I looked at it for all of 2 minutes. And in that time the majority of this story came to me. From what was going on in the photo (Peter/Petra giving a BJ to conceal her identity and protect his wife), to the fact that his own wife had put him in this situation by blackmailing him. Even some of the details of the humiliation (the pinches to her ass, the hypnosis while eating out his wife, the pleasure building up after days of dressing up and being treated as a woman...). Now understand I normally don't get inspiration like this, and was not about to just let it go and look for something else.
Even though this original inspiration was from my own preferences/desires, they matched Petra's preferences quite well (one of the reasons I consider her a good friend is that we are both good at hitting each others sweet spot with caps!). So I decided to go ahead and create this for her. It took me a little longer to write the story than I originally anticipated.
The problem wasn't getting all of the details in that I wanted, it was weeding out details. The framework I had build up in my head between seeing the image, and starting to write would have taken me days to write. It would have been a long story all on its own. And with just the single image to work with, there is no way that I could do it as a cap. So the majority of the writing was going off on one tangent or another (getting used/abused by another maid, getting trapped by a junior executive, much more detail on the hypnosis, finding out that the real Petra had 'gotten sick' to set up Peter for this fate....) and then backing up and deleting them.
It really pained me to delete these details, but I tried my best to keep focused on the cap, and not the story. Even with all the snipping, this is still a long cap for only one photo. Visually it makes it a little unbalanced and bottom heavy. I tried a few times to cut more, but felt that any more snipping would pull the heart of the story out. And considering I had already cut more than half of what I wrote, I felt hurt at the IDEA of cutting more. So I will live with the bad visual to accept the good cap.
Now I just wish that I had kept all of the writing. As is my normal process, I deleted the word file once the cap was saved in photoshop. I figured the idea for this story would just fade away like so many ideas I've had before, but it has really stayed with me. I MAY one day try to write out the story and post it at the haven, here and/or at some other story site. It would be my first story outside of a cap, and a new path for my to try out.
very well written.
ReplyDeleteI love this version, but I like the other one more. ;)
ReplyDeleteAnd I think the caption is perfect story wise. I've had to cut lots of stuff of my own work and have also kept stuff I probably should have dropped. But I always think It worked out in the end if just one person enjoyed the caption. ^_^
ReplyDeleteAnd this caption is one of my all time fav's!
Egads Caitlyn, seeing this cap again gives me shivers, goosebumps, shudders and tingles all over again. I loved it soooo much when is showed up in my folder, but seeing it here on the wide open internet just makes it all the more real, if you know what I mean. I'm so glad that the image was an inspiration for you, and that I got to be the recipient of that.
ReplyDeleteI love reading about your process as well, and it has given me some ideas. Since I still owe you a cap to pay you back for this one, you might be on the receiving end of a few of them :)
Hugs, and thanks again for this wonderful cap. Oh and next time don't delete your "snippings." You never know when you are gonna need them for something ;)
Thank you for all the kind compliments!
ReplyDelete@Jennifer
Beyond finding the creative energy to CREATE caps, the one big battle I'm fighting is getting the story size write (i.e. editing). I've never been good at the one or two line zingers, so I started off with fairly long caps. But lately the story portion of the caps has been getting way out of hand. It may be that I try to write out a full length story and see how that goes. I just don't know... I'm a visual person by nature and can't stand the thought of creating something without images.
@Petra
(shiver) I know how you feel. Its one thing to share these at the Haven where I feel very comfortable with the membership, but out here in the wild wild internet I feel that I'm exposing myself in a whole new way. ESPECIALLY with this cap, as it follows my own inner fantasy pretty closely.
I can't wait to be on the receiving end of anything you send my way. You've already hit my buttons hard enough that I've had to replace them twice already!
As for writing about the process, that is just one of those happy accients. I really didn't intend this to be about me creating the caps, but when I wrote up my first few, I felt I needed to explain a bit about them (as they were early ones, and not my proudest moments). But now that I've done it, I am really enjoying re-living the creative path laid out. And now I'll have a record that I can look back on!
And don't worry... I won't be deleting any of the cut scenes any more. I'll just have to save them for an extra feature on the DVD release!
BTW Jennifer;
ReplyDeleteI like this version. I like the version I did for you. But my favorite one is with Calvin and Caitlyn!
I did a thing on brevity in the Shop Talk section which seems like years ago (looking at it, it WAS years ago) and I have thought about re-visiting it on my blog. One of the suggestions was writing an outline in Word, then fleshing it out, Then from there, you compare the two to decide what to keep and what was extraneous. It might help you out to do so, sa you would have both the full story AND be able to crimp it down to an acceptable length in a caption.
ReplyDeleteAll the details you come up with are wondrous, and it sucks that you have to prune away. I really do wish you'd at least make powerpoint or PDF stories where you can use a picture per page (do I sound like a broken record yet?)
I am glad that you do take the time to do each caption and perfect it. I don't think you could ever be accused of "mailing it in" or "half-assing" something. It might limit your output, but it is great to have something consistently awesome come out sporadically.
@Dee
ReplyDeleteI tried PowerPoint once, but didn't like it. It was mainly the interface. Being that I don't use it all that often, I found myself wanting something (a text effect or background... can't remember which), that I knew I could do in a few seconds in Photoshop, but would take minutes (if not hours) to get it down (find out how to do it, then do it) in PowerPoint. I can see its potential, but I didn't see a strong advantage over Photoshop except that it really encouraged less text. I have seen examples of what you mean (Rebecca Molay is really good at the PowerPoint ones), but I just find it limiting. I imagine if I spent much time making caps with those programs I would get good at them, but I still don't see the point of those programs compared to Photoshop (i.e. I can whip out an 8 or 9 cap series quicker in Photoshop with faster than I could in PowerPoint).
Plus I find the idea of a picture per page to be somewhat limiting. Most of the images I find are stand alone images, or have just a few that belong with it. When I do come across a series of images, it is still rare for me to fine enough that fit into the story.
I really think my best results will lie in trimming the stories down themselves. Leaving some of the details barely touched upon, or eliminated and left to the imagination. And then at the same time, really give story telling a try. Don't limit myself to size whatsoever, and don't limit myself with any images at all. That way I can keep making good caps, but let my writing go its own longform direction.
I'm going to try something soon (I don't know when, but its defiantly on the agenda); I'm going to take one of my previous caps (don't know which one yet, but obviously a longish one) and pare down the story until I can't bear to pare any more. Then remake the cap using the smaller story and see how it goes. I'll post both of them at the same time, and hopefully get some reactions.
If people honesty like the shorter form, then I'll know I'm on the right path. If they like the longer form, then I won't worry about it, and continue on as is.
@caitlyn Masked
ReplyDeleteThe best caps are the one's that usually hit your own buttons. :D
What a great cap, from start to finish I really enjoyed it. Thanks!
ReplyDelete