Blue Zone Zyracuse

About FNG and Other Issues

I would have just posted a comment but wordpress wouldn’t let me.

The story shows great improvements in terms of technical writing, you’ve made it flow a lot smoother, but I’m afraid that’s all the praise I can offer.

In terms of character development it only serves to make the character even flatter than he already was. Sorry, but if it keeps going like this you might have to amend the character profile to include psychopath.

In terms of greater Zone continuity the issues it presents are very serious. Meaker, I don’t know if you’ve been consciously building to this, but the way things are headed you’re setting up you’re character for a power struggle with the legitimate leadership of Brooks and Slater. This could have huge repercussions.

The biggest problem I think that the story brings up isn’t limited just to its content. It involves all of us, the authors. We’ve split into groups and are trying to bring Zyracuse in very different directions. While new and varied ideas are the lifeblood of any creative endeavor there is a point where they become too divisive.

Just recently, there was talk about the demilitarization of the CC and making it more informal. This story seems to do the opposite. If we can’t come up with a consensus on something like this we’ll never be able to really create anything concrete.

I don’t want to stifle anyone but I think there needs to be a great deal more discussion and cooperation on individual stories.

I guess what I’m saying is:

A zone divided against itself cannot stand.

K

79 responses to “About FNG and Other Issues”

  2. I see your points, But how can you honestly think that people put into a situation like this will just accept it and function properly. We have addressed the problems of food and electricity and the overall depression looming over the zone. I don’t think its realistic to think that people will just unify and fight against the common threat. It didn’t happen with communism, and with all the propaganda we tried we still had punks burning draft cards. I also don’t think its realistic to think that someone who is a trained killer would have any problem doing just that. Would it be too hard to believe that Psychosis wouldn’t be a problem for some people? Are you trying to suggest that power struggles would not occur? I’m trying to add realism into my stories, and in the real event ( in my honest opinion) There will be no fairytale endings.

  3. I kind of like how Meaker works. Even if everyone else does run things a different way, he treats those under him in this militaristic manner. It’s like a teacher who gives way too much homework but is still respected by many students. (Or perhaps a teacher who makes you do a report project that lasts three weeks. No names…)

    My apologies if anything I just said made no sense. My brain is currently somewhere else.

  5. I think that becase there are clashes with the writers and there are clashes in the zone this will present new problems and if the zone keeps going torwards a more civilized lifestyle then the clashes will present themselves in the manner of different factions. This would happen in a real life situation and should happen in the zone in minor forms, and like Meaker said it is not a fairy tale shit happens and it is our job to make it happen in the zone. So if the wirters are going in different dirrections it is a good thing as long as the charecters keep there charecteristics. Meaker also should be a little nuts because honestly everyone in the zone would have to be nuts especially if they went into wars, this is becuase in a combat situation your mind becomes an internal fuck up no matter what you are never the same. The reason I know this is because my dad was in the Army and he had taught me alot about combat and wars so I kinda do have somme mental experiance, but no physical.

    Basicly I side with Meaker.

  6. Also on another topic the CC should stay militaristic, I think this becuase those in the CC have seen this kind of shit and can handle it. We can however alow the civilians to create a militia in a time of need to fight against an enemy as in my story HEAT WAVE. All civilizations have pedestrians and they have civilians they are never one in the same if they are to last.

  7. If we allow the Corps to be only military personel that happened to be in the Zone, we might only have Sgt. Meaker and Slater. The rest of the military headed west with the government. The civilians will need to receive quick on the job training. Most of the stories that have included the Corps have just regular Joes that happen to now fight zombies. Correct me if I’m wrong, but Chuck wasn’t military, neither was Razor, Nielsen, the Danton brothers, Calc…

  8. We are a microcosm of Central New York.

    There are Democrats, Republicans, Liberals, Libertarians, ex-military, current hippies, middle managers, dock workers, NASCAR fans, A&E watchers, stoners, loners, politicians, and snowplow drivers, volunteers, lovers, and fools.

