Zombies Co-Write

Hi, my name is Kayla. I figure we can use this forum to help each other and discuss the story we are hoping to start together.

Do the zombies move about at night or day or both? Are they more active during one than the other?
How big is this group?
What kinds of things do we know about the zombies? (Territorial, mindless, do they have basic needs other than feeding?, what of their five senses do they use?)

There are others, of course, but for now I feel that's plenty to get us brainstorming.

Characters:
Where are they from?
Do they remember where they are from (amnesia or just don't know, perhaps adopted)?
Who are they with mainly (family, boyfriend/girlfriend, best friend, no one, stranger they met on the road)?
How old are they? (Seventeen, seventy-four, ten-and-a-half thank you very much.)
What are their faults? The parts that make us love them and relate to them? Their fears?
Who were they before the zombies?
Their physical appearance?
Any health issues (a trick knee, asthma, pregnancy, deaf, blind, cancer, prostatic hand)?

We are limited by our imaginations here so let's be relatable but fresh, new, and creative. That's our goal, right?

Also, I thought maybe one of us could update once a week. Like we would each have a numbered week and every fourth week it would start over. Thoughts and ideas?

And lastly, I have one major rule I try to work by if I do a co-write. This story is to help us write better and organize better as a writer. I do not want to see anyone saying anything hurtful to a co-writer. We are partners in this and we are here to help each other not tear each other down. However, if Lucy tells Sandy that maybe sentence one in paragraph four of her latest chapter would sound better if she changed the word beautiful to magnificent or Sandy tells Lucy that she missed a period and there are grammar issues and word tense issues that's not being mean, that's trying to critique and help. Those are helpful, not hurtful.

My rule of thumb is for every bad say a good. Lucy felt that the word could be changed but the description of the oak tree the main character cried under was incredibly done and really took the reader into that place.

Any thoughts, rules of your own, or anything else can be addressed here. I'm so very excited to work with the three of you and cannot wait to get started!

Decisions Made on Background Info:

1) The virus has an unknown origin. Some say it was a plague from God, others say it was nuclear and radioactive reactions. Some say it was a form of syphilis spread through sex. And some say it was a rabid dog that bit a human and transferred it over in a bizarre way. Some even say the government made a virus for population control and it went horribly awry. Whatever it was, no one is safe...
2) Our characters will begin in separate groups or alone (with the exception of two who will be traveling together) and they will come together to form one group.
3) Our characters will eventually end up in a gated community which will be overrun after the gate is left open.
4) The story will start out as Spring. It will last until the following Spring.

Links to each other to get to know our partners' styles:
Wynnie Shawn
Katie_bugg
perfect disaster
She Said Poptarts

Link To Story
Zombie Co-Write

Link To Character Pages
This will be the link to all of our character pages.

I'm all for the humor route, even if there's just a little bit of it. Like maybe we did radiation from the latest and greatest iPhone?

@ Katie_Bugg
@ perfect disaster

Hi guys! I'm Calli.
I'm excited for this, I've been wanting to make a Zombie fic for a while now. And the fact that this will help with organizing and stuff. It's good.

I want my character to be ignorant to things, and always having a close call for being infected.

Hi so you guys can call me Wynnie! Just a word of warning, I swear a lot (I'm working on it) so please don't be offended! I'm going to keep it out of my writing though!

If we don't go for the humour route, that for the outbreak, I was thinking that there was a bad batch of bath salts (but then again, that's a drug that makes you eat each others faces off so what isn't a bad batch?) that made the effects spread when bitten. Or we could just not really address it, and each character has a different idea of how it started but there is no definite answer.

@ Wynnie Shawn
@ perfect disaster
@ Katie_Bugg

Hi Wynnie! I'm definitely up for the having different theories! I don't think civilians would know how exactly it all happened. So I'm leaning towards the last bit of your comment.

@ She Said Poptarts
@ perfect disaster
@ Katie_Bugg

So does everyone else agree on the 'different theories' theory? And also, for the story, are our characters traveling in a group or is each perspective from a different place and they've never even met each other?

Definitely like the different theories route. If it was quick spread why would the TV report any definite news before it was cut out? So that would surely help if there were any questions about details.

Also, I was thinking about them traveling together but that would be hard if we needed to write about a fellow character. Maybe starting out they're separate but they could eventually stumble upon each other and maybe speak some or just never even interact but have different views of similar events. How's that sound?

(Oh, and I'm Emilee, or Emma. Whichever is fine.)

I like the different theories option, and the bit about them separated at first then somehow coming together. What if they ran into each other as they tried to get to the one, supposed, safe place? Then, as it happens to turn out, the "safe place" has been affected as well?

I like that but that kind of makes me think: is this a story that will eventually lead to hope and maybe a light shined on humankind or is this a story where the end is fearful and desperate if not entirely deadly? How do we end this story? And will they all end up together in the end or apart?

I may be getting ahead of myself. Sorry bout that.

I think different theories has been agreed upon! *Bangs gavel!* Next question then... Where are our characters now? This may be separate answers but I think we should decide at least this part for now: Are our characters in the same place or are they separated throughout the continent or even the world?

At the end of every discussion I'm going to try to update my original post with a part I'm about to add so that it always has our latest decisions and the foundation for our story on it. I think it'll help when we're writing as a reference guide as well.

