Sep 14, 2026
To:PlagueyWrites
In contrast to last contest where I used a premise with many inspirations and that I had kicked around for years and spent dozens of hours in the past tinkering with, this contest my premise had zero inspirations—It just randomly came to mind within minutes of reading the prompt. Ironically though it's performing infinitely better than my previous entry, so I guess there's a lesson there lol.
That being said, I have in the past I've occasionally thought about how slimes are underutilized and would make for an interesting basis for a videogame or story given they start off as stereotypical weak first encounter monsters but have very flexible ability sets and like a gazillion evolutionary paths.
As for the protagonist, Nora's just the kind of character that came to mind when I thought about who would best fit the prompt. I was initially concerned about writing a story like hers as someone who hates low confidence characters and finds most cute-girls-doing-cute-things shows boring, but ironically she's become the most well-received part of the novel. Maybe if I'm lucky I've accidentally tapped into some outsider perspective that's letting her avoid common pitfalls and lean into underappreciated strengths that fans of the genre have become desensitized to.
Everything else about the story just naturally extended from Nora and Pudding as I outlined it and developed a plot and world for them. I've ended up getting way more invested in the characters and world than I thought I would, so I'm having quite a bit of fun with the premise. Hopefully I get absurdly lucky and am able to turn this into a multi-novel series.