    And a frakkin’ crapload of undead.

    An awful lot of those people are in Corpse Corps. Though there’s debate, the best defense can sometimes be a good offense.

    Get used to it people. Fast.

  9. I think it is realistic to expect people to come together against a common threat. It is the natural human inclination.

    Power struggles may occur, but it is a very large event for the zone and as such needs to be thought out carefully. If one does occur the current regime is the only logical winner. The inhabitants in the zone would never support such harsh government as such that your character would dish out.

    At the same time neither would the CC. There are no military personnel in its ranks, the best you could hope for is the odd ex-cop. Civilians fighting Zak would not realistically fall into a military hierarchy. Leaders in the CC will have to be more diplomatic and rank is a non issue. Appointments to these positions will have been largely random and there is no political, ideological, or societal reason to accept one persons unquestionable leadership.

    There will always be dissent in the CC. Corps members won’t snap to and just follow orders. And largely they won’t need to. I can’t stress enough that Zak is an aimless unthinking force, not a malicious and calculating enemy. We don’t fight the horde, we outlast it.

    And as for Sgt Meaker not having moral or emotional conflicts: it either means he’s a flat character, or a psychopath.

    People have divided and conflicted feelings. There will always be this inner conflict, especially about something so major as death and murder.

    If you ask any vet, and if that man is being honest with you, they will never say that they are fine and dandy about what they had to go through. They will always carry lingering feelings of remorse, guilt, pain, and confusion about losing friends, watching men die, and having to kill.

    In order to write about death you have to recognize the enormity of the subject and deal with its repercussions. If you don’t it is just a lie to the reader.

  10. Fragging usually happens in one of two ways: the guys kill someone they hate, either of their own rank or someone outranking them. I’ve never heard of a case of it running downhill in rank–an officer or NCO doing it to a common soldier.

    What’s worse is that this is not the army anymore. Corpse Corps is not the army. Only Slater and Archer are left on active duty.

    Meaker’s just gone from being a leader to being a murderer.

    The sad part is that if he’s put on trial and found innocent, we’ve got a gorram Baltar situation on our hands, and that’s too obvious a cop from BSG, even for me.

    The hardest part for me to believe in the story was the defiance he showed toward Slater. He may not be active military, and lieutenants may be schooled by their sergeants all the time, but Slater is no recent West Point grad meeting an NCO for the first time.

  11. K you make a very good point about the way death makes people a little unhinged and in alot of cases very unhinged it is just the way our mind works. I still think that Slater and Meaker should come up with a traiing program, but not for killing Zack physicly but mentaly remeber these zombies look like people and used to be people there is still a tough mental stress.

  13. There is alot of mental stress involved in killing something that was or is human, no matter who you are killing fucks you up and you may need training mentally to actually function well outside the wall.

  14. One way to accomplish this would be to make a low laying fence about 10 feet long take cut of limbs and make people crawl under it. We do this today except we use deer meat which Zyracuse might need so I sudjest using killed zombie parts.

  15. I just kind of realized something that everyone else probably has already. Meaker is probably the most influencial character in Zyracuse. Just look at all of the debates started about or around him. In my opinion, what’s going on in this very topic is something that every author should shoot for. No, I don’t mean everyone’s character should kill a fellow survivor. Meaker’s had a huge impact on the site’s authors and if the story continues like this, the same will happen in Zyracuse. It’s as if we’re looking at an actual person and sayin “I can’t believe they did that!”

    I guess what I’m saying is that doing something as shocking as Meaker did makes him a much more “real” person.

  16. I’m not saying I can’t believe he did that because I’m invested in the character. I’m saying it because no real person would act in that way. The character is causing controversy, in my opinion, because he doesn’t work. He doesn’t fit into the zone and there has been no attempt to fix that.

