Ten Tips for Writing Zombie Novels and Fiction

Need some tips for writing good zombie fiction? You’ve come to the right place. Below, you’ll find some of my own writing advice, along with tips and suggestions from other writers working in the genre. Enter, if you dare!

Brandon’s Top 10 Tips for Writing Zombie Fiction

You could fill an entire book with tips and strategies for writing zombie fiction. But this is a blog, not a book. So I’ve boiled it all down into ten key points. Without further ado, here are my top-ten tips for writing zombie novels:

Want more? This article is part of an ongoing series for writers. Elsewhere on the site, you’ll find a list of zombie-related story ideas along with a few strategies for starting your novel.

1. Invest in your characters.

Zombies are fun to write. They’re ugly and savage. They crave human flesh. What’s not to love?

But the real story is what happens to your human characters, as they navigate the perils of a post-apocalyptic world. So my first tip for writing zombie fiction is to invest some time and energy into your protagonist and other main characters. Develop them to the best of your ability.

In a way, the zombies in your story function as obstacles. They challenge your human characters. Sometimes they kill your characters. But they themselves are not characters. Zombies lack depth and complexity. They’re single-minded organisms, not much different from a virus or parasite.

The depth and complexity in your story has to come from your human characters — and especially your protagonist.

Before you start writing your zombie story or novel, you want to figure out what makes your protagonist tick. What are her biggest hopes and fears? What is her main goal in life, at the time when the story takes place?

Zombies can make a story exciting. But humans make the story.

2. Take your story into uncharted territory.

Life is normal. The undead rise. People struggle to survive. The end.

If that’s the full scope of your story, you might have trouble keeping the reader engaged. Zombie outbreaks have been done … and done again … and done some more. We’ve seen it all before. So I would encourage you to come up with something new, something people haven’t read before.

Novelty and originality go a long way toward helping a book break away from the pack. This is true for all genres, but especially speculative fiction. Take the horror novel Birdbox, by Josh Malerman. Originality helped that book take off. Malerman delivered something we hadn’t read before.

Within the zombie genre, World War Z shows how an author can innovate within existing norms. In that book, author Max Brooks borrowed the first-person narrative format that Studs Terkel used for The Good War (a collection of first-hand accounts from World War II).

World War Z‘s unique storytelling model helped it rise to the top of a crowded genre. That book spent several weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and spawned a movie adaption of the same name.

3. Remember that humans can be scary, too.

Zombies are dangerous. We know that. But, as a writer, there’s only so much fear and tension you can extract from the undead.

Humans can be pretty terrible as well. I like to think that most humans are decent people who do the right thing most of the time. But we all know there are people out there who prey on the innocent. They are wolves in human skin. And they can be even more terrifying than the undead.

In his book The Science of Evil, author and psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen explains the concept of “empathy erosion.” In short, this concept says that some people act cruelly toward others because they’re unable to empathize with them.

Here’s a relevant excerpt from Baron-Cohen’s book:

“When our empathy is switched off, we are solely in the ‘I’ mode. In such a state we relate only to things or to people as if they were just things. Most of us are capable of doing this occasionally. We might be quite capable of focusing on our work without sparing a thought for the homeless person on the street outside our office. But whether we are in this state transiently or permanently, there is no ‘thou’ visible—at least, not a thou with different thoughts and feelings.”

Maybe you can relate to this. Maybe you know people who exhibit a lack of empathy toward others. Channel that into your fiction writing. Your story will be stronger, more realistic, and more relatable in the end.

As writers, we must remember there are different kinds of monsters. Some have rotted skin and a hunger for human flesh. Others are human on the outside, with a monster dwelling within. Consider incorporating both kinds of monsters into your story.

4. Read widely, both in and out of the zombie genre.

If you want to write good zombie fiction, you have to read lots of it. I think we can all agree on that. It helps you discover the work of other authors working in the genre. That gives you a sense of what’s out there, what’s been done before, etc.

Check out: 15 of the best zombie books

It’s also important to read outside of this particular genre. You can learn a lot by reading “far and wide.” All genres have something to offer, when it comes to developing your writing skills.

From poetry, you can learn to be concise and descriptive. From thrillers, you can learn to build toward an explosive climax. From science writing, you learn about the biological aspects of viruses and contagion.

5. Develop your vision for the “new world.”

Take it from someone who has been down this road before. You can save yourself some pain, time and rewrites by planning out your post-apocalyptic world in advance.

World-building is a key component of post-apocalyptic fiction. The world-as-we-know-it has ended. But something has to rise up in its place. Maybe it’s a kind of dystopia with totalitarian leadership. Maybe it’s a ragged wasteland with nomadic, wandering tribes. That’s up to you.

Before you start writing zombie fiction, spend some time thinking about the new world you want to create. Think about the details, like transportation, logistics, living spaces, fortification, etc.

Developing a clear vision before you start writing will save you some work down the road. It can also help draw readers into your story and the world where it takes place.

6. When you get stuck, follow your instincts.

Writing is all about choices. Every time you pick up your pencil or open your computer file, you’ll be making choices.

What happens next? How do your characters respond to certain events? Where do they go? What do they do? There are choices on top of choices, with a side-order of choices.

There’s no right or wrong answer to any of these questions. As a writer, you get to figure these things out for yourself. And that’s where instincts come into the picture.

When you come to a place in your story where a decision has to be made — a literary fork in the road — ask yourself what feels right. Which path is best for the story? Which path creates the most conflict and drama?

Bring truth to your story. Let your characters think and react in realistic ways, driven by their individual beliefs and values.

