by RJ Spears
This is going to be hard for me to admit, but the reason I write zombie fiction is because of the romance of it. Some of you are now putting your hands to your mouth and might be holding back a laugh or maybe some residue of what you ate for lunch. Please bear with me.
I’m not talking about romance as something all kissy-face or having sultry women and hunky men roaming around with lust-filled loins. And I’m not knocking zombie fiction that is romantic, but I’m addressing about a different romance. I’m talking about the romance of surviving on your own, against insurmountable forces. Against the unsurvivable. Against your own limits. It’s the type romance where you have to reach inside your spirit and find the mettle down deep in because you know if you don’t, you’re toast.
In zombie fiction, characters get to test themselves to their limits and beyond. They get forced to make the ultimate sacrifices and learn to live or die with those consequences. It is the ultimate mortality game and the stakes are at their highest.
There’s also the romance of living in a world where all the rules have been wiped off the board. There are no parking tickets, no boss telling you what to do, and no IRS. (Maybe that’s a good thing.)
The zombie world is a fantastic crucible to set your characters in. It is in this new “romantic” world that characters get to remake themselves and evolve into heroes, villains, or zombie fodder.
My path to writing zombie fiction has always led back that kid who saw George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead and who wondered if he had the stuff to make it. Would I be able to kill? Would I be able to sacrifice myself? Would I be able to survive?
That’s the type romance I’m talking about.
Check out the Books of the Dead series and more from RJ Spears.
Jay's Patreon Page | Purchase Signed Books