So, are we tired of zombies yet?

[Addison]

Write what you want a write. There are always hot topics or genres and such in writing. It depends on what who wrote. There's always going to be a market for zombies, werewolves....candyland, scooby doo, flying pigs, damsels in distress, pirates whatever. Nothing goes out of style. Some things are just put on the front shelf now and then, but it's not for long and in no ways denotes other subjects.

 

[Feo Takahari]

Totally late to the party, but . . .

If you're not sure whether you want to make something totally generic, why not make something mostly generic? Zombies with psychic powers. Zombies that are smart enough to use guns. Zombies that are actually fungi. (That one was pretty successful.) Or go the opposite route, using a new threat, but applying zombie tropes to it (say, a hive mind that compulsively spreads itself by dominating the minds of humans around it.) Give it a hook, and see what you catch with it.

 

[Addison]

An activity that my writing club has found useful for prompt is we take colored cards and, on each color, we write something different. The cards can be anything; color, disease, food, fantasy race, horror race, planet, european country, plant, mood, age etc. Then the cards are thrown into a hat, mixed, and we each take five cards. Those cards are the subject of the story. They get pretty interesting, even better if we get the guts to read our story aloud.

For example, today I picked; moon, pen, racoon, nunnery, in-laws, playful, chicken pox, chefs.

I don't know what story you get from those, but what I got was a cross of Redwall, Ratatouille, and Mouse Hunt with a bit of Great Mouse Detective. I'm still going with it.

But you, Feo, have a great point. Either twist the well known to your liking or make something completely new. It's your choice.

 

[Sanctified]

Totally late to the party, but . . .

If you're not sure whether you want to make something totally generic, why not make something mostly generic? Zombies with psychic powers. Zombies that are smart enough to use guns. Zombies that are actually fungi. (That one was pretty successful.) Or go the opposite route, using a new threat, but applying zombie tropes to it (say, a hive mind that compulsively spreads itself by dominating the minds of humans around it.) Give it a hook, and see what you catch with it.

Thanks for taking the time to reply. Like Helen wrote earlier in the thread, the zombies don't actually matter. It's all about the people and how they react, which is why in The Walking Dead for instance, the title refers to the characters, not the zombies.

IMO any innovation in the zombie genre happens with characters or plot.

Speaking of, this latest zombie craze has spawned dozens of online communities and forums where people discuss what they'd do in the event of an apocalypse and how they'd prepare. It's ALWAYS about guns, and at the risk of sounding like a tool, half these people couldn't run a city block, much less endure real physical activity. That ties in to what the comedian Bill Burr said -- these people think they're stockpiling for themselves, when in reality they're just stockpiling for the people who are going to steal it from them later.

If I'm going to go meta, I'm going to do a sequence about Mr. Zombie Preparedness and how he's the first to go.

 

[Feo Takahari]

If I'm going to go meta, I'm going to do a sequence about Mr. Zombie Preparedness and how he's the first to go.

Allow me to link possibly the best comic Scythemantis has ever done (5 parts, disturbing content warning.)

 

[Saigonnus]

I have personally never really cared for zombies (or skeletons for that matter), even going back to the days of D&D campaigns with my friends after school. I always found them too simplistic and basic, without any of the redeeming qualities that are often present in the other undead creatures. For example, vampires often have a twisted sense of romantism, or are picky about their choice of prey; morality if you will. Ghosts, Ghouls, Ghasts and Wights often remember their former lives, so have a lingering regard for humanity and maybe even a limited intelligence, even if they are under orders from the dark wizard. Zombies (in most of the manifestations i've ever seen) are driven by is an insatiable hunger and brainless in that pursuit, so with the right weapons in the hands of the heroes become little more than fodder or experience points and any villain worth his salt would never stoop to using something so stupid to do his dirty work.

"Oh good, my undead hordes are in pursuit of the paladin of the North... what's this? he ran downstream and crossed the bridge. My minions aren't following? they are standing and milling about on the shore! Gosh darn it, should have hired the goblins for this."

 

[GeekDavid]

Zombies (in most of the manifestations i've ever seen) are driven by is an insatiable hunger and brainless in that pursuit, so with the right weapons in the hands of the heroes become little more than fodder or experience points and any villain worth his salt would never stoop to using something so stupid to do his dirty work.

"Oh good, my undead hordes are in pursuit of the paladin of the North... what's this? he ran downstream and crossed the bridge. My minions aren't following? they are standing and milling about on the shore! Gosh darn it, should have hired the goblins for this."

Maybe all the heroes need to do is shout "cogito, ergo sum!" at the zombies.

 

[Saigonnus]

Maybe... I personally haven't used zombies or undead in general for any of my works thus far, but I can guarantee if I do, they won't be mindlessly shuffling around in search for brains. Perhaps they will be the product of a dark ritual that allows them to keep their intelligence and any skills they had in life, but simply don't "evolves" further or age/die since they are basically dead already. I could imagine a special elite force of assassins trained for 30 years and deliberately killed to be turned into undead killers. They don't stop until you literally dismember them.

 

[Sanctified]

Allow me to link possibly the best comic Scythemantis has ever done (5 parts, disturbing content warning.)

Haha that comic pretty much nailed it, thanks for the link.