Who wants to have a short story contest?

he basic premise is that you're a character who has survived the events of the Zombie World War, and you're recounting the story of your life leading up to and throughout the Great Panic, the years that followed after the country was overwhelmed and day to day survival was a concern, and the subsequent aftermath when the people of the world started fighting back and what it was you did during that time.

The contest will be done in three parts. First is the introduction where you explain who you are. Where you lived, what job you had. Maybe your family and friends. You know, back when everything was still normal. After that explanation, you recount the tale of how it all fell apart and the things you had to do to ensure your immediate safety.

Second part of the story does a time skip up to a couple years after it all hit the fan. You explain where you are now if you were forced to leave the home in which you lived. You explain whether or not you're a lone survivor scavenging through the wreck of the world for what you need to get by, or if you've fallen in with a community of other survivors and what it is you all do to try and make ends meet.

Third part is the great offensive, when the armies of the world are rebuilt, geared up, and sent throughout the land to purge every nook and cranny of the undead menace. What were you doing at this time? Were you drafted into the army and fighting the Zack with everyone else? Were you living in an isolated city and watched from your new home as the army came through and wiped out all the Zack in the area? What was it that you did during this time?

All participants will act as the judges for this contest. Someone post an entry, the rest of us read it and assign it point based on how much we liked it. Entry we liked the most gets the most points. Entry we liked the least gets the least points. So if there are seven contestants, we judge our six rivals and assign them a score of one through six based on how awesome we thought their work was.

Sound fun? Have we got any takers?

John Ringo has been making some comments about a possible anthology to go with his Black Tide rising series. So this could get you started on the road to a story having to do with his universe.

I think keeping it in a universe where a lot of people have read the novel vs. a novel which has barely been released (as interesting as it looks) might make more sense. WWZ has a known ending, whereas unless Ringo is doing a one-off novel, which he almost never does, the ending to that series is unknown.

One other question I never really got a good answer to was why the zombies in the Brad Pitt movie were so fast moving and the ones in the book weren't. Which way were we going to play that?

I'm actually down for this contest - been watching The Walking Dead on Netflix for the first time and sort of have "Braaaaaaains" on the brain. Will need to re-read WWZ to remind myself of all the specifics of that world, though.

For the purposes of this game as well as life itself I'm pretending that movie doesn't exist. Took one look at the trailer, saw that it was blatantly "In Name Only", and decided to just skip over it. But yeah, I'd prefer to keep this game well within the confines of how the WWZ narrative turned out. That way we have a definitive beginning, middle, and end to work with.

Also, high baconbots! For some reason it feels like I haven't seen you in a while :(

Meh, moved to a different province, toddler to look after, new house... Ya know how it is.

Also, new job isn't quite as boring as the old one where I could forum surf during work hours.