AUTHOR COMMENT: Rules for Zombies

Have you ever met a zombie? (and no, I don’t mean someone with a hangover). I guess you haven’t and, however unlikely, I hope you never will. 

So, do zombies run quickly or do they walk or shuffle?  Is the virus airborne or just passed on through bodily fluids?  Do you have to be bitten? Do zombies get slower and disintegrate the longer they’re a zombie or do they get stronger the more they eat? Can they see, hear, smell? Do they just eat humans or animals as well?  And far more importantly, how do you know if you’ve never met one?

These are the sorts of dilemmas when writing a zombie book.  I wrote ‘Z – Arrival’ on the basis of the zombie virus being new and no one really knowing what was going on or how to deal with it.  So, you have to ignore everything you think you might know about zombies from films, TV and other books.  The only thing you know for certain is the word ‘zombie’ and the rough definition of a dead body being reanimated.  I had considered just assuming my readers knew all about zombies so I didn’t have to explain the ‘rules’ and spend time figuring out ways to explain those rules.  But in the end, I just thought that you couldn’t have the arrival of a new virus and not go through an explanation process.