Saturday, January 26, 2013

Happiness Found (Cap and Short Story)

We all deserve happiness!

So this cap started off in very unusual way for me.  For the most part when I go to cap it's either after looking at someone's preferences (or at least getting my mind into the space to make a cap for a particular person), or after looking at random images until one speaks to me.

But this one came about as an experiment.  You see I was writing a post on my other blog about how a simple good mood can be maintained, and possibly even be used for writing   I don't get into a genuinely good mood all that often, especially these last few years and I found myself in one today.  While writing up the post I realized that I'm normally in a good mood when away from being Caitlyn.  So this was a rare opportunity to try capping while in a mood like this.

So I cued up the music that would help maintain my good mood, loaded up an image that I had stewing away for a long time and stared to write.  I've probably had this image for close to three months.  The only vague idea I had for it was that it was the heroine finally accepting her femininity and finding happiness by making love to her kidnapper/master/husband.

Let me tell you... when I'm in a good mood I WRITE.  I had no outline or even vague idea of where to begin, but I just started writing.  Several paragraphs in and I knew I would never fit it into one panel.  I figured I could probably use three or maybe even four of the images from this set...I would just have to have a line or two hinting at what was going on.  But when I reached the third page of story and had only just reached the part about the surgery, I stopped thinking of it as a cap and thought of it the same way I thought of "Getting Clean".  I would write it out as a short story and then take the gist of what I wrote and condence it down into a cap.

The only change I made at this point was making the generic characters into Jennifer and myself.   It's not really a true 'Jennifer' cap, but I think she'll enjoy the story, and I owe her.  When I got done writing the story it was just over five pages and just over 3000 words.  Condensing it down into a single panel would be difficult so I opened up a new document and wrote out the key points that needed to be in it.  Jeremy and Calvin's outlook on life.  Calvin's discovery of Jeremy's bookmarks.  Calvin blackmailing and training.  The surgery.  The honeymoon.  I was cutting a LOT of the story out, but I knew that even keeping that little in, it would be hard to fit it into a single cap.

So I got to work.  I would read about one of those key parts in the story, then write it out as short as I could.  I tried to pull as much actual writing as I could since I genuinely liked the tone of the story, but there wasn't much that I could copy word for word.

Oddly enough once I had it cut down I realized one thing I had missed.... naming the main character.  And I had massaged each paragraph to fit into the space perfectly, so I couldn't just shoehorn in a line or two.   So.. I guess the story is dedicated to Jennifer while the cap is more generic.  I think the cap works well... it's obviously more rushed in tone than the story, but that's just from covering so much ground with so few words.

I posted the story over at Caitlyn's Musings in it's entirety, and you can red it over there..  If you want to read it and comment there, I'd love to hear your thoughts.  Of course I'd also love to hear what you think of the cap on it's own here as well!

8 comments:

  1. That really is one of the most beautifully presented captions in a very long time. Your use of her body to repel the text works really well.

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    1. Thanks Anne!

      I've actually used this layout before, but it's rare as it takes a much longer time to line the text up like that. But it might be something I try to explore more if I find the right story and image combination.

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  2. You've done a wonderful job of trimming down a longer story into a single panel caption! I know that can be a difficult thing to accomplish.

    I really like how the text flows along the contour of her body, and I love her expression!

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    1. Thanks Kyra!

      I agree... I ADORE the look on her face. It's one of the reasons I kept this image around for so long, refusing to give up on capping it!

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  3. Even if you hadn't gifted me this story and caption, I still think it would have gotten under my skin and pushed a few buttons. I enjoyed the shorter, condensed caption and felt that you captured the essence of the larger story quite well.

    I read this one first, because I was sure that your larger story would spoil me before I got to check this one out. and I was right! That's not to say that this one didn't push my buttons as hard, but the detail's in the longer story was just spot on! I would discuss it more now, but I think I'll save that for your other blog.

    This one had the benefits of having the visual aid and I think it goes a long way of conveying the pleasure and happiness she was feeling here. But You didn't even need this image to nail that feeling in your short story. I don't want to sound like I don't appreciate this shorter cap, because I very much enjoyed it. But the story really did spoil me!

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    1. I'm so glad that you liked it! I was shocked at how closely this matched up with the cap you made me. I guess it's true... Great Kinky Minds Think Alike!

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  4. I posted this about the story on your musings blog...Wowsers, I've got some AHEM stiff competition in the story department. The best compliment I can give this is that one sentence seems to flawlessly lead into the next. It reminds me of an Edgar Allen Poe story in that not a single word is mission or superfluous. The fact that the story itself is well plotted, has great character development and is sexy as all get out is just icing on the cake. With the tightness of the story I think you could tell any story you wanted to here and it would have been just as engaging. Kudos.

    But I wanted to add I'm impressed how you could do the same with the caption, cutting elements of the story and allowing the image and her expression to fill in the blanks. Although, if I had to pick, I'd go with the story.

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    1. Thanks smitty!

      *blush* I'll respond to your comment about the story over at 'Musings'

      I agree... my personal preference is with the story as well. I see the cap as one big compromise or one big cut after the other. But that being said, I'm glad that you enjoyed the cap.

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