years in Rapid City were different. More people were alive there. We moved to Harney Peak before long, just over 7,000 feet. Then there were too many people alive. We were traveling on foot more again, which was a change, but everyone came to the same spot. That's the problem out west. There's only these peaks, rising out of the canvas of brown. They're easy to see, and so everyone goes for them. The bandits come to feed.

When we passed the Great Lakes, there was a giant steam powered ship. We lived on it for a long time. I thought we were never going to leave. The water was calm for such a long time, and we sailed from skyline to skyline. We had more food than we could ever want. There were no bandits, no face eaters. There didn't have to be. Russell says society is a veneer, along with all human principles. When it comes down it, people eat, and drink. Anything they can.

One the steamer, the Sea Queen Marie, I thought we were done moving. The daily struggle, finding the next meal, higher ground, avoiding suspect wanderers, was over. No one talked about a place where it didn't rain because we didn't need to-the ship a hundred rooms and a giant galley, and a roof. We had a few attacks once we reached capacity, but nothing much. They couldn't scale the gunwales. They never could. We were a unit. But it wasn't the face eaters or the rain that destroyed the Sea Queen. It was a gale, Russell said. All I could tell that day was that sky had blackened to charcoal, and behind the sun was out and shining. It was the first time I'd seen night come during the day. The waves started, and being in deep water for the first time in my life then, and old enough to be aware of it, I felt scared of dying for really what must have been the first time. I can take a lot, and I can row all day. But I can't take the waves. 
They started out small at first, swells everyone was calling them. And then wind came. A lot of arguing happened. Russell had the ear of one of the guy's who controlled everyone else. His name was Wallace. Everyone called him Cap'n. Cap'n was arguing with Russell, I remember that. Something about moving directions. 
But the Cap'n told Russell there was no more fuel for any kind of moving, and the ship would have to hope that the storm turned. Then Cap'n started talking about the direction of the wind a whole lot. He started to say that it was changing, hitting us at first from the east, and then, when the black took over the sky, from the north. I didn't quite take the meaning of that, but he sure did. Russell did too, eventually. They called it a hurricane. 
It took the bow of the ship right down, snapped it off. The only skyline in sight was Chicago. The tower there still stood way above the water. But I thought we might knock right into it, that's how bad the waves were pushing us. But when the bow went in and snapped off that way, I knew we were going to die. I made peace with it. I thanked Russell for taking care of me. Sometimes, I feel like death would just mean leaving the rain. And then it's not such a bad thought. 
But he wasn't ready yet. And I guess I wasn't either, because when the fights over the boats broke out, I helped him. That was the only time I think I really hurt somebody. Maybe I killed him, I don't know. Russell won't talk to me about it, because he said I shouldn't think about it. We do what we have to and move on, to higher ground, to where we can get warm and dry.

It's been a long time since I've been warm or dry. And I think I'm dying now, too, but just really slowly this time. But maybe not, because I can still row, and I can still run. But I know we don't have much food left. And Russell's serious, and we have a week on the water till the next land, then I know we won't make it. 
And I don't for one minute think those face eaters drowned. We haven't had a gun that worked since Rapid City. Now it's knives. That's it. And that's what they'll have to, if they're not dead. 
The top of Hesse mountain pokes up in about a million places, puncturing the brown canvas. We're on one of the lower peaks. Some of them are really close, and that's how we messed up the canoe. Sometimes you can't see when the ground comes back to you, up out of the brown. Then it jump up on you, smacking your boat. We almost drowned six times I'd guess since we hit Wyoming. At least Russell says it's Wyoming, and the Hess mountain. I couldn't tell you if we were in the Himalayas or not. But I trust Russell. 
The canoe smacked into a sharp rock, and it cut a long line along the side. The line is near the lip, so it doesn't draw water. But the line is getting deeper, even though Russell won't mention it. I feel like it's splitting in half, and that it will finally happen when we're out somewhere on the water, somewhere where we can't swim back. Then we'll just go under. And we'll go right down, I know. 
I see ice sheets, little thin layers of frost, white, like purity is trying to encroach on the canvas of droning sea. It's cold enough up here. I can barely keep my hands from freezing. If we go into that water, I'm out. It's not that I can't swim half decent, but I've stuck my finger along the way, all the way since Rapid City I've been touching. I tried to tell him it's getting colder, and too cold, and that we need to go south, or back west. But he says no, we have to push on. There's nothing else to go back to, and the water is running to fast on the Great Plains to the south, he says. 
I don't know how he knows all this. I think he learned it in Rapid City, and maybe even as far back as the Sea Queen Marie. People were always trading rumors, as if it were news, something that just happened. But it was always the same tired legends. A place where there's no rain. A place where a city is entirely above the waterline. Leadville. 
When the ice started to appear, as we drew close to the Bighorns, Russell started to put his own finger in the water. I yelled at him, "Told you so!" I meant it to be playful, to cheer him up, because I could tell he'd been getting sicker. When I was little, he had fat red cheeks. Hell, he was fat. He was a pretty happy fat person though. I guess I was 8 or 9 when I realized he wasn't fat anymore. It was like I hadn't noticed. But then, when he kept getting skinnier, and I didn't, I thought he was dying. I thought he had cancer, or a parasite. But he didn't. He kept on just fine. But he was skinny. Now, he looks skeletal. And paler than I've ever seen him. He has dark olive skin-he used to anyway. Now, he looks like some of the bodies I've seen that float by the canoe. 
There was a bodyjam outside of Sioux Falls. We'd just come over a rise, and there it was, a million bodies all clumped, blocking the whole sea. We had to turn around, head south for a bit, but not into Nebraska, he'd said-never into Nebraska. There were a thousand waterspouts there, raging all the time. Waterspout alley was what he called it. Everyone knew that. It was the talk of the Sea Queen Marie. Waterspout alley, from Nebraska all the way down to Oklahoma, rushing water and waterspouts all the time. Nobody survives that way. 
He lifted his finger out of the water though, and he just scowled at me. But now that I'm sitting here, and we actually made it to the Bighorns, I don't think he was scowling at me. It was the turn of fate. We didn't need ice. We had enough other things to deal with. But there it was, and here it is. If we fall in now, we die. It's that simple. There are no more life vests. Just the crack in the canoe, and the mounds of rock that spring out of the canvas. At least it's daytime.

That's when we decided to finally start moving again, before Russell even had his sleep. I stared at his face, the long shaggy, brown mane, the emaciated, sunken eyes, that when he'd been just a little bit plump, were pretty and mesmerizing, even attractive. I try not to think about the fact that I am attracted to him-that I was. Now, it's hard to be. But every once in awhile, when he's asleep like this, I can still feel that way. Like I want to cuddle against him like I normally do, but find something more there. Of course I could never say anything to him. He could be my Dad, he says. It's clear he's not interested in me. And those kinds of thoughts are luxuries anyway, part of the veneer. It's been eroding. Despite the fact that we're still going, that he still has hope we'll make it across the water, all the way down Wyoming, past Denver, and to Leadville, and find the city above the waterline, I can't help but acknowledge that it's all part of the veneer. That's Russell's source of strength, it seems. The veneer. He talks about it like it's an artificial piece of [crap], and like we're animals, and that everything is random, and we're [expletive] and all-but he still makes the veneer sound like something romantic. Like it amounts to humanity, and all that we are, and that if we can get to Leadville, we can be a part of keeping the veneer alive. 
The way he talks about it, I don't know why he wants to keep it going so bad. The veneer is stripped away when nature takes over, he says. It's really like a thin surface we've cultivated for millions of years over top of our primitive minds. Yet we move on, and he worries about me.

