How I built these Filofax entries — step-by-step (teaching note)
Goal: create believable personal Filofax diary entries for a young teenager (ages 14–15) living in the Fallout setting. Constraints: keep voice authentic to a young person, reflect the harshness and routines of a post-apocalyptic environment, show growth over a year, and avoid sexual content. Steps used below:
- Choose perspective and voice: first-person present/past with plain, immediate language, occasional slang or short sentences to reflect a teenager’s rhythm.
- Set the environment: mention concrete sensory details (smell of oil, taste of canned peaches, dust on the window) to root entries in the world without long exposition.
- Alternate short daily notes with longer reflective entries: Filofax entries often include quick lists and longer recollections, so mix both to simulate real diary habits.
- Show growth: include small but visible changes in responsibilities, thoughts, and feelings between ages 14 and 15 (more chores, more trust, more fear, and clearer goals).
- Keep it safe and realistic: avoid gratuitous danger or sensationalism, keep relationships appropriate for a minor, and focus on survival, friendships, and family.
Filofax Entries — Lucy MacLean, Ages 14–15
Age 14 — 9th month after the Fall
9/6 — Woke up to Dad hammering again. He says the latch on the supply room door has to be stronger. I like the hammer noise when it’s steady; it makes the house feel like it’s holding itself up. Stopped by the well at dusk to fetch water and found a small tin with a picture of a dog inside. It had rusted edges but the dog was smiling. I put it in my Filofax next to the grocery list. Mags and I traded two hardtacks for a bit of dried apricot. She still laughs when I pretend to be a Raider when we play, but we both know jokes are practice for when something real happens.
9/9 — School today in the backroom, if you can call Miss June’s lessons school. She taught reading by candlelight and made us write letters to people we wish were still around. I wrote one to my Grandma even though she can’t read it. I think writing helps me keep the shape of things: towns, names, the smell of her bread when we could still bake. After, I helped patch a coat. There’s a smell in the hem of that coat like smoke and oranges — odd memory for odd times. I’m learning to sew with small stitches so my hands remember steadiness.
9/18 — List for today: well bucket patch, fetch batteries at Harrow’s, look for a metal comb, practice knot-tying, check rabbit traps. Found a cassette tape in a burned car; the plastic almost melted. I don’t know what the music is on it yet. Nora taught me how to test batteries by sparking a tiny bulb; my fingers tingled in a way I liked—not painful, just alive. The little things that work make us all a bit bolder.
9/27 — We had a visitor from the settlement down the road. He traded us salt for two jars of peaches. I helped preserve them. Standing over the pot, stirring and smelling the sugar, I felt normal. It’s strange how normal can sit on top of everything else like a bandage. Later, I snuck outside and wrote a list of things I want to learn: 1) Morse code. 2) Fix a generator. 3) Be brave when someone needs me. I put the list under the dog picture in case I forget.
Age 14 — Winter closing in
11/3 — Snow today. The white makes the world look like blank paper. We covered the windows with thick cloth and counted supplies aloud like prayers. I helped string up extra blankets in the loft where the little ones sleep. You’d be surprised what a story and a hot pebble can do for a child in the middle of the night. Mags told a story about the old city lights and I thought about what a city would look like—maybe a place where you don’t have to tie your shoes to keep them from being stolen.
11/19 — Someone left a note on the supply board: 'Keep watch, shift starting at dawn.' I’m on the early shift this week because Dad says I’m steady and small enough to move quiet. Dawn is cold and sharp; the air feels like it will cut. We walked the perimeter and saw tracks that weren’t ours—maybe foxes, maybe something else. My heart runs faster in the dark. I learned to breathe into my belly and count to ten. Counting works better than pretending not to be scared.
Age 15 — Spring, the second year after the Fall
4/2 — I turned fifteen two days ago. The whole house tried to make it a celebration—Dad printed a card from a half-burnt book and we ate pea stew with an extra spoonful of sugar. I feel older but not grown. There’s more to do now: I’m on the rota to check the radios twice a week. Miss June trusts me to keep the pages of her journal dry during rain. I wrote a small promise in the Filofax: 'Learn to fix the radio by summer.' It feels important to make promises to myself as if they can be a steering wheel.