^And it's great organizational skills.

Um, I think they would be together, at least for most of the story; like characters one & two are already traveling together, then the others join them - not necessarily at the same time, or same chapter - and they kick some zombie ass... or run away as fast as they can.

@ perfect disaster
@ Wynnie Shawn
@ Katie_Bugg

I'm OK with my character dying.. I like the coming together idea! I was thinking that my character could be on a road trip when shit goes down, so as Emma said, two could be traveling together?

Are we going to have other types of threats? Like, maybe cannibals? Infected some animals, (or would that be a little too hardcore?)

I was thinking that my character is a foreign exchange student who crash landed because their plane was infected and they were the only survivor. I think my character might join the group later on and maybe have a run in with them randomly in the story. Like if the were raiding a store for resources, the just knock into someone's character and they share brief eye contact before jumping up and running off to do their own stuff.

As for the 'find a cure' route or the 'hopeless' one, I'm not sure! I kind of want to go for the happy ending because I like sending out that message that there is always hope in humanity but that is kind of the suspected ending.

I thought it might be cool if that for the ending, there would be this plane or something, full of survivors that could possibly be the last human being on earth, who are flying out to a real safe place. (an island with resources and hasn't been affected) but there might be a wall where zombies are trying to break in and the only way to save mankind is to strap a dynamite to the wall and blow it up. So our group volunteers to go together but at the last second, the wall crumbles and the zombies kill us but it distracts them long enough for the plane to take off.

That's really descriptive but it is just an idea that we could toy with. We don't have to use it, but that's just my idea(: anyone else have any ideas?

@ Wynnie Shawn

We could make it so a country hasn't been affected... and then the world can slowly start getting back to normal. Like, they could get some kind of call about an infection, and start building huge walls or something. Maybe?

Also, once we all meet up, we could find a secure place that gets overrun later, just a moment in the story where everything is calm, and could just breathe.. "everything is alright" type of moment. And then we find another group with the plane.

@ She Said Poptarts
Ya the safe place a small deserted town or a mansion. I think if we chose a farm it would be too similar to Walking Dead. And for the country part, it would have to be a small country, probably one that doesn't have much tourism.

For the zombies, what attracts them? Is it sound and light or is it just the smell of blood? Or are they just like any regular predator and use all their senses to kill humans?

@ Wynnie Shawn

I'm good with an abandoned Mansion, 'cause that would have gates, yeah? So it'd be a good secure place to be for a while.

Also, I think the zombies would be attracted to sound and light. Because if it were only smell of blood, then it'd be pretty hard for them to find anything to eat, unless someone keeps getting cut. Haha. I also vote for a regular predator. They'd be loads of 'em wandering around, so it'd be difficult to survive.

@ She Said Poptarts
Someone could accidentally leave the gates when they go get supplies from a nearby town or something, and that's how the zombies got in. Then there would be tension in the group too for a bit. There could be like a fight scene or something.

How long will this take in the story? Will it go over a course of a year or less? If it does go over a long time, when would it start? I don't exactly know how the weather is in Carolina/Georgia so it might be easier to just go with spring or summer when we all know it is hot.

I like the mansion/gate idea. Or maybe like a gated community? Either one I think would work.

I don't think infected animals would be too hardcore, if anything it might make a bit of sense. What if the animals that were affected only exhibited signs of rabies, but if they're bite could be deadly? I just think it'd be funny if they were afraid to get within ten feet of a squirrel, or any other "harmless" animal. (Or maybe I'm just thinking along the lines of too messed up.)

Maybe we could start in mid-Spring, and by the time all of our characters get together it's almost the end of summer and everyone's afraid of trying to survive when winter hits? Couldn't that also be added pressure to get to a warmer climate? I know sometimes winter can be brutal, depending on where you're at.

I definitely think a gated community would work really well. I see the infected animals but at the same time I think regular predators may work just as well especially if everything was either being eaten by the zombies or if food for the predators was in abundance due to everything being dead and ready to be grabbed.

I like the idea of mid-spring then meeting each other by the end of summer and maybe winter is the hardest and kind of the "problem" part of the story where the next spring is our wrap up.

So then where would our characters meet & decide that they should stick together? Or should we each make our character first? You know, so maybe it's easier to decide where they all meet if we all know where they were coming from?

I think whoever has the "Most Likely to Survive" image, will be the one to start a fight with whoever accidentally left the gates open. Like, "You could have killed us! rah rah rah."

And of course we can't all agree on where to go. So some could argue going to a coast, so that we only have the ocean behind us, and the predators in front. And some could say to go further north, 'cause Winter could slow down the flesh-eaters. And someone could be like, "No, we should stay in this area, I feel safer knowing my way around."

Also, what will we be calling them? Should we call them Zombies? Or have a different name for them, like how TWD calls them 'Walkers'?

And Kayla, do you think you can make a little area in your first post for our characters, and their background situations? Like where they were when it happened, and the things that they will or will not know about the infection.

Sorry for all of my run-on's.

Emma, do you want to be traveling with my character? I want mine to be on a road trip, when all this stuff goes down. And we could both meet up with whoever first, maybe in a run to look for food/gas.

@ Wynnie Shawn
@ perfect disaster
@ Katie_Bugg