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Unless your zombie story takes place in outer-space, post them in modern adventure.

march

What if it's about a group of zombies who travel back in time?

I'd also like to see a "movie" category too - because those damn CYOA movies don't fit anywhere.  We'll get to it eventually?

march

Or a scientist who developes some high tech weaponry sometime in the future, but is bitten by a zombie and becomes infected while still wearing the high tech suit. Because of his super intelligence it takes him longer to degenerate into stupidity so that he is like a genius zombie for a while, shooting people with lasers before devouring their brains, or using his jetpack against the police to escape.

He's be like a super badass zombie from the future...

Which category would that go in?

... does it take place in outerspace?  Or another planet?  Then modern adventure.  Unless he has to solve a series of puzzles in order to eat brains- then it goes under mystery/puzzle.  If the zombie was half robot, I'd let it fly under sci-fi too I guess.

march

zombie robot was my next random scenario...

Okay, okay, I got it...

What if, in the middle of a zombie attack, a UFO crashes down from outerspace. And like, humanity now has to deal with zombies, and aliens... Surely the presence of aliens justifies sci-fi, but it never actually takes place in outserspace.

...

modern adventure.  Unless there are alien robots, and aliens take up at least 50% of the story.

march

Figured this short I wrote a while back fits the theme of this thread.



Custodial Work



I was working late at the school that night. Some of the kids went crazy racing each other to eat the most boiled eggs the fastest. Vomit was everywhere. And there I was mopping up the yellow, stinky mess of gooey vomit.

Normally I’m just a handyman, but George called off sick that night and with all the mess I would’ve felt bad leaving it for the other guys. Besides, I’m paid by the hour, and this task meant overtime. I have too many bills to ever turn down overtime.

I was mopping up the floor in the ladies room when the fox of a woman known as Miss Harlock walked in. She was incredibly arousing in her tight purple shirt, like a temptress; like a succubus, a demon of lust. My mouth dropped open, the scent of the puke seeping from my nose to my tongue.

She smiled at me, actually smiled, and I grinned back like a fool spotting a rainbow prism in a crystal. She cleared her throat and smiled again. I smiled right back, shuffling my feet a little, not quite sure what to say. I’ve never been real good about talking to women, especially those as gorgeous as the one who stood before me that night.

“I need to use the ladies room,” she said to me.

“Oh,” I said, realization finally hitting me. “Right. Sorry about that.”

I walked the mop bucket out into the hall and waited for Miss Harlock to finish what she was doing. I whistled a tune that I thought she might like as she conducted her personal business in one of the stalls. I’m a very good whistler, you see. I even whistle the guitar solos.

I was in the middle of an intense whistling Skynnard guitar solo when Justin came running down the hall, his eyes wide with fear, his nostrils flaring. It was a little disturbing watching a man that fat run so fast, all jiggles and earthquakes, a one man stampede thundering my way.

“You have to run!” He said, terror raising the pitch of a voice that was typically much deeper.

“Why?” I asked him, somewhat upset that I had to stop whistling in the midst of my Free Bird whistle jam.

Justin leaned up against a locker, trying to catch his breath. Sweat was dripping from his face. “You have to… run. It’s not safe… It’s not safe here anymore.”

“I’m still not getting what you’re trying to tell me, Justin. Why must I run? Why is it not safe here?”

Just two words escaped his lips, but those two words sent a cold shiver down my spine. “Zombie robots.” He said. Zombie robots.

It definitely wasn’t the words that unnerved me, more the look in his eyes and the tone of his voice than anything else. After recovering from the initial shock of his words, I started to think about exactly what he had said. “Zombie robots?”

“That’s right. That’s what I said,” Justin assured me, nodding his head vigorously, the fat on his neck jiggling with each nod.

“That just doesn’t make sense.” I told him. “Robots can’t be zombies. In order to be a zombie you have to have lived and then died. Robots are just machines. They can’t be zombies. It’s absurd.”

Justin didn’t reply at first, just stared back at me before pointed up the hall with a meaty finger. “Try telling them that.”

My eyes went to the indicated direction and stared in horror at what I saw approaching us several hundred yards away; a half dozen zombie robots rolling on their tattered treads and muttering a monotone chorus expressing a lust for brains. It was possibly the most terrifying scene my eyes have ever fallen on.

Miss Harlock stepped out of the girls room behind me. “Was that Free Bird?” She asked. “I love a man who can whistle.” She kissed my cheek and my face flushed, but this was no time for romance. There were half a dozen undead robots half rolling, half limping towards us.

I turned to Miss Harlock and looked her deep in the eyes. “We have to go.”

“But why?” She asked.

“Robot Zombies,” I told her.

She cocked her head. “But that’s impossible. Even if zombies existed, there’s no way a robot could become a zombie. Zombies are animated corpses, not hardware.”

“Now is not the time to question their existence,” I said, pointing a shaky finger down the hall.

Justin was already running away when Miss Harlock let out a terror filled scream.


