So, I'm trying something new here. My trilogy of novels that I plan to someday publish are 3rd person and fantasy based. But I've hit such a horrid block in that genre that I've tried writing something new. So now, I have abuot 28 pages of a 1st person Zombie horror book. I just had a few questions for writers and readers alike.
1) I know that it adds to the mystery of it all to leave the source or cause of the outbreak unknown. We've seen it in... well, almost every hit movie involving zombies. Zombies seem to appear out of nowhere, ravage everything, and nobody ever finds the culprit. I was wondering if there was more reason behind that than just laziness or leaving it a mystery. Personally, I think it would be interesting, say, for the group of survivors to pick up a military man who breaks down days later, saying it's all his fault, and BOOM, he admits to the military's attempts at chemical warfare gone bad. That kind of thing I would enjoy to read, but I'd also love to hear some opinions.
2) I may be straying a little far from zombie norms, but that's for you guys to tell me I suppose. The zombies in my book have the usual, slow moving, stumbling, undead characteristics as you see in most movies (I hardly consider 28 days/weeks later monsters as zombies due to their NOT undead characteristics). But when they get a smell of blood, they use their muscles to the fullest extent, dashing toward any bleeding creature and (obviously) ripping it to shreds. I plan to have a plot reason for this, and that is that the virus manipulating the zombies is mutating while they're infected. What I want to know is if you guys think that would be a good thing to read. Would you enjoy it, I guess?
Well, I guess that's all that I really have besides any general zombie-writing advice that anyone can spare. :D
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The only thing that holds us back from accomplishing amazing things is the walls that we place in front of ourselves.
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mai 9, 2008 - 11 37
Whether you leave the cause of the outbreak a mystery or not is up to you as it has been done both ways For example, "Night of the Living Dead," the classic in the genre simply explained it away with nuclear radiation-- explanations seem to follow the times. "Resident Evil" has it caused by experiments in the lab by the Umbrella Corporation. "Return of the Living Dead" (well, the third one in the series at least) blames the military (something to do with a supersoldier serum crossed with an attempt to re-animate dead soldiers in order to reduce the number of casualties). Finally, "Shaun of the Dead," mocks the whole idea of whether or not to explain it by glossing over it in a newscast which says: "As everyone knows, it was caused by" and then Shaun clicks to another station. Yeah, I know these are all movies (and what started as a video game), but without these films (and others like them), zombies as a sub-genre would be...uh...dead in the water.
That said, I'm a bit concerned about the way you're doing the reveal. Full and complete explanations done by a character who just shows up never plays out well. If you could have your MC (or your group of MCs, depending on how you're writing it) find out clues here and there as to what really happened before the reveal by the military guy that would work out better. Either that, or he could say "It was all my fault," then just drop dead, refuse to talk anymore, or something along those lines which would move the characters in the direction of finding out the real answer. He could also be lying/misinformed to cover the true cause of what happened.
Hmmm...now that I think about it, I really like the idea of having at least one or two of the characters curious about how the whole thing started and trying to figure out the "Whys" and "Hows" of the whole thing. In fact, I've found it odd that in a lot of tales that the characters aren't even remotely curious. I know I sure would be.
Zombies with bloodlust? What's not to like? I can imagine the characters observing these ramblers from a distance trying to to get to a safe place, get food, whatever and assuming that they're fine (because they can easily outrun the zombies), then one of them cuts their arm on a nail sticking out of a board or some such and then BAM! Superzombies!
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mai 12, 2008 - 06 29
Thanks ^^ I appreciate your comments and help!
As for why main characters never seem to care why an outbreak starts, I'm with you. If something like this were to happen, my first instinct would be to save my rear, and second I'd want to know why my rear needs saving exactly :D It always cracks me up how nobody even cares in the movies and games how an outbreak begins.
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mai 12, 2008 - 10 17
It's kind of difficult and unrealistic for characters to go figure out why a zombie apocalypse is happening if they don't have the means. If you're being chased by the undead through the streets or trapped inside a shopping mall worrying about running out of food and water, why would you be worried about the cause of all of it... unless your main character is intentionally put into that position. Like he's a member of homeland security trying to find the cause of a chemical weapons attack that caused it all to take place while everyone is getting eaten... He has a sense of duty that causes him to put himself in harms way to find the truth. Still, that has to be one crazy mother...
If you want to get technical, rarely in these films does any character refer to the undead as 'zombies'. In Shaun of the Dead it was mentioned by a character who was then told to shut up. You can pretty much do anything with these mindless characters as long as you don't characterize them as zombies... Zombies are really people who were enslaved by drugs/magic and thought to be dead. I have discussed this dozens of time with different people. I have taken to calling the Night of the Living Dead creatures as "Romeros".
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mai 12, 2008 - 16 41
Yeah...while they're running around like chickens with their heads cut off trying to get away from the zombies (or whatever you want to call them *grin*) that would not be a good time for a contemplative moment. Shaun's idiotic friend (whose name has escaped me for the moment), for example, has a history of choosing this type of bad timing (cellphone anyone?). That said, there's always "down time," the same period of time when they decide "What to do next" (Shaun's group even had a chance to gripe about the Winchester as a safe haven) or as in "Day of the Dead" invade the mall and shoot up celebrity look alikes (the remake anyway).