Probably depend on what type of Zombie your going to face, where you live, what population survived and how the dead generate.

Firstly, I guess if your facing an original 'Romero' Zombie or a Max Brooks 'World War Z' zombie life would be pretty simple, just stay away from them, build a big wall to keep them and start farming ! Your only going to turn into one if your bit, you can outrun them with ease and your only real problems are going to be swarms. Never really understood a Romero Zombie - lets face it , an epidemic of then is unlikely due to their relative slowness.

Facing some of the later day intelligent zombie fiction types - ie Brian Keenes 'different dimensional The Rising' zombies or Matthew Smith' 'Word of their Roaring' Zombies, then life to be honest is pretty much over anyway - as they can ride cars , fire rocket launchers and even have herds of zombie cows and road fodder. As for zombies running, 'Night of the Living Dead' follow ons etc you'd never get away.

And if you were facing David Wellingtons 'Monster' series super-powered zombies, with the ability to go invisible, shoot psychic bursts and move like The Flash, then your pretty screwed too !

My issue with all things zombie is how they generate themselves. My personal feeling is that the ideal zombie story would be for a nerve gas / virus to only attack about 90% of the population, leaving the other 10% totally outgunned, but never changing on death. Therefore there is a long shot of defeating the hoard - an not like in Keene's excellent gory tale no chance for humanity. I feel a good story is one you have a chance of winnig !

It also really depends on where you live. I live in the UK, and lets face it you all know that there are far less guns available in the UK. So you guys in USA etc have it far easier to defend yourself. You can all club together, form a little well armed army and go about annihilating everything of the living dead. Here it would be much tougher - try arming yourself against a zombie hoard with just a pitch-fork or a shovel ! Try answering the question above living in the USA if the government were to take all the guns out of circulation !!

Lastly, I think '28 Day Later' got it right best of all, when showing that when the food ran out, the Zombies ran out, but there was always the 'risk' of re-infection.

Myself, I guess at the end of the day and living in the UK, like Land Of The Dead, the best way would be to take over a town, build a wall, start a farm and wait it out.

Okay Gumble, you bring up some good points... I guess I'll have to lay some ground rules on this one, being as super intelligent zombies will basically just kick our asses... Lets say that they are more like the Dawn of the Dead (2004) style z's, with a liberal splash of Night of the Living Dead mixed in there to make it a little more possible to run away if you have to... BTW I do know that there is a firearms ban in the UK and I expected that one to come up, nontheless I'd like you to try to be inventive... I mean, you guys do have a standing army and it's not like those guys don't have guns that you could beg borrow or steal ya know?

Strange you should bering this subject up. In the British Daily Telegraph newspaper on Wednesday was this:

http://www.telegraph.co.u...laim-scientists.html

And acording to a group of mathematicians it makes no difference if the zeds are slow, fast, stupid or genius we are all doomed if it ever happened.

And you can read the math paper here. Its not overly complex to understand

http://www.mathstat.uotta.../~rsmith/Zombies.pdf

Dear 'Bury The Sun',

With respect your probably living in cloud cuckcoo land' if you think the army will turn over a gun to anyone - even after a zombie apocalypse !! It would not happen, begging or not.

OK - inventive ? I'd round up all the zombies, ship them over to France, and then Nuke it !!

Posted By gumble on 21 Aug 2009 02:50 PM
Dear 'Bury The Sun',

OK - inventive ? I'd round up all the zombies, ship them over to France, and then Nuke it !!

Now that is a first class idea

I have a way to beat the zombies that I am surprised no one else has thought of yet.They can be the fast running ones or the slow moving Romero ones.Don't matter.

Easy.Find a place to hole up.Wait.Since they are dead they would have rigor mortis and be decomposing quite fast.Wait it out and they would be a pile of goo.After they have decomposed it would safe to return to the outside world.

Posted By One Eyed Vengance(Leonidas) on 23 Aug 2009 08:01 PM

I have a way to beat the zombies that I am surprised no one else has thought of yet.They can be the fast running ones or the slow moving Romero ones.Don't matter.

Easy.Find a place to hole up.Wait.Since they are dead they would have rigor mortis and be decomposing quite fast.Wait it out and they would be a pile of goo.After they have decomposed it would safe to return to the outside world.

<!--[if gte mso 9]> Normal 0 MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 <!-- /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0cm; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;} @page Section1 {size:612.0pt 792.0pt; margin:72.0pt 90.0pt 72.0pt 90.0pt; mso-header-margin:35.4pt; mso-footer-margin:35.4pt; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> <!--[if gte mso 10]> Isn't that what happened at the end / begining of 28 days / weeks later ? The rage victims basically starved to death after a month or so. OK these were not in the true sense “Zombies” but your idea is quite sound.

