I'm curious: How does one write a good zombie story?

What separates the greats such as The Walking Dead, 28 Days Later, and George A. Romero's classic night of the Living Dead from the not so great?

Brains... That is all...

Paranoia.

1391370
Heaps and heaps of fucking drama. As you said, the Walking Dead. How much screen time is put in to zombies? Like 3%. You could opt for something like 28 days/weeks later and have a good balance of drama/ a survival story mixed in with crazy ass zombies and action.

1391370

The streets were quiet. Too quiet. Something was definitely wrong right now. All you hear is your own quiet clopping of hooves on the gravel road as you walk nervously down the Ponyville street. The shops were closed. But all the doors are open. What was going on right now? You look ahead to see somepony you know. It's little Applebloom. But where was Applejack and all of the other ponies? "Applebloom where is everypony?" You ask her as you approach. Then you notice some odd things about her. Her yellow fur is matted and caked with mud, dirt and dark red splotches of something. She's missing her bow, and she's totally silent. "Applebloom are you okay?" You ask her. She turns around revealing a face I remember, and the stuff of nightmares. Her teeth are stained dark red, half of her fur and flesh are ripped from her face, revealing her jaw and eyeball. One of her ears have a deep rip in the, witch was bleeding freshly. All the blood drains from your face. She's a zombie pony. That's what was wrong with this town. They were the infected. Walkers. The living dead. Applebloom stand up and slowly starts to hobble towards you. You back away from her and quickly get into a canter to reach the Everfree Forest. Behind you, you hear Applebloom's moaning for blood being joined by others. More of the living dead. Eventually, you make it to the Everfree forest and run to a far tree to rest. You must survive. You must live.

This is a stupid example. I bet tons of people can come up with better ones, but you get the idea. Suspense. Terror. Dark. Blood. These are my essentials for a terrifying story.

1391370

Oh, bud, that's a can of worms right there.

First off, those movies are all kinda different in why they're good. The Walking Dead isn't about zombies as much as it is about people. People screwing each other over in a zombie-filled world. Night of the Living Dead is a horror about being eaten by zombies, so it's good because it's a horror movie that invokes real terror about losing your identity while being eaten alive.

Haven't seen 28 days later, but from what I recall it's about the trouble of containing a virus that turns people into fast zombies. That's straight-up virus horror, the fear of the world being swept away by a hypervirus that destroys the human race, spread by zombies.

One of the big things that makes zombie horror "good" is fear. Fear not of death, but of rotting unlife, of ceasing to be a human and becoming a cannon-fodder animal that walks on two legs. However, this is combined with the raw joy of anarchy. Whoever is strongest wins, and you get to write your own rules if you're strongest. Society collapses, scavengers rise, and life is no longer about if your boss can fire you, but if your boss is worth his beans or just slowing the party down. Zombie flicks allow us to get a gore fix without worrying about moral implications. The zombies aren't human anymore, so putting them down is the kindest thing you can do. Even if it means revving up a chainsaw and cackling gleefully, you know you're still a good person inside. Just make sure that the blood doesn't turn you, eh?

1391381

This guy's dead on. Brains are what separates a run-of-the-mill zombie flick from a real thriller. A good zombie flick uses the horror of zombies to its greatest potential, a poor one just throws them on the screen for a scream.

Now, how does this apply to ponies? Well, think about it. Ponies all have special talents. A real zombie horror in the FiMverse would have all those talents fade away. Sure, the mark's still on your flank, until that patch of skin comes off. When you turn, you lose everything except basic motor functions. Pegasi can sort-of fly, unicorns can stiffly move objects. Earth ponies are actually the "best", their natural endurance means their bodies remain mostly intact, and they don't need a lot of higher mental activity to stalk you to ground.

Think about that. All the talk about individuality and friendship washed away. When you turn, you're nothing but a shell. You don't know your name, you don't have a special talent, you're just a walking husk sniffing for the scent of the living. And you will never stop until your body simply gives out, or somepony gives you peace.

Or, y'know, somepony drops a ceiling on the zombie horde. Hey, if you're interested, there's some zombie action in one of my stories. Bon Hadescream. Lots of it is about fighting various monsters, while struggling with the horror of being one yourself. Also, friendship, music, the power of Heavy Metal, and evil Megacorps that are actually pretty nice.

