UNSOUND ADVICE
Did Your Story Flop? Try the Zombie Technique
Bring that rotting carcass back to life
When your story is performing well, there are techniques you can use to maintain momentum and increase views.
Maria Shimizu Christensen covers one method perfectly here:
But what about a god-awful story?
That’s where The Zombie Technique (ZT) comes in. You can bring your corpse of a story back from hell by making it even worse. The goal is to take your flop from unholy mess to complete and utter abomination.
Why do this? Two reasons:
- Readers will notice. People slow down to look at train wrecks. Your story will capitalize on this human urge to gape at pure carnage.
- You’ll reclaim control. Without the ZT, your garbage story will die a quick, yet natural, death. But you worked hard on that piece! Let it writhe and fester in readers’ feeds until YOU decide to put it out of its misery.
So, how do you know your story is ready for this maneuver?
- The only applause it received was a pity clap from the publication’s editor.
- It has a few views, but no comments or highlights.
- Reads? What reads!
- Your gut told you not to publish it but you said “Ah, fuck it.”
Recognizing that you have a dead story is half the battle. Now it’s time to deploy the Zombie Technique.
You are going to republish your story with several changes:
- Your original title must have been vague and confusing or you wouldn’t be in this position. Go ahead and make it MORE complicated. Add symbols, dated references, and census data. It should read something like this:
“Fishing Tips* Plus Milli Vanilli & 72% White Males#”
- Was your intro paragraph a long, meandering cesspool? Make it longer. Add a traumatic memory from kindergarten. Who cares if the rest of the story is a review of local Civil War reenactments.
- Did you use bullets, quotes, spaces, and images? All of it must go. An endless essay with zero breaks for the eye is the lifeblood of zombie stories. Or should I say deadblood?
- Do you use Grammarly? Ignore all of its suggestions. Dismiss. Dismiss. Dismiss. This hideous reincarnation should be on a third-grade reading level.
- Did you include a closing paragraph or takeaway? Ctrl-Alt-Delete that bitch. The story’s conclusion will now be screenshots of your rejection letters from publications or past lovers.
- Did you use citations? Delete them. Your followers should trust you. If they don’t, delete THEM. You churn out trash stories so you can obviously afford to lose some loyal followers.
Your zombified story is now ready to stalk and horrify your followers. Embrace your new, ill-gotten views. Don’t worry about “dignity” and “self-respect.”
Remember: You created the monster and YOU are the master of its destiny. Let that piece of shit drag itself around Medium until someone finally chops its head off.
If you follow this technique, that someone will be YOU.
For more Medium mockery, try: