Zombie Writers Unite! Forum Not Falling into Cliche's

There's hundreds and hundreds of zombie fiction out there, most of which is very cliched(including my story One Night/In Hell which was recently turned down by a horror lit. eZine because of this). What can be done to help us zombie writers from falling into these cliches?

There seems to be a fine line between 'cliches' and giving the reader the aspects of the story they want and expect. Now I may be misreading what you meant by cliches. As in aspects of the story? Or just the overall theme of stumbling zombies feedin on the populace?

I think David Moody's "Autumn" series and David Wellington's "Plague Zone" are good examples of 'tweaking' the genre just enough to give a breath of fresh air.

I do agree that it is a fine line when writing zombie fiction. I have just really begun to write seriously and I find it always in the back of my mind to try and not copy ever cliche' already done.
 The approach that I am takinig is that to me, it's more important to come up with a great "origin" to the zombies rising. I think that is something that has been copied over and over again.

You were right when you stated that readers come to a zombie book expecting some of the "same ol" stuff. But I don't think we shoudl just "cut and paste" the ideas. We can revision those familiar elements in our own way.

I do like this thread.. I hope folks are still reading it..lol

Personally I think the only way to keep from Cliches are by using the genre as a setting... meaning the Zombie Survival aspect as a setting not a plot, then write about something else like someone trying to leave their little survival camp or something like that. 

I am also working on a "zombie" novel at this time, and knew going in that I wanted to do things that haven't done before.  I started with something simple.  How does the contamination work?  What has been done before?  What exactly hasn't been explored before, and then what might be fun as opposed to what is just going to out and out suck?  ;)  That was the easy part-  I realized I wanted there to be a known cause, because you don't get clear definition on that frequently.  The trouble I hit was the infected behavior/spread/stages and nomenclature.  Walkers is a great word to refer to them as, but how many times have we heard that now?  I am writing from the angle of a more human condition, and honestly giving it a good try, for what it's worth.  I believe that the characters and pairings you choose may also lend to the cliche'..not to say that can't be fun, and of course there is your style of writing!

I guess I tend to write in the cliché area of the Zombie Genre, but honestly, I think writing from the point of view of the zombie is a bit pointless considering zombies have no point of view. Not the type of zombie I write about anyway.

My Zombie fic is more in the Fan-Fic genre anyway. Using ideas and concepts developed previously in other media (Books, TV shows, movies, podcasts, etc.)

There is nothing wrong with a cliche as they are the bones of most stories and writers hang the flesh from them.  I think the issue is finding a new way to recycle or renew these ideas.