Zombie March: Expansion Courses

Zombie March Expansion Packs

Wait - let me fix the formatting: Zombie March "Expansion Packs"? And we'll get to that in just a moment. 

First, I want to note that I should have been marketing my new horror writing course Zombie March before and after its launch. Frankly, I'm not the best at self-marketing and self-advertising. If you've been around since the Apartment days, you'll know how painfully true that is. There's just not enough time in the day to do it all - write, edit, design, develop, learn, consider, bake, cook, clean, spend time with loved ones, etc. - all of which are vastly more important things for me to fill my time with at this point in my life.

But I do understand that marketing is a must. Otherwise, how will people know you even exist? How will they know your product is even an option? So, if I must market, then I much prefer the idea of providing more content external to the course and tying it back in, which I feel is a more beneficial method of drawing potential students to the course, because at the same time I will be providing additional value for my readers and fellow writers.

This approach has given birth to a new series of "How to Write Horror" posts that I'll be making, which provide specific tips and techniques for writers. Already out is the lesson on How to Start a Horror Story, and I have 24 more of these lessons in the works. 

Another series of posts is the "Horror Analysis a la Zombie March" posts, which take popular works of horror storytelling, whether in the form of urban legends, books, movies, games, or another format altogether, and analyze them using the techniques and skills taught in Zombie March. I've released the first of these, which is "Senscape's ASYLUM: Insanity as Vulnerability and Shield, and Inescapable Fate." 

(Originally, the first was meant to be an analysis of the horror movie The Substance, but that's still to come.)

Of course, that does mean that things are going slow. It takes time to craft new content that compliments what is found in the course, or that presents part of the course in a new perspective or through a new story. So, while these elements do add more value and are generally more beneficial to visitors of this blog - and potential students of the course - they're also elements that take quite a lot of effort and time out of my day to make. But I do it gladly, knowing that they will serve this dual purpose.

Alright - enough about marketing. Back to the whole 'expansion pack' thing. In the free-to-preview Introduction to the Course module of Zombie March, you will learn that the course was originally a much wider-spanning and larger endeavor, with various other topics that I had wanted to explore. As I was creating the course, however, I realized that including these subjects would be a great deal more work, and that most writers wouldn't necessarily find all of them relevant or beneficial to them. 

For example, lessons on how to write a horror series would be interesting for someone who wants to write a horror series - not for someone who is mainly interested in writing short horror stories. Similarly, lessons on writing for horror games would only be interesting for those who want to write for horror games - not those who only want to write horror novels. 

And, besides all of that, there was also the clear delineation that I had set for myself. Zombie March is for writers delving into the world of horror storytelling - which means that the most important thing was including what I believe to be the essentials or foundational elements in writing horror fiction.

To make a long story short, I did mention potentially releasing what I referred to as "expansions", for lack of a better term. (What can I say? I was in a bit of a Sims 2 phase when I chose the term.) These expansions would be mini-courses that go into an in-depth exploration of those subjects that were originally cut out of Zombie March, including (but certainly not limited) to the aforementioned writing horror series or writing for horror games. I have about 10 subjects that I'd like to explore through these mini-courses, along with a few horror-adjacent mini-courses that I believe writers will enjoy.

If you happen to take the course or take a look at the course contents, and wish a specific topic had been explored, don't hesitate to let me know. You can reach out through the suggestion box in the course, the contact form on the landing page, or even just here in the comments.

In my April writing update, I did mention that I had evaluated my course for further updates later on down the line. Because this is the first run, I have every assurance that as time goes by and more feedback comes from students, I can continuously improve the course content so that it's even more effective for writers of horror. This will probably happen over the course of several years, and I plan to update the course at least once a year unless otherwise necessary.  

⭐Join my Google Group to receive my newsletter. ⭐