©2006-2007 ~donteatpoop

You have got to be kidding me.  Somebody actually focused on the idea of zombie robots long enough to even write a SHORT?  I have to tell you I chuckled pretty hard at "I was in the middle of an intense whistling Skynnard guitar solo " and "it's absurd" - something struck me there. 

For your information, unless future story details prove that the zombies were, in fact, once alive OR more than 50% reanimated flesh, this story would go under Sci-Fi.

(also, with a little creativity, I'd let it fly under love and romance - but that's just between us.)

march

ON second thought (can you believe I GAVE it a second thought?) I've realized something - robots aren't sci-fi unless they start questioning their own existence / become conscious.  Robot Zombies would still go under modern adventure. 

march

What can I say, I write strange things.

I should also note that all movies are now under "everything else."  Ducky park was moved to modern adventure.

march

Sweetness!!

Zombie stories should all go in horror now.

march

Great category choice March but in my opinion we should have added another one and kept quizzes - thus adding a whole new pairing.  Quizzes are so messy in everything else :P

I don't think so.  1. the quizzes on this site pretty much suck. 2. Quizzes are not stories, so they are "everything else."  they make more sense there.

 

personally im glad we got rid of quizzes. never cared for the category. its great to make one and test the features of the advanced editor and such, but march is right, they arent stories.

nate

I'd like to get rid of fan fic and school based too and replace them with something more appropriate.  I haven't figured out WHAT though...

 

Here's the categories we got a IS and CYS equivalents. Maybe this could give you an idea.

Action/Adventure (CYS:Modern Adventure might be the closest equivalent, but there are differences)

Drama (CYS: No category for this one)

Fan Fiction (CYS: Same. You might keep this. As much as I loathe Fan Fic, it seems like a lot of other people really like to write it, so it probably works as a category, and it keeps Pokemon/Potter all in one area)

Fantasy (CYS: Same)

Horror/Thriller (CYS: Horror. Basically the same)

Humor (CYS: No category for this one)

Miscellaneous (CYS: Everything Else. Basically the same.)

Mystery/Crime (CYS: Mystery/Puzzle. Similar, but there are differences)

Romance (CYS: Love & Dating. Basically the same.)

Science Fiction (CYS: Same.)

Western/Historical (CYS: Edutainment is probably the closest to this one, but again there are differences)

IS doesn't have anything like "School Based". There's a lot of stories based in school, but they fall under one of the other categories.

I like the idea of Drama, but what would fit there exactly?  We hardly ever have people posting under mystery (and I don't know what the puzzle part of that is... not sure what we were thinking.)  I think that "mystery/crime" makes a lot more sense.  I like edutainment as a category (don't know how I feel about "Western/Historical" - western?

Humor.  that would be worthy of it's own category.  Maybe this wednesday I'll bring it up to Alexp.

march

We don't have that many under Western/Historical either, its even less than Romance, but we had a couple of stores solely set in the American west and one in ancient Greece and for a moment a couple of people were expressing interest in making stories with real history in mind, so there was a call for the category. Then the other stories fell through and never got made. So now we have a whopping 3 stories in that category.

Drama also only has 3 stories and up until recently, DEP wrote 2 of those. (His "Brothers" story would be one of them) I think in that case DEP just wanted a category all to himself.

But Humor seems like the best one to use as the replacement for School Based.

Getting rid of "school based" is still something I'm selling to Alexp though.  truth is this site was built around the Fairview High School Game which was our way of lashing out at our high school.  We actually did start a cult called the Fairview Cult.  we had our own T-Shirts ("Got Cult?"), stickers, website ( www.fairviewcult.com ) and news letter.  We weren't well loved by the administration even if the students DID love us. 

Anyways, it was that story that basically gave us the idea for this website and something that alex has had a hard time burying in "modern adventure" but the times, they are-a-changin.

hmmm, cant say im with you on getting rid of school based 'stories'. the majority of our authors are middle-college aged writers. its easier to write a story about what you are going through, for middle school students that is school! not big on getting rid of fan fic either, even though its not one of my favorite categories. though i think a new name would work best. the title to me implies fan of other fictional books. but dave chapelle and the star wars stories on here are based off either tv or movies. just my deprived of sleep thoughts.

nate

lol I wonder if we will ever do a Lord of the Rings storygame.... If we did, it would have to have 5 coauthors working together...

 

there have been a few attempts over the years. most were not worth mentioning and got unpublished. lol id say that no one on this site at the current time has the time or effort to do such an undertaking.

Elimenating the School Based category wouldn't elimenate school based stories. It would just allow the school based stories to be more appropriatley categorized as adventure, romance, sci-fi, or whatever.

Agreed DEP - but those stories are so good and wouldn't really fit in those categories... (hmmm, i guess that's the story of this site...)

I half-expected you to give a good reason to post a zombie story in modern adventure DEP.

march

I like school-based as a category.  There are a number of stories in it, and many of them are quite good.  It doesn't really matter that the quiz authors lost their featured storygame status, since most quizzes really weren't that wonderful, but I think it would be a shame for school/modern to have to compete with one another for featured status.