the rise
a novel
concept: David Towner
novel: Kris Kemp
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novels for inspiration …
The Andromeda Strain
by Michael Crichton
Sphere
by Michael Crichton
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source: https://www.wikihow.com/Write-Apocalyptic-Stories
write an ending early on in the process. decide how and where the characters end up, so you can thread a story leading up to this.
make the plot believable even if the premise isn’t.
get all the plots and sub-plots tied off, at the climax, unless you’re planning for a series of books.
good premise + good characters who are compelling in order to get a reader emotionally invested in the outcome
make sure your character has specific goals (what they want to do) and specific values (what they value and are willing to fight for, work for, etc) and a specific way of seeing the world and a specific way of expressing themselves
what are the psychological effects of the crisis situation on the characters?
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what genre is the novel? apocalyptic fiction, a sub-genre of science fiction
what are the basic guidelines for a science fiction, apocalyptic novel that readers expect?
An apocalyptic novel is a sub-genre
introduce a chapter explaining methane gas on the ocean floor
maybe scientists and geologists who are studying this notice something afoot, something different, temperature wise.
introduce characters
style and taste of characters
how do they dress? how does their house or apartment look? what type of music do they listen to?
gesture
how do the characters react with their feelings? are they silent? do they yell and scream? do they sob?
how do they interact with their gestures?
gesture
how do the characters express themselves with their words?
hopes and fears
what is the thing that your character wants and fears most?
motivation
make sure your protagonist wants something. wanting something is what makes protagonists interesting. It’s what gets readers invested and curious to find out if the character gets what he wants.
gmail: theriseanovel@gmail.com
uploaded: Mega.nz
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the rise
idea concept: David Towner
novel: Kris Kemp
the rise
Around the world, water starts to rise from the ground, slowly at first, then accelerating in speed, growing in volume. Initially, people assume that this is only happening in their geographical area, but then find out from news media sources that this appears to be happening globally. Alarms are sounded and panic sets in as scientists, geologists, and specialists work to solve the crisis. As the water continues to rise without any indication of stopping, people within suburbs, towns, and cities rush to reach higher ground. Due to the waters rising rate of acceleration, many are trapped, stranded on rooftops, the tops of buildings, even trees. The water continues to rise. Some try to swim. Unbeknownst to them, once the water reaches a depth of 20 meters, flesh-eating creatures stalk them beneath the surface.
– Planes try to land and slide across the water. Some pilots stay in the air, hoping the water levels will decrease until, seeing that their planes are low on fuel, are forced to land.
– Airports in higher elevations, like Denver, Colorado, are inundated with requests to land, and these higher-level landing strips quickly become overcrowded, forcing pilots to compete for an ever-shrinking safe place to land.
– Cargo ships, unable to dock, sit stranded, loaded with supplies of merchandise, food, building materials, and more. Ironically, these fully-loaded cargo ships are anchored within view of the port workers who are also stranded on the 3rd floor of the port building.
– Due to the water rise, trains are unable to run, causing even more supply shortages.
– Due to flooded roads, trucks are unable to run their loads.
– Due to the rapid rise of water, supply lines are stopped entirely. All over the United States of America, and all over the world, shipping containers, stocked with merchandise, food, supplies, and other items, sit idle, abandoned. Like steel coffins they remain closed, waiting for the water to rise around them. Like giant steel safety deposit boxes, their contents hide mystery treasures much needed, yet abandoned and left locked by delivery drivers who want to save their own lives.
Shipping containers on parked, unmanned trucks sit idle as the water creeps its way up toward them. Shipping containers on cargo ships, stacked like iron building blocks, full of much-needed items.
The value and the price of rafts, canoes, kayaks, motor boats skyrockets in price. They are sold out within a week.
– Spurred on by hunger, fear, and courage, small groups of people band together to retrieve the items from inside the shipping containers on the parked trucks, arriving in motor boats and even canoes. Some fight over the supplies. Some share them. Some sell them. Some guard them with their own ready-to-use weapons in order to protect their lives and their family’s lives.
– Due to the rise, cruise ships are unable to dock, leaving them stranded near the docks, then racing toward docks that have higher
– Ships approach islands that are already, for the most part, submerged, then race toward finding higher ground
– One ship, full of passengers, witnesses a plane that’s run out of fuel, attempting to land on the ocean, the plane successfully lands and survivors swim out. The cruise ship passengers as well as coast guard attempt to help.
