Over the weekend a fan of mine sent me a lovely letter and shared with me a caption based on one of mine. (soon to be a guest cap) It's the first time I've ever gotten a E-mail from a fan and I was so flattered, I asked her what sort of caption she would like to see in return. The result is what you see below.
So, let's get to the cap, shall we?
All right, Now that you have read the cap, Mind if I ramble a bit about it? This caption came about, as I said, when a fan sent me a email and I offered to make them something.
They didn't have many requests on what they would like to see, other then that I use this picture here and I make sure to have the girls speak to the reader. Oh, and they wanted a mental change in the girls.
It was a little difficult for me to cook up an idea at first. The girls look relaxed and un-ladylike, which fits with guy's turned into women, but not for a mental change caption. Plus, they were supposed to be talking TO the reader, so every idea I had didn't seem to fit. It was always set after the change, or some how during it.
I probably went through 3 different ideas, but for the life of me I can't even remember what they were, save for one of them. It involved an audition for two young men trying to break into the porn industry, but finding out they didn't quite measure up. So, instead of becoming a couple of studs, they wind up as sex starved bimbos. Fun, yes, but didn't fit the image as well as I would like.
That's when I came up with this idea of them being video taped and talking to someone else. It doesn't continue to talk to the reader, but I think it does that part well enough that it's not a problem that I strayed away from it.
I liked how it turned out in the end, I think it feels like there's some history behind every character and it gives the caption a little bit of "weight" to it.
Only problem is, well, depending on how you look at it, Is that the history is really only known to the characters and me. I like to think that it will leave the readers enough to paint their own picture of what their lives are like and it will draw the reader in.
But I'm also a little worried it might put some people off that are curious as to what I was trying to say. So for those of you who want to know more about what's going on and not let your mind wander for a bit, I'll explain how I saw it.
Like the title suggests, everyone in the cap was friends at one point. But Jeremy and Micheal hate other for an unspecified reason. To me, I like to think of Micheal as a former bully and tormenter of all 3 of them. But Chris and brain are spineless cowards that jump when ever Micheal tells them too, and thought he hung the moon.
so when Jeremy reveals that he has a spell book and plans to do away with Micheal and at the same time, give them all a hot bimbo play toy to fool around with, well, they think Micheal would be better off with the book and getting rid of "boring" Jeremy. Unfortunately, that bites them in the ass and Micheal just thinks it would be more fun if he turns them all into happy, sexy starved bimbos for his own amusement.
He forces the two to tell Jeremy about what they did in exchange for NOT turning them into bimbos, if Jeremy will turn him self over. But Micheal being the ass that he is, Has no intention of doing that. (as you already know. ) After that, it's up to the reader where it goes.
I like that idea alot! And I like this caption as well. But I feel like I'm taking the easy way out by not explaining all of this back story. I mean, maybe the back story other people come up with is just as hot, if not hotter! Heck, maybe there's enough sub-text and tension between the "friends" that most people will get the gist of what I was after. Still, I can't help but feel like I should have padded out the story and some how explained all of this.
What do you think? I know that it's never good if you have to explain your intentions. But based on your first time reading the cap, how did you feel about it? Was there enough story to make it enjoyable? did you need more exposition? Or did