ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE-Terrible Writing Advice

Terrible Writing Advice shambles forward in a mindless attempt to teach writers how to write a zombie story. The trick is to make everything as mindless as the zombies themselves.

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Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

[genericprofile]

Oh, and never call them zombies.
call them "shamblers" or something ridiculous.

[thekaticorn]

Everyone: *turns into zombies*
Comic relief character: Z A P P E R S

[lr-]

It’s sad that Plants Vs Zombies is the most original zombie series in years

[CardsJack]

Then there's the IQ of the characters rising and falling when the plot needs it to.

[firockfinion]

Zombies seem to be in an endless cycle of becoming over-saturated and then nobody uses them and then somebody does something clever with them and then they become over-saturated again...

Almost like some kind of metaphor about the undead and reincarnation.

[merrittanimation]

Shaun of the Dead is the only zombie film I’ve watched where the army is actually competent, which sad because it’s a comedy.

[Zhtrik]

Cue the Obligatory Brains Joke-

Oh it’s literally in the opening. Good.

[DoctorLazers]

Honestly, I haven't seen a zombie story that wasn't just a virus or fungus in over a decade. Magic or alien zombie origin would be outright refreshing at this stage.

[retlaw]

I've always wanted to see something that starts with your cliche patient-zero zombie, someone promptly shoots it in the head because they recognize it's a zombie, then the rest of the story has a totally unrelated plot and genre, like a romantic comedy.

[matthewmabry]

“A mindless swarm of all consuming...hmm, can’t think of a comparison.”

What about a Twitter feed?

[SmartAlec]

Love Triangles are like zombies: a cliche that's been long since dead, everyone can see how gross they are, yet they're still alive.

[nightcollapse]

Ah yes, zombie apocalypse, time to start dating someone. Aren't rotting corpses so romantic?

[holdenk]

You forgot the character that watched a lot of zombie movies and is really good at killing them but is a total geek

[fortcastellan]

Actual advice: When adding a disposable side-character to your band of survivors, make sure that the cliches you are using to characterize him don't make him the most competent and well-prepared character in the story. I'm looking at you, The Walking Dead tv show. In his first 15 seconds on screen, Daryl Dixon showed more survival skills/applied common sense than every other character up to that point, combined. And I'm still convinced they did that on accident...

[cannonfodder]

2:49 "But hey, if we can't lift zombies up, then the next best thing is to bring the humans down."

Damn quite a summation.

[austinpire]

Imagine trying to run away from zombies and a marathon zombie breaks through the hoard.

[laurocoman]

Zombie-alien-spy? I smell a franchise...

[Percival]

"You can't have zombies without the apocalyse!"

Resident Evil: Huh? What?

[letsgococo]

JP: "The slow and inexorable-"

Me: *skips death cutscene* "Yeah yeah yeah, this is a tough level, just let me reload from the previous checkpoint so I can try yet again"

[Just_Some_Guy_with_a_Mustache]

You've succeeded the moment the audience says to themselves _"We're_ the real monsters".