I'm working on a short story at the moment, about a guy who eats his neighbour's cat. He decides to eat it because it keeps shitting in his garden which I suppose is reason enough for the kind of people you encounter in short stories.
The problem I have is finishing the thing with a twist. You need that for a short story, but in this case I'm not sure what it should be. The cat could eat him instead - that's one possibility, but it's too much like a standard horror story.
The trouble is, by introducing a would-be cat eater from the off, any other development is likely to be less outré than the main story. Feeble in other words.
Sometimes I find this is what happens. I write something, it doesn't work out so I put it to one side hoping inspiration will strike. Often it never does. Pity - I had a few recipe ideas too.
6 comments:
Final twist:
He was delighted when he pounced and caught his first mouse.
Woodsy - that's good. I'll give you a mention if I use it. Or maybe a rat?
Some horrible viral disease, harboured by cats, and only ever contracted through consumption. Or eye-eating worms.
He eats the cat's ID microchip. This can go a number of ways: it is harmful; it enables him to be caught as the police use the vet's scanner on him; it gives him a whopping bill in Waitrose as it is scanned.
The smell of cat-flesh wafting from him causes him to get mauled by a dog.
Despite having killed and eaten the cat, whatever it was that had been shitting in his garden continues to do so.
Variations on Woodsy: he starts growing tabby fur; he starts licking his hands and washing behind his ears with them in the boardroom etc; he has an undeniable urge to take up yoga so he can lick his own anus.
Sam - crikey are you a writer? I'm thinking of something more mundane, maybe he starts shitting in the garden himself, but I like the yoga idea too.
I like Sam's idea with some horrible virus. And then he dies in his own back garden and cats eat his corpse. It's what you sort of expect, but that makes it even grimmer (like in Hitchcock movies).
Mark - okay that's my research sorted. Virus it is!
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