Undead Revisions

Zombie Romance — Love is lame, so let me brain

Friday, I started working on revision for ZITO – for those who don’t know the acronym, it stands for Zombies in the Outfield. The origin of the story came from my work last year at the stadium. I’d spend long hours after the stadium to get all the clothes washed and ready for the next day. Because I had to go back and forth from clubhouses, I got to see the stadium in the dark. The creepy setting started working on my overactive imagination and blamo! After several versions of the beginning, I started writing a version of ZITO I liked earlier this year. I released it into the world via Tumblr – the story has since been taken down – and asked for criticism and suggestions. Perhaps only one or two people actually gave me something I could work with. The following are the changes I’ve made:

Henry is no longer slow-minded, making him a more believable leader.
Venus is no longer infatuated with Big Ted
Big Ted and Tony are no longer soldiers, but former baseball players – made things less complicated and allowed me to create a back story for Big Ted’s contempt for Henry.
Henry now leaves the stadium with the search party.
Introduce another character, stemming from a previous zombie story I was drafting – but never finished due to so many complications that I confused myself and cried in a corner.
Removed the Green Zone dream, only hinting it with the new character.
I introduce the fence kink – as well as other kinks – at the beginning rather than something I just threw in out of nowhere.
Tony is dead before the story opens and is only mentioned once.
I introduced the concept of zombies into the story, though they creatures are called ghouls throughout it. Only once does a character refer them to zombies, due to his philosophy background.
I spent too much time reading and watching all things zombie.

Still working on the kinks of the story, but it will keep a similar ending. Less background/history is given – there’s no me going out in tangents about some character that’s already dead. Once the draft is gussied up, I’ll place it back on Tumblr and release it back into the world.