Fifty Horror Clichés That Need to Die in a Fire

#11: Humanity is Screwed

  When it comes to most authors in popular culture today and vastly into the past, humanity is a brittle substance that by all means should be handled with care.  Due to their naturally occurring character trait to cause massive chaos facing dangerous foes such as a zombie-like plague or the random cruelty of Mother Nature, humanity's structures easily shatter even after hundreds of years of function.  Overnight, governments completely shutdown and the power stations all across the world diminish completely.  Without either functions, humanity crawls on its knees to a low popularity density of only a few million survivors compared to today's seven million.  The world becomes a society where only the strong survive for another day.  You are lucky to live to thirty as people fight to the death over resources or become victims themselves to the phenomenon occurring.  Despite a lucky few retaining hope that they can rebuild society one day, it is obvious that in a matter of years, humanity will face complete extinction.  People wait in their buried graves for the final cries of humanity to surge out, dying alongside them completely in vain.

  While this what-if scenario is interesting on paper, when fully executed it falls under the weight of its depressing circumstances.  Everyone who is going to read this story will eventually if not by reading the depressive title figure out that this universe of utter hopelessness is just going to end with humanity being vanquished yet again like in stories similar to it.  Being a complete copycat to apocalyptic tales before it, almost all stories from this form of horror end up just merely paper cutouts of The Walking Dead or The Stand.  With the story only existing to copy the preexisting material, the reader ditches it not even seventeen pages in with a bad sour taste in their mouths.  Worse is the depiction of human kind as mere savages.  While humanity has done terrible things in the past, especially in desperate times such as war, history has taught us not to repeat the mistakes of our ancestors.  When faced with a potentially disastrous foe, they use these past mistakes as a template to avoid anything similar but not the same in the future.  The second a zombie comes out, humanity is not going to be almost completely wiped out within a few weeks.  Instead, the zombie will be dealt with before the problem even spreads, saving the lives of billions worldwide.  Although humanity can fall to chaos at times, in the end it will not so easily crumble like in these stories.  It is for the formulaic plot and unrealistic circumstances that these storylines will fail upon delivery.

  Instead of making humanity fall to its hands and knees in these storylines, make them be able to unite together to face the crisis.   Like in The Walking Dead, in the face of total annihilation, people come together in groups to fight off whatever the conflicting body may be.  Although not everyone will agree and periodic fights have the potential to break out, the hope of winning never dies.  Even in the face of this horror, humans fight together as one to reclaim their stand on the world once more.  Progress comes in the form of well structured civilizations built by well meaning people such as The Walking Dead comic and TV show character Ezekiel with his Kingdom.  Though a few savages like the bat-wielding Negan will appear from time to time, eventually they will fall from giving into the chaos.  The peacekeepers survive to continue humanity and to fight off the ongoing threat.  They will continue to keep fighting no matter how grim the circumstances may be until some form of victory can be salvaged once and for all.  Hope becomes the tool in keeping humanity alive despite the grim outlook.

Giving hope to the characters breaks the depressive formula in most apocalypse themed storylines.  Now the audience has a reason to continue reading the story with a fleshed out narrative that could go in any direction.  You can end it any way you wish, while it be completely positive, bittersweet, or if written well enough, negative.  All you need to do is make the story your own with the hope motif as a strong element in the storyline.  Not only will the final result be a lot more fun to play with as a writer, but it will captivate the audience who chooses to read it.  It is much better than just writing another tale of humanity's downfall that will most definitely leave you depressed.  The story becomes a flexible orchestra that you can play with in any way you wish.

  My advice in the end of the day when dealing with the cliché of humanity being hopeless in horror stories is to bend it to your own will.  Depending on how you decide to write it, the story can go in a million new, interesting ways.  As writers, our goal in life is to craft stories of our own creation that hopefully the audience can enjoy.  Changing up the formula even just a little bit can make you help accomplish this goal.  All you need is the same element humanity in these apocalyptic tales crave to hold onto; hope.  Hope is the key to creating whatever you wish, no matter how impossible the odds may be.