Young Writers Society

Though I typically write for a variety of genres, recently, I've moved on to ideas revolving around mostly apocalypses.

The most recent one I have is post-apocalyptic, and though I'm thrilled to be getting more ideas, I still want to ensure that it's as non-cliche as possible - which I know is fairly impossible because nearly nothing is original these days, but I might as well try.

Anyway, here goes:

A year or two following the end of the apocalypse, the government of the area is attempting to get back up and running, despite the existence of a multitude of issues to deal with. Thus, the government is fairly weak, but still looking to help its people.
Now, the people on the other hand, have conflicting views on how they should recover from the apocalypse as a nation, which only adds on to the difficulty of forming a strong government. Still, the majority of the people are mainly concerned with one thing - appearing strong. Just picture Sparta. That's what they want.
Of course, many disagree, but since they are the majority, they have the most power over the actions the government will take.
The varying beliefs are expressed by people in organizations. There are organizations representing all concerns, and many often go around, give "inspiration speeches" to gather more followers.

So, one day, several members of an organization representing the majority's beliefs, visit a high school to attempt to persuade students to join them.
This event is planned and all details (ie. time when they arrive, what they will discuss, etc.) are given out by teachers.
However, many of these students have already formed their own opinions, and quite a few disagree with the organization visiting.
So, a group of students get together and plan a whole bunch of crap out, and do not show up to school the day the organization visits until later. The students enter the school building with weapons and the school is on immediate lockdown. They are successful in taking the members of the organization hostage and demand to speak with the leader of the organization.

Now, following this, though, the students don't have much of an idea of what they're planning to do. There is one student keeping an eye out on the future, and has great ambitions and plans, but does not reveal them to her peers. All the other students know is what they will be doing to the hostages.

I'm planning to make the students unsuccessful in the end. They are captured by the government, handed over to the organization, tortured, and finally killed.
The story will be written in journal entry format, and in the end, it is a teacher reading the journals, after having ordered artifacts from the building in which the students were tormented and killed.

So...thoughts? Opinions?

Interesting plot! There's a few issues that need to be picked at though, it might be best to work around these before diving straight into the plot.

Highschool

It's hard to imagine a highschool being up and running just a year or so after the apocalypse, especially when the government hasn't even found its feet yet. Depending on the type of apocalypse, food and safety would be of a high importance and sending able bodies to go sit in a classroom would be impractical.

A lot of kids don't want to go to school anyway, especially if there are other more important things that could give them purpose. Also, after this level of trauma I can't see them just leaving their groups (since many wouldn't still have families) and going to sit in a building and listen.

'Funding' would have to come from somewhere, and if the world has gone to pots then money wouldn't mean much. These teachers and pupils would need to be compensated for their time and energy that could be spent doing more practical things.

Persuading students

Modern society puts a lot more emphasis on youth and students than it used to. We now understand the power they have over our future, and the importance of lifting them up to be the best they can be. They also tend to have more time and money, which is why so much advertisements are geared towards them, too.

In a post-apocalyptic world this idea would be shredded. We'd be back to basics, and if everybody is trying to survive in a lawless environment, it's every man woman and child for themselves. That means there isn't time to plant seeds and nurture our future, because there isn't much future there.

If you wanted to gain votes you'd target those leading larger groups of people, or with more resources, rather than highschoolers who are probably some of the weakest members of the new society.

Motives

Is it that you don't know why they'd hijack the meeting or is it that they don't know? This whole plot seems to hang on the fact that they're doing it, so that should be one of your first priorities.

Other than that
This is a really neat idea! It's not something I've seen done before, and I reckon it has soo much potential for psychological thrillerish stuff.

Highschool

It's hard to imagine a highschool being up and running just a year or so after the apocalypse, especially when the government hasn't even found its feet yet. Depending on the type of apocalypse, food and safety would be of a high importance and sending able bodies to go sit in a classroom would be impractical.

A lot of kids don't want to go to school anyway, especially if there are other more important things that could give them purpose. Also, after this level of trauma I can't see them just leaving their groups (since many wouldn't still have families) and going to sit in a building and listen.

'Funding' would have to come from somewhere, and if the world has gone to pots then money wouldn't mean much. These teachers and pupils would need to be compensated for their time and energy that could be spent doing more practical things.