Sadly there would be millions of “Gung Ho” types around the world that would dislike the idea of being locked up for a month or more until the “enemy” rotted and these would be an endless source of new victims / recruits for the horde.

Well thank you Jim.I am glad I can post somewhere still w/out getting my head bitten off.(sheesh)

Brainz I need more Brainzzz

I thought that was quite humourous of you "...my head bitten off..." in the zombie thread -LOL !!

Time I went to bed I think, its 1:27am here and I'm up for work at 6am !!

Yeah,glad you like it Jim,I thought it was an appropriate thing to say.

i'd find a jail to hole up in....good metal bars and doors....arm myself with big caliber weapons or shotguns with a huge load - blow some limbs off - then get some help to dump the bodies in a big trash container and burn what is still alive....

can i write a short story based on your idea and my solution with your blessing?

aww Dan,srew Andy(LOL)I know I would read it!

C'mon Andy,give Dan your blessing dammint!

Great idea for a topic. As a kid my best friend and I loved the book I Am Legend by Richard Matheson and we devised ways to survive that scenario over and over again on a dull Saturday afternoon. Later on we adapted our ideas to zombies. My wife loves zombie movies and we talk about this every time we watch one. First off: If you're talking Brian Keene zombies you're in trouble. The virus crosses species so my advice would be to Eat Your Gun. Shambling zombies or speedy zombies are not as big a problem as they sound. I agree that waiting them out is the best scenario. They will rot. What you need is any secure facility  A hospital with a generator or a prison or some Corporate bunker with a Halon lock down system. A lot of computer rooms have them. And of course you need Weapons, Weapons, Weapons. Those with you who are unfamiliar with guns..make them familiar..fast. Again, great topic.

My only issue with the whole "Let them rot" theory is what if you don't have that much time... what if they've laid siege to the area that you are in and there is no food, water, or weaponry to be found? You've got about 5 days with no water, about 10 with no food... but how long can you last if you don't have anything to defend yourself with? The theory is great as long as you are ready for a siege situation, but how many of us are actually READY for something like that? I'm probably about halfway ready and I've got enough firepower (possibly) to get to the grocery store down the block if I have to... but I still doubt that most people could last it out ya know?

Sun

You make some very valid points. I have weapons at home but I know if disaster struck I'd be somewhere else. Heck, on 9/11 I was at the dump when the towers were hit. I work in a  building that could be locked down. We would have food for a while but no fire power. The least these darn zombies could do is send you a warning letter with a time and date of attack.

wrote this quick - thought i'd see what you guys thought of my idea for a story!

No one knew when it started. Some people said the Swine flu was the start. That it quickly morphed into something else. But no one was sure, and the people left alive to figure it out were quickly dieing or worse, were transformed. The people who "died" from the flu didn't die. But it took a while to know this. Cemeteries suddenly had open graves, holes with no bodies in them. Caskets that were opened and there were tear marks on the inside, tattered and shredded clothes left behind. The 1st reported case in the media was a poor night clerk at a 7/11. The video from the security camera showed it all. The 1/2 dressed man coming in. Slowly shuffling his feet, knocking over racks of chips and candy bars as he went. The clerk ran over to stop him. When the person turned one of his eyes was dangling out of the socket. His arms were laying by his sides but at wrong angles. Dried blood was all over his chest. What happened next was the bad part. The clerk reeled from the sight of the man, and the man attacked. Grabbing the clerk and biting his neck. The wound was so bad the jugular let go and the clerk fell to the ground quivering in agony and trying ot stop the blood flow. The Zombie then proceeded to start to eat the parts of the flesh of the clerk he could tear off.

Someone getting gas at the pumps saw the whole thing and rushed to the rescue. Officer Paul Edwards was coming off duty that night and headed home. He had noticed the wierd man in the store and saw the clerk go down. He drew his .40 cal Glock and rushed into the store. "Stop! Get down! Put your hands up!" He shouted at the man hovering over the clerk. The Zombie turned it's head to look at him, blood all over it's face and hands and it growled at him, A deep guttural moan that sounded inhuman. Edwards was repulsed and horrified at the scene, the clerks body still twitching on the floor. He fired point blank into the Zombies face. Three .40 caliber hollow point rounds hit the Zombie's face almost dead center. It's brains and teeth were blown out the back of it's head by the large exit wounds the hollow points created. But it had almost no effect. The man started to get up and move towards the officer, it's growl now changing pitch because of it's ruined tongue. Edwards fired three more rounds, hitting it in the neck and in the jaw. The mouth fell open not able to support itself anymore with the jaw shattered. But still it came forward. Edwards was panicked at this point to almost hysteria. He backpeddaled and pulled his extra magazine from his holster. Loaded, and fired 3 more times into the chest. Blood and lungs and gore from the mans chest cavity sprayed out behind him. But it did nothing. Edwards did the only thing he could think of, and fired at the knee joints. The two shots per kneee brough the man down. The knee caps and sockets were shattered by the heavy +P round impacts. It could no longer walk. But it started to drag itself towards him once more.

