First things first. Zombies were people. Mothers and Fathers, Sisters and Brothers, Friends and Lovers. Zombies were all of these before my sick and twisted brain decided to have a zombie apocalypse. This is a powerful tool for an author when developing a character.
This is a free kindle very short story that I read recently. Something like what I plan to post on this blog at some point. It starts out so cliche that I almost didn't finish it but I powered through. This is some of the best use of a zombie as a person I have read. It is too powerful a tool to use on every zombie but it has a place at least once in every characters story. A character can be forced to choose between killing a loved one and getting eaten by that loved one. A character can also choose to hunt his or her loved ones so they do not live on as an abomination. A haunting reminder that they once had a normal life.
Another thing that Zombies are is a mindless horde. Mob mentality with no tactics and only one goal. This is directly opposite my first explanation of zombies. It is a balance that I will need to be careful about. I cannot forget that they are people and I can't let my characters become emotionally dead to the fact that they are killing the bodies of former humans or my book will become a bloody hack and slash with little dramatic content. I want to make my characters as real as possible and put them through as much emotional anguish as is bearable but I cannot ignore the mindless horde aspect of the zombie genre.
Other things I will want to talk about are how fast I want my zombies, how strong I want my zombies and how smart I want my zombies. All of these are open to discussion and I will respect any view point. Here is my macro level idea. Slow zombies with average human strength. I am willing to go faster than slow, but I will not allow fast zombies. I also want my zombies dumb as a box of rocks. I may have a post on each of these attributes separately depending on discussions on comments. I most definitely will if I am still talking to myself on here in a month.
Another thing that I haven't decided on yet is how the zombies came to be. One thing I do know is it will not be something that my characters can do anything about. It won't have a cure. This is to keep me from making a "hero" that cannot fail. Also to keep me from getting stuck in a rut writing about how awesome one person is. Everyone is special and everyone has their place. I want to give everyone I write about a chance to be a hero and a villain depending on the situation and I want to be able to kill anyone at any time. I don't quite consider GRRM to be the best author ever, but I love his character development and his lack of fear in killing off characters he spent so much effort building. I want to copy this tone in my apocalypse because I enjoyed reading it myself.
If you have any zombie ideas that I didn't think of let me know. Any zombie characteristics that I didn't mention. I want to go into much more detail on zombies but that is for a later post.
Peace
Another thing that Zombies are is a mindless horde. Mob mentality with no tactics and only one goal. This is directly opposite my first explanation of zombies. It is a balance that I will need to be careful about. I cannot forget that they are people and I can't let my characters become emotionally dead to the fact that they are killing the bodies of former humans or my book will become a bloody hack and slash with little dramatic content. I want to make my characters as real as possible and put them through as much emotional anguish as is bearable but I cannot ignore the mindless horde aspect of the zombie genre.
Other things I will want to talk about are how fast I want my zombies, how strong I want my zombies and how smart I want my zombies. All of these are open to discussion and I will respect any view point. Here is my macro level idea. Slow zombies with average human strength. I am willing to go faster than slow, but I will not allow fast zombies. I also want my zombies dumb as a box of rocks. I may have a post on each of these attributes separately depending on discussions on comments. I most definitely will if I am still talking to myself on here in a month.
Another thing that I haven't decided on yet is how the zombies came to be. One thing I do know is it will not be something that my characters can do anything about. It won't have a cure. This is to keep me from making a "hero" that cannot fail. Also to keep me from getting stuck in a rut writing about how awesome one person is. Everyone is special and everyone has their place. I want to give everyone I write about a chance to be a hero and a villain depending on the situation and I want to be able to kill anyone at any time. I don't quite consider GRRM to be the best author ever, but I love his character development and his lack of fear in killing off characters he spent so much effort building. I want to copy this tone in my apocalypse because I enjoyed reading it myself.
If you have any zombie ideas that I didn't think of let me know. Any zombie characteristics that I didn't mention. I want to go into much more detail on zombies but that is for a later post.
Peace
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