I have many favorite authors, but I’ll admit that when I read
my first zombie book, which happened to be Jonathan Maberry’s Dead of Night, I got hooked on zombies.
Like watching The Walking Dead the first time, it was the uniqueness, the sheer
horror of these monsters and the terror they evoked that somehow drew me in—and
kept me hooked. So I began writing about them, too.
I think zombies are the perfect characters since:
1 They don’t need fancy clothes or costumes. No research required
unless you’re using a historical setting.
2 They don’t complain. Usually. At most, you’ll get a loud Ugggh or Argggh.
3. They don’t eat. Not unless they’re the modern, Romero-cannibalistic
type. Then don’t ask questions—Run!
4. They can be put in any setting. I’ve seen zombie stories
set on the Titanic, in regular towns, even the White House. (No comment on
that.)
5. You can write them however you want.
In my book,
GIRL Z: My Life
as a Teenage Zombie, I chose to write about a teenager who turns
part-zombie, and the things she has to face. No brains or human flesh-eating
here, though, she does have a certain “fowl” diet requirement. Like any
teenager, she is concerned with more than the full Zs and is a bit
self-absorbed, but she also wants to protect her family however she can.
While some are tired of the whole zombie thing, I find them
interesting for their flexibility, and I don’t mean the limb-loss kind. Zombies
are a kind of foil for problems, or they can be a representation of the world’s
horrors or the things that scare you the most. Plus, it’s rather fun figuring
out how to describe them and make a zombie attack seem real. Then there’s the
humor aspect. Who says you can’t have a little humor with your horror?
I like to write different than the zombie “norm,” so the
next book I’m submitting features a historical figure, a real life crime and
zombies.
I think that’s the fun, if you will, of using zombies as
characters. Like most book characters, they don’t fight you or talk back about who
they want to be and what you see them as. They simply are. In that aspect, the
author is fully in control.
Now if writing the rest of it were only that easy! Ha!
Links:
Twitter: @caverstraete
Life can suck when you're sixteen. It can suck even worse
when you're not-quite-dead.
Sixteen-year-old Rebecca Herrera Hayes faces every
teenager's biggest nightmares: bad skin, bad hair, and worse . . . turning into
one of the living dead.
Becca's life changes forever when her cousin Spence comes
back to their small Wisconsin town carrying a deadly secret—he's becoming a
zombie, a fate he shares with her through an accidental scratch.
The Z infection, however, has mutated, affecting younger
persons like her, or those treated early enough, differently. Now she must cope
with weird physical changes and habits no girl wants to be noticed for.
But time is running out... Most of all, she needs to find
something, anything, to stop this deadly transformation before it is forever
too late...
Bio: Christine (C.A.) Verstraete is an award-winning
journalist and author who enjoys writing the unusual. Her stories have been
published in several anthologies including Timeshares
and Steampunk'd from DAW Books
and in Athena's Daughters from
Silence in the Library.
Coming up is a long short story featuring her GIRL Z
characters in the YA anthology,
Young
Adventurers: Heroes, Explorers & Swashbucklers, and a “sweet” zombie
story, “Second Chances” in the
Baby Shoes
anthology. Learn more at
http://cverstraete.com
and her blog,
http://girlzombieauthors.blogspot.com
Labels: #zoombie #inspiration #TheWalkingDeat