This relates back to zombie fiction-writing tip #4 (reading widely). Reading a lot of fiction helps you develop your writerly instincts. It gives you the confidence needed to make important decisions within your own story.

7. Push your characters to the breaking point.

Vladimir Nabokov, author of Lolita, once described the novel-writing process like this: “The writer’s job is to get the main character up a tree, and then once they are up there, throw rocks at them.”

You might now want to throw these figurative rocks at your characters. You probably like your characters. But you have to throw the rocks — over and over again. That might sound sadistic. In a way, it is. But it’s also necessary.

Challenges. Obstacles. Hurdles. Surprises. These are the things that keep readers turning pages. Without those things, the reader will lose interest. If your protagonist is having a good time, the reader is not.

This is one of the most important zombie fiction-writing tips on the list. You have to create problems for your characters. You have to challenge them in a way that reveals their true character and forces them to change.

In his insightful book Immediate Fiction: A Complete Writing Course, author and writing coach Jerry Cleaver expresses this idea in simple mathematical terms:

“Want + obstacle = conflict”

Conflict, in turn, creates drama. And drama can keep readers engaged and engrossed in a story.

Think about some of the zombie fiction you’ve read in the past — or any good fiction, for that matter. Think about a novel you couldn’t put down. I’m willing to bet the characters in that story encountered a lot of challenges. And it kept you turning pages, didn’t it?

8. Throw in the occasional twist or surprise.

The zombie genre has been around for decades. Like the shuffling flesh-eaters themselves, it refuses to die. So it’s important to take a fresh approach when writing a zombie story of your own. (We touched on this earlier, with fiction-writing tip #2.)

One way to liven up your story is by adding a plot twist or surprise, something the reader doesn’t see coming. There are many ways to do this.

• Maybe we learn that the outbreak was intentional, part of a bioweapon attack. And it was only phase one.
• Maybe the survivors make some kind of discovery that changes the whole story and their role within it.
• Maybe they discover a cure.
• Maybe they learn how to control the zombies.
• Maybe the zombies “evolve” in some way, becoming even more dangerous as the story progresses.

When it comes to introducing plot twists and surprises, you are limited only by your imagination.

9. Blow us away with your climax.

As readers, we tend to remember the climax and ending long after we finish the novel. They echo in the mind.

We remember the ending for chronological reasons. It’s the last thing we read. We remember the climax for its intensity. The climax is when the story’s tension and action rise to a peak. It’s when the literary “fireworks” go off.

Climaxes are important for all fiction genres. Without one, a story can feel flat and anticlimactic. But I would argue that a big climax is even more important for speculative fiction writers, including those writing zombie fiction.

With a zombie novel, you’re starting off with a big idea. You’ve “wowed” the reader with your harrowing post-apocalyptic vision. In order to go up from there — in order to reach the apex or climax — you have to climb pretty high.

In other words, the climax of a zombie novel has to be “higher” than the climax for literary or mainstream fiction. Readers of post-apocalyptic fiction expect an explosive climax. Don’t let them down.

10. Edit your work mercilessly.

Writing zombie fiction is pretty straightforward. You sit down with your notebook or computer, and you write. In this stage, you’re putting scenes on paper. You’re getting it all down.

So what happens when you finish the story? Is it time to share it with the world? No! It’s time for editing.

As Stephen King wrote in his book, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft:

“When you write a book, you spend day after day scanning and identifying the trees. When you’re done, you have to step back and look at the forest.”

That’s a good analogy. When writing the first draft of a zombie story, it’s best to turn off your internal editor. Don’t beat yourself up about sentence construction, word choice and the like. Just get the story down. Stay in the moment. Go with the flow.

When you finish the first draft, put your work aside for a while. Maybe a week or two. Maybe a month. Then, come back to it with an editor’s eye. Now is the time to tighten the prose, trim the fat, and polish the work.

I can’t tell you how to edit your own work. For me, it’s a very personal process. I tell stories in a certain way, and I write sentences in a certain way. Those decisions come from within. They’re a reflection of me, as a person. The same goes for you.

But I’m happy to point you toward some useful resources.

One of my favorite books on editing is called Self-Editing for Fiction Writers. It was written by Renni Browne and Dave King, professional book editors. I consider this a must-read for anyone who wants to improve their fiction-writing game.

You can also gain some useful tips and insight from the NY Book Editors blog (nybookeditors.com/blog), as well as The Editor’s Blog (theeditorsblog.net).

Here are some articles worth a look, from those two blogs:

• 10 Tips to Shape Up Your Manuscript (nybookeditors.com)
• Checklist for Editors (theeditorsblog.net)

Get a copy of the Renni Browne / Dave King book. Read the articles listed above. And remember: Writing can produce a good story. But you need editing to make your story great.

Conclusion and Summary

This isn’t a writing class and these aren’t rules. They’re only suggestions, some zombie fiction-writing tips and strategies to get your wheels turning. Some of them might not apply to your story.

But all of these tips have something in common. They can help you create a breakout zombie novel that rises above the rest. They can help you craft a first-rate novel — a story with interesting characters who navigate their way through a harrowing landscape, adapting and evolving along the way.

Share Your Thoughts

Are you an experienced writer working within this genre? Or maybe a voracious reader and fan of zombie fiction? Do you have some tips or suggestions for aspiring writers out there? Feel free to share!

Drop your comments in the box below. If your tips are relevant to the article, I’d be happy to add them. Be sure to include your name, if you’d like to receive credit for your contribution.