Flash Fiction: THE STRAIN

[BrokenChain]

EDIT: Currently rewriting this story...

[mfreivald]

The thing about flash is that all the regular rules apply, and none of them do. :P

Here are my knee-jerk observations.

The narrative before the cure is a little confusing, but I have mixed feelings about that. Writing from a zombie POV should have some incoherent aspects to it; however, the reader is (hopefully!) not incoherent, and the incoherence still has to be clear. (ugh.) That is a worthy challenge for a writer. That being said, I think the set up of who's who and doing what where could be stronger. One specific thing I would avoid is use of the term "undead" by the zombie. It is on the one hand too confusing, and on the other too lucid of a discernment for a zombie (albeit a wrong one.)

A bigger challenge for you, though, is to build the tension from a zombie point of view. What's at stake for a zombie? What unanswered questions are raised by the setup? Some kind of tension needs to build leading up to the conversion. Otherwise, there's no catharsis from it. The needle out of the blue doesn't accomplish this.

Add to that the problem of getting a reader to sympathize with a zombie. How do you do that? I would be both daunted and exhilarated by these challenges.

I can think of a few possibilities to develop:
--Give the zombie some kind of semi-coherent objective that requires him to negotiate some obstacles. (Tension factors: Will he achieve the objective? Is the objective something different than he perceives?<--The cure could be an interesting twist here.)
--Create vicarious sympathy by making it apparent some clean character has a particular interest in him, and is attempting to coax him in somewhere. (Tension factors: What is the person's interest? Is it a trap? Will the zombie be killed?) The character could be familiar, and there could be a mix of threatening and loving fragments of memories.
--Give the zombie some kind of enigmatic memory of something important that drives him, and make the story a search for it, and an attempt to take care of it. Give hints of it as he goes along, and somehow tie it into getting tagged with the curative needle.

You may think of something entirely different that better fits your designs, but as a reader I need something that propels my anticipation.

By the way, I really like the contrast of the zombie's sense of clarity in spite of his actual confusion and the boy's confusion in spite of his new-found clarity.

I've tried to focus my feedback on your rendition as much as possible. I have other thoughts on the zombie genre that entail my personal biases, but I'll only share those if you're interested. They're probably mostly irritating if you aren't.

I hope this has been helpful.

[khanes]

First of all, I had no idea this was about zombies until mfreivald mentioned it. At first, I thought maybe the main character was a wounded human, and the Vectors were aliens. Actually, the first thing that came to mind was that movie with Will Smith where he was the only person left, and all the other humans and dogs were rabid and only came out at night. I was a bit confused as to what exactly was happening, but maybe that was the point. Even though I couldn't quite figure out what was going on, I found the story very interesting and I kept on reading to try to figure things out. I found it suspenseful as well. I also might do away with the term "undead." I didn't know what this meant. However, I really liked the end when the boy got the shot, and was changed to being a Vector. I really liked the role reversal and surprise.

I did find a few word combinations unusual, and I think some grammar/tense mistakes. The words seemed to be used incorrectly, but I could be wrong.

"I lugged outside". Lug means to pull or carry with force or effort. What is the character lugging? His leg? Meat? I feel like a word is left out.

"witnessing a mob of people circled around something". I think circled should be "circling." or "witnessing as a mob of people circled around something." You'd need the word as in there.

"I could feel my eye sockets widen". I don't think eye sockets can widen; these are part of the skull. Could sound better if you wrote "I could feel my eyes widen."

"Throughout the entire city dragged and limped the hideously rotted undead." Hmm, to me the sentence structure here was awkward. Maybe changed it to "Throughout the entire city the hideously rotted undead dragged their bodies and limped." or something.

Overall, I think your premise is very interesting and I like the descriptions of the meat, the Vectors and the zombies (if that is what they are.) I do think the beginning needs more setup as to whether or not these are zombies. Maybe people who read zombie books know, but I don't, so I was a bit confused. I think with a little work this could be a really strong piece with a surprise ending! Good job so far :)

[BrokenChain]

Thanks for the advice! I'll comment on that later, but for now, here's some clarification:

The story never changes character. The guy in the beginning is the same guy in the end.

Undead is a term used in zombie and vampire lit. It means something along the lines of "animated dead". Rest assured the undead are...undead. They are not alive like humans, although the antidote can change this.

I drew inspiration from I am Legend the book, by Richard Matheson and his theory surrounding the scientific side of the vampire "disease"

[Emily J]

Interesting!

I do have a question though, if the zombies aren't just infected humans but are in fact dead, how the heck do you cure death? Maybe I misinterpreted.

[Serzen]

Generally, I like what I've read. I'll second a previous comment about "lugged" being a bad word choice, but respectfully disagree about "circled" being one. To this reader, "circled" was perfectly clear.

That said, there are punctuation issues--quite a few of them early on, but declining as the narrative progresses. You've also got too much cast in the passive voice. There are times--despite what some people will say!--where the passive voice is fine, even needful, but none of your uses are those times. That said, don't feel bad: I'm currently (re)reading a very well-known book by a very well-known author, one who is often heralded as a paragon of the craft, and I keep tripping over the passive voice in that book, too. It's an easy mistake to make, and can be a difficult one to correct.

As to the meat of the story, there are a few places that could use clarification. One that really stands out to me is this: "Let them fight, I thought, they’ll cause the disease to worsen. More for me." That's ambiguous, tough to parse, even for me. I can tell that what you mean is "they'll cause their own affliction to get worse, which will result in my being better able to gather food," but only because I worried the meaning out of it. In Flash, you only have so many words to play with; make every one of them count, and leave nothing to chance.

I'll keep an eye on the thread, and maybe post a little more in depth soon, and certainly look at any edits you make, but I'm short of time tonight.

~Serzen