by Jay Wilburn
Shawn Chesser is a favorite of many zombie readers and many fans of this tour, myself included. His Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse series is up to book twelve and still going strong. There is an intensity and focus to his storytelling which has earned him loyal fans. Abyss is his featured work for the Winter of zombie tour 2017.
Abyss has some darker notes to it than some of the previous installments to the series. I asked Chesser about that. He told me his best friend is battling cancer right now. He wrote Mortal when his friend was first diagnosed three plus years ago. That was a dark book as well now that I think about it. His friend appears to be nearing the end of his battle now. So, for Chesser, that reality had a lot to do with it.
A lot of Chesser’s characters pop right off the page as living, breathing people. Part of this is because he so often bases these characters off real people he knows. I asked him about the upside and downsides of this approach. He says, on one hand it makes it easier for him to write how the characters react to certain situations, as he already knows where their moral compass points. On the downside, he has to be really careful not to embarrass anyone who is still alive that may read his stories. He typically asks before he goes to a living relative or friend for inspiration. As for the family members who’ve passed, he says he tries and honor their memory as best he can.
I’ve done a lot of reading on my own and as I made selections for the zombie tours each summer and winter. I can’t think of another writer that uses quite as tight of a timeframe for each of his books. They often cover a day or two of action each and that action comes fast for readers. I asked him about that style of writing. He thinks at most he’s time jumped three weeks between books. He enjoys a movie/book/television show that spools out slowly then hits him between the eyes. He supposes that’s what he’s doing subconsciously with STZA. In RIKER’s APOCALYPSE, the virus doesn’t explode as fast as it did in TRUDGE. He thinks this will push him to learn how to incorporate time jumps within the book, while keeping the plotting sensible. I have faith in his ability to pull it off.
Looking ahead, he’s writing a serial for nationally distributed SKILLSET magazine. He says, think DEATH WISH 2017. While I doesn’t own the rights to PEACEMAKER, he’ll draw inspiration from it and write a thriller. He says, who knows? Maybe he’ll even make it the start of a series. For now, he’s having a blast writing for SKILLSET. I’m excited to see the results.
I hope I have made the case for Shawn Chesser. Check out Abyss and the STZA series now. If you want to know more about Shawn Chesser, check out this “case for” post from a previous tour.
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