OK, dirty little secret time: I played with some formats in Neeta Lyffe, Zombie Exterminator in part because I didn't want to write some of the background scenes. Rather than slowing down the story with a lot of background and explanation, for example, I would put up a forum announcement by a fan saying, "Whoa! Check out this article about Neeta's lawsuit! Did her really sue her for $500,000?!" or I could refer to a previous episode of Zombie Death Extreme with only the words, "Goldie's responding well to medication--right?"
But when you have an ambitious publisher with a sense of fun, shortcuts can backfire.
Kim contacted me last week withe the suggestion that we build a website and fake forum with all the reference stuff I'd put in the book. I told her I thought it would be fun, then I went back and realized just how much background stuff I had. By then, however, she'd bought the domain name, set up a strawman, created a forum, and even made a subdomain for Lyffe Undeath Exterminations.
Oh! uh, guess I'd better fill that up then. So I looked at some reality tv show sites and some exterminator business websites and created www.zombiedeathextreme.com.
The Zombie Death Extreme website is full of fun stuff. I didn't put in all the references--I can't afford to hire actors for the video blogs, and haven't gotten to the articles yet--but I do have the characters and all the episode summaries, and a little bit of fun about zombie extermination. There's a forum up, too, and I already have at least one friend willing to play crazed fans (he's multi-tasking) and post for me. Go join in the fun. www.zombiedeathextreme.com.
I'll go back and add stuff later, too. Shortcuts are nice, but sometimes, the long scenic route is fun, too!
2 comments:
Way cool!
The posts on the fan forum ring true, having read the ones from actual "reality" shows. What I find disquieting is that these folks are allowed to reproduce and that their vote counts the same as mine. As Gunny used to say, "Definitely the shallow end of the gene pool."
Post a Comment