4/10 — Ran into Em at the market. He’s a year older and half full of plans. He talked about a ruined factory two miles east with metal and maybe a working motor. He asked if I wanted to come and I said maybe. I am scared of 'maybe' and yet the way the words sat in my mouth made me want to go. For now I said I'd check my list of things to bring: rope, spare gloves, a magnet, two jars, and something to write with—always something to write with. Em smiled like he knew why the small things matter.
4/21 — We scavenged the factory. It smelled like oil and old cotton and something coppery. I found a broken compass and a smooth piece of metal with letters stamped into it, half-hidden under a beam. Em and I worked together lifting a panel. There was a moment when the beam wobbled and my knees shook and Em said, 'Steady.' I am collecting moments like that—small nudges from other people that teach me how to be brave in ways that are not loud. Came back with a dented wrench and three usable bolts. The radio parts we hoped for were there, but fragile. I kept a tiny coil in my pocket like a prize.
Age 15 — Summer, responsibilities change
7/2 — The generator has died twice this week. Dad says if we can keep the radio working we can call the convoy that passes through in late summer. I’m in charge of inventory now. That feels big—my handwriting is all over the supply list. I cross things off like I am erasing chaos. Sometimes I miss being the kid who played Raider with Mags and didn't care about oil seals and fuel rationing, but being needed is another kind of play, one I’m starting to like.
7/19 — A kid from the south settlement came by with a broken watch and big ideas about trading. He told stories of a place with a green patch that stays green without rain. I wrote it down and then scratched it out because I don’t know if I should believe in places that sound like myths. But I keep the entry because believing might be necessary to wake up with purpose. We bartered for two jars of peaches and an old map fragment. The map is torn and the ink faded, but there’s a mark that could be a pond. I keep hoping the map has an honest shape to it.
7/30 — Night watch on the ridge. The sky shows more stars here than any of us remember. Em and I sat in silence for a long time until he hummed a tune he said his grandmother used to sing. The tune is simple and makes my chest ache. I think about what we'll tell our children about these nights — whether we should speak in fantastical colors to make the truth softer. I wrote a long line in the Filofax tonight: 'Promise to learn the tune.' Small things again. The generator sputtered to life for a few hours and we all cheered like the noise was applause.
Age 15 — Autumn, deciding what to learn
10/5 — Miss June let me use her toolbox for practice. I sat for an hour taking apart and putting together the old transistor radio. My fingers learned the feel of screws and the language of solder. It’s a small victory when a dial turns smooth. I think I like the idea of being someone who fixes things. If you can fix a radio you can bring a voice back to a place, and voices matter more than food sometimes. I taped the dog picture to the inside cover of the Filofax where I can see it while I work.
10/27 — Harvest festival today, if you can call the jars of pickles a festival. We made a lantern out of a jar and an old bulb. Kids ran with it until the glass cracked and Mom glared and then laughed. Laughter is a muscle; the more we use it the stronger it gets. Dad told a story about when the city still had a river and real boats. I tried to imagine water moving under a bridge that isn’t half ruined. It’s hard to draw river in my head but I like the attempt.
11/12 — I found a note folded into the Filofax that I must have written earlier: 'If ever you forget why—look at the dog.' Tonight I did. Simple picture, simple promise. I write a lot now to remember. Learned to balance the books for the first time—actual numbers that match the jars and the bolts. I was proud in a way that felt warm and quiet. Em left a scrap of paper that said 'Go East' and a doodle of a star. He’s restless and I am too in small ways. Maybe next spring we’ll try the river on the map fragment.
Closing note: These entries are stitched together to show a year in the life of a young person learning responsibility and hope after the Fall. The Filofax-style presentation alternates lists, quick notes, and reflective paragraphs to sound authentic—small details (like a tin dog picture, a cassette tape, or a coil from a radio) serve as anchors that make the world specific. If you’re writing similar material: keep language concrete, give the character small private rituals (a picture in the Filofax, a tune to hum), and let their tasks and failures shape emotional growth. Above all, let the daily routines of survival be the backdrop for very human moments—friendship, fear, curiosity, and the slow building of competence.