infographics
Discover the Plot of Your Post-Apocalyptic Novel With Our Handy Chart
Who will survive, and what will be left of them? We’ve got an easy way to figure it out
After Children of Men, The Hunger Games, The Passage, Station Eleven, the Maddaddam trilogy, Fury Road, and the upcoming Severance, are you getting post-apocalyptic story fatigue? NO YOU ARE NOT, because survivors eking out a living (or going absolutely to pieces) in the face of a world-shattering disaster is a timeless trope. We keep going back to that well because it’s fascinating to think of all the ways civilization can be destroyed and all the ways humanity can keep going—or not—regardless. Also, it beats worrying about the actual imminent end of the world.
But this morbid fascination with Armageddon means that a lot of potential doomsday scenarios have already been committed to page and screen. What if you’re intimidated by the volume of post-apocalyptic novels that have gone before, and you’re not sure where to start envisioning catastrophe? That’s where Electric Literature’s Post-Apocalyptic Novel Generator can save you (from yourself, if not from the zombies or nuclear bombs). Just use the letters of your name to create a custom-made apocalyptic plot. So for instance, if your name is Furiosa, you’d look up “f” in column A, “u” in column B, “r” in column C, and so forth, for the final result: “After the government is destroyed by an electromagnetic pulse, a half-dead teen must survive by eating the Svalbard Seed Vault.” Good luck, honey.
If your first name is less than six letters, move on to your last name (throw in your middle name too if you need to, or if you feel like it). Hooray! Can’t wait to find out how we all die!