It's not that I don't think I'm attractive either. I've had a lot of offers for sex, and the food that goes along with giving it out. But Russell hasn't let me do it. At first I never wanted to anyway, from everything he told me. Sex was part of the veneer. A skin that's gone. Meaningless now. 
But part of me wanted it, to at least try it. I felt ashamed about it after awhile, when I got into an argument with Russell that we needed the food, and that we could medicine for it this time. The offer had come from a young man who didn't look deranged, or creepy like all the others. I had wanted it so bad. But Russell said no. And since then, I haven't bothered to think much about it. 
I've seen him watching me while I sleep. The first time it happened I started up, bolted away, and he had to calm me down. It wasn't that I was scared of him-it was that I thought it was a bandit. Every other time when he watches me sleep, and I notice, I pretend like I don't. I let him keep on looking. 
It's now, when I'm looking at him, recognizing that beneath the ghostly face he's still as attractive as ever to me, wondering how he could never have felt something for me when I'm lying asleep and he's watching me, that I see the face eaters.
There are two of them. Then three. They stand up atop a ridge about two hundred feet from us. They're moving fast. I know right away they're after us. They really do want to eat us. The veneer is gone in them. I move over to Russell and shake him. He's usually quick to respond, knowing we have to be on our guard, but the trip from Rapid City has worn him down. He's no longer himself. He's slow to open his eyes, slow to recognize what I'm screaming, as if the altitude has gotten to him. But he'd said we wouldn't get altitude sickness, we were acclimatized. It didn't seem that way with how slow he stood up. I looked back to the face eaters. They were running now. 
"They don't have boat," says Russell finally. 
He was right. They're charging, but we're right at the water, and our canoe is right there. 
"They should have waited till dark," he says. He goes down to the water line. I stay up behind a boulder watching, keeping an eye on things while he unties the rope. The nylon rope is about as precious as our hardtack. If we lose that, we lose the canoe. He takes his time. He has to. The runners get a little bit closer. I think I see them squinting. They're running west, right into the sun. There are a lot of hours of daylight left, but the Wyoming sky is huge, and the sun focuses right on their faces. 
I see one grinning. He looks mad, like if he doesn't get us he'll turn on his friends and start eating them right away. The others just look sickly, like Russell. They trip a few times, but keep coming. Only about fifty feet away now. Russell calls my name. I turn around, and he's waving me on. I run down the ledge, watching my step, eyes glued to my black trash bag duct-tape-wrapped sneakers. It's easy to slip on the rocks with these plastic shoes, and it's even easier because they're icy. As I hear grunting, I descend a bit faster, and too fast, and start to slip. Somehow, Russell jumps out of the boat, steadies me, and guides me the rest of the way to the canoe. I don't know how he risked it, because the canoe could have pushed off. But he did. I fall back into the canoe, and immediately, I start bailing. 
When you're not rowing, you're bailing. When the rain's on medium, you can take a break once in awhile, unless there are waves. When it's on high, you can't. A week in it and we'll die, it's just that Russell doesn't see it that way yet. I dump the water over the side using one of the bright orange buckets we picked up in Rapid City. The four inches of rain on the bottom of the canoe starts to drop. I look up. Russell is heaving, worse than usual, thrusting into the water, pushing us away into the sunset. Gaunt faces stare at us, and one looks as if he's ready to jump into the water after us. 
I'm about to say something to Russell, almost for a laugh, because these depraved face eaters have become so common now, that there is a delirium that starts each time you escape them. But when I am about to poke fun at the mania-ridden one, he does jump. He goes wading in first, then just dives forward, dropping his head into the icy water. I see his soaked head pop back up about ten feet away now, and he's continuing to come out into the brown with us. I look around, just to see where we might refuge. Another one of Hesse's heads is poking up just about three hundred feet away. We can make it there in ten minutes. But this guy is just coming into the ocean of rain. The others, desperate but not insane yet, watch with him hope, as if they expect him to reach us. 
Strangely, he starts to swim toward us. Russell doesn't even look back-he just keeps pumping, and his breaths sound horrible. I think he's worse than he's telling me. I wonder if he really is getting the infection again. Rain splashes in little fountains on the back of the man's head where it protrudes from the brown, and he raises his arms like he's doing a stroke. Then another. He is actually trying to catch up to us, and he's moving fast enough that I say something to Russell. Usually, saying something just works in reverse, and slows Russell down, so I let him work silently most of the time when we're running for our lives. But I've never seen anyone this desperate. He plows through tiny icebergs, pushing them aside. I realize that in just a couple more strokes, he'll have come too far out to make it back.
When the first gasp comes, Russell finally looks up. He only gives the man one second of his time though, just enough to recognize that he's drowning, and then he returns to the sun. He rows, pushing us along through the water, no faster and no slower. The hope in the faces of the man's friends, back on the rocky shore, looks like it's fading now. I can't be sure, but I think I see one of them close his eyes. The gasps get louder, and I can't take my eyes away. The mania in the swimmer is gone now, but his head is above water. He's realized how far he went, and how cold it is. He knows it's the end. His eyes look wild, and he stares at me. I hear him whimper, and wonder if it might be him crying, but the sound isn't coming out right, because of all the water he's taking in. Maybe he's thinking about the mistake he made, and how it will be the last thing he knows in this world.
I watch the head go under for the first time, and he makes a turn, like he's going to try to make it back to the island. But he can't, he doesn't even move that way. He just sort of rotates, his body frenzied and writhing, clawing at the sky, like a magical ledge might keep him alive a little while longer, maybe even save him. 
Then his head goes under again, and we're almost thirty feet away. I stopped thinking about saving people a long time ago, after the Sea Queen Marie went down, and I don't even beckon Russell's attention. I know if I did, he wouldn't look anyway. But still, even though I'm cold, ruthless, conditioned now to feel nothing, except the need to keep Russell and me alive, I shudder when I hear the man yelp, a cry, he says, "Help! Help me!"
I listen to the cry, and watch the head go under for the third, and then fourth and final time. He took in a gulp of water that time, I could tell. Aboard the Sea Queen Marie, Cap'n had told us all one night, after a long festival of plays and songs, with a roaring fire to dismiss the notions that we were living in a hell, what drowning was like. He said you didn't actually breathe in water most of the time. I had a hard time believing that, but some of the others had seconded this fact. He said you tried to, and that your throat closed shut, because it was a reflex, the body's last desperate attempt to save itself. Then, you'd suffocate. It might even be pleasant, Cap'n had said.
The man's flailing body didn't look that way to me. But then, right at the end, it kind of did, as he gently slid underneath the brown canvas. The wet forms on the shore started walking back the way they'd come, almost sad, maybe not because they'd lost their friend but because they'd lost a perfectly good two day's sustenance. Either way, Russell finally spoke.
"They're getting the boat," he says. I already knew that. I want to mock him, tell him he was wrong, mainly because I'm mad at how much he's heaving. He never used to struggle so much to row. Now, it's as if he's faking it, pretending like he has no strength. But it's real. And I can't deal with that, so I mock him about thinking they had drowned. 
"Told you they didn't drown," I say. 
But he doesn't look up like normal. No flash of his handsome. He keeps his head down, like he's really concentrating. And he keeps on grunting. I don't know if he thinks about me worrying that he's not doing so good, and that he's afraid that I might ask to take over rowing, so all he says is "Bail." He's tired. His voice is gruff.
I start to bail, and watch the permanent gray overhead. It's medium gray, which means medium rain. The sunset, really just a smear of brighter gray, golden in one long band even, doesn't cheer me up like it usually does. I worry about the week on the water, but even more, I worry about tonight, and how we're going to fend off the second attack if they come back and find us. Looking south, in the direction we're heading, I don't see any more islands. Just open brown, and rain, and gray, forever, all the way to the Rocky Mountains, that I'm told exist somewhere that way. If we have to shove off again, there's no going back. I take away the horizon, the view of the future, and clear everything out in favor of the bright, neon orange bucket, and I bail.


----------



## ktashbury

Mimi said:


> When I was a kid, I saw a short film about children who lived somewhere it constantly rained. One day, it stops raining, and all the kids went outside to play amidst blossoming flowers, except one kid, who missed out.


I was thinking of this film too---or was it a Twilight Zone episode? It's stuck with me all my life because it was so devastating. The other kids trapped this one child in the basement or something, as a cruel joke. It only stopped raining every hundred years or so and it was therefore his/her only chance ever to see a clear sky. It was brutal.


----------



## ktashbury

ktashbury said:


> I was thinking of this film too---or was it a Twilight Zone episode? It's stuck with me all my life because it was so devastating. The other kids trapped this one child in the basement or something, as a cruel joke. It only stopped raining every hundred years or so and it was therefore his/her only chance ever to see a clear sky. It was brutal.


And Joseph (sorry to put this immediately after your 6K; I quoted and didn't realize I was doing so): I've had a glance and it looks good! I've been proofing some writing for a friend tonight and my brain is fried but I'll have a proper read of this, hopefully tomorrow. Keep at it.


----------



## jdcore

I'm just spit ballin', but if you're looking for a rain source that nobody has done before, how about this? A giant ice comet enters the solar system headed for a collision with earth. Scientists managed to destroy the comet, but the vapor got trapped in orbit around Earth. Our gravity slowly causes it to condense and the rains start.


----------



## Cherise

Joseph, keep writing! I love, love, love it!


