Writing a zombie story is no easy task. The creatures have been done and redone. This barely allows for original ideas anymore, let alone trying to make them scary. I have challenged myself to do this. When one of my friends did something to inspire this story, I couldn’t resist it. Writers know you can’t resist inspiration because who knows when it will strike again? Ideas are sought and chased and forced so when they come on their own, I’m grateful and don’t question it.
The struggle I’ve found with my zombie story is making it and the zombies themselves scary enough. People have become so desensitized to horror. How does one tap into their inner Edgar Allan Poe? He’s difficult to find and sometimes I’m not sure if I want to. He was too great not to try.
To scare up my zombies, I began with their descriptions. Blood stains, vacant eyes, torn up clothes. I discovered that it added an extra element to have the main character recognize one of them. Something was still missing. Her thoughts and frame of mind helped add fear to the story even more than the zombie descriptions. Knowing more about her makes the reader fear for her more and hope she will live.
What other techniques make your stories scarier?
I've written a zombie novella and a short story and I agree, it's not easy! It's hard to come up with new ways to describe them and their attacks, too, I think. I mean, how many times can you use the word blood on one page?
I found you from Nicole's blog, but I don't see a follow button on here!
Hey Rachel! Thank you for heading over! I'm just getting started with this blog and I believe I added the right button now for followers. Thank you for pointing that out too so I could fix it.
I know what you mean. I was having issues with their dead blank stares. Doesn't seem to pack enough punch!