New Idea

[rightwing401]

This just kind of popped into my head a while back, seems like a good idea to me. Would like some imput on it though.
Like most of my works, I want to place this one in the zombie dominated world. I haven't hammered out the finer details, but basically I wanted an expedition group from a secured safe haven to find a mother and her 6 year old son while scavaging a remote location for supplies. It doesn't take them long to figure out that there's something odd about the little boy.
Every time the expedition stops, the living dead seem to home in on them from all around. Their concerns are proven to be valid when one of their own is jumped by an unseen walker, the boy screams at the zombie to stop, and it follows his command.
What I'm stumped on is what they would do with the kid. It's obvious to them that the boy has some kind of psycic abilities that allows him to manipulate the dead, but at the moment he can only order one of them around at a time. The problem they have is that any living dead nearby will immediately be drawn to him like moths to a flame for some unexplainable reason.
So the question that I'm pondering is-1. Will they take this potential golden goose back to their enclave in the hopes of eventually harnesing his latent abilities to use against the dead, and possibly running the risk of bringing hoardes of walkers down on them- or 2. Kill him and his mother out of both fear of his potential danger and his attracting the dead.
Doubt I'll be writting it any time soon, but it doesn't hurt to ask fellow writers for some constructive criticism.

[The Alive Man]

No,

Your concept is beautifully crafted, I can smell a lot of explosive potential... since I'm a sci-fi writer, I can help you to develop the concept even further.

1- Skip the second ending. The boy is the key to un-lock a new, possible future where the Dead would succumb to humans forever. Hold this line, please.

2- Create a "mentor", a teacher than can help the boy to focuse his "Deadkinesis" (I conied this term), the ability to manipulate the Living Dead.

3- Let's suggest that the boy is the first one of an evolutionary mutant branch: thus, the spontaneous, natural product of human adaptation to the problem of the Living Dead (assuming that 20 or more years have passed by since the initial 'Otutbreak'/the Zombies are all re-animated survivor humans).

4- Let's show new exponents of this evolutionary branching humans.

5- Give me some credit for all this :D

Let me know if you like it,

TAM

[rightwing401]

Alive Man, I like the suggestions that you made. Now that I'm thinking about it a little more, I know that I'd like to expand on the concept.
What I figured I would do is have a few more of these 'super' people. They would be the byproducts of an experimental drug given to recently pregent women who didn't want their children. It rings similar to what happened in 'FireStarter', but a little different.
The zombies would be the results of a failed second experiement that was meant to be given to the children when they hit puberty in the hopes that it would make them able to survive all but the most extreme wounds.
The history is that there were two groups of subjects, with the experiments conducted about seven to eight years apart to see if the drug really did work.
Now here's how I envision the story. The world of course belongs to the dead, and humans are an endangered species. There are only a handful of the first group of 'super children' still alive, no more than seven or eight, and they are all now young adults and have moderate control over their powers. I figure the second group's slightly bigger, maybe two dozen children, who can barely control their abilites but have the potential to be stronger than the first group.
Of course the dead are really just kind of a back drop. The real aspect of the story that I'm interested in is the way the 'super humans' react. Like usual, some are good, some are bad.
Now that I think about it, having a mentor for the boy wouldn't be a bad idea. I've even got a character that has telekinetic abilities from an earlier story that could have an nice return.
Any thoughts on this expanded idea?

[deadpunk]

I like the concept. I smell a series here, rightwing. This story, then later, the original found boy as an adult, coping with the fact that he holds the key to humankind's salvation.

The inner turmoil of the character you are developing will make it a more 'substantial' read than most of the works currently in the fiction section.

Hell's bells...now I wanna read it...:D

[capncnut]

Pretty good concept there bro. I hope you get it done.

[The Alive Man]

The zombies would be the results of a failed second experiement that was meant to be given to the children when they hit puberty in the hopes that it would make them able to survive all but the most extreme wounds.
The history is that there were two groups of subjects, with the experiments conducted about seven to eight years apart to see if the drug really did work.

I like the theory that the two "calamities" are un-related concepts the best. Your SCANNERS-like subplot involving the drug (Ephemerol? :D ) is likable, of course, but I like to keep the Living Dead phenomenon unsolved, unexplained and mysterious.

The guys just were the products of a big HUMAN EVOLUTIONARY leap, a solid ANSWER to the "problem" of the Living Dead; mutation, evolution, upgrade.


