Disease & Your Stories

There's always some problem that must be solved in a story, and in speculative fiction, it can be really strange. How about a mutation or new sort of parasite that can kill you? It's certainly plausible, as this sad article describes, to die from an amoeba infection by a (pardon the pun) fluke.

So, given a radical new way to die, what can we do with it?

A number of possibilities come to mind.

First off, you have the classic "parent protecting the child who is ill" tale.

Or the old trope where alien invasion is preceded or accomplished by parasites. Your mileage may vary on this one, but its been particularly fruitful for screenplays or teleplays.

And the reversal, the old Mars Attacks! idea, where we turn the tables and it's a little ol' Earth bug or small thing which is the aliens' Achilles Heel. Instead of playing Slim Pickins' yodeling to explode their oversized heads, you could have the simple common cold do them in. Or perhaps they are susceptible to fungus.

Then there is the ecological horror story where we might bring something back from space. Again, big in tele- or screenplays.

So many possibilities, so little time. Probably most of them are more geared toward horror, which isn't my bag, but you really could explore the social upheaval, the personal costs, the tragedies that cause a space colony to fail, etc. Quite a fertile field to plow, really.

But the most horror-filled bit I can think of is the scenario in the actual news story. A disease that fewer than ten people have died of striking your family? Killing your child?

That's unimaginably horrifying. My sympathies to the poor family.

(And did I mention my fear of parasites? I may never be able to swim in our lakes up here again. *shudders*)