What would happen in bio-plague scenario

I'm an amauteur author, pounding away at my laptop whenever I'm off duty. I'm starting a novel about a young woman who is the last survivor in a major metropolitan area after a plague kills off everyone on earth. Somehow immune, she must contend with solitude by day, and half-dead mutant survivors by night. I don't want this to be too much like I am legend, so does anyone have any interesting ideas or know anything about what would happen during a major plague?

This is just an idea so please don't be offended but to make your novel vastly different from those that have gone before (I Am Legend, etc) why don't you spend some time reading through the events that occured in Europe during the middle ages when millions died of the Bubonic Plague. Use Google and see what those living through the times of the plague thought and were doing!
You might come up with a completely new slant on the last man alive scenario. . .
"Best of luck with your project.

An interesting concept:

A virus that affects machines and humans.

Interesting, new, somewhat easy to elaborate fiction upon.

It would cause all the communications to fail, and lots of panic, etc.

I haven't seen that in any book or movie.

I wish you well with you writing. It is a hobby of mine also.

Having astronauts come back to earth after the danger of infection is over is an idea. There could be a space station with an attached escape module.

It's one way to end the book on a note of hope. Of course, the astronauts would be male and female. The earth could then be repopulated.

Pardon me but how exactly is it different than IAL?

Not to kill your story of course, but it sounds like almost a blow for blow account. At this point it's very hard to write a book about a plague without stepping on IAL, The Andromeda Strain, or The Stand.

I agree with the guy who said research plagues through history.

You will find some facinating tidbits that may inspire you.

I think you would do well to step away from the classical idea of a zombie. Biologically speaking it is impossible to turn someone into a "mutant" and still keep them alive.

Some research into parasites rather than plagues might do you well if it is horrible symptoms you are looking for... parasites can do some truly horrible things to their hosts, some of which do border on "zombie" behavior.

As another writer I will say this to you though. Even if your story doesn't happen during the spread of the plague, you as the author had better know what happens. You should know the actual way it happened, and the way that your character perceived it happening. If you gloss over these thigns your story will feel very flat.

Originally posted by panda319

An interesting concept:

A virus that affects machines and humans.

Interesting, new, somewhat easy to elaborate fiction upon.

It would cause all the communications to fail, and lots of panic, etc.

I haven't seen that in any book or movie.

I've seen that in Transformers.

Large city...she finds a note on another building. Someone else is alive! Note says where to find them. She goes there and finds two more notes...the original writer and another note under that. Two people! Now three people trying to find each other. She leaves a note and continues her search. Someone finds her note....etc,etc,etc.

When I was a child, watching very entertaining black and white sf-horror movies twice every saturday afternoon, the only film to actually frighten me to the point of trauma and phobia was "Attack of the Mushroom People" aka "Matango".

I'd have to say that a plague from a super strain of fungus could make a most terrifying device for your story. Taking over their victims' minds, then turning their bodies into something much worse than a zombie.

I wish I'd never seen that movie. It was too much for a child.

I am changing your premise a bit, but bear with me here....

The catch is that she (and the few million others like herself worldwide) are the ones who have the disease. The worldwide disease affects millions of people but leaves most intact. It causes its victims to misperceive their surroundings, hallucinate and think all uninfected people are zombies. At first the heroine is all alone because she has not yet contacted others of her kind and she must deal with loneliness, etc., like Will Smith in I Am Legend. But soon she joins up with others of her kind, who she believes to be uninfected. As a group they seclude themselves in the city underworld, believing themselves to be pitted against a largely zombified human race, fighting violently with the 'zombies' whenever they encounter them. The zombies seem to be trying to capture them, but to an unknown purpose.

The heroine is captured by the 'zombies' but they don't kill her. Instead, as the healthy people around her (who she thinks are zombies) gradually make inroads into her illness and, bit by bit, pierce through her hallucinations with their cure, she slowly realizes the truth.

It ends with her being the first one to be cured, she goes on to cure her enclave, and now they can help cure the rest of the human race.

Originally posted by Shystargazer
Large city...she finds a note on another building. Someone else is alive! Note says where to find them. She goes there and finds two more notes...the original writer and another note under that. Two people! Now three people trying to find each other. She leaves a note and continues her search. Someone finds her note....etc,etc,etc.

Sounds great except for one fact: Wouldn't she have seen the other people?