    I get the military vibe the author is going for, but it needs to be incorporated into the Blue Zone universe we have created differently and above all it needs to compromise with the framework already set up.

    My real problem with the whole situation is that we are trying to elevate the zombie horror genre here and the Meaker character is lowering it. The genre is where it is because of too many depictions in pop culture focus on the gratuitous and pointless deaths. Yeah that was cool when that guy got his head chewed off, but did it do anything for the story. Stories like FNG and Zack Don’t Surf do nothing to change this perception and have no emotional depth.

    And I know with that last part many of you are thinking, “Duuuude, gay.”

    But that’s what we are here for. Fiction can be used for many things, from political and social commentary to pure speculative and imaginative fun, but what it always must have is emotional conflict. Otherwise you might as well go write an essay.

  19. I still want to know how to kill a zombie mentally.

    Tyler, Sgt. Meaker cannot possibly be the most influential character in the Zone. FNG was the first time that he actually set foot in the Zone besides a cameo in Heat Wave. Vannawhite has appeared in just as many Zone stories. Meaker may be the most controversial character, though.

  20. My apologies, I think I meant to say controversial not influencial. Again, some ghouls “borrowed” my mind for the moment. I meant to say that he affects the real world authors, not the characters.

    I see what you’re saying K, but I think that sometimes people do act a little insane (okay, a lot). My point was that Meaker is a very “talked about” character whether it’s from positive or negative viewpoints. You said earlier that a conflict could result between Meaker and Slater/Brooks that would create huge repercussions. Wouldn’t that make a good story though?

    Also, who’s to say that Meaker does not feel remorse? Danny’s murder occured at the end of the story and it was difficult to judge Meaker’s thoughts. Yes, it did seem as if he wasn’t bothered at all but maybe he felt the need to act “manly” in front of Smith. Perhaps a future story will reveal a depth of Meaker unknown to everyone. Although, this isn’t my decision as it isn’t my character.

    One last point is that you say that Meaker didn’t act realistic. Who’s to say what’s realistic in Zyracuse? Sure, there’s a basic, unwritten rule for human behavior but I think that rule gets twisted during the dawn of the apocolypse. Meaker’s excuse for killing Danny was that he was getting in the way. Sometimes people will do insane things to survive, even if it was a radical as this…

  22. No. Meaker doesn’t act realistically.

    “Who’s to say Meaker does not feel remorse,” please just find something hard to hit your head against. That is the author’s job. Its his job to either state or hint at the mental states of their characters. That’s fundamental to writing fiction, basic in the extreme, we only have what the author writes to go off. All of the character’s observable actions and interactions show that there are no emotions and internal conflicts.

    I don’t have a problem that Meaker kills people, I have a problem with their being no repercussions or emotional conflict whatsoever.

  23. Chris I may have worded it wrong I meant to say you have to have a stable mindset to kill something that is still sorta human besides the whole eating other people thing. Also yes Meaker is to much of an empty shell in the storys even Tallons bad ass kindergarden teacher has hints of her mental state, you have to hint of on these things or your charecter will seem to much like an empty shell. Also anyone got any opinians about my militia thing.

  24. Let’s leave these comments here. They seem to have developed into a new & worthwhile thread.

    But, off topic, what was going on with the post to prevent comments from being posted there so that we’ll know it if it happens again.

  25. Also Meaker is not that influentual, my charecter Sarah has only been in two stories and has already built a wall and has a slight freindship with Slater.

  26. I’ve never been a big one for team-building, morale inducing activities. Bonding isn’t for me. Hand me a stick and I’ll go.

    I’ve done some horrible team-creating things in my life, including going to my own wedding. But never in my life have I heard anything as absolutely bark at the moon insane as crawling under a fence with zombie parts festooned all over it.

    With that way of thinking, if writing doesn’t work out for you, you have a bright future ahead of you in a Human Resources department somewhere.