----------



## Joseph Turkot

Thanks for the enthusiasm Cherise! I am officially sidetracked by this story  thanks for the wide range of rain source ideas. I think I will play up that part of the story as a sort of mystery, and an occasional point of contention between characters.


----------



## CoraBuhlert

dkgould said:


> Check out "The Long Rain" in The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury. One of my favorites, it will help with trying to capture the maddening effect of the rain, but it takes place on Venus and they have things in place to save folks. Really, really great story


That's the story I immediately thought of.

Simon Green also as a planet of perpetual rain and hostile sentient vegetation in his _Deathstalker_ series. The planet goes by the charming name of Lachrymae Christi, tears of Christ, since it houses a leper colony run by nuns.

Your story sounds great BTW, Joseph.


----------



## Matt Ryan

Looking good Joseph! Isn't post apoc a fun thing to write?. 

A 8550 feet rise in sea levels would only leave the mountains. The Appalachian and the Rocky's would give you some good land areas to play on. I bet humanity would clamber for the last islands, creating a resource crunch and some really nasty situations.

With a reliable flow of rain, you could also make power by collecting the water and running it through a funnel and into turbines. It could also be used as a way to torture people. Hey, books needs villains. Perhaps there are myths of a place it doesn't rain. I know the Chilean mountain ranges are very high and get almost no rain.


----------



## Michael Buckley

It would not be a believable story. If the rain never stopped the land would erode away and you would have a world very close to the movie water world where Kevin Coster was the MC. IMO not believable.

You will get slammed with bad reviews on it. Dystopian have readers who only read so they can leave a comment to tell the world your story is far fetched  I look at the story like this, you wrote it and you can tell it anyway you want to, your story, your world.


----------



## Guest

The premise of constant rain is very similar to SLA Industries' 



. The rest of what you are writing is completely different, and so is the backstory so don't worry. Just put your own spin on the idea.


----------



## Chris Northern

jdcore said:


> I'm just spit ballin', but if you're looking for a rain source that nobody has done before, how about this? A giant ice comet enters the solar system headed for a collision with earth. Scientists managed to destroy the comet, but the vapor got trapped in orbit around Earth. Our gravity slowly causes it to condense and the rains start.


When the clouds do part, you can see them... rings around the Earth. And if some big rocks hit the sea it would put an awful lot of water into the atmosphere. Big rocks in unstable orbits would one in every now and again to keep things rolling. A big comet smashed the moon to bits and there you go.

http://i.i.cbsi.com/cnwk.1d/i/tim2/2013/05/21/ku-xlarge_3_610x491.jpg


----------



## B.A. Spangler

Joseph Turkot said:


> Ok, so...the oceans are somehow steadily evaporating due to a change in the magnetic field that surrounds the Earth, caused by a massive solar flare. This means that there is a steady uptake of vapor over the Pacific ocean, and it is dumping rain everywhere and continuously, and will not stop because it's an endless source.
> 
> I am thinking like The Road, or The Last of Us, but the enemy being the steady rain, and the slowly rising water. Of course there'd be the occasional flash flood, and the tornado here and there.
> 
> Pruned hands, hypothermia, and a near uselessness of electric devices would be some of the conditions our protagonists would face. And they're questing to the mysterious mountain in Wyoming where it is said that there is no rain. But, like a cure for a zombie virus, most think it is a lie.
> 
> Always on the move, always to higher ground. And of course there'll be the rogue Mad Max types who want to take what you have, including mayhaps your body for its flesh?


I'd read it!!


----------



## Joseph Turkot

Turbine torture, I kind of like the idea of that. Yea, the midwest will be where the crunch is happening. Also, it'll have been a very long time since rain was measured officially, so Russell will have been relying on old numbers and multiplication, as well as rumors, to determine water depth after 19 years. 

I think my cross country drive, done over the summer, and my incessant gourging upon survival expedition books (non-fiction) will help me w/ this one. I want the story to be about the characters more than the premise--primarily the 16 yr old girl whose perspective we're inside, and her companion, Russell.

I feel like I've crowdfunded my story idea here, only the fund donations have come from everyone's imagination. Will write more tonight after work.


----------



## WordSaladTongs

Jill James said:


> And the one with the weather and the girl in the tent is I believe Ashes, Ashes by Jo Treggiari


Yes--that's it. Your mind is amazing. Now I'm going to PM you all sorts of weird tidbits to see if you can recognize the books they come from.

Also, hydroponics would probably be the way to go for growing food--and if they eat fish make sure there's no chemical reason for the rain that would pollute the fish--although I guess that would pollute the veg too?


----------



## Sandra K. Williams

_A Friend of the Earth_ by T. C. Boyle has constant rain. It's set on the U.S. West Coast.


----------



## Darren Wearmouth

If you want to tap into a bit of paranoia, and create your 'Waterworld', you could have the polar ice-caps melting, coupled with a lot of rain across the continental areas. Possibly a heatwave in both poles caused by a Geomagnetic shift. Just an idea, chief. It would take out the questions about the amount of water required through rainfall alone.


----------



## dotx

I want to read this!


----------



## horse_girl

You're already getting lots of good ideas to make the idea work.

Of your thread subject question--it doesn't matter if it's new or has been done before. (Look at all the vampire books for a lot of the same ideas repeated over and over and...) It will be YOUR book. Only you can write it the way that you can. Write it and see what happens. You can always edit later (as you're well aware).

To anyone questioning whether they should or not, just go for it and see where the ideas take you. You might end up with the next best seller!


----------



## WrittenWordMediaTeam

Joseph Turkot said:


> Spurred on by your enthusiasm, and the notion that this might be a content thread, I give you my first words...
> 
> The Rain - tentative title
> 
> There are a lot of stories about how the rain started.
> 
> The thing that always comes to my mind first isn't the how though, it's the how much. Back when they were taking measurements still, according to Russell, it was 15 to 5400. Now there's a new number at the end of those two: 8,550.
> 15 inches a day, 5400 in a year, and 19 years since the rain started. That's 8,550 feet of rain.
> 
> We're camping again tonight in the Bighorn mountains as I ponder these numbers for the millionth time. Our tent isn't much-a tatter of canvas. The bandits that have been trailing us these last few days don't seem to know where we're at anymore. Russell says they used to call this mountain Hesse. He thinks we have a good two thousand feet between us and the water. All I know is it's cold as hell up here, and down there, it looks like the dirty canvas that our tent is made out of, but it goes on forever. I can see a couple other spikes rising out of the canvas-other mountain tops. Our boat's no good though. We can't make it to them. Ice has been forming on the water for the past few days.
> When I can get Russell to talk about it, the time before the rain, he doesn't give me too much. He only likes to talk about why it started. Which theory he buys.
> 
> When he found me, and my dad died in the rain, he took me because he was worried someone might try to eat me. That was fourteen years ago. He said it didn't matter that I was a pretty baby girl, with bright blonde hair and a smile that didn't match the gloom of the rain. They'd eat me as soon as they could.
> He usually mentions the solar flare first-he says it was a sunburst, something that comes once in a long time. The scientists talked about it on TV he said-TV is when there are pictures of people that move. So the sun shot out a long branch of invisible something, messing up the Earth's magnetic field, currents, or jet streams, or something like that. And then it happened-the great Pacific started swooping up into the sky, as he says. And everywhere else, the rain started.
> 
> It came slow at first, and sometimes, not even every day. Russell seems to like telling this part, but I have a hard time believing it. He said no one even wore plastic gloves yet, covered their skin, worried about exposure, hypothermia. And then it became clear to everyone that the rain wasn't going to stop. It was just going to keep on coming. And everyone thought that there'd be some explanation, something that would help fix the problem. But that didn't pan out.
> The other theories were [bullcrap], he's told me a thousand times. Conspiracy theories. Weather manipulation, manmade causes related to pollution. All of it [bullcrap]. Only the sun could cause this, he says.
> 
> I don't really care too much about the reason it started. I guess, since it's been this way my whole life, it would be like contemplating that you fall down after you jump up. You accept that it happens, and you move on.
> And that's what we've been doing for the last fourteen years. Moving. One place to the next. I remember when I was little, and we would walk on the roads a lot more. Russell says where we're going, there are whole towns that are still above the water. And there's a place where it's stopped raining. That's when I know the [bullcrap] has started coming from him instead of the conspiracy theories. It's raining everywhere. I've never seen anything to make me think otherwise. And we've traveled from New Jersey to Wyoming. But now we have to move 518 miles south he says. Leadville, Colorado. He hasn't stopped talking about it for the last year. We're going to Leadville, there's a whole city there, thousands of feet above the water.
> 
> But we couldn't go directly there, because the route across the Great Plains was flooded. Thousands of feet of water, but moving water. I don't mind the still water. I hate the moving water. And the worst are the water spouts. Used to be called tornados, Russell says. But there were too many of them on the Plains, tall and clear and deadly, spinning arms to heaven, and we had to move north first. And that's how we picked up this crew of face eaters, as he calls them. They've been following us for days, but suddenly, they haven't been in sight. Each time we cross a valley of water along the Bighorns, they would be behind us, rowing after in their boat, a canoe similar to ours. Same speed. I thought we'd hit the patch of water too wide, and they might overtake us, but we didn't. We kept them at bay. But now they're gone. Russell thinks they drowned. But I haven't seen any bodies floating by.