Edwards was so repulsed by the sight that he did the only thing that came to him to stop this monster. He went over to the next gas pump and pulled the emergency ax from the rack. Standing above and behind the man he swung the ax and chopped off the mans arms at the shoulder. Something had snapped in Edwards, and any feeling of remorse for dismembering this person was overwhelmed by what he did to the clerk. He then chopped off the mans legs at the knee's and stepped back. Incredibly it was still moving and mewing at it's inability to get to it's prey. Edwards took the large fire extinguiser from the pump station and then proceeded to hose the man down with the fire retadant foam. It was a super cooled foam as he hoped and in essence he froze the man to the ground. When he was sure the man had stopped moving, he stood there for a moment and just stared at the inert form. He put down the extinguisher and went back inside to check on the clerk. He knew what he'd find but his training kicked in and he went to go see anyway. The man was clearly dead, bled out in just a few minutes for the jugular being opened, and the pool of blood was spreading. The security camera footage cut off as Edwards was seen sitting on the floor, his head in his hands crying like he had never cried in his life.

whatcha guys think so far?

I like it. These are some REALLY hard to kill zombies.

what good is a zombie story if they aren't bastard hard to kill!

Ok...

Now, no excuses, like 'this is just the internet, etc.'

First, you seriously need to work on sentence structure, paragraphs, punctuation and the like.

If you can't get that stuff right when you're writing a story, best to give up now because no serious editor will give you the time of day. Period.

Secondly, go over your rough draft yourself, or better yet, get a friend to do it. That way they can point out things that look rough, sound rough etc. It also helps eliminate the wrong spelling for the correct words.

Spell check is your friend as well.

Add more description. 'Chopped off the arm at the shoulder'. Try spicing it up a little -

With great effort, he hefted the axe, blood and viscera already dripping from the worn metal head, and brought it down with all his might. The Axe bit deep into the zombie's shoulder, cutting through flesh, muscle, tendon and bone.

An animal snarl of rage, intermingled with disgust and fear tore from his lips as he continued to drive the axe home. Again and again the crude weapon bit into the flesh of the undead creature before him.

Doesn't something like that sound better? Read better?

Chris

nope...and if you haven't guessed i don't care for your critique - i whipped that up in about 5 minutes and posted while at work....i type dyslexic and don't give a crap really - if you are so terrific then write your own stuff for revew..and i mean a whoie story or chapter - not a rewrite of my work....then we can see how we like yours...til then....your opinions matter not...and the effort i put in is for fun and not for publishing review....so you can blather on all you want..but i'm not listening..and this is the last time i will comment on your posts...

Posted By JettaManDan on 29 Aug 2009 07:58 PM
if you are so terrific then write your own stuff for revew..and i mean a whoie story or chapter

FYI - he did write a whole story(Mask of the Sphinx). I'm just sayin'.

It definitely  pays to be informed BEFORE you throw down.

I do enjoy the fan fic but one must be prepared to accept critique.  Next, you should be willing to accept the good advice despite the tone of the critique above. 

I understand that you whipped this up in 5 minutes. Maybe, when you get time, you might want to edit it for sentence structure and other potential errors.  Proof read it and ask yourself how you could improve on syntax, grammar and sentence structure.  Sometimes a plain jane boring story can be made into an exciting adventure if one uses the proper sentence structure. (and no thats not meant as a snarky comment on your stuff)

You are off to a good start and if you work on it and make sure it's the best you can make it, you could have a go at maybe becoming an author...if you want to go down that path. You do have the imagination for it. Don't be afraid to use the edit option in your posts. 

Be willing to accept critique.  Critique, even the bad ones, can be a valuable tool to help you in not only your grammar, but also in your story telling abilities.

Ignore anything that you may take as attitude.  While you may not like the tone, the suggestions imparted can be wise ones IF you decide NOT to reject it out of hand due to dislike of the poster. 

Good advice is good advice regardless of the source.  Something you might want to consider...

Another very important word of advice:

Grow thicker skin.

