I interviewed Zombie Punter  webserial author Zoe Whitten about her stories and what makes creating them fun.  Her upbeat attitude and sense of humor shines through her dark, gritty fiction.

LT:   Tell our readers about Zombie Punter, and the  main characters, Eugene and Jake.
 
ZW:   Zombie Punter is the story of two longtime friends who have planned for a zombie invasion throughout childhood. They finally get the chance to test out their theories when a global outbreak brings the recently dead out of their graves, but their experiments turn away from destruction when they begin to realize that the undead are not the stereotypical monsters they’d grown up idolizing.
 
But more than detailing the outbreak and Eugene’s efforts to find a cure for the “zombie virus,” the story is about Eugene “G” O’Donnell coming to terms with his attraction to his best friend, Jake Calhoun.
 
The two main characters are  actually perversions of a classic sci-fi stereotype, the handsome scientist and his bubble-headed assistant. Jake isn’t blond or stupid, and G isn’t handsome or uber-smart. They are an old formula, but one twisted into a mutation so radical that it hardly resembles the original beast that it was derived from.
 
LT:    How did you come up with the concept for Zombie Punter?
 
ZW:   The initial idea has to be blamed on my hubby. He’s a big fan of the undead, and any story of mine that has zombies were written at his request. But the main catalyst was a brief online discussion I’d had with another writer, Wrath James White, when we were talking about Brian Keene’s Dead Sea. We both liked the story, but felt that the main character being gay didn’t really show up in the story. We also both admitted that perhaps that was best for the sake of keeping the story’s pace. (And for avoiding making the story “squicky.”)
 
Only a few hours later, I was thinking about writing a zombie story where the relationship between the characters was just as important as the zombies were. I wanted to “go there” and build a gay relationship up over the course of the zombie outbreak. And just a few days later, I was sitting down to write the first chapter. 
 
LT:    Do you think you’ll write a second part to this story?
 
ZW:   Yes. There is a trilogy planned for the Zombie Punter world, although  the second book will be about Eugene, and the third book will be about Susan, the healed zombie in Zombie Punter. 
 
LT:    Who is your easiest character to write?
 
ZW:   Probably Jenny Wrigley, who has been a recurring bit character in my other stories, and who just got her own series started with Changeling, An Urban Musical Crime Fantasy. I like working with Jenny because in spite of her really dark life, she remains so hopeful and optimistic. Well, there’s that, and it’s fun to write musical numbers for the bard spells she casts.
 
LT:   Conversely, which character is your “brat”, kicking up sand and refusing to do what they’re told?
 
ZW:   Wendy Stoffel, from the Campaign Trilogy. I had a lot of rewrites with her first two books because she couldn’t decide what mood was right for her until the third or fourth drafts. I love her as a character now that I know her better, but she was a major brat in the first two drafts.
 
LT:    How have your own experiences found their way into your writing?  Has this been a good or bad thing, and why?
 
ZW:   I try to avoid using material taken directly from my past, but coming away from a very dark past, I use my experiences to create a gritty or creepy mood around my characters. Almost all of my characters have had to deal with abuse in one or many forms, and that influences their decisions, often causing them to second guess themselves and make the wrong choices. So, in that respect, I think my past helps me to write dark fiction more realistically.
 
As for why it’s a bad thing, I think a lot of readers have trouble relating to my characters because they’re morally ambiguous or hard to like. Sometimes I scold myslf that I need to writer “normal” stories. But I have to write what I know, even if that means limiting the range of my audience. 
 
LT:    What do you do when you need a new source of inspiration?
 
ZW:   I read a lot. I don’t think any writer can find the inspiration to improve without seeing what the “competition” is up to. If reading isn’t working, I like to take long walks with my hubby in downtown Milan and ramble. usually after an hour or so, I’ll stumble across an idea, and hubby gets to act all smug for inspiring me.
 
LT:    Tell us about your latest work in progress.
 
ZW:   I’m currently working on my first bizarro novella, NINJAWORLD. I’ve been having a lot of fun with the story about a terminally unlucky man who trips into a wormhole and ends up on an underether world full of cephalopod and echinoderm ninjas. It’s got a little bit of horror, but the stronger elements were sci-fi and comedy. (With a pinch of musical, for flavor.) I completed the rough draft last week, and I’m waiting the comments of the beta readers now.
 
LT:    Is there any particular type of creature, situation, or place that you’ve wanted to write about for a while, but haven’t gotten around to?
 
ZW:   I’ve longed to do a fight scene between a daemon and a werekin, but during the first werekin book, the daemons never show up. Once I get Revival of the Magi written, I’ll be staging that fight in the next Werekin novel, Wereporno. (No, really.)
 
LT:    If you could write someone else’s book or movie (based on fictional characters or otherwise), what would you chose?
 
ZW:   If you mean in the sense that “I wish I’d thought of that,” then I wish I’d written It. When I was a teenager, I actually wrote part of a fan-fiction sequel to It where one of the eggs was missed, and the kids of the survivors had to take on this newer, younger monster. The kids are cynics and not really afraid until after the death of Beverly.
 