Ohmygosh. I want to read this book. Immediately. As someone said earlier in the thread - it may have been done, but not by you. And based on this, you'll do it beautifully.

You'll have at least one reader ;-)


----------



## cinisajoy

The book sounds great.
Now for an odd note: it has finally been raining here off and on for 3 days.


----------



## Seleya

Freebooksy_Taylor said:


> Ohmygosh. I want to read this book. Immediately. As someone said earlier in the thread - it may have been done, but not by you. And based on this, you'll do it beautifully.
> 
> You'll have at least one reader ;-)


Make that at least two (and one of them international, how's that as incentive?  ).


----------



## Amanda Brice

Mimi said:


> Googled and found the source of the film. Ray Bradbury, of course.
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Summer_in_a_Day


That's what I was going to say! We read that one in high school English.


----------



## Guest

The problem I am having are the assumptions built in.

First, there is a finite amount of water on the planet. The water has to come from somewhere. Forget the REASON for the rain for a moment. Where is the fuel source for the rain? While you can have localized flooding caused by currents moving water from one area to another, a complete flood of the planet would require a water source not of this planet. And honestly, you can't "legitimately" play the Bible card without calling God a liar, as there was that whole part of him promising never to destroy the world with water again.

Scientists have speculated that the water on earth was seeded by asteroids,_ but that seeding happened over thousands of years_. A single asteroid containing the amount of water you are talking about wouldn't do what some are claiming. Rain clouds generally form in the troposphere. In order for a ice comet or whatever to actually seed clouds in this region, the fragments would have to be able to survive going through the outer layers of the atmosphere to actually reach the troposphere in vapor form. A meteor large enough to contain that much water is going to be something dozens of miles in size. And in such a case, science's plan won't be to "break it up" but to deflect it off course. (That is actually the current science now...not to destroy the object but strike it with enough force to push it off of its path.)

There is a great tool from Perdue that actually illustrated meteor impacts.

http://www.purdue.edu/impactearth/

Plug in information for an ice meteor and you will begin to get an idea of how faulty the science is behind the comet idea.

Secondly, there is the assumption that the only issue will be rising water levels. But 15 inches of rain every day for years will ERODE mountains. _There will be no mountains to hide in._ You would have constant mudslides from erosion. Unless by magic the rain is ONLY falling in the oceans and not actually on land. There is no walking...anywhere. You are talking about a constant state of powerful flash flooding causing new canyons in minutes (Canyon Lake Gorge was created by only six weeks of flash floods). You are not camping in a canvas tent at 15 inches of rain a day.

Third, you are forgetting what happens to water when it gets cold. If ice is forming on the water, as described in the opening, it isn't even RAINING at this point. It is snowing. Which means your characters are dead because they are buried under 100 feet of snow in a canvas tent. Because depending on the type of snow ("wet" snow or "flaky" snow), one inch of rain is equal to anywhere from 3"-10" of snow.

All that said, the science is easier if you are working with a_ localized event_. A situation that impacts only England, for example, is more believable than a worldwide event. It is also easier to manage from a research angle. The logistics of 15 inches a day is not plausible. BUT, you don't NEED that much rain to do what you want to do. Think smaller, because that is more manageable and, more importantly, MORE BELIEVABLE.


----------



## Darren Wearmouth

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> The problem I am having are the assumptions built in.
> 
> First, there is a finite amount of water on the planet. The water has to come from somewhere. Forget the REASON for the rain for a moment. Where is the fuel source for the rain? While you can have localized flooding caused by currents moving water from one area to another, a complete flood of the planet would require a water source not of this planet. And honestly, you can't "legitimately" play the Bible card without calling God a liar, as there was that whole part of him promising never to destroy the world with water again.


Not necessarily. There could be a flood basalt, our planet does have form for such events. I'd imagine a massive underground earthquake, that shifted two tectonic plates together and upwards in the middle of an ocean would cause mass flooding. Waters would recede admittedly, but would such a mass flooding melt the caps? If water was forced from the Pacific for example? I dunno, just chewing the fat.


----------



## Joseph Turkot

I've decided that the plausibility will take a backseat to the characterization and the struggle. I feel like I can do this because in the story, there is no network of scientists to explain the rain anymore, and there's really no knowledge about what things are like elsewhere in the world. That will be part of the mystery, and the hope that the characters cling to. However the rains began, even if by a giant disruption of the magnetic field of the Earth due to a solar discharge, as Russell believes, it doesn't really need an explanation. But it is happening, and the characters have to keep moving.


----------



## tensen

Jill James said:


> Flood by Stephen Baxter used the premise of undersea oceans. The crust broke and released new sources of water with nowhere for it to go. And the one with the weather and the girl in the tent is I believe Ashes, Ashes by Jo Treggiari


Surprised I've never read that one by Stephen Baxter. The idea on undersea oceans leads to a similar premise involving frakking... and then the effect caused later on when water that is trapped for a long time in enclosed aquifers gets freed in rapid timeframe and in quantities.


----------



## Darren Wearmouth

Joseph Turkot said:


> I've decided that the plausibility will take a backseat to the characterization and the struggle. I feel like I can do this because in the story, there is no network of scientists to explain the rain anymore, and there's really no knowledge about what things are like elsewhere in the world. That will be part of the mystery, and the hope that the characters cling to. However the rains began, even if by a giant disruption of the magnetic field of the Earth due to a solar discharge, as Russell believes, it doesn't really need an explanation. But it is happening, and the characters have to keep moving.


That's the thing, you don't have to explain it.


----------



## Guest

DAWearmouth said:


> Not necessarily. There could be a flood basalt, our planet does have form for such events. I'd imagine a massive underground earthquake, that shifted two tectonic plates together and upwards in the middle of an ocean would cause mass flooding. Waters would recede admittedly, but would such a mass flooding melt the caps? If water was forced from the Pacific for example? I dunno, just chewing the fat.


Most glacial melting actually does happen at below sea level, so to speak, due to warmer waters pushed north by the currents. But the science says at most you would raise the ocean levels by 20 inches with that. Enough to put ************* underwater, but not enough to make it rain 15 inches a day every day for 19 years.

And yeah, it is weird the stuff you learn doing research for roleplaying games.


----------



## Guest

Joseph Turkot said:


> I've decided that the plausibility will take a backseat to the characterization and the struggle. I feel like I can do this because in the story, there is no network of scientists to explain the rain anymore, and there's really no knowledge about what things are like elsewhere in the world. That will be part of the mystery, and the hope that the characters cling to. However the rains began, even if by a giant disruption of the magnetic field of the Earth due to a solar discharge, as Russell believes, it doesn't really need an explanation. But it is happening, and the characters have to keep moving.


You don't need to explain it, but you need to have an idea in your head so that your internal world remains consistent. Regardless of whether or not you explain it, you can't get around the fact that 1 inch of rain = up to 10 inches of snow. Regardless of the trigger event, or the science behind it, you need to make sure that everything internally in the world works.


----------



## Darren Wearmouth

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> You don't need to explain it, but you need to have an idea in your head so that your internal world remains consistent. Regardless of whether or not you explain it, you can't get around the fact that 1 inch of rain = up to 10 inches of snow. Regardless of the trigger event, or the science behind it, you need to make sure that everything internally in the world works.


I agree with this, it needs to have a fictional and logical explanation. For our book, we haven't fully explained the technology that caused an event, but we know the theory behind it and have left breadcrumbs that allow people to join the dots together.


----------



## Cherise

Joseph Turkot said:


> I've decided that the plausibility will take a backseat to the characterization and the struggle.