Now here's how I envision the story. The world of course belongs to the dead, and humans are an endangered species. There are only a handful of the first group of 'super children' still alive, no more than seven or eight, and they are all now young adults and have moderate control over their powers. I figure the second group's slightly bigger, maybe two dozen children, who can barely control their abilites but have the potential to be stronger than the first group.
Of course the dead are really just kind of a back drop. The real aspect of the story that I'm interested in is the way the 'super humans' react. Like usual, some are good, some are bad.
Now that I think about it, having a mentor for the boy wouldn't be a bad idea. I've even got a character that has telekinetic abilities from an earlier story that could have an nice return.
Any thoughts on this expanded idea?

In my view, you have to drop any other "cheap" and well-known psychic ability - just stick to the Deadkinesis, because it's a great concept, man! You could draw some interesting parallels with the Tahitian Voodoo popular figure of the Bolkor.

I stay tuned!

[Eyebiter]

Recall another HPOTD fiction story where the main character could influence the undead on a grand scale. The military team he was with abandoned him in an undead city. He discovered his ability and used it to get an entire city full of undead to walk into a sports arena. The building was then bombed by the authorities.

[The Alive Man]

Recall another HPOTD fiction story where the main character could influence the undead on a grand scale. The military team he was with abandoned him in an undead city. He discovered his ability and used it to get an entire city full of undead to walk into a sports arena. The building was then bombed by the authorities.

I wanna read that.



Rightwing?

[Neil]

A six year old boy? Who can control the dead (to some degree)?

Young children can have tantrums... Imagine this kid having a bad one :)

I wouldn't have liked to have been the one to upset him :)

[rightwing401]

Alive man, I've never heard of that story before, but it sounds like something that I would like to read. And the idea of focusing solely on the 'deadkinesis' as you put it seems like it will be more than enough now that I think about it. The thought of thousands, if not tens of thousands, of living dead being directed by the whim of a single individual is very frightening.
And to Neil, I do understand that kids tend to be very selfish and sort of self centered. But that's what also makes the story so good, trying to teach a child to use his gifts properly when the temptation to abuse them is so overwhelming.

[deadpunk]

A six year old boy? Who can control the dead (to some degree)?

Young children can have tantrums... Imagine this kid having a bad one :)

I wouldn't have liked to have been the one to upset him :)

Imagines Ralphie being told he can't have his Red Rider beebee gun for Christmas... Now, thats a Christmas Story! The lamp that looked like a leg would get a whole new twist...:elol:

[radiokill]

sounds like a good story, rightwing. what part of Louisiana are you from?

[rightwing401]

Slidell originally. Live out in hammond and attend southeastern.

[radiokill]

Usually gas up in Slidell when we're headed to Florida. Had to stop and piss in Hammond a few times. Don't know much about that area. I live between Shreveport and Natchitoches, attend Northwestern.

[The Alive Man]

Alive man, I've never heard of that story before, but it sounds like something that I would like to read. And the idea of focusing solely on the 'deadkinesis' as you put it seems like it will be more than enough now that I think about it. The thought of thousands, if not tens of thousands, of living dead being directed by the whim of a single individual is very frightening.
And to Neil, I do understand that kids tend to be very selfish and sort of self centered. But that's what also makes the story so good, trying to teach a child to use his gifts properly when the temptation to abuse them is so overwhelming.

Please, forgive me: 'NECROKINESIS' is a much appropriated term, to begin with.

I think the power of the boy should be confined to some miles, and maybe he has to put much more effort in order to control TWO or even THREE LIVING DEAD simultaneously. Please, he could do that to a certain extent; his powers have to be tampered in some ways, don't make the character too much powerful.

[Danny]

screw that man ,let him blow his top, akira style:D


TETSUOOOOOO!!!


...sorry to much robot chicken.;)

[rightwing401]

I do appreciate Alive Man's concern. An invincible character with unlimited power does make for a boring read. But I'm also sort of on the level that hellsing is on. The child would need to be able to wield enough power to (at the very least eventually) pose a threat.
And Alive Man, I think the problem here is that you might have misunderstood what I meant when I said controlling hundreds of zombies. Since the living dead are in effect dumber than most animals, they can be far more easily manipulated. For example, if the there was some one or a group of people that he wanted to take care of, all he would have to do is give any zombie that he saw a tiny mental push to go in the direction of living. In accordance to the follower effect, more and more would fall in behind those first few, thus you have a chain reaction where potentially thousands of zombies are following the will of a single individual, even though the said person isn't controlling all of them.