Right after I reached that point in the story, I realized, “I can’t really do anything with this. These aren’t my characters, so I can’t sell them or even submit them anywhere.” So I gave it up and moved on to work on stuff of my own.
 
LT:    What do you read in your spare time?
 
ZW:   I prefer dark fiction and horror, but I will read just about anything. One year I read a pair of “plus baby” romance novels just to see what the genre was about. I’m an avid reader, so if you can hook me on the basic premise, I’ll try anything. I also dip into sci-fi and fantasy when dark fiction gets old and I’m risking burning out.
 
Among my recent reads are Handling the Undead by John A. Lindqvist, The Pleasure of My Company by Stave Martin, Bar None by Tim Lebbon, Rot by Michelle Lee, Zot - The Complete Black and White Collection by Scott McCloud and Zombie Bastard by Jerrod Balzer.
 
LT:    Is there anything you’d like to add?
 
ZW:   A Stoker award? Hehe. I guess I’d like to conclude by thanking all of the people who looked at my stories, and give special thanks to the reviewers who took the time to give feedback on the story. Without their help, I don’t think I’d be making as much progress as I have. So, readers, and reviewers, thanks for all your support!

 

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© 2010 Lori Titus

To find out more about the talented Zoe Whitten, author of  Zombie Punter, Haunting Sins, Changeling, and more, visit her site here:

http://www.zoewhitten.com

From the outside of the house, everything was neat and tidy: a small front yard, a freshly painted picket fence, rows of marigolds planted along the edge of the walkway.

Sheriff Drake took a deep breath before walking in.

The smell of death was pervasive, from the moment he opened the door. The coroner’s people were still taking pictures of the living room.

And another smell, like smoke, that only he could smell.

The child was sitting in the kitchen.

Her shirt and sweat pants were spotted with blood.

“Hi Sheriff,” the girl said.

Shauna Brown was with her. Shauna was a local social worker, but had experience working in New York before she settled in Lazarus. She nodded at him, but didn’t speak. Her bottom lip trembled. Shauna had seen many things, and he’d known her for years.

She looked as upset as he’d ever seen her before.

“Drake,” she said “Have you seen the … room?”

“No, I will go back when they’re done. I came to be formally introduced to this young lady,” he said. “What’s your name, sweetheart?”

“Hailey.” She rolled her big brown eyes at him. When he looked at her he felt the presence, something that did not belong to this child.

When she’s older, he realized, she’ll be completely gone.

This child was barely seven. It was hard to understand how Hailey could be so relaxed and comfortable, with her Mother laying dead and bloody in the next room.

Stephen sat down, watching the child carefully. He thought of his own niece, and how he’d spoken to her when she was that age.

“Can you tell me what happened today?”

She shrugged.

“Has she spoken to you about it?” Drake asked Shauna.

“Why don’t you tell the Sheriff what you told me,” She encouraged.

Hailey made a dismissive little toss of her braid. “I have to?”

“Yes,” Shauna was firm.

The child sighed. She told him, saying all that happened in a breathless rush.

“My Mom told me we were going to leave town today. She wanted us to live at Grandma’s.”

“Where’s Grandma’s?” he asked.

“Seattle,” Shauna answered. “Tell him the rest, Hailey.”

“I can’t be in that place. It rains too much. And I don’t like Grandma.”

“Why not?”

“I just don’t,” she hissed.

“Okay. So what happened?”

“We got into a fight. I told Momma I was not going to do what she wanted. And she screamed at me. I got so mad. I got so mad I could feel it all stuffy down in my chest. And when it’s like that, it has to come out.”

“What has to come out?”

“Dark things. You know about the dark things, don’t you Sheriff?”

Drake and Shauna exchanged a look, but neither of them replied. Hailey continued with her story.

“So, I felt it. Everything came out of me. Momma’s eyes were bleeding. And then she was on the floor, and she was bleeding everywhere. She cried for a long time. And then she just stopped.”

Hailey took a long breath, relived to have said it.

For a moment, she had eased the pain, the feeling of something rising up in her chest.

“I miss Momma,” she said sadly. “She always said. ‘Everything’s okay. I’m still gonna love you.’”

And as she said that, her eyes drifted off. Her mind was someplace where they could not reach her.

Outside, Drake and Shauna argued in hushed tones. The police were still working the scene, and an officer had been left with the child.

“She’s psychotic,” Shauna said. “A textbook case.”

He shook his head. “Maybe. But a child couldn’t have done all that by herself. Listen, Shauna. She needs to be taken as far from this place as possible. She needs help, but not only the kind you’re thinking of.”

“What do you mean?”

“Have you ever considered,” he whispered, “that something may be controlling her?”

Shauna’s eyes widened. “Demon possession?”

He nodded gravely. “Yes.”

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©2008 Lori Titus