Authorpreneur Dashboard – Denise R Stephenson
Isolation
Science Fiction & Fantasy
Isolation depicts a bleak but recognizable future in which the fear of contagion reaches a fever pitch as a bacterial epidemic catapults the US into an apocalyptic crisis. Touch is outlawed. Mothers like Maggie bind their infants' hands, terrified they might slip fingers into mouths. Gary, a Sterilizer, uses robots to scour the infected, avoiding all contact with human flesh. Trevor, the Chief Enforcer, watches, eager to report any and all infractions. One inadvertent touch will change all of their lives.
Book Bubbles from Isolation
Isolation
Science Fiction & Fantasy
Isolation depicts a bleak but recognizable future in which the fear of contagion reaches a fever pitch as a bacterial epidemic catapults the US into an apocalyptic crisis. Touch is outlawed. Mothers like Maggie bind their infants' hands, terrified they might slip fingers into mouths. Gary, a Sterilizer, uses robots to scour the infected, avoiding all contact with human flesh. Trevor, the Chief Enforcer, watches, eager to report any and all infractions. One inadvertent touch will change all of their lives.
Book Bubbles from Isolation
Don't Touch
In Isolation, not touching our own faces is one of the first horrible laws the government levels against Homelanders in a seeming effort to keep them safe. It's not fear of Ebola that threatens life as we know it, but bacteria which have become so resistant it's nearly impossible to stop people from dying when they get simple infections. In this early excerpt from the novel, women in a West Virginia holler sit on their porch and discuss this unwelcome and seemingly absurd rule.
Newsworthy
I researched bacteria, GMOs, Agri-business. The research was interesting and gave me lots of ideas. But deciding how to blend fiction and reality wasn't easy. While Isolation is a dystopia in which the world falls apart from food-borne bacteria, it's important to have a reader trust in the veracity of the characters' situation; even though in the real world antibiotics are still a viable solution to most bacterial illnesses. Though a post-antibiotic age is already being hypothesized.But a scientific hypothesis is like good fiction, it's not real--yet. One of the techniques I used to develop believable scenarios was to write news articles in the midst of the section called "Don't Touch." These articles form a backdrop to the fictional world and read as unfolding news stories. Hopefully, they allow the character-driven fiction to not fall into any didactically boring moments. That was the goal. But you be the judge. Here's one example.
Beyond Voices
I was surprised when the first paramedic's voice in this scene was casual and unprofessional. Then I thought about the many young men I've known who trained to be paramedics and realized how easy it would be for them to react this way in an all-male situation. And yet, beyond the voices, the look exchanged by the paramedics says more than I ever could. An explanation would bore readers, but the look and the subsequent masking they do speaks fear in a visceral way. This takes place in the first pages of the novel and readers won't be sure what is causing the blood or the fear, but like Tomás before he slips from consciousness, they know it can't be good.
Characters Keep Returning
Sister Georgia is a character that I first discovered when I wrote a monolog for Attention Deficit Drama in Michigan. In that monolog "Rockin," she has no name and directly addresses a northern do-gooder who has shown up on her porch back in the holler. Later, the character reappeared when I wrote a creative non-fiction piece called "Middle of Nowhere" which talked about many of out-of-the-way places I've lived in: Iowa; West Virginia; Sitka, Alaska; the San Joaquin Valley. Finally, she showed up in my novel Isolation where her accent and perspective on not wanting any change were both strong and clear. I love her to death—literally.