– Submarines are put on high alert as they determine what to do next
– Oil rig platforms
– People on luxury yacht
– a guy canoeing on the Suwannee River with a friend
– How does the Coast Guard react?
– incorporate someone craving Cheetos, coffee, chocolate, potato chips, Doritos
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They said it would happen in 2012.
They were wrong.
They said it would happen in 2021.
They were wrong.
No one expected 2026 to be the day that it would happen … the beginning of the end.
the rise
nature can’t be tamed
This time …
This can’t be stopped.
There is nothing you can do.
Except survive.
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Prologue
Henry Cedar started at the massive sinkhole. The enormous empty space stretched the length of 25 yards on all sides, as if a giant excavator had broke the surface and the subsurface had been vacuumed clean, it’s contents nowhere to be seen / completely gone.
Cautiously, he approached the edge of the sinkhole and peered into its depths—a square-shaped hole, a vast cavity, that stretched into the unseeable darkness.
He called his wife.
“Belinda, I’m out on the north end.”
“Is everything okay?” She asked, sensing he concern in his voice.
“No,” he answered flatly. “Come out here. Bring the truck.”
He retrieved his cell phone from his dusty overalls and aimed it toward the massive hole. Turning the phone horizontally, he peered through the lens. The fissure exceeded the phones view. Slowly, he walked backwards. Twenty five steps later, seeing the entire sinkhole in view, he pressed the camera button.
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Chapter 1
It started with sinkholes. Appearing overnight throughout the country. At first, the sinkholes appeared in rural areas scattered across the midwest, over the 500+ acre tract farms that dot/pepper the U.S. from Southern California to Central Florida. This was only a part in what was yet to come. In the days and weeks following, sinkholes opened in suburbs and major cities.
It was as if someone had taken a giant straw, poked it into the earth’s surface, then sucked up its contents. And then repeated this all over the earth, leaving deep, empty holes in their wake. How this was happening simultaneously around the world was anyone’s guess. And guessing they were.
Although no human lives were lost, at least during the initial round of sinkholes, the casualties to animals and crops was catastrophic. Overnight, millions of dollars in prized cattle and ripe crops was lost, eaten up by the cavernous, toothless sinkholes whose depth and origin and cause remained a mystery. The pitch black center seemed seemed to extinguish any trace of light, and life, itself.
The jagged edges of these square-shaped, pitch black holes gave them the appearance of a giant mouth, opened wide. Instead of teeth: rock, jagged stones, broken roots.
The chain of events triggered by the sinkholes was almost unfathomable. As a result of the unexpected phenomena, and the resulting loss of cattle and loss of crops, the prices of beef, soy, and wheat skyrocketed. Due to the exorbitant rise in food prices, restaurants unable to afford the ingredients for their menu items, quickly went out of business. Beef was being sold for astronomical amounts. Online websites like Ebay and scattered stores across the far reaches of the Dark Web soon became the only place to purchase any kind of meat. The demand got to the point that greedy shysters began kidnapping pets, euthanizing them, carving them up, and selling them online as beef. The value of and the price of foods and merchandise was skyrocketing and the sales prices hit astronomical levels.
The value of the American dollar, however, continued to plummet. Like the rise of water that accelerated in volume and mass, hyperinflation was upon us as well.
While scientists and geologists studied and speculated the cause of the sinkholes …
While profit-driven speculators posted pictures of beef on Ebay …
While stock market enthusiasts and day traders pillaged the available sources of “meat substitutes” and “wheat substitutes” and “plant-based proteins” and equivalent sources of grain and protein …
While high rollers invested in the limited availability of real beef and real wheat futures ….
While the mainstream media looked at the crisis situation like a 20-sided Rubik’s Cube, identifying the most sensational angle in order to build their audience number and bolster their ratings and generate greater costs for advertising …
While the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) and FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) were setting up base stations to study the situation and offer help to those affected …
While all branches of the military were put on high alert, on standby, in order to protect America from any enemies seen and unseen that might be behind the sinkholes …
While the President prepared to declare a State of Emergency for North America, in order to limit and restrict sales of food and merchandise in order to prohibit stockpiling of the limited and dwindling supplies …
While all this was happening …
Far below the surface of the earth …
And far above the the surface of the earth ….