Would setting the story a few more years past that assist in resolving the issue in anyway?

Persuading students

Modern society puts a lot more emphasis on youth and students than it used to. We now understand the power they have over our future, and the importance of lifting them up to be the best they can be. They also tend to have more time and money, which is why so much advertisements are geared towards them, too.

In a post-apocalyptic world this idea would be shredded. We'd be back to basics, and if everybody is trying to survive in a lawless environment, it's every man woman and child for themselves. That means there isn't time to plant seeds and nurture our future, because there isn't much future there.

If you wanted to gain votes you'd target those leading larger groups of people, or with more resources, rather than highschoolers who are probably some of the weakest members of the new society.

So perhaps a meeting that forces all people (of an area) to attend?

Motives

Is it that you don't know why they'd hijack the meeting or is it that they don't know? This whole plot seems to hang on the fact that they're doing it, so that should be one of your first priorities.

Well, I think it would be more realistic that each student part of the group would have different motives behind taking the members hostage and using them to get some say on the decisions being made (basically, pointing out the direction the students think the nation needs to go in).
For instance, (and please forgive me if these ideas aren't concrete, considering I just developed the idea yesterday) I'm probably going to have some character only be in the team purely for the fact he was blackmailed into it. Another idea is having another student being involved only to impress his/her relative who would be a high-ranking member in an organization against the one holding the meeting.
Is it necessary to have a general motive, other than shared hatred for the organization?

Other than that
This is a really neat idea! It's not something I've seen done before, and I reckon it has soo much potential for psychological thrillerish stuff.

Thank you! I really hope that it does have the potential you say it does and that I can put its potential to use.

Post-apocalyptic scenarios generally mean a breakdown of society, of government, of family. That the damage done is so great that we can no longer function as we once did without vast steps at recovery. I would imagine it would be way more then a year or two, for them to reach the point of formal education again might require nearly 30-100 years depending on the damage. It's not just a matter of plugging up the wifi again and everything going back to normal. People would have died, a vast majority would have. The man power needed to control this world of ours, and most of the people who know how it works would be dead, and the left over data almost all gone. School as we know it (in a class room) would be after years and years of re-organizing, reconstruction, and then a bunch more picking up the pieces.

This is all just brainstorming, adopt or adapt whichever ideas you like best, or that fit your plot.


Highschool

For it to be plausible I think you'd have to set it up at least twenty or thirty years into the future, or further than that depending on the catastrophy and how long it takes for people to find a stable means of life. Even then, school would be very different from what we see it as.

It does depend on your story though.

You could have highschool-esque places where kids could be taught skills like fighting and hunting in return for some kind of pay like food.

During the war when schools closed down due to evacuations, there were still people running small schools, some out of bunkers or abandoned houses, for orphans and homeless kids who were left behind.

In previous years (1700's and 1800's kind of time) there were special 'clubs' set up for women where they would go and secretly be taught to read and write. If education is seen as a waste of time then you could send kids to a 'hunting club' or something where they could secretly continue learning.


Persuading students

Aiming it at all people would work. There are other ways around it, too.

It might just be that youth were the most likely to turn up because they were the most naive, or that there was bait offered that appealed to them.

Youth have been recruited for other reasons. In some countries children are turned into soldiers because they're easier to control and people are less likely to kill them.

Adverts asking for money to aid undeveloped countries often feature starving children because they have more of an impact, so having brave kids as alongside them can provide quite a powerful symbol.


Motives

Motives bring your characters to life and drive the story, so thinking about these will inspire the plot to grow in some interesting directions. Our motives are also a crucial part of who we are, and without motive characters tend to end up quite circumstancial and two dimensional.

They're too important to miss out. Hatred is an emotion, and there needs to be something that triggers it. The ideas you've got so far are cool! Keep working on those thoughts and don't let yourself slack when it comes to the other characters.

I'd recommend writing the numbers 1-20 on some paper and writing twenty reasons why you might hate an organisation. They can be as silly or complex as you want- but don't stop until you've got twenty!

It'll force you to think outside the box and when you're done you'll have plenty of ideas to play around with.

Keep me up to date on how this goes =]

What caused this apocalypse? What exactly happened to crumble a nation, but public systems are back functioning so soon and the government is still weak? Explain more is what I say.