  28. Yes she will I have not finished writing HEAT WAVE yet I can not think of an ending I thought I had one but noone liked it so I am unpublishing it to work on it.

  30. This probably isn’t the place for this, but most seem to be reading here. If you’re editing your post after the title image has been added, could you make sure that when you’re done, it is still centered in the post. I’ve had to go back and fix multiple placards, some multiple times. Just click once on the picture, and then hit the center button.

  31. Ok I am sorry I thought it was done when I published it.

    Ok no more of that I really want to keep discussing the issues here, for one thing Dave they do this in the military for severe situations. So since CC members have to be able to handle the fact that they are killing what was once human and seeing there blood all over there weapons. I think that this training with a couple other things would help with its effectiveness

  32. Again, I apologize for using the wrong words. It all sounds great in my head until I type it out. What I meant to say is that Meaker has an effect on the authors of zyracuse.com. In no way did I mean to say he was more important than any other characters.

    I know that an author’s job is to make every word count, especially in these shorter works. I tried saying that I know that Meaker didn’t seem as if he felt remorse. That’s the good thing about these interconnected stories though. If the author wanted Meaker to feel remorse, another story could be written in which he does. If said story was written, it couldn’t be said that there was no way Meaker felt remorse.

    I should also add that I’m not completely disagreeing with everything you say, K. You make some excellent points that I agree with you completely on.

  33. Perhaps the military does so, Jared, but zombie blood contains a virus like HIV. Now you may know that HIV deactivates after five minutes’ exposure to air, but would you crawl under HIV-infected dripping limbs if there was no compelling reason to do so? The risk:reward is far too high.

  35. You could always drain the blood, but you do have to think of something because the last thing you need is a CC member blowing his own brains out cause he cannot take the sudden stress.

  36. Other than not having a pre-existing aversion to blood there’s not much to killing Zs besides Boyscout level preparedness.

    We don’t need any obstacle courses or boot camps for the CC, just people who can handle their shit. And you can’t teach that. Each leader would have to make that decision about each person in his group.

  37. Tyler is right when he says that Meaker’s personality may emerge over time. Click had a suicide attempt in it. Meaker is a serial and a soap opera. I’d like to see where he goes.

    K is right where he says that Meaker will have to pay a mental price for what he does. In spite of his large number of stories, we know more about his sidearms than what motivates him.

    K is right when he says that Meaker is a flat character. Tyler’s right when he suggests this will lead to future subplots. K is right to call for less militaristic badassness. Meaker is right to say that cults of personality may develop.

    I hope you can all benefit from each others’ experiences and wisdom. I know that sounds trite and will ultimately make no one happy, but I’m hearing good points from around the world on this.

    While I don’t see K and Meaker sitting next to each other at Clam Bar drinking toasts from their juice boxes, they currently represent the two extremes of thinking in the Zone. The middle will absorb and pull from both. I don’t see a problem with that.

  38. What I’m looking for is ways to integrate, or at least make compatible, these stories. This is a cooperative effort and we’re trying to make a coherent and functional sandbox in which to play in. If we don’t make sure the pieces fit now it will all fall apart when we go and try to put it all together.

  39. holy crap, last time I checked the site there was two comments on this post, next thing I know theres a damn political debate going on. This story had way more an impact than I expected. I’ll be back on later to add my counter arguments.

  40. First. Don’t judge a book by its cover, For all you know, K, Meaker may have some deep rooted motivation for his actions, Perhaps a story I’m planning on writing. Did it occur to no one that In my improvisation I at least had a flight plan of what direction I was going to have my Character go in? Just because Someone appears to have no emotion or depth doesnt mean he will stay that way forever. If J.K. had revealed that voldemort was Harry’s Dark arts teacher in the beginning would it have had the same effectiveness as when you found out the truth at the end? Would it have been a great story if we knew that Sirius Black didn’t in fact betray his parents? boy that’d be a great three chapter book.