[suicide22]

:bored::bored:

[Exatreides]

Good idea, this brings up one of my old ideas.. Maybe I will take to pen with it. Basicly the virus can create either the slow/fast dumb zombies. Or create a intelegent branch of the undead "overlords" that can command the rotting masses. The intelegent zombies would all very in how they act and are, but try to stay away from lace wearing ann rice smart vampire stuff.



How is the town not overrun with the undead? IE how do they make it to the point where the mayor can send them out. And why them?

[rightwing401]

Not to sound crude, suicide, but you really should have made the post in a seperate thread. You had me confused with the storyoutline because as I was reading through it I was trying to figure out what relevnce it had to this thread's story concept.
But since it is posted, I'll see what advice I can give to you.
First and foremost, grammer. Reading through your post, I can see that you need to pay a little more attention to gramatical errors. 'Their' instead of 'there' is just one example. Read through your post again carefully and I'm sure that you'll notice the rest. Trust me, I know from first had experience that even a great story can be completely shattered by bad grammer.
Second, the plot. While you do have a good running here, it is essential that you make a very good explanation for why the three main characters are in the position that they are. Maybe I'm just speaking for the older crowd of writers and readers here, but nothing raises red flags more than the quentesential teen hero. You have to have a very good explanation for why the mayor of the town would send out a trio of teens rather than a group of trained officers and/or national guard/town militia. The only possibility that even comes to my mind is that they are all armed with really bad, non-essitial equipment for the town's defense (such as a single shot 12 guage breechloader, ect.), and that the mayor would consider them expendable.
Third, you need good explanations for why the situation was able to deteriorate to the point of the breech. If there are guards around barricades all around the town, more than not they won't overlook a potential breech in the line. Neglegence, in-fighting, carelessness are just some of the possibilities for why the dead got in. Simply saying that they got in because they got in is kind of mundane.
Finally, make sure that you don't make the entire story living vs. livind dead. That kind of makes the story just a little too black and white. Remember, the one theme that Romero stated in all of his movies was that the dead were able to triumph in the end because of the inability of humanity to cooperate.
Hopefully these tips will help you to craft a really good tale. Good luck on your story.

[suicide22]

:bored::bored:

[deadpunk]

:rolleyes:

I think I've read enough to know...I don't want to read it.

Nothing personal, but like the man says: teen heroes? :hurl:

[suicide22]

:bored::bored:

[deadpunk]

Honestly? For something you first procclaimed to be a short treatment, you seem to have way too many characters, plots, sub-characters, and sub-plots... But, what do I know?

Off to unsubscribe to this thread...:evil:

[suicide22]

:bored::bored:

[Exatreides]

Eh, pump out a page or so of what you have. Make sure the grammar is decent, and everything like that. Give it a chance DP, albeit a small one.

[losherman]

i think what D is saying exa is he shouldnt have to give it a chance.......he should WANT to read it and he dont, cant really say as i blame him for that it doesnt sound very interesting.

[rightwing401]

Look, I'm a fair guy. Suicide, if you can make a captivating plot that has a group of very captivating characters that have a lot of depth, then this tale can be a good read, regardless of the main teen characters.
And far be it from me to tell another author how to write their own work, but I really hope that the grammer of the tale is good. I hate to be a nit picker, but you've got quite a few mistakes in your posts, which I hope isn't how you really write. Like I said earlier, a lot of grammer errors will turn people off from a story, regardless of how good it is.
Take the first page of your tale, post it in a seperate thread. I'll read over it and give you honest constructive critisim.

[deadpunk]

my thoughts after reading suicide's posts were:

English might be a second (learned) language here.

[suicide22]

-----:bored::bored:

[Neil]

Imagine if a number of kids pop up with this sort of ability... Sort of 'Village of the Damned' :)

[MissJacksonCA]

Hmmm poltergeist of the living dead sorta thing...

I think its a bad idea IMHO just because you can't really communicate with a corpse who has no functioning mental capacities... I mean these things may have some semblence of a brain in their heads but whats there isn't going to be for very long...

But if you're going to go for it... who's to say the boy would stop the zeds from eating anyone? Maybe there's some friction between the kid, his mum and the soldiers. I mean in a zombie world the fight for women will be a supreme concern among men left alive and of course that puts any surviving women into either jeopardy because they would have to rely on the men for safety or into a sort of position of power because you can control a man or a group of mens actions with sex if you're wise.

