# A broken future



## PaperbackWriter (Oct 17, 2015)

I've had several recurring dreams which seem to take place in a familiar setting made less familiar by some kind of natural disaster, perhaps mixed with a calamitous social crisis. I really want to write a short story about it but my details are so sketchy and when I try to imagine the world for my story, it's very vague. Googling and other research methods are proving overwhelming. Too much information and no clear indication of which specific search criteria to use.

I'd like to make my story take place in the distant future and I feel it should be humorous with a dark tinge to it.

Where do I start with my research??


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## PhunkyMunky (Oct 27, 2015)

I wish you luck. I rely heavily on imagination and past stories or movies. Just because it's easy, I've watched a lot of Post Apoc stuff. For some reason I find that sort of thing to be a bit of Wild West and so I enjoy them as much as I do Louis L'Amour books and such. 

A realistic depiction? If it's distant future you're talking about, go watch "Life After People". It's, I think, an accurate depiction of how life would be after humans are gone. Now, you can use the same imagery concepts for a severely reduced population. That is... If the scenario isn't an asteroid or nukes that hit the earth or some such destructive force. You can five the video on YouTube. Be ready to take notes and backtrack as needed. 

But this is only for distant future imagery when you are building your world. And you would have to adjust depending on the scenario you choose to use for the cataclysm.


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## Blade (Oct 27, 2015)

PaperbackWriter said:


> I'd like to make my story take place in the distant future and I feel it should be humorous with a dark tinge to it.
> 
> Where do I start with my research??



I think that because the world is rapidly changing with the opportunity to dart off in any direction the concept of 'distant future' is wide open. I think the only appropriate form of research would be your imagination and that all else would be both comical and useless.:ambivalence:

I don't know if you have ever seen articles from the 50's or 60's where experts lay out their predictions for the future.:nightmare: All I could say is that they are stunning in their error. If you are talking centuries it really is wide open. I have just started a history of Medieval England where the author notes in the introduction that there is more information in a week of modern life than in four centuries of the Medieval era. Something to keep in mind.:-k


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