    Second.In all his years of Combat he may have become desensitized to death, much more than the former grocery clerk wielding a crowbar. Death, no matter how big a deal it is can be ignored. Just like pain, and every other aspect of life your brain can tune it out, Special Forces Soldiers need this skill, they of all people can endure sleep deprivation, starvation, injuries, and fear with only the mission in mind. It would not be hard to kill someone you aren’t closely attached to, worse things happen. Even people who are not mentally unstable have the capacity to kill without remorse. Why not a soldier who has done potentially worse for less?

    Third. I really hate it when K uses boy scouts. If it were so easy to kill a Z how the hell did all those people die in the first place? maybe we should have just round up all the Troops in CNY and have them charge a crowd of thirty thousand? One on one, yes killing something thats already dead isn’t a problem. but what happens when you get a legless Z, you walk past and don’t even see the hand reach out, trip you and before you know it your calf is being chewed off. Then what? are the boy scouts going to come and rescue the Zone when your selfishness allows you to not report the injury, die in your bed and eat your wife in the night. Well what happens when the neighbors open the door because of the smell? well you, your wife and kids go after them of course. now we have four against one don’t we? All because of a civilians un-prepared and Un-disciplined way of life. I wouldn’t trust the MTV generation in Blue Zone their own lives let alone mine. Unless they got the discipline to follow a simple damn order when its given, on the spot, and effectively the first time. I’m not expecting to turn anyone in the Zone into a soldier, some of them are hopeless cases. The Corps need leadership, if they are going out to fight then English teachers should not be leading the charge. Battle is unpredictable, you could go out and expect to kill a few zombie babies and wake up the whole damn nursery home of Z’s down the block. The Corps is trusted with the Zones Security. Just like the Army, oh and the National Guard, and the Coast Guard. I don’t think Microsoft is trusted with our security, though it is every Americans Responsibility.

    Forth: Human mindset: My ass > Our asses with you meat shielding > you.

  41. Maybe so, but in the world we have created English teachers, auto mechanics, and janitors ARE leading the charge. They’re all we got and that is the whole point of everything that we’re trying to do here.

    Z is easy to kill. Crowbar meet zombie face. End of story. The danger is the disease not the creatures. Containment and decontamination is the name of the game not warfare. You can’t have a battle with something that has no concept of what it is. That’s why its an outbreak and a pandemic. The virus is the threat.

    There’s a mutant alien army bent on galactic domination and out to conquer the human race: call in the military.

    There’s a bunch of clumsy, stupid, shambling corpses that are falling apart on their own: call in the boy scouts.

    Y’dig?

    Death CANNOT be ignored. Just the statement that it can is shocking. No one can devalue human life to that point unless they are by definition insane. That is very, very dangerous ground.

    Even the most hardened soldier will still be affected by death and there will still be a reaction. You’re right in that there is a difference between a Navy seal and a grocery clerk, but only in the way they deal with it. The soldier will only internalize that reaction. People are not and will never be robots. There is always an effect.

    If there really is all this depth to the character then for god’s sake use it! Because as it stands now you’ve got one flat as a pancake main character and a shit load of extras, but nothing with which to build a strong story. If ifs and buts were candy and nuts then Tiny Tim would have been one fat cripple. There is no depth or conflict where none is made by the author. Until that happens the character will remain an uninteresting bit player that the reader will have all of zero interest in.

  42. apparently theres a lot of interest in him, but I see where your coming from.

    Death can be ignored, Death is a fact of life. You have to emotionally disconnect yourself from situations like that if your to prevent yourself from going insane. If you let every man you killed haunt you you would be a wreck after your first mission. You dwell on that later, not on the run back to safety.

    I hate Robots.

    At the point I’m at now I don’t want my character to seem like an emotional person. I don’t want the reader to shed a tear and go, ” Oh… thats why he took it out on poor Danny.” I wanted it to seem like a cold blooded act that would never be put onto trial, His people fall into formation and work till passing out, not because they are military, because they fear him.