And, I've actually written almost 40,000 words of a potential zombie novel, it's just that to be brutally blunt, the whole industry is becoming satuated with them, just like female supernatural stories.

I personally don't think it's good enough for publishing.

So, I haven't bothered continuing with it. I might in the near future, as I've been working pretty hard on several RPG projects for a tiny little company. Maybe once I'm finished those...

But, if you want a throw down little guy, I'll post the more amusing of the four sections of the novel that I've written.

And, I CAN take critique, especially if it helps improve what I've written.

I don't make excuses, such as - oh, I wrote this in 5 minutes at work, or 'it's just for the internet, so who cares, or hmmm... it's only a fan fiction it won't be used...

And, just FYI, actually two FYI .... I did co-write Mask of the Sphinx, one of the better recieved non pure Mark Ellis novels, and all the stuff I write for, even my work in progress zombie novel, I do actual research.

Like the chapter about the fire fighter, I went down and had a nice little discussion with the fire fighters at the main station in Calgary's city core.

And I had a discussion about some police proceedures with a couple of officers near where I live.

Chris

http://absolutewrite.com/forums/

You can alsways check this out.  They have some good info here on basic writing skills.

Atta boy!

Alienate and insult one of the few people here qualified to offer you legitimate advice on your writing.

You've really been batting a thousand in your judgement the last few days.

Before this descends any further into argument, let me give you a little background on Outlanders that maybe you aren't aware of. Back in '97, before I purchased the JamesAxler.com domain and when this website was called "Overproject Whisper", Chris ran a parallel website called "The Deathlands Web Survival Guide". The vast majority of that website still exists here in the Archive section if you feel like checking it out. In any case, Chris was writing fan fiction on his website and to be perfectly honest it was pretty mediocre. (I think he would be the first to admit that.) But he kept churning away at it, honing his skills, and soliciting feedback from professional writers. More than a few unkind things were said to him about his writing over the years, but he stuck with it. I wish I could finish the story with "...and now he's a big, famous and fabulously wealthy author", but that's just not how these things go. But he has been published, and in the last dozen years since I first bumped into him he has honed his craft and improved dramatically. He has been *exactly* where you are right now, and he has some good advice to give you. Take it or leave it, that's your choice, but don't imagine that he is just throwing stones for the fun of it.

Ron -

Yup, those little bits of Fan fiction sucked.

And as you know, I found that I really did want critique far more than brown nosing because it did help me improve my craft.

It's like those people who show up on American Idol, expecting that they're going to be wisked right through to the finals, and then are devastated when they are out and out rejected...

So many of them say things like 'well, my friends or my mom thinks I'm a good singer'

Of course they do, they don't want to hurt your feelings. The same thing applies when it comes to writing and critique.

A lot of people don't want to hurt your feelings, but brown-nosing and mutual back patting, in the long run will not help you in the least.

Critique is what is needed, like it or not. It's the only way you can learn where you're making mistakes and how to improve said mistakes.

Sure being critiqued more than once made me mad, but I, as I like to say to others 'suck it up buttercup' and took it for what it was worth.

People who told me that my work was great and that they really liked it were good for really only one thing - making me feel good. It didn't help me fix the MANY errors that I had.

It was being told that 'you need to work on your sentence structure, punctuation, etc. etc. etc. that helped me.

And yes I was even 'gasp' REJECTED when I sent in the first chapter as well as an outline for a Deathlands novel about - 12 years ago now?

Do I think I'll ever be published under a major house label? Nah, I'm just not good enough. I admit it and I accept it.

Yes some of the stuff I write IS better than published material that's out there, but you know, I really don't care if I get published or not.

And believe me, I've tried many different things to get motivated to write - the prospect of money, fans, fame, accolades, hell - even revenge... but when it comes right down to it, writing - although something I enjoy, is not a life goal for me any longer. I consider this to be that I'm a realist.

Real life, doing stuff with my family, seeing movies and training Shaolin Kung fu, well, that's more important to me.
Chris

Posted By JettaManDan on 28 Aug 2009 10:59 AM
wrote this quick - thought i'd see what you guys thought of my idea for a story!

whatcha guys think so far?

Dan, if you were looking for constructive criticism Chris gave it to you.  That wasn't insulting, it was informative!

If you are just looking for positive reinforcement don't bother to ask.  Just post n' let rip...seriously, not trying to be snarky.

