From what I have been able to determine, there are various genres to choose for your apocalypse.
Let’s have a look at some of those scenarios:
Planetary destruction, where the Earth is reduced to floating debris.
- Meteor/comet impact
- Solar supernova
- Aliens (think Vogon destructor fleet)
Environmental destruction, where the atmosphere/environment of the planet becomes unliveable.
- Global ice age
- Solar storm
- Global flood
- Pole shift
- Yellowstone
- Oxygen depletion
- Nuclear Winter
Human eradication where the planet remains, but humanity is stripped from it.
- Zombies
- Alien invasion/harvest
- Super plague
- Biblical Revelation
- AI
- Vampires/other supernatural creatures
- Loss of fertility
- Human mental breakdown
Now that we have established the basics, you need to decide what stage of the apocalypse you want to write about.
- Pre-apocalyptic – Are your characters going to have a chance to stop the apocalypse, or is it inevitable?
- Apocalyptic – How much of humanity will survive?
- Post-apocalyptic – What does your post apocalyptic world look like?
From that, you can build a template to throw characters into. The story will be how your characters react in these impossible situations.
Get to it 🙂