    Meaker’s ability to kill and appear to not be affected is the same way the people in his own platoon look at him. I’m sure Smith, the sensible Ex-Cop doesn’t exactly like him, he’s just like the NCO the privates all swear to god is insane. Who is to say that Meaker doesn’t sit up at night from it? The reader doesn’t know because no one else does.

    I Hate robots.

  43. Meaker you have o get out of that little fantasie world were every soilder is a fucking Rambo ok. EVERYONE IS AFFECTED BY DEATH. Why do you think that we have all our veterans coming home with all sorts of new little mental issues. I dare you to go to a veterans home and ask them how it feels to kill someone to actually take the life out of someones body and destroy them. Your charecter either A is a complete and utter fantaise or B he has a derranged mental illness. Before you respond think about it Zack spread fast because the first person they would see would ussually be there loved ones. That is how it spread quickly, this is because if you can kill you mother or your brother, or your father you derranged. I know I could not do that so get your head out of fairy land and think what would a regular human being do in this situation.

  44. Fine. I’ll amend that to include, “zero interest past adolescent boys”.

    I don’t think a lot of you get the point. “Who’s to say”?

    YOU ARE!

    You’re the god damned author. If you don’t do it it doesn’t exist. If it doesn’t exist then your character is flat and featureless.

    If you want to keep the character where he is and less deep than a Schwarzenegger action hero go ahead.

    But if you do you will still have nothing to make a story out of. Writing a story isn’t like making a movie. To a certain extent you can substitute action and visuals for actual substance in a movie. You can’t do that in a story, there are no visuals and the reader becomes tired of the action and deaths if there is no deeper point.

    But above all your style needs compromise. Your character is one of the only ex-military people in the zone and as such you need to dial back the way he operates to fit into the Blue Zone framework. We are writing about normal people here.

    Caveat: This guy is supposed to be some great leader but you have him leading by fear and killing his own men because he can’t think of or doesn’t want to deal with it another way. Doesn’t seem like a good leader to me. It might only be a matter of time until one of his own guys decides to have a friendly fire incident.

  45. Jared, First off if your going to pick a side, stay on it. I recall you defending Meaker in the beginning of this debate.
    Second Dont assume everyone handles death the same way, You dont know how I or my character would handle the situation. I dont tell you how you would act do I? For the record though, Im pretty sure If my family were already dead I wouldnt feel truamatized saving my ass from a walking corpse. Every soldier is trained to handle death, those veterans you mentioned most likely had to see a lot of their friends die right in front of them. It might not just be from killing one too many gook. Special Forces are trained to handle death even more than regulars are, why would an Elite soldier of the greatest Military on Earth cry himself to sleep over a life lost? Danny meant nothing to Meaker, Neither do the people he kills. You want me to portray how a regular person would act in the situation right? did it ever occur to you that my character can handle the shit better than the others due to his training? Due to the fact he’s been killing since before the damn zombies came? Could it be maybe that he himself had to kill Everyone he knew and once was able to love because they became what still tries to snuff out humanity? His story isnt complete yet and your acting like its over. Your acting the way you should, be stunned, you arent supposed to Agree with him on killing Danny, but it was his call not yours. Anyone if they found out would be just as pissed, that is realistic enough in the sense that it started a debate outside the Zone, it started a real debate that would absolutly occure in the Zone had there been a witness.
    Third, its Fantasy, not fantasie or fantaise. I make mistakes, but if your going to argue and say my way of doing shit is wrong at least spell your fucking argument correctly. K can manage to im sure you could do the same.