Things were being set into motion of a far greater consequence, one that offered no seeming way of escape possible.
Things both natural and unnatural, far beyond the scope of our imagination, were being set into motion by forces on an intelligence level vastly superior to ours.
In short, the unthinkable was happening.
The sinkholes were only the beginning.
Chapter 2
Cattle farming is all Henry Cedar knew.
One of seven children, he had grown up on a farm and started working at age eight, learning how to help run a cattle farm, from livestock management to running a tractor, which he learned how to do at age 12.
Henry had an uncanny ability for mechanical work. One later afternoon, when Henry was only eleven years old, his dad, Tom Cedar, discovered him repairing a 100-year old tractor that had been out of commission for nearly 15 years. Tom stood back and watched quietly in amazement. Two days later, the tractor was up-and-running.
Henry’s knack/penchant/gift for mechanical work. This would prove to be a valuable asset on a farm that spent thousands to keep things up and running. Henry’s obsession with “figuring it out like a puzzle” coupled with his ability to fix things, brought that number down to zero.
Henry was working the same cattle farm he had grown up on. HIs parents, whom he and his family looked after, lived in the house behind his. Even though he worked 12-hour days, Henry had grown used to the hours and accepted the responsibility with the quiet strength his father had exemplified.
Now, 47 years old, with a wife and three children of his own, Henry understood the value of hard work and the immense responsibility required to run a 500 acre cattle farm.
The sun was just beginning to rise, casting it’s orange glorious glow across West Texas, as Henry started the tractor and headed toward the north field.
Twenty minutes later, he shifted the gears to neutral, set the brake, and stepped off the tractor.
He adjusted his dusty cap and looked into the distance.
His mouth opened in disbelief.
Henry Cedar stared at the massive sinkhole. The enormous empty space stretched the length of 25 yards on all sides, as if a giant excavator had broke the surface and the subsurface had been vacuumed clean, it’s contents nowhere to be seen / completely gone.
Cautiously, he approached the edge of the sinkhole and peered into its depths—a square-shaped hole, a vast cavity, that stretched into the unseeable darkness.
He called his wife.
“Belinda, I’m out on the north end.”
“Is everything okay?” She asked, sensing he concern in his voice.
“No,” he answered flatly. “Come out here. Bring the truck.”
He retrieved his cell phone from his dusty overalls and aimed it toward the massive hole. Turning the phone horizontally, he peered through the lens. The fissure exceeded the phones view. Slowly, he walked backwards. Twenty five steps later, seeing the entire sinkhole in view, he pressed the camera button.
The truck, a dented, late model Ford F150, rolled to a stop beside Henry, who quietly put the phone in his pocket and shrugged. Belinda stepped from the truck. She was a stout lady with a big bottom and a slim waist, as if, from her midsection on up, she had grown out of a planter pot—her butt. From her waist up, she was petite, with a long neck that gave her a birdlike appearance. It was her neck—long and soft—with that cute head perched on top of it, that had gotten his attention in the first place, during his eleventh grade Algebra class, when she arrived as a first year transfer student from Kansas. Her neck was only the starting point, however. It was her voice, soft and quiet and like a rustling of the leaves, that inspired him to ask her on a date.
Henry looked at Belinda. Despite the extra weight, the years of struggle interspersed with moments of joy, and the familiarity that comes with marriage, he still had feelings for her. The flame had gone to a bare flicker but it was still burning nonetheless.
She looked at the sinkhole, then looked at her husband.
“Let’s get a closer look,” he said.
They walked to the front of it, scanning the massive sinkhole from one side to the other.
“Any of the cattle missing?” Belinda asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Did you call the sheriff?”
“Not yet.”
“The kids.” Belinda said.
Henry jumped into the truck, still running. Belinda was already in the driver’s seat. She turned and sped off toward the house about a 1/2 mile away.
The old truck slid to a stop at the front of the 2-story house and Belinda jumped out, racing toward the house.
“Belinda, stop!” Henry shouted. “We don’t need to … “
But she was already inside the house, rounding up her children from dreamland and rushing them to the truck.