Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-35752811-20180608135038/@comment-9041013-20180608154944

La Muerte Negra, Alovit!

I am going to write a Plague story of my own soon, it will be different from yours though, so no worries. I like how this worked very well in terms of realism. It played into the realm of Justinians Plague and The Black Death of the middle ages instead of going into the realm of "Zombie Apocalypse" proportions.

Some things that are wrong about the plague though, it's actually three disease that are lethal to humans, Bubonic, Pneumonic and Septicemic. Death could occur to a variaty of reasons or should I say, system breaks. The symptoms usually overlap with one or two being typical of a certain type. You don't details her death or more serious symptoms so we can't tell how she died, but I'll guess it's Septicemic because in case of the Pneumonic, masks won't really save you, as people make the disease airbourne by coughing and sneezing.

Also, the Plague never went away, it still infects around the 600-700 people a year, mostly in poor countries killing up to one tenth of them with treatment involved. So, you could change the notion of "Where did this plague come from" to "How it got to America" (Even though apparently there were two outbreaks last year in NM or Arizona if I'm not mistaken). Also, just a fun fact, did you know it originally spread to europe as the Black Death due to the Mongols using the corpses of their troops who fell to the strain as biological weapon?

I feel like the life on the train contains not enough conflicts, it must've been a very tense, very harsh atmosphere on that train but everyone seems to be working their part as if they are a piece inside a swiss watch. Maybe describe another argument or just a scenery of people being tense and distraught around the train.

The aesthetics of the piece itself were kind of offputting, you should go for an opening paragraph that is styled like the futuristic doctor talking about the diary and such, describe to the reader that the following is from the diary, do the whole plot, and then revert back to the futuristic doctor with a closing statement, the lines were just so out of place.

Overall, I liked it!