    K, Quite frankly I could care less if you like my character, my storys are obviously not for you are they? If they were maybe Id have Meaker weep like a baby after every battle, woulsd that be more realistic to you? A Special Forces Sergeant for years and crying over some dead zombies, A Muslim Family, and a FNG. That makes more sense to me now that I mention it ( need to note the sarcasm there )

    As far as the fear part, Fear demands Discipline, and Discipline gets shit done. Every Good NCO makes damn sure his men wont dare step out of line, If not through respect than by fear. Both are effective if used right, If you had ever seen the movie Platoon the same shit happened. The only one who was stupid enough to consider Killing the big bad Sergeant was the FNG, the rest were scared shitless of the guy, even if they hated him they wouldnt ever consider attacking him.

    I get you dont like my writing style, Im sorry we cant all be like you. I write the way I do because thats the way I write, like it or dont. Your storys talk about real people, Mine aparently dont. even the normal people in my storys have that military Discipline when it comes to the corps. Why? Because Meaker instilled it in them to ensure that he could rely on them to get whatever job is needed done, when people screw up and cant be relied on. People die, it almost happened to himself when Dannys carelessness let a Z sneak right up behind him. If someone is a danger to others, they are best disposed of, scrubbing the Latrines for a week wont help him not get people killed. Im glad you dont like the character, I wasnt trying to impress or please you specifically. If Meaker were running the whole zone you have an argument about toning it back, but when hes running one company that is outperforming the rest, because they are fit mentally and physically, with good squad leaders. Why would that need to be toned back?

  46. Yes I was on your side untill I started hearing your defese. Noone can just kill someone and shrug it of unless they are mental or a freak who gets enjoyment from killing people which is just another form of mental illness. Anpther thing is why are we issuing over this when we still have to paln long term on making crops and getting water now that a wall is built. Meaker again I sided with you on the fact that the Corps should stay a different area away from civilians. If you want to make your charecter a little fucked up I do not care because you have to be in the civilized world that is a little fucked up in order to survive. We do not need combat training we need survival training and a person who has served in the military is the best way to get that. This site is one thing and one thing only the fact that we have taken human beings and taken away T.V., Computers, Games, and everyday household appliances. Then we took everyone of the top of the food chain, that is what this site is about and we have to look at a new issue if we are going to make this realistic. New york is huge we can not expect to be the only survivng blue zone and then we can not expect other zones to be freindly an not think we are weak enough to take over. If we find other zones or if they find us THEN we start finding Meaker and Slater and ask them to train us. In the mean time we need to focus on surviving.

  47. Another thing why are we caring that Meaker is really unhinged in this situation when we read Mouthwash and say it is great. I just think that your stories would be perfect if we saw what was going on in mister Meakers head.

  48. This isn’t an attack on the character or the style, its criticism of the execution of them.

    There is more than enough room in the zone for both. The core idea of this whole project is to throw different people into a bad situation and see how they deal with it.

    What I’m concerned with is integration, not just of your character, but all the stories that have been written. We have to be able to put them all together to make a working world.

    Criticism is what writers do and what they must do to make their writing better. You don’t have to use every bit of it, but you do need to keep an open mind and be able to adapt your work if you plan on growing at all as a writer. That’s why we post our stories for everyone to read on this site. Because we are after the criticism. If we weren’t Zyracuse.com wouldn’t exist and we’d all be writing our stories in private and quietly filing them away.

    That said, here’s another piece: I never said I wanted the character to cry or fall to pieces, in fact I never specified what effect these events would have. That’s up to you.

    My point is, and has been, that there needs to be an effect on the character. Its up to you to figure it out.

    I’m saying that it needs something more. The key word here is something.

    And for the record I would suggest that you keep in mind that by and large people are just people, be they a Muslim family, “gook”, or FNG.

  49. Very well said K and you also just solidified my point, hmans have been almighty for years and now we are not so we have to tell the story of these people with nothing.

  50. Back to the second subject this post was made to address.

    We need to get more concrete details set down about the zone. I know one reason that I’ve been leery about writing more zone related stories is that there is too much up in the air right now. I think we have to make some decisions and stick with them.

    Have we really decided on a final population size?

    Where are the people living, the terminal, the parking garage, ramshackle huts, etc.?