Yes. That is the dystopian genre, to a D.  I don't care how it got that way. The fascination is in seeing humans survive through extreme situations.


----------



## Joseph Turkot

Okay, so I have been obsessively writing and polishing the first part to The Rain. It weighs in at just over 15k. I will make sure each part is around 15k. I wanted to update because it's live now on Amazon for .99. But of course, anyone who wanted to read it can just drop an email and I'll send along the mobi or epub for free. I've decided it's a post-apocalyptic love story. Here's the cover and blurb and the book is in my sig now.










BLURB

There are a lot of stories about how the rain started. The thing that always comes to mind first isn't the how though, it's the how much. Russell still does the math too: 15, 5,400, and 8,550. 15 inches a day, 5,400 a year, and 8,550 feet since the start. We have no idea if it's accurate. But it's important to think about it, he says, because it reminds us to keep moving.

My name is Tanner. Russell takes care of me. Together we push on, surviving, heading to Leadville.

Our story is a fight for food and the warmth and the dry. And a rumor about a place where it isn't raining.

Always on the move, always to higher ground. Always toward Leadville. The town above the water line.

Exposure, pruned hands, infection, and the face eaters stay close to us. Our canoe is no good anymore. Death is everywhere.

And we cling to the last strips of the veneer. Each other.


----------



## dotx

You are FAST! 

I'd love to read part 1.


----------



## Joseph Turkot

Awesome! PM me your email address dotx, because in your profile it is marked private. I will send ASAP!

As for fast, it's been synonymous with obsession over the past few days.


----------



## Guest

So it went from a Dystopian with an interesting power dynamic between the characters to a YA love story with a weak girl who needs to be taken care of and only identifies herself through her lover?



> My name is Tanner. Russell takes care of me.


I'm way past the age of YA and I don't read romances, so I am definitely not the target audience, but this just offends every ounce of the feminist in me. Yet another female character who identifies herself through her dependence on the male hero. Don't tell me how strong she is in your story. It doesn't matter. Because if the blurb is indicative of the book, all of her "strength" is only going to be put forward in support of her man. She's a supporting actress, not the hero. The blurb positions her as the weak person in the group. She doesn't talk about her own thoughts, but instead leads her explanation with RUSSELL'S thoughts and Russell's logic. Russell is the hero, and she's just along as a supporting cast. She is the narrator of HIS story. The blurb is yet another example of a female character who doesn't have an identity outside of her relationship with a man.


----------



## donnajherren

Mimi said:


> When I was a kid, I saw a short film about children who lived somewhere it constantly rained. One day, it stops raining, and all the kids went outside to play amidst blossoming flowers, except one kid, who missed out.


Ray Bradbury!! <3

I think this sounds like an awesome idea. Who cares if it's been done before? Bree & I have taken on polar shifts and massive solar flares, and we're thinking about ZOMBIES, which has definitely been done to death (hurr). If you have something cool to do with it, that's all that matters.


----------



## Joseph Turkot

Sorry Julie. You've slapped a lens on the story before having read it, and that's your own right. But you're quite wrong in your supposition. But what do I know? You seem to already know the whole book. And, I disagree with your notion that literature, and perhaps to a greater extent Art, should meet some criteria of yours. In fact, Russell is very sick, and that's why it's a blurb--she is actually the one who has to get him through everything. But that's not what happens, is it, because you've already read it?

I think it's sad you must deride a book through some narrow vision of how Art should be, and it seems you actively look for what you want to see.

It's not YA. Don't know why you assume that. And, it is a love story. Sorry. The two are not synonymous. And it is still, first and foremost, a "dystopian" story about survival, and the possibility that love can arise in such circumstances.


----------



## Guest

Joseph Turkot said:


> Sorry *****. You've slapped a lens on the story before having read it, and that's your own right. But you're quite wrong in your supposition. But what do I know? You seem to already know the whole book. And, I disagree with your notion that literature, and perhaps to a greater extent Art, should meet some criteria of yours. In fact, Russell is very sick, and that's why it's a blurb--she is actually the one who has to get him through everything. But that's not what happens, is it, because you've already read it?
> 
> I think it's sad you must deride a book through some narrow vision of how Art should be, and it seems you actively look for what you want to see.
> 
> It's not YA. Don't know why you assume that. And, it is a love story. Sorry. The two are not synonymous. And it is still, first and foremost, a "dystopian" story about survival, and the possibility that love can arise in such circumstances.


The purpose of a blurb and cover is precisely to create a lens through which a reader will judge your book. The lens you created screams YA love story. YOU create the lens, not me. It is your job to convey to a potential reader the content of the book. If my interpretation is wrong, perhaps you should look at the lens you have provided me. If I put a basket of wildflowers and pink ribbons on the cover of a book, I don't get to yell at people who think my horror novel is a chick lit.

The cover screams YA. If it isn't YA, then you need a cover that doesn't scream YA.

Your blurb portrays a weak girl who sees the world through the eyes of a man. If she isn't weak, _don't write a blurb that portrays her as weak_. If she is the strong one in the couple, why is the blurb leading with what RUSSELL thinks is important and with her saying RUSSELL takes care of her? The blurb reads from the position of a weak girl. Sorry. It is what it is. If that is not the case, you need a better blurb and a better cover.


----------



## Spinneyhead

Joseph Turkot said:


> Ok here it is...it starts to rain and...it never stops.
> 
> I would need a plausible scenario where Earth's weather did this, so I might be screwed right off the bat.


I recently heard a theory that all the water on Earth was deposited by a giant ice asteroid hitting the planet. So, in a variation on that, another ice asteroid ends up in a nearly stable orbit of the Earth, but is breaking up. Every resultant meteor evaporates in the upper atmosphere and creates clouds. This happens often enough that you have your constant rain. The "no-rain" areas might have something to do with the asteroid's orbit path and where it keeps dumping ice.

I just started reading the thread, and had to drop this suggestion in whilst I remembered. Apologies if anyone else got there before me and I'm just repeating ideas.


----------



## Guest

Spinneyhead said:


> I recently heard a theory that all the water on Earth was deposited by a giant ice asteroid hitting the planet.


I mentioned this earlier. But it wasn't a single asteroid (if you saw the link I posted upthread regarding the Perdue meteor app, let's just say a single asteroid big enough to hold ALL the water now on earth would have destroyed the earth). The general theory is that the seeding occurred over time.


----------



## Jean E

I love stories where the weather drives the plot. I find that having a common denominator which no one can escape intensifies the mood and cuts right through to the most basic motivators.  Best of luck with it.

Have to add that I too envisioned Russell as the primary mover and shaker.  In the first four lines Tanner tells us what he does and what he says and what he thinks.  Add that to 'Russell takes care of me' and she comes across as dependant and not in a mutual way.


----------



## Joseph Turkot

A blurb should not provide the full scope of character growth, that is for the plot and the characterization that develops throughout the story. In this blurb I used the character's voice from the outset of their most perilous journey south to Leadville. The point of a blurb and a cover is capture the attention of potential readers, not to provide the lens through which literature is analyzed by a reader. Sorry if you are unfamiliar with literary theory, but the lens is the framework through which you evaluate a text. New Critical is one example, and New Historicism is another, and Deconstructionism is another. You provide you're own lens. It's a choice. You seem to use Feminist criticism, which arose in the 60s. Therefore, you interact with a text by examining certain qualities such as gender roles and their relationship to contemporary society, and your world view of what values should comprise humanity. You may not even be aware that you see texts this way, and that you tend to view texts through this lens. I encourage you to research literary theory if this intrigues you.


----------



## donnajherren

Joseph Turkot said:


> You provide you're own lens. It's a choice. You seem to use Feminist criticism, which arose in the 60s. Therefore, you interact with a text by examining certain qualities such as gender roles and their relationship to contemporary society, and your world view of what values should comprise humanity. You may not even be aware that you see texts this way, and that you tend to view texts through this lens.


LOLOLOLOL or your cover could just look like a YA cover, dude.


----------



## Guest

donnajherren said:


> LOLOLOLOL or your cover could just look like a YA cover, dude.


----------



## jackz4000

You are writing fiction so it's up to you and your readers IF they buy into all that continual rain. In the deep past, Pleistocene and Pliocene there were periods of monsoons that impacted different areas, but they did stop after 3-4 months. You need more condensed moisture than is plausible for it to rain constantly for 2 decades, 24/7. As recent as 6000 years ago jet streams and rain patterns changed and the Sahara Desert was a virtual waterpark with hippo's and croc's. Aside from the problem of where all that water is coming from is a delivery mechanism 24/7/20 years...and for it to be evaporation is difficult to swallow. Then again it is fiction.


