In August a request was sent out to make a cap in thanks to one of the members for her generosity. I made a short cap that didn't make me want to gag, and posted it (I'll share that cap later). But it seemed that this jump started my mood. I was caping again, although it was more difficult than before. The writing in particular wasn't coming easily. The problem wasn't writing to little, but getting caught up in the side stories and tangents to the main story. It wasn't to the scale that I experienced in "He Didn't Know..." but it was still bad.
Well a good capper made me a cap, and of course I wanted to repay it while my iron was hot. I read over her preferences and saw something that just stuck:
I tend to like the slower changes, where I really get to feel my body transform, and it slowly dawns on me that something isn't right.
Hmm... slow changes? You can't make a small quick cap about a slow transformation. It has to be.... wordy! So this felt like divine intervention. Something above had sent me this person to cap just when I was finding myself writing to much. I knew that I still followed useless tangents, so even before finding an image I decided that this person would be transforming alone. Locked up in a room or something like that. Then I searched for an image. Now this person put in her preferences that she liked candid pics or non-celebrities mostly. Hmm... I prefer non candid photos (probably the snobby photographer in me trying to get back out). So I looked around for a candid photo that would inspire me. None did. So I looked at some previous caps she had received to see what comments she had about them. One of the caps (ironically by Dementia... always there to get me inspired eh?) had an image that she of Kitty Lea that she really liked.
I'll be honest, I don't know who Kitty Lea is, but she is obviously a model of some sort. So I searched for Kitty Lea images on Google Images. I came across plenty of good images, but they didn't spark anything in me until I hit the image I ended up using. The image immediately told me of a man transformed into a woman. He couldn't believe it really happened, and was obviously tied down during the transformation. The room reminded me a bit of a hospital room except for the arm binders on the bed. I had he basics of the story... but I wasn't really sure this was Kitty Lea. It looked similar to her, but not like she did in the cap from Dementia. Well... I was now inspired, and didn't want to lose it. It really kind of killed me that I would be building a cap from an image that my subject might not enjoy, but I really had to strike while inspired.
I looked at the image so I could get a clearer image of the ending. She was obviously shocked... but also kind of afraid looking. She was looking over her shoulder and afraid at what was there. Hmm.... how about she was going to 'bond' with the person, but it wans't who was expected/wanted it to be. I already knew that she didn't expect the transformation to be real, so someone had to convince her or force her into this. That would be the person she was expecting.... so why not make it a close confidant. A girlfriend.
So I have the basic ending. This person recently transformed into a woman is about to bond with the next person she sees. She expected it to be her girlfriend (who convinced her to do this), but instead it is a man. Yup... thats the ending. So now I just need to get the beginning. I know I want to leave me space to write the transformation and make it deliciously slow, so I want the intro to be quick. I open up word and write in the last line of a conversation that was going on in my head, and that would serve as the opening line. I needed to explain it a little bit, but it saved me from writing out a long introduction of the characters and how they came to be.
The story fell together pretty well. I still had to edit down the beginning several times, as I kept going off on tangents, but I was quick to realize what I was doing, and edit it on the fly. Then I came to the transformation.
Man did I have fun writing that sequence. When I started writing I didn't plan on making the transformation process orgasmic, but it just felt right. It felt sexy and devious all at the same time. It helped build up a desire for the process to continue, so that I wasn't constantly writing about Charles fighting the transformation, or wishing it would stop. I loved writing that final build up, and then having it stop leaving Charles panting and begging for just a little more.
The ending came easily. Surprisingly I didn't feel obligated to write out a long drawn out introduction to Sam, and instead could focus on Charlie's reactions. I proof-read it a few times and only found a few things I felt that needed to be pruned.... and then the problem. I had several pages of text in Word, but only one image.
The image was a single image I found online, so I didn't have a series to work with. Even if I did, that image belonged at the end, and I really needed an image to go at the beginning. I tried searching for a man blindfolded, but none of the images would have worked. I even tried to find some images of the body parts I explained changing, but didn't find anything that would work. After an hour of brainstorming and searching I finally settled on the images of the feather and the needle, but really felt that I was cheating myself and therefore cheating my intended subject.
I really like the story and feel proud of that, but because of the lack of images, I don't like the layout. It got some good compliments, and the target enjoyed it, so I'll call it a success, but it is just a little lacking in my eyes.
A last word.... When I write how I feel about the caps, I don't want anyone to think that I'm fishing for compliments to 'make me feel better' about them. It is honestly how I feel. I mentioned in a recent reply that I don't expect to ever be fully satisfied with a cap. Thats the truth. I just want to share specifics on what I don't like so that in the future I can possibly address the problems and make a better cap.
No comments:
Post a Comment