    Is the CC staying where it is, becoming more informal, or going under revision to a more militaristic format?

    I think we need some reasonably solid answers to these and more questions like them before we can really start delving into the zone fully.

    We can’t just leave huge structural issues like these up to a single writer to set in stone and then everyone else has to deal with it. I think we need a short discussion on each, then a vote or the admins need to step up and make a call.

  52. I thought I put his name in the Survival story, maybe I did in my 1st draft on paper. He hasn’t been put into a place where anyone calls him by his first name yet. it will come up though.

  54. Chris you haven’t really expressed where you stand yet have you? maybe I missed it, Or are you standing back and watching the Chaos unfold?

  56. John, I’m not in favor of a Rambo character in the zone. He needs something to make him human. Like K, I’m not sure what this is. Otherwise, there’s not much difference between Meaker and a zombie. They both go around killing without thinking much about it. You say that you have an endgame for the character, but until we see it he seems too Rambonian.

    I would suggest that for your next story, you take a break from the Military type stories. I would like to see what you could do with a former clothes folder at the Gap.

  58. Not to fuel this behemoth of an argument but:

    In WWZ, T. Sean Collins talks about his obsession with killing people (in the “Goodbyes” chapter). He speaks about how he would pass by a woman and imagine what the easiest way to kill her would be. This man isn’t insane or mentally ill, just a bit messed up from the war.

  61. First impulse is to say, ye gods. That’s the problem: Meaker is T. Sean.

    But I don’t agree. T. Sean wasn’t “a bit” messed up by the war. He was as sane as any sociopath could be.

    Meaker’s not a sociopath.

    Meaker could really solve a lot of problems around here by finishing up Operation: Zombieclause, but the part about him defying Slater–he can do it, but that conflict will need to be resolved.

  62. But we need to actually see some indications that he isn’t a sociopath.

    Like you said, “Meaker’s just gone from being a leader to being a murderer.”

    It is a pivotal moment for the character and changes the way he is perceived. I guess in the end it has put another facet on the character at last.

  67. Jared, please remember this is a blog, not IM. All those single-sentence comments take up another database record, and we only syndicate 25 comments at a time. Please collect them to help make the file management easier.

  68. Saul Tigh. Saul Tigh is the perfect example of how you can have a character that’s tough as nails, but still give him depth.

    The old bastard could walk through hell and not get burned, but he has his own demons to worry him.

  69. Tigh is the best character on the show.

    They jumped the shark when they said he was a Cylon, and they’ll have to jump it again when they say they are just kidding.

    My favorite line of his isn’t even from a show. It’s from the Robot Chicken parody of BSG vs. the FCC.

  70. My favorite is, “Which side are we on? We’re on the side of the demons, chief. We’re evil men in the gardens of paradise, sent by the forces of death to spread devastation and destruction wherever we go. I’m surprised you didn’t know that.”

  72. I really liked SG-1 myself, but the writing could have done with a great deal more consistency. It was real hit or miss in some parts and on the whole season 8 was kind of a waste of time.

  75. I’ve not seen SG1, but I’m saving that for after I’ve watched all the Star Trek I’ve never seen. The sun will have burned out by then, but I need something to look forward to.

    As for M*A*S*H*–Clipboard is modeled on Radar O’Reilly, only more formally educated, and Father Totumbu is the Father Mulcahey with Queen’s English. Hawkeye and my uncle were the two biggest reasons I wanted to go to medical school, kind of like the way that everyone on the planet wants to be a Crime Scene Investigator these days.

    And the coffee. Oh frak. The coffee. Mother of God and all her crazy nephews…

  76. Well I figured since this Debate of the century is about wrapped up and dying id just like to say good job, This discussion lasted very long. Both sides fought to express the views and in then end we both compromised ( or was it just me?) In a way the debate may have brought the zone closer and helped each author gain an understanding of one another. Good game.

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