----------



## Joseph Turkot

Dude? That's sexist!


----------



## Jean E

Actually Joseph gender roles are vitally important to me.  Personally I am fully aware of how I approach art, society, literature and the rest of existence.  I look for a strong representation of the female.  Something that reflects life as I know it.  I do not concern myself with exploring representations of femininity that don't make sense to me.  Like so many women I have developed the ability to filter out most of the muck that is presented to us as legitimate depictions of the female.  Life's too short to get involved with nonsense.

Please note that in no way am I suggesting that your book fits this category.  Obviously I haven't read it.  I am stating that in my opinion approaching a work with my feminist antenna on alert helps me to sort out what I am interested in and what I am not interested in.  What is wrong with that?


----------



## Cherise

Work on that blurb, Joseph. It even turned me off.


----------



## Joseph Turkot

Nothing Jean. I learned from this that I wrote my blurb too hastily, picked a cover too fast, and that some people decide what a story's final message about gender will be about based on those two things alone. In my head, I only see the story, and perhaps my marketing skills need work so I don't misrepresent my literature. The thing that bothered me was the criticism of my story based on blurb and cover. I live and learn. I'm a human. It bothered me even more because in the end, Tanner is the hero of this story, and Russell's savior, both in spirit and physically. But it's a coming of age tale, and so my blurb, which I'm guessing is in need of revision now that I see the misinterpretation it causes, showcases the who she is at the outset, before she must take the reins of survival on herself. Yes, up until now, Russell is the reason she's made it. He is the strength that she knows, and her world view had been shaped by him. But even by the end of part 1, the roles are completely reversed, and her growth begins. In a post-apocalyptic setting where brute strength is most valued, men will have more of it. The story is precisely interesting for me to write because it subverts that gender role. Maybe I overreacted, and I'll go learn about the way writing something in such a fever mars tour ability to accurately portray the story in a blurb and cover. And all LOLs hurt my feelings. I don't like being picked on :/

And I would love help rewriting the blurb, and even getting a better cover.


----------



## Jean E

Best of luck with it Joseph.  And with all you do.


----------



## donnajherren

Joseph Turkot said:


> And all LOLs hurt my feelings. I don't like being picked on :/


I apologize for LOLs, Joseph. I didn't mean to make you feel bad or, worse, dismissed. For me personally, when I encounter a situation such as this, it's laugh or cry. As a woman, I spend roughly 30% of my days having men tell me how I should feel about something, and then having them enumerate all the ways I'm wrong when I disagree. And if you don't realize that's what you were doing to Julie, I urge you to consider it.

Julie was blunt in her criticisms. I think, by now, we expect no less from her. But the fact that she wasn't gentle with your feelings doesn't make her wrong.


----------



## Sebastiene

Two things:

1.) When I read "Russell takes care of me," I assumed the main character was either young, handicapped in some way, or in a society that belittles women. He's the "Man", but you could easily show from the beginning that he isn't a chauvinist, unlike the rest of society. If civilization is breaking down, or has broken down, one of the first things to disappear is women's rights. An unfortunate fact. It doesn't put me off as a reader if I can skim the first page and see that the guy isn't a jerk.

2.) To have that much rain all over, for such a long period of time, you'd have cloud cover. Lots and lots of cloud cover. The problem with that: remember the dinosaurs. Sure, I've been in actual warm rain when I was in Louisiana (a horrible sensation, like the universe is sweating on you), but it would just be a matter of time before the rain became snow.

I know, I know. It's fiction. Just realize I'm the same woman who can watch _The Day After Tomorrow_ every time it comes on because I just like the conflict--logic be darned. So, I am certainly not saying you shouldn't go forward. I'm just saying the logic issue will throw some people, and just accept that you'll have some comments about it in your reviews.

Dystopian books are always fun... as long as I don't actually have to live in one.


----------



## Guest

Joseph Turkot said:


> And all LOLs hurt my feelings. I don't like being picked on :/


And I don't like having my professional opinion based on over a decade in the publishing business dismissed as an outdated feminist worldview and having a *man* tell me that my interpretation of a* female* character is wrong because I am looking at the *female* character as a* woman* would. Particularly when said man drops a bunch of $10 words and tries to diminish my intellect in an effort to dismiss my opinions.

If you would like to get philosophical, I could get into a lengthy explanation of the topic of male privilege and how it impacts the portrayal of female characters by men. Or perhaps we can discuss the subject of the male gaze, and how female characters are portrayed as how men see them without regard to how women actually see themselves.

But I have no interest in entertaining such discussions right now. You started this thread asking for advice on the 14th. By the 17th, you had already committed to a cover and uploaded the story for sale. That pretty much tells me everything I need to know.

Good luck with your YA romance.


----------



## Sebastiene

Joseph Turkot said:


> You seem to already know the whole book. And, I disagree with your notion that literature, and perhaps to a greater extent Art, should meet some criteria of yours. In fact, Russell is very sick, and that's why it's a blurb--she is actually the one who has to get him through everything. But that's not what happens, is it, because you've already read it?
> 
> I think it's sad you must deride a book through some narrow vision of how Art should be, and it seems you actively look for what you want to see.
> 
> A blurb should not provide the full scope of character growth, that is for the plot and the characterization that develops throughout the story..... The point of a blurb and a cover is capture the attention of potential readers, not to provide the lens through which literature is analyzed by a reader. Sorry if you are unfamiliar with literary theory, but the lens is the framework through which you evaluate a text....
> 
> You seem to use Feminist criticism, which arose in the 60s. Therefore, you interact with a text by examining certain qualities such as gender roles and their relationship to contemporary society, and your world view of what values should comprise humanity. You may not even be aware that you see texts this way, and that you tend to view texts through this lens. I encourage you to research literary theory if this intrigues you.


Joseph, whoa! Everybody, please take a step back.

I've been in six writing groups and the most important thing I've learned is to listen to criticism WITHOUT REPLYING, or at least with the absolute minimum of replies. Answers in this forum are just like getting reviews--only we (should generally) know more about constructing stories than the average reader. Still, not everyone is going to understand your vision. The question is whether or not the general consensus is that something is, or is not, working.

Can I make a suggestion? The best response to Julie's comment would have been, "Do other people agree with this?" If they do, then your blurb might need work. If they don't, then do your thing.

YOU asked for feedback. I would highly recommend to anyone that if they ask for feedback, that they say, "Thank you," to whomever takes the time out of their busy day to reply.

I love dystopian stories, but after reading your responses to someone who strongly disagrees with you, I'm also less likely to want to read your writing--and this entire exchange is now forever embedded in this very busy, popular forum.

Please, we're all friends, here. Right?


----------



## williamvw

Since not a lot of men have chimed in on this, as a 42-year-old guy who loves post-apoc fiction and has been happily married to a strong-willed woman for 17 years, it may be of some little value to say that I agree with the ladies here. I LOVE the premise of this story. I agree that you don't have to get too wrapped up in explaining everything if it's soft SF. But yeah...the cover looks like YA romance (I can't read your name in Amazon's thumbnail, BTW) and the blurb isn't doing your excellent setup any favors. Julie has dropped far more wisdom into this forum than I could ever hope to match, and I'd encourage you to give it a fair listen. The blurb is a promise from you to the reader, and even if "takes care of me" means something different to you, it will help your sales to be aware of how the average reader perceives that phrase. That's all I think anyone is saying here. Because I'm male...and even I cringed the first time I read that. Speaking as someone who excels at saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, just appreciate how something that sounds fine to you for plenty of good reasons can still get you in deep water (see how I did that?) with readers.

And in case I didn't say it enough, I totally dig the story concept, Joseph. Keep going!


----------



## Joseph Turkot

This is the first time I workshopped a story of mine on here. I definitely reacted harshly when I should have practiced restraint and listened to all, then adjust accordingly. I will keep everything all have said in mind. I appreciate all the opinions, and the forced reflection they have brought me.


----------



## Darren Wearmouth

When I heard the premise, I thought it could be awesome and a popular novel on Amazon. I agreed with Julie's point that at least the theory should be worked out, which would help. Although it wouldn't have to be fully explained, people would be prepared to suspend their belief if they saw some logic behind the story (face eaters?). I was also surprised to see it published three days later with that cover!

Just my humble opinion, but if it was me, personally? I'd have taken my time fleshing the plot out and creating a full length novel, using the services of a content editor. The concept is good.