One of the main points of writing fan fic is just to have fun!

yeah i won't get this to go further - this little bit WAS in 5 minutes..and was for fun..no intent for any other reason than to keep something interesting in the topic is all....good..glad i have the background, and glad i know what you have done....i added 500 words for fun..no thought..no structure...no editing....no thought to further chapters.....is there spell check on this site? nope...was this posted in fan fiction? nope....just how i saw his original post starting into a little story..no thoughts that go on from there...maybe we can keep this thread on topic and not let it decend like others have? i contributed something fun...and now look where it is going....that is my one and only issue....you don't like my writing? oh well...i'm not trying to get published honestly...so nothing matters...finally understand? time to move on..nothing to see here   thanks for the critique - seeing as how i was writing this between my break and my lunch hour i just posted for FUN....that is all

Geez...

mike i edited what i said..so don't bother...re-read and let it go...

Well this thread is interesting!! One of my fav movie and book genres in the zombie stuff. As another writer who has been published by a very minor, now defunct RPG company, I can promise that there are many things you can do to get better at writing but one of the most important is to write a lot!! Read Stephen King's "On Writing" - very informative and interesting reading for any aspiring author. Interesting that the female superhero and zombie genres are getting overcrowded – had not considered that – not that I was considering writing in either genre. Writing something especially if you pour your heart into it and getting rejected can hurt and can be a painful and frustrating experience. Usually you get no kind of feedback why your manuscript was rejected and if you are lucky you might get a few notes from the rejecter suggesting some improvements. I have been kicking around a DL novel idea for a while now and while I have no publishing aims – I may follow Dan and post it here as Fan Fic just for fun. Sure I might get flamed, called a phony again, or some other odd thing but I bet I might learn something. I know that my wife who reads most of the drivel I write, tells me I obsess with the weapon details to the point of losing the story – so I need to work on that and my sentence structure is for shite. Of course the weapons I chose for my DL characters are ones that I am familiar with – AMD-65, Ruger GP-101, etc but might make a reader pause and wonder what kind of weapon that is apparently something not desirable in escapist fiction.

Anyone here play this:

http://www.urbandead.com/map.cgi

its a simple yet adictive zombie game. Its free to play as well.

I've been playing for about 2 years now and still go back every day to play out my days 50 action points.

More info here:

http://wiki.urbandead.com/index.php/Main_Page


Jim

Thanks for reminding me about this. I found this online about 6 months ago and my wife and I were going to play it. I had forgotten about it. It's sounds zombie-tastic.

Thank you for the site Jim! I must admit, it is a little slow for me... but it is pretty cool for a browser based game... also because of your recommendation I happened to run across a really cool site "www.deadfrontier.com", very fast paced flash style game! It is free to play, all you have to do is update your flash player and you're ready to go! Oh... and did I mention it was free? lol...

Sun

The zombie site is a little too slow for me too and the last thing I am interested in is another MMO.

If there are any more zombie fic out there would be nice to read some more. I like the Morningstar Strain and how the virus was intelligent enough to put the zed into a catatonic state until some food was around sparing the body from rotting too quickly like they did in 28 Days.

Mac, now hunting Big Foot with my brand-new Illudium Pew-36 Explosive Space Modulator!!

Posted By Bury The Sun on 22 Sep 2009 07:44 AM
Thank you for the site Jim! I must admit, it is a little slow for me... but it is pretty cool for a browser based game... also because of your recommendation I happened to run across a really cool site "www.deadfrontier.com", very fast paced flash style game! It is free to play, all you have to do is update your flash player and you're ready to go! Oh... and did I mention it was free? lol...

Sun

It suits me perfectly. I get around an hour a night to "play" on the computer and a game that takes around 10 minutes tops to use your 50 AP's for the day is perfect.

Like all games not everyone is going to like it -but with 24722 active players (as of this evening) I guess it has some attraction for a few folk. I've been playing around 2 years now and still not bored with it.

I tried dead frontier but didn't like it, I guess I'm an old school "Klunky" game fan at heart....

Was reading this thread, and went over to the Fan Fiction Archive section. Chris (Outlanders) pretty much had it summed up on the page,

"A note from the author. I have left the stories in their original format, unedited and un-revamped. The reason I have done this is because it is an interesting study in the evolution of a writer."


Writing assignments when I was in High school was bad enough.  Still, I've tried writing stuff, certainly not even expecting the thought of submitting, as it sometimes is a way to get stuff out of your head; even when you lack imagination, which is in my opinion a good part of being a writer. One thing I did learn was to save and seperate the changes if I went back and toyed with anything. Helps find mistakes.

In looking at the list of stories sitting in the Fan Fiction Archive, I still like "The Blackjack Chronicles" and even tried emailing the author some years back to see if there would be any sequel. Of course, there were none. Come to think of it, I may have copied it and worked at editing it (errors like spelling, correcting run-on sentences kinda thing) just so I could read it offline and better enjoy the story.