Hope this helps!

1391522

I feel so special!

1391522

Chainsaws.... terrible choice of weapon for a zombie apocalypse. Read the zombie survival guide, it'll teach you some stuff.

1391770

Chainsaws.... terrible choice of weapon for a zombie apocalypse.

I agree. A melee weapon that takes fuel? No thanks. I'll stick with my M1911 and my katana.

How threatening are zombies, really? It bothers me when zombies are physically superior AND decayed. No, they should be pretty lame. Zombies should be about as dangerous as children. Can an adult be pulled to the ground by a mob of children? Why, yes. Yes they can. In zombieland, that person is dead. Can an adult fight off three children at a time? Yes, usually. In zombieland, the exceptions still aren't that common, but they're definitely more lethal. Coming out with toothmarks just means you die slow instead of fast.

The thing you have to remember is that the zombie apocalypse story isn't all about the direct threat to health posed by the zombies. It's also about the total breakdown of society. Everything the zombies touch becomes that much more rotted and toxic, and none of the zombies hold down jobs. There's no transit, no farms, no stores. Everything is rotting. Resources and skills both become scarce. In a few weeks, all the perishables are gone. In a few months, the first "non perishables" start to decay. In a few years, there's nothing to eat but peeps and twinkies. A story may not cover anything like that span of time, but it should cover enough to get the start of hunger, and enough for conflicts over future planning to become serious.

If you ask me, the endstage of every zombie apocalypse is when a bunch of farmers scrounge up a lot of weaponry (military base, gun store, local collector) and start taking things back. The local absence of guns and heavy weaponry complicates this a bit, but there's still going to be something like that, and the story of those farmers still isn't very interesting. There's not much drama - they have food security and combat advantages. They may lose one or two of their number, but they'll scythe through the zombies and won't have any reason to screw each other over. The drama is the story of someone who can't find weapons and/or doesn't know what they'll do for food. Someone desperate.

Postscript: I can't see Canterlot falling to a zombie invasion. I just can't. It's a mountain covered in unicorns. Not only are unicorns the lords of ranged weaponry in this setting, zombies don't handle mountains all that well. They're stupid. They can be knocked off of cliffs and they can bumble off on their own. A horde of zombies could be destroyed en masse with a telekinetic pressure wave from a group of cooperating unicorns. You could probably make a decent story with Canterlot being treated as a promised land by refugees, of course, or perhaps a story of how horrible and starving conditions in Canterlot itself get because of the zombies, refugees, and zombie refugees...

1391370
...I seem to have misread the title of this thread. I thought I was going to read about how to write "Good Zombie" stories.

Well, I guess there is always the "Bad End" version of Story of the Blanks Applebloom.

1391522 28 weeks later is kinda stupid, coz two kids had to play in the one place that the government hadn't cleared of the virus but there was an awesome helicopter zombie weedhacking scene. They used the helis blades like a lawnmower and tore a huge group of zombies to shreds XD

1391770
1391837

Missing the point. Of course a boomstick or self-contained melee weapon is a better choice than a chainsaw. The question is not if a chainsaw is a good weapon, but if you are morally justified in chainsawing up a bunch of former humans. The answer is yes, you are indeed justified, since they are just the same as wood now.

Of course the chainsaw is not a good choice for surviving a zombie apocalypse. Get a good bone-lopping machete and a shotgun. However, it is iconic of over-the-top gore, which zombie movies are known for. Kinda like Rainbow87dash said:

1392281

A helicopter is not a reliable weapon for fighting zombies, but it cranks up the ludicrous gibs! It's the same principle as the chainsaw. Not the best tool, but looks great on the silver screen.

1391518

*clap-clap*

1392436 *bows* Thank you! Thank you!

I think a good zombie story is, as everyone else said, about the suspense. Spend a lot of time with the characters. Fear of the unknown is the worst kind of fear. Have lots of fake-outs, like a glass fell and it sounded like something was breaking in. Show the relationships with the characters. Watch their sanities crumble with fear, make them choose sides, make them believable.

And of course, be descriptive. Details!

Lament one or two times on how much society has crumbled. Humanity (or ponality) is basically over. Kill or be killed.

Those are just a few tips. Hope it helped!