Day Off Story Challenge - Round Four

I just completed my day off challenge story number four, as of three PM. I started writing this morning around ten, so this one took about five hours. It clocks in at 2,800 words. The title is "Minor Mutilators".

It took me longer to write this than the last few stories. I usually come closer to 700-800 words an hour. At my normal rate, this would have taken an hour or so less. However, I am sick today, and this story included more characters and complexity than usual, so I don't fell like I was really all that slow writing it.

I vacillated this morning between this story and a simpler one that only had two characters. This idea was one I added to my idea bank only a few days ago. But, I thought this idea was slightly more interesting, and I wanted to try to stretch out a little.

In the interest of demonstrating the process, for those curious, The original idea and the refinement are listed below. These are all the development I had, going into the challenge.

Idea - A micro race of aliens mutilates small animals.

Refinement - A collection of house pets team up to stop the menace of tiny alien animal mutilators.

The fun of this story is seeing how the animals, who are heavily personified, manage to defeat the aliens. I had a lot of fun coming up with the viewpoints of the house pets, and their names for themselves, as well.

As the last few stories, I would like to put the full story up, but my readership is so small that I feel it is best to keep it unpublished, and try to sell it. If I get more people reading, or publish it myself, I will likely put the story up here as well.