I'm a huge post apocalyptic fan, and all of my favourite books are in the genre. The blurb doesn't work for me.

This is just me though, Mr. Turkot. I wish you good luck.


----------



## Cherise

Also, I don't want to read installments. Let me know when you have a novel version of it for me to buy.  This one bit you've already published I guess might be a free teaser for the finished novel. But yeah, that blurb is terrible.

Here' s a start.

Tanner and Russell have been fighting the rain for 15 of Tanner's 16 years. They travel in a cracked canoe that Tanner hopes will last long enough to get Russell some help. He's sick. She doesn't want to think about him not making it. He is everything to her. She wishes she knew if she was everything to him.


----------



## Joseph Turkot

Thanks Cherise for the blurb starter. I will be reworking the blurb and trying to find a better cover on stock sites today. Part 1 will become a freebie after the full-length comes out. I did one other novel serially and I enjoyed the experience.


----------



## Joseph Turkot

Thinking about this photo for cover redo. There's also one with color. http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-156619016/stock-photo-flood.html?src=M24RxuEFqqPOakU1jpXT3A-1-0


----------



## cinisajoy

Joseph Turkot said:


> Thanks Cherise for the blurb starter. I will be reworking the blurb and trying to find a better cover on stock sites today. Part 1 will become a freebie after the full-length comes out. I did one other novel serially and I enjoyed the experience.


Please read this line and this line only and give your opinion Joseph.
My name is female. Male takes care of me.


----------



## Joseph Turkot

I like where you're going with that, but I think I can revise it a bit: I am female. Male takes care of me. 

All tongue-in-cheek at this point. Blurb will be fixed I promise.


----------



## cinisajoy

Joseph Turkot said:


> I like where you're going with that, but I think I can revise it a bit: I am female. Male takes care of me.
> 
> All tongue-in-cheek at this point. Blurb will be fixed I promise.


I do want to read it btw.


----------



## Cherise

I actually love the photo on the cover in your signature. Just cut it in closer so no skin is showing.


----------



## Joseph Turkot

Genius! That saves me $25 if I can pull it off in photoshop. Will attempt.


----------



## Joseph Turkot

Trying to take into account all suggestions, here's new cover and blurb. 









There are a lot of stories about how the rain started.

The thing that always comes to mind first isn't the how though, it's the how much. Russell still does the math too: 15, 5,400, and 8,550. 15 inches a day, 5,400 a year, and 8,550 feet since the start.

We have no idea if it's accurate. But it's important to think about it, he says, because it reminds us to keep moving. I'm Tanner. Russell plucked me from the rain when I was two.

Fourteen years ago we left Philadelphia. As the water rose, we moved west, hoping the elevation would keep us warm and dry. Pittsburg, Indianapolis, Sioux Falls, Rapid City. Now we're stranded on the islands in Wyoming. Russell thinks they used to be the Bighorn mountains. But we can't go back now. There's no warm and there's no dry anymore. Just a rumor about a place where it isn't raining. So we're going to try to make it-520 miles south to Leadville. But we can't drift east, the Great Plains have become waterspout alley, a raging tomb of moving water.

Together we push on, surviving, heading to Leadville. But something is wrong with him now. He says it's nothing. But his breathing doesn't sound that way.

Exposure, pruned hands, and infection. But since, Rapid City, it's the face eaters too. And the crack in the canoe that's growing. And the ice I think I see on the water. Russell thinks it's my imagination.

We cling to the last strips of the veneer. And each other.


----------



## telracs

Chiming in after browsing this thread over the past week.

1.  I love the premise and don't really need a lot of explanation as to the reason for the rain.  Just be consisten.
2.  The cover posted above does not say sci-fi or post apocalyptic to me.
3.  The blurb did not match the tone of the "sample" I had started to read earlier in the thread but stopped reading because I couldn't give it my full attention at the time.  The new blurb does, but for me, it is way too long.  It's not really a blurb, it seems like it's the first few paragraphs of the story.
4. I'm in the "i don't buy serials" camp.  So, while I might read it when/if you realise a full novel, I won't buy an installment.


----------



## Joseph Turkot

I understand serials aren't everyone's bag. I also plan to get this permafree asap. 

I will try to shorten the blurb but keep the feel. 

As for the cover, I think maybe some flooded city in the background would help. I will keep thinking of ways to get the vibe to transfer to the cover.


----------



## WordSaladTongs

I love dystopian serials, so I am your audience ... but I would not pick this up for a couple of reasons:

1. The cover. It looks too romancey to me. Look at Sean Platt's stuff or at non-serial dystopian stuff--for the most part it focuses on giving a feel for the world. I know there's rain in your cover, but that could just be sexy rain for all I know. 

2. The blurb. I don't like the idea of a first-person blurb. Also, it's too soft for me. We still have that weaker gender issue because right off the bat I get the idea that she has to be told what to think (or allows herself to be told) and that's a turn off for me. ("But it’s important to think about it, he says, because it reminds us to keep moving.") But it also sort of doesn't make sense that she has to be told that when she's lived that way her whole life and doesn't know anything different. I would try a grittier blurb that's going to appeal more to dystopian readers. Quick try:

It's been 20 years since the rain started to fall and 16-year-old Tanner has never seen the sun. Instead mudslides, floods and water spouts fill her memories while promising to dominate her future. With no warm, dry place to settle down and a band of thieves tracking her as she navigates around the islands of Wyoming, she must either find the strength within herself to carry on or drown along with the rest of the world. (I'm making some assumptions here, but you get the drift)


----------



## Monique

So Russell basically adopted her when she was 2 and now she's 18(? The blurb doesn't say) and in love with (I'm assuming) her "father"?


----------



## 41413

Monique said:


> So Russell basically adopted her when she was 2 and now she's 18(? The blurb doesn't say) and in love with (I'm assuming) her "father"?


I'm assuming (hoping, praying) that this young lady meets a young gentleman that didn't change her Pull-Ups and falls in love with him. The blurb is unclear.


----------



## Monique

smreine said:


> I'm assuming (hoping, praying) that this young lady meets a young gentleman that didn't change her Pull-Ups and falls in love with him. The blurb is unclear.


I went back and skimmed some of the sample text and see she is 16 and attracted to him. It's also a "love story." I'm confused by the cover and the obv romantic nature of it. Just hope, as you said, it's not Russell she's gonna get busy with.


----------



## WordSaladTongs

smreine said:


> I'm assuming (hoping, praying) that this young lady meets a young gentleman that didn't change her Pull-Ups and falls in love with him. The blurb is unclear.


I, too, assumed that she'd find someone else. I kinda thought Russel would die. Kobo's not gonna like this. Not one bit.


----------



## 41413

I could see exploring that kind of relationship in the context of a gritty post-apocalypse world that got into the psychology and ick of it, but I would never call it a love story. Even Humbert "only" had his eyeball on Dolores since she was twelve, and that's not romantic - it's abuse. I have a hard time swallowing the idea of a story framing "love" between a sixteen year old and her lifelong caretaker in a positive light.

ETA: I'm going to specify that I don't necessarily think the subject matter is a problem if done properly. Literature can handle tough topics. I don't know how it's done in your book; I haven't read it. As the mother of a three year old who has gotten the willies from the whole concept, I don't think I'll attempt it. But "difficult to write well" =/= "impossible to write well", so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.

Even so, you might want to reconsider how you've labeled your story. That cover and subtitle could attract readers who may be unpleasantly surprised by the subject matter.


----------



## Matt Ryan

Since we're going with romance elements with this now, I have an easy work around:

A dog is a great way to connect with your reader because while human suffering is tolerable, put a dog in the situation with the person and bam, you've got that empathy much easier. Look at I Am Legend, dang scene still chokes me up.

Russell is not a man but a dog. This dog saves her from drowning when she was six(you an't gonna remember nottin from when you're two) from the assistance of an older, tough, bitter women who teaches her the dangers of the men and how to live in a world of rain. The women is a genius and knows all about the rain and weather, too much. As she grows up with Russell the dog and the elderly mom figure, she has a tough childhood growing up in the constant deluge, moving place to place with her "mom". Finally the weather gets the best of her mom and she dies(think of The Earthling) but on her death bed she reveals she is one of the scientists that created the machine that started the rain. There was a lot of water on the surface of the planet but ten times more water is trapped underneath the surface and the machines draws it out and into the atmosphere. They thought they would save the drought wrought parts of the world but it all went wrong. She explains how to shut it down, if she can only find it, it moves. So it's just her, the dog, the boat and the search for machine. It won't be easy, as the rain is heavier and stronger as she nears the machine. But she knows what to do, her moms taught her well, she doesn't need anyone else to live. Some stuff happens and a chance meeting with a young man, she forces herself to hate him and takes him on as a deck hand, he says "as you wish" at each menial task give to him, but overtime she learns to love and learns maybe her mom wasn't always right. One day she hurts her arm and she exaggerates how much it hurts, he kisses her boo boo and asks if she has any other pains. She points to her shoulder, he kisses that, she points to her cheek, and finally her lips.