I really dont think the soldiers would kill the kid because a)the kid would know it before they did it with his telekenetic powers and all and b)if they killed the kid they'd risk the zombies coming after them out of vengeance (if the kid can commune with them obviously they'll have some capacity for vengeance)

Similarly I can't imagine the kid would be imprisoned after his ability is discovered and his power harnessed... simply because you can't harness a power like that without feeling the wrath of that persons abilities... It just wouldn't be possible and if you followed that story line it could turn more into a book like the movie Carrie and less like a book on zeds

[RustyHicks]

This idea of yours Rightwing sounds really good,
outstanding even.
Would like to read some when you get
the chance to post it

[rightwing401]

To Miss Jackson, I would like to first say that I always, and I can not stress this enough, enjoy feedback or comments about any of my stories or ideas. Even ones of constructive critizism such as yours. You made some good points with the whole situation. And make no mistake, I will consider the points.
However, I will say in my own opinion that zombies can think, but on a very, very primative basis. They were us once after all. I guess what this whole story, aside from living vs. dead, can be boiled down to the power of thought vs. instinct.
But seriously, it's not so much the child's abilities that I'm focusing on, it's his conflict of how to use them. One such problem is his mother trying to keep him from seeing himself as superior to other people because of what he can do, and whether or not he'll listen to her. And of course, there are others like him out there, and not all of them see regular people as their equals.
That's where the conflict comes in. Whether to take the boy and his mother in and try to harness his powers, and hope in the end that he doesn't decide to make himself their master--- or kill him and risk losing a nearly unimaginable ally.
In the end though, if you don't want to read it, I'm not going to get all broken up about it. I have never once had absolutely everyone like a story I've written.

To RustyHicks, I'm sorry to say that I haven't written this tale yet, or even begun to. I'm just so bogged down in finishing another living dead piece and a continuation of my sci fi one, and a novel to boot, that I have no idea when I'll get started on this one. But when I do, I'll post the intro of the tale.

[dracenstein]

Haven't read the whole thread (not for some time, anyway), but it sounds like Anakin Sywalker.

[benjamin03]

How in the hell does that sound like anakin skywalker ?!?

The idea of the story is very wel lthought off with the things you've mentioned you have a great structure for your story and this should definitely be written and because of your structure you only need to worry about the finer details now !

definitely sounds like a good story.

[suicide22]

:bored::bored:

[suicide22]

-----:bored::bored:

[zombieparanoia]

Rightwing: Sounds very cool, but I was wondering how the boy lived to be 6 if the zombies are drawn to him? Maybe have them not like him or ignore him. I would think that he'd be followed so much he'd never be able to control them all. Also curious about where you hope to go with the powers issue, would you envision most of the powers being dead control? or would you expand into pyrokinesis etc?

suicide: thats really classy you dick.

[rightwing401]

Interesting question zp. I've given the idea some thought myself, and the answer that I've come up with makes somewhat sense. I figured that the range and strength of the boy's powers would gradually become stronger as he grows older. So as an infant and a toddler, he would have to be in very close proximity to the dead for them to sense him. At his current age, he has a range no greater than a quarter of a mile. And since his mother was smart enough to stay out in the sticks and always keep on the move, there wouldn't be enough to really worry about. As to the others, I figure different people have different abilities. But their powers are kind of like a temporary spike, since they are first generation, where as the kid is second-thus more refined.
And to suicide. I don't know why you've felt the need to put something of yours into a thread of mine, especially one that doesn't seem to have any connection to my story. If you want your story to be reviewed, would you kindly place it in seperate thread.

[wyvern1096]

Here's a thought or two: With age would the amount of influence or control change? As a toddler he can have them stop, walk, etc... When he's a teenager finer control is possible: "Open the door, you three go to the back, get me a cold beer (sorry, could not resist), etc...

Also, maybe the amount of mental 'energy' used has a learning curve? He shouts "Stop!" with his mind so loud that he leaves the zeds with their brains leaking out of their ears. A situation that would make this child appear more valuable than the Jim Beam distillery to the scouting party that happens across him.

[zombieparanoia]

If there are many/multiple people with the power maybe have them receive some kind of "biofeedback" so if they are controlling a zombie while its eating a person they get some kind of high and some of them are addicted. I think giving some human control over attacking zombies could be cool.

[boblord]

maybe you could have him be a teen and have the military people try to kill him and he gets away but they kill his mom. then you could write the book about his revenge on the people.

[zombieparanoia]

maybe you could have him be a teen and have the military people try to kill him and he gets away but they kill his mom. then you could write the book about his revenge on the people.


But you HAVE to name him Anakin.

[boblord]

But you HAVE to name him Anakin.

:lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol: