Interview: Patrick D’Orazio

Patrick D’Orazio is the author of The Dark Trilogy (Comes the Dark, Into the Dark and Beyond the Dark) and he is the author of dozens of short stories which have been featured in various anthologies.

He has been kind enough to let Buyzombie.com interview him and to provide insight to zombie fans everywhere.

Kevin: I am an admirer of your writing style, and I can’t help but wonder, how long have you been writing for?

Patrick: I’ve actually been writing, in one form or another, most of my life.  As far as writing to create something more than just to pass the time, I wrote my first novel in high school, though it never saw the light of day, and I think that is probably for the best.  Since then, I’ve dabbled in writing short stories and crafting ideas that turned into tales that served as background pieces for adventuring in the gaming world.  It wasn’t until about five years ago that I decided that all this dabbling, note taking, and rough drafts that never went past that stage needed to be turned into something more.  So that was when I started working on my trilogy, while at the same time continuing to dabble with other stuff.  I started focusing on submitting short stories as well to different publishers a couple of years after I dove into my first novel, and now I can’t seem to stop.

Kevin: What inspired you to get into writing? specifically, what inspired you to write a zombie trilogy?

Patrick:  I’ve written mostly science fiction, fantasy, and variations on those genres for the most part up until I dove into my trilogy.  I think I found a voice that was hiding inside of me because of what was, for me, the renaissance of the zombie genre as a whole.  I loved zombie movies as a teen-in particular the original Dead trilogy, but when the string of new movies came out a little less than ten years ago, I started seeing zombies differently-from an adult perspective, and from the perspective of being a husband and father who always has that fear in the back of his mind that he wouldn’t be able to protect his own family.  This story flowed naturally from that fear, and how not just fear, but the constant doubts you put yourself through as a provider, as a guide for your kids, and so on all played on how I put words down on paper in this book.  Zombies are a great template with which to imprint your own ideas on.  There are rules about them, but they feel much more malleable as a monster type than any others, which really appealed to me a great deal.  

Kevin: What weapon would you use to survive the zombie apocalypse, if it were ever to happen? 

Patrick: There have been plenty of online discussions that I have read and taken part in as well.  There are plenty of folks out there who get very adamant about what weapons would be their preference, but I’m probably not one of them.  I guess the main question is whether or not you are forced to have just one weapon to choose from, because that tells the story about your real choice in the matter.  The short answer is that a baseball bat would be my choice if I couldn’t carry anything else.  I know a lot of folks would prefer an edged weapon and of course, firearms, but for the long term, with no additional guaranteed resources to allow you to collect more bullets, sharpen a blade that goes dull, etc, a baseball bat is a nice option.  It won’t always put an end to your opponent, but a good whack will still give you a shot at making an escape as they get knocked out of your way.  Of course, if I had more options, I would probably have an arsenal of firearms and melee weapons: a .22 because ammo in that caliber is readily available and there isn’t much in the way of recoil, a revolver (.357 Magnum comes to mind) because I would want a weapon that doesn’t jam and that you don’t have to clear if it doesn’t fire-you just keep pulling the trigger, and it is easy to keep clean.  I would also want a 9mm semi-automatic with at least a 15 cartridge clip capacity, plus a room clearing weapon like a 12 gauge shotgun.  I would also have a variety of ‘tools’ like a machete, hatchet, hunting knife, and other assorted items you would find in a tool box-dual purpose items that will actually be needed for construction, destruction, repairs, etc, and could be used to haul off and whack a zombie over the head as needed.  I also dig those expandible batons the police have these days…nice compact weapon that can give you a bit of range away from your target in a pinch.  So many other choices, so little room on the bandoliers I would have strapped across my chest… Sorry, I probably went overboard with that answer, but in all honestly, I’m probably just scratching the surface, heh. 

Kevin: Who are 5 people, besides friends and family that you would want to be stuck with during the zombie apocalypse? 

Patrick: Well, the first person that comes to mind is J.L. Bourne, the author of Day by Day Armageddon and its sequel, because unlike myself, he isn’t just some geeky zombie author, he is an actual expert on all the stuff he talks about in his books, with military knowledge and combat training.  I would probably keep him very close by during the apocalypse.  Chuck Norris would be another choice because…well, he’s Chuck Norris.  I know he has passed away, but George Carlin would great, as long as he doesn’t decide to rise up from the grave in the advent of the Zombpoc, because he is my favorite comic of all time and if there was a time where a good laugh would be important, it would be during the zombie apocalypse.  A politician would be good too.  It doesn’t matter what politician, just any one of them, because every group needs someone they can use as bait to distract the horde.  Finally, I would have to say Stephen King.  I would like to tap his brain and get some ideas on how to improve on my writing…I loved his book, On Writing, but I want MORE from him.  And if all else fails, and he refuses to divulge more of his secrets, me and Bourne could hang him over a balcony with a bunch of zombies down below and tell him to ghost write a few dozen novels for us or we would let him get munched, heh.  But I kid, I kid!  I wouldn’t feed him to the zombies, I would just annoy him for advice until I drove him insane and he decided that running out into the horde might be better than sticking around with me for another day or two. 

Kevin: What is your opinion about the ongoing debate between what is scarier: shambling zombies or their running counterparts?

Patrick: As an equal opportunity fan of the undead, I love them both, and find them both scary, for different reasons.  My first love of zombies came from Romero and his slow moving menace that never stopped regardless of how many barriers are put in front of them, unless they are put down for good with a bullet or blunt weapon to the brain pan.  I was also fascinated by the renaissance in zombie/infected movies about a decade ago-the remake of Dawn as well as 28 Days Later, which gave us the speed demons that offer you barely enough time to catch your breath before they are on top of you, dragging you down to the ground as their pals swarm all over you.  The books I’ve written have the slow, traditional undead in them, with a few noteworthy speedy exceptions.  At the same time, I have written more than one short story with the infected, racing undead.

Slow zombies give the humans in the story the chance to bicker and debate as they can feel the slow creep of doom bearing down on them, while the fast infected/zombies are sudden, abrupt, and react so fast that you have little time to think, plan, or do much except lose your mind to the terror swarming all around you.  I think the best analogy I can come up to is having cancer vs. a heart attack.  Cancer often times lasts for months or years as it eats away at your body.  It can go into remission, but the fear is always there that it will return, worse than ever, and destroy you.  A heart attack grabs a hold of you and all you have is a few seconds or minutes to come to grips with what is happening before your body collapses on you.  So it comes down to answering the question of which way is a better (or worse) way to die?  Both are horrific, and both mess your mind in different ways; the slow build up of fear or the massive blast of adrenaline drenched terror.  As a writer, I think they both have great merits for the purposes of scaring an audience, which makes them both valuable.   

Kevin: In your opinion, what traits must be present in order to classify something as a zombie?

Patrick: There are plenty of “technical” debates on this subject, but I will take a different spin on it.  Again, I have to answer as a writer, and say that whatever makes the story work, works for me.  Plenty of writers have done something entirely different that may go against the grain of traditionalists, or may not appeal to those who like their zombies to behave in a certain way, but if the story is compelling, with whatever trait the “zombies” have that makes them work in that environment, that is great.  Of course, I have a tremendous appreciation for what Romero created, but he himself has changed his zombies to suit his needs in his later films.  Bub was non-traditional by most measurements, but he was a great addition to the zombie pantheon.  Return of the Living Dead brought us zombies that couldn’t be destroyed short of using electricity or burning them to a crisp, instead of taking out the head, plus they had intelligence and a love for brains and not flesh.  I can’t deny that I loved that movie, regardless of all the “rules” that were broken.  And while the “infected” aren’t technically zombies by what was created by Romero, I welcome them with open arms, because they elicit the same levels of terror and fascination that zombies do for me.  Again, to get technical, Romero’s zombies weren’t even supposed to be zombies.  Romero called them ghouls at first.  Zombies are supposed to be creatures brought back to life under the control of a voodoo priest or priestess, not some out of control flesh eater.

In my estimation, zombies have always been the lowest class of monsters-they are the slumlords in the pantheon of horror.  They aren’t flashy, they don’t have much in the way of charm or good looks, they smell bad and are falling apart.  They aren’t sexy, they don’t care about race, creed, color, or political affiliations.  They don’t care about much of anything, except their desire to destroy the living.  So leave all the “rules” to the upper class elite of the monster realm, like the vampires.  Let them have the rules, all the rituals, the sparkly romances, and the angst and overblown drama in their un-lives.  Instead, bring me your tired, your huddle masses of rotting, blood-drenched ravenous hordes yearning to consume, and let them be free!

Kevin: What books/movies inspired you to make your own literary contribution to the zombie genre?

Patrick: I have to admit that I didn’t discover the zombie genre in the literary sense until I was possessed with the desire to write my own books on the topic.  That was when I started reading them and writing reviews, taking what I read and learning what I felt worked and what didn’t work from each book.  So I guess the written works of every author who has written a zombie tale has been inspirational, motivating me to do what I could to make my contribution to the cause.  As far as movies are concerned, I think of two different time frames for the movies, and both of these time frames had their influences on me.  The first was during my teen years, when I first saw movies like the original Dawn, Night, and Day of the Dead, as well as Return of the Living Dead and some of the Fulci and other Italian maestros of gore on cable TV.  That was a fun time, because it inspired my appreciation for the apocalypse as a plot device.  In a way, it romanticized it all for me, along with movies like The Road Warrior, and books like The Stand, which all made this wasteland existence something of an adventure playground in my head.  The second time frame was when I had been married and already had children.  Suddenly there was this zombie renaissance in movies with the Dawn of the Dead remake, 28 Days Later, and even Shawn of the Dead.  Shawn convinced me that zombies could be funny…really funny, but the first two movies disturbed me on a whole new level that I hadn’t experienced in my youth.  I was a young father with two kids and a wife who were relying on me to take care of them, fend for them, and provide for them. Suddenly, zombies weren’t cool anymore, and I had all these great fears that were vague and non-specific about life and the big, dark, evil world that surrounds all of us.  Fears of being able to do what I was supposed to do for my family.  Zombies personified those fears for me, especially since I used to think it was so cool to imagine living in a zombie infested world when I was a teenager, and now the though of that scared the snot out of me.  That was what drove me to write my novels, and it still fuels a lot of my writing, zombie related and otherwise, today.  

Kevin: What advice do you have for aspiring horror authors?  

Patrick: Something I have always said as I have gone through the experiences of the past few years has been that it is crucial that you build up a network of comrades in arms.  Meaning that you should always be willing to network with other writers, publishers, fans of the genre you work in, and just about anyone else who is willing to give you honest, unadulterated feedback on your work.  You have to work for some of the relationships.  Be willing to offer yourself up as a beta reader, and give honest, genuine feedback, not slathered with love and affection.  I write reviews of books that are finished and I try to be understanding of what an author went through to get to the point where they got something of their’s published.  So I try to show them some appreciation even if I don’t love their work in the reviews I write…I critique them, but always find the areas of their work that really did work and emphasize it.  But when someone is in the process of writing something and asks me to look at it, I try to be brutally honest with them, with little in the way of mercy, though I am still sensitive to what they are going through.  Someone may resent you for assaulting their completed work, but if they are being honest with themselves they will be grateful to you if you are brutal in your commentary before the final draft is complete and they can still do more voodoo to the story before the final gun sounds.  Get on message boards, be friendly and open, and you will make friends that will go to bat for you when you are trying to get published.  Appreciate everyone and anyone who is willing to give of themselves.  So many people are pulled in so many directions, you can’t get upset when they can’t take the time to help you out, so when someone does, do all that you can to return the favor to them.  There is tons of other advice, but I don’t feel that I am the right person to give advice on actual writing, because I am still such a novice at it.  But as far as networking is concerned, I feel totally confident that it is supremely important that you do it.  These days, it is very easy to network.  Get on facebook, get on twitter, and start searching for pages for the authors you like, and join in the conversation.  From there, make friends, find out more about where they hang their hat, and join in more discussions.  The biggest challenge is knowing when to pull back, because you can spend every waking moment doing things such as reading message boards and so forth, and not nearly enough time writing.  So be careful.  Latch on to the groups that have the most meaning for you and just monitor other places in the online universe that are interesting to you.

Kevin: How has being a published author affected your life, both personally and professionally?

Patrick: I’d like to say very little, and play at it being no big deal, but in many ways, it has changed my perspective on things quite a bit.  From a personal aspect, it is an accomplishment, something that made me happy, because I had worked hard to get published.  I spent years writing and not even thinking about getting published, but now, knowing that if I put my mind to it, I can be published, is a rewarding sensation.  At the same time, I write for myself and always have, so whatever comes after this is perfectly fine…whether I get published again or not.  But the drive to get published has helped me improve my writing.  I have tried harder to strengthen my “voice” and I have met a great many people who have been encouraging and offered wonderful advice-other authors, editors, and publishers who I would have never met if I didn’t go this route.  If I were to have continued writing with a lack of motivation to get published, I would not have grown and improved as much as I have over the past few years, which makes getting published a very good thing.  Even so, it isn’t getting published that is important, it is the journey of trying to get published that impacted my life the most.  Professionally, publishing has meant that I have been able to do a few things I wouldn’t have done before, like have my name on the cover of a book, do interviews like this, and sit at a table at a horror convention and sign copies of those books with my name on it.  It is neat, but the reality is that being published brings with it the expectation that you will be published again, and again.  So getting published is fantastic, but it forces me to think a lot more about the questions that others are always asking me…like the one you are about to ask me.

Kevin: What are some of your future writing endeavours? 

Patrick: Heh, see, I told ya!  I knew you were going to ask this one.  There are two more books I plan on writing in the saga I started with the Dark Trilogy, but these two books will stand on their own as a separate duo that someone with no familiarity with the previous books could pick up and grasp from the beginning.  At the same time, anyone who has read the trilogy will see characters they are familiar with and will have a knowledge of what has led them to this point.  Those two books will have a bigger scope-a wider world, more answers, more questions, and hopefully, even more emotional resolution for the characters.  Those two books will also finalize the journey.  There will be no more books in that saga after that.  I also have three other books I want to write, with outlines and notes cobbled together on all three of them.  It is just a matter of sorting them out and getting the projects rolling.  In between the bigger projects, I love writing short stories, and figure that they will continue to be a part of what I do as a writer.  They present a different set of challenges, and also allow me to dip my toes into a new genre and see if I could take a deeper foray into it, or if just passing through is my best bet.   

Kevin: Ive seen that you’ve published a plethora of short stories, as well as your The Dark series which is now awaiting two more instalments (which I’m ecstatic about!) what is the different mindset between writing short stories and writing novels?

Patrick: Short stories are a one night stand, while novels are like a prolonged courtship.  The big challenge with short stories is that everything that the audience needs to know needs to be put into play in a very short period of time.  They don’t need to know everything, naturally, but if you want to impress them, you better be able to do it efficiently and effectively.  Every single word better have meaning to it, or you are drifting, and you’ll lose them before you get the chance to buy them that second drink.  A short story can be a sudden impulse in the night that makes you rush to a pad of paper with an idea.  I can scribble a single sentence on that piece of paper and build a short story around that idea.  A novel usually fumbles and stumbles along, both as you write it and as you read it.  There are a multitude of ideas centered around a main point of reference.  You and the reader are strapped in for the long haul, discovering minor details, taking divergent paths, racing on adrenaline and then languishing for a while as things twist and turn.  There can be multiple plot twists, complicated characters that reveal themselves by inches, or ones that part ways to make room for someone even more crucial to the final outcome…which might be a big mystery for a very, very long time.  Hopefully, you can get a reader to fall in love enough with a novel to stick around and not say something like “you’re a really nice book, but your just not my type” long before the tale has run its course.  Novels are an investment in time and energy.  Betray a reader with a bad novel and they may never forgive you, but keep them captivated and they will hold a place in their heart for you forever.  With a short story, you get the reader a little tipsy, perhaps a little dazzled by your addled wit in a dark and loud bar, and before they know it, you’ve gone back to their place, ravished them, and left them stunned, wondering what the hell happened.  Sometimes you leave them with a smile on their face and sometimes they feel all gross and nasty, wondering what the hell they just did…but the important thing is that they remember you, and the experience you put them through.

Kevin: If you can say one thing that could be heard by every horror aficionado and writer out there, what would that be?

Patrick: Writing is freakin’ awesome!  Well, actually, that is what my ten year old son told me when I asked him that question.  But I have to agree with him. with one minor adjustment.  Writing horror is freakin’ awesome.  I think that sums it up rather nicely.

Kevin: Thank you Patrick for taking the time to do this interview, and for providing insight to fellow zombie aficionados, it has been a pleasure and I look forward to reading/reviewing more of your novels in the future.

I enjoyed conducting this interview with Patrick D’Orazio, his analogies are great and some of them are damn funny! The next time you have a craving for great zombie gore, than look no further than Patrick D’Orazio’s The Dark trilogy.

You can find out more about Patrick’s work at his official website!