----------



## Hugh Howey

I haven't read all five pages, so this has probably been suggested already, but what the heck:

The water on Earth came from space, mostly in the form of comets, which are primarily ice (astronomers liken them to dirty snowballs).

So . . . our solar system passes within a few hundred trillion miles of a rogue solar system, and we drag through its version of the Oort cloud, and we get bombarded by comets. The near-misses streak through the night sky and can be seen even during the day. All those that hit the atmosphere evaporate and lead to a 50-year-rain.

Some scientific liberties, to say the least. But I'd buy it as a reader.


----------



## Joseph Turkot

> Insert Quote
> I haven't read all five pages, so this has probably been suggested already, but what the heck:
> 
> The water on Earth came from space, mostly in the form of comets, which are primarily ice (astronomers liken them to dirty snowballs).
> 
> So . . . our solar system passes within a few hundred trillion miles of a rogue solar system, and we drag through its version of the Oort cloud, and we get bombarded by comets. The near-misses streak through the night sky and can be seen even during the day. All those that hit the atmosphere evaporate and lead to a 50-year-rain.
> 
> Some scientific liberties, to say the least. But I'd buy it as a reader.


Love this. Because the scientific liberties will mainly come through a lack of real knowledge about the disaster, this might end up being one of the "theories" certain groups purport to be the original reason for the rain.

As for the worry about possibly relationship with Tanner and Russell, it's a serial, so it is a story in motion. Only the first 15k are cemented, and what transpires here will definitely go into my mind when continuing the next part of their journey. But, this is where I have things in my head, as concerning their relationship, so far:

Tanner has fallen in love with Russell. Understand, this is not the world we know. The veneer of humanity is gone, along with all the customs and practices we would judge as moral. At the point where the story starts, all that's left is the food, the warmth, and the dry. The cultural foundation that we know and live according to, has all but vanished. This includes who makes an acceptable mate, soul mate, etc. It has been for some time. Tanner is entirely unfamiliar with the old world culture, norms, etc. except from her travels with Russell. She hasn't had any direct experience with them. Russell still clings to the veneer of humanity, and has, over the years, tried to instill it in Tanner. But she wants him nonetheless. He is in no condition to reciprocate, even if does have the inner conflict about her subtle hints.


----------



## cinisajoy

Joseph Turkot said:


> Love this. Because the scientific liberties will mainly come through a lack of real knowledge about the disaster, this might end up being one of the "theories" certain groups purport to be the original reason for the rain.
> 
> As for the worry about possibly relationship with Tanner and Russell, it's a serial, so it is a story in motion. Only the first 15k are cemented, and what transpires here will definitely go into my mind when continuing the next part of their journey. But, this is where I have things in my head, as concerning their relationship, so far:
> 
> Tanner has fallen in love with Russell. Understand, this is not the world we know. The veneer of humanity is gone, along with all the customs and practices we would judge as moral. At the point where the story starts, all that's left is the food, the warmth, and the dry. The cultural foundation that we know and live according to, has all but vanished. This includes who makes an acceptable mate, soul mate, etc. It has been for some time. Tanner is entirely unfamiliar with the old world culture, norms, etc. except from her travels with Russell. She hasn't had any direct experience with them. Russell still clings to the veneer of humanity, and has, over the years, tried to instill it in Tanner. But she wants him nonetheless. He is in no condition to reciprocate, even if does have the inner conflict about her subtle hints.


This just turned me off from wanting to read it. That is not sci-fi but something's gone way wrong somewhere. Post-apoc or not, still not right. Yuck.


----------



## GUTMAN

cinisajoy said:


> This just turned me off from wanting to read it. That is not sci-fi but something's gone way wrong somewhere. Post-apoc or not, still not right. Yuck.


I've been hesitating to comment because I don't particularly care for public workshopping, but with this last bit of thinking I feel the need to concur with Cindy: I'm a guy and this also yucks me out.

Since you're asking--I'd drop this love story angle like a hot potato.

Why not make her a strong young woman on her own for a good long while? That doesn't mean you can't have her interact with a guy, but please make him her age, and make them equals. If it were me, the love story would not be consummated for a good long time, and it would grow out of the both of them, as equals, falling in with each other to fight the elements.

Good luck!


----------



## Monique

It's _possible _to have a relationship/story as you describe, but, boy oh boy, it's fraught with danger and requires an extremely deft hand. Even then, it's squicky, but if that's what you want to explore, then you must change the cover and the blurb. The cover is all romance/erotica and the blurb (I know it's a work in progress) does not prepare the reader in any way for the heavy material you're hinting at.


----------



## Cherise

Your new cover still shows skin. This isn't a romance, as others have stated. It's more a dystopian. I agree with the idea of at least making someone other than Russell raise her. Have him find her when she's older. Anyway, here is my cover concept.

My Photoshop skills suck, so this is just a concept mock up.


----------



## Joseph Turkot

Wow Cherise. That's impressive! I really like how you utilized the space under water. May now have to buy that cover and work your concept.


----------



## Joseph Turkot

I'm thinking she may end up sublimating her love for Russell in someone she meets, mainly due to his refusal to reciprocate her attraction. It is a piece of the veneer he will not relinquish. But I'm really glad that Cherise's cover idea points the story away from romance cover and toward the heart of the premise, and one of the primary conflict, the rain.


----------



## cinisajoy

Joseph Turkot said:


> I'm thinking she may end up sublimating her love for Russell in someone she meets, mainly due to his refusal to reciprocate her attraction. It is a piece of the veneer he will not relinquish. But I'm really glad that Cherise's cover idea points the story away from romance cover and toward the heart of the premise, and one of the primary conflict, the rain.


Take this any way you like, but do not have her go that way. There is no need for her loving him like you are thinking. 
She has always known him as her caregiver. Why should that change because she got older?


----------



## Gennita Low

Just write the story, Joseph. Others may judge you, some may hate the book, but I really think you should stop making changes and going this way and that way every ten hours. It will only confuse you in the end.

Write. Edit later.

You keep changing your story from dystopian to YA dystopian to YA love story to maybe romance back to dystopian. Just write it. And see where your characters take you.

Personally, I'd categorize it as a futuristic. HAHA.

Just my 1.2 cts.


----------



## Joseph Turkot

You're right Gennita. This has been a great brainstorm, but it has run its course too. I will keep the door closed from this point until story is finished. I will update in a (couple months?) when the book is done. Thank you all. Tremendous help.


----------



## Joseph Turkot

Just wanted to update on this story. Part 1 and 2 are out now, and part 1 is permafree. Each part is 15k. I just finished part 3 tonight! So I'm now at 45k. I don't have a word count goal on this one, but it's been a lot of fun to write. I will revise and edit part 3 this weekend and hopefully have it out by next week. I'm pretty happy with how it's going so far...part 1 is hanging in around #1,500 on free books, and is right near the top for its category. Book 2 is hanging in around 25k in paid sales. I haven't done any promo yet because there aren't enough reviews. I will say, 15k parts are better than what I did with Black Hull (5k episodes). The length allows for more story arc.


----------



## pauldude000

Joseph Turkot said:


> Ok here it is...it starts to rain and...it never stops.
> 
> I would need a plausible scenario where Earth's weather did this, so I might be screwed right off the bat.
> 
> It would be a fight for food, small boats, tallest buildings, etc. also, rumored places where "it isn't raining."
> 
> What think?


Gigantic water Ice comet hits earth, slams into pacific with the force of a thousand nuclear weapons. Just a thought, do more research. NASA has been stipulating that water is common in space anyway, unlike previously thought. Improbable but nor impossible.


----------



## Guest

Apparently science has been working on this problem as well!

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/the-life-aquatic-how-the-earth-would-look-if-all-the-ice-melted-8925734.html

If all the ice on the planet melted, sea levels would rise 216 feet. Still catastrophic, but nowhere near over 5000 feet.

You are gonna need a whole helluva lot of ice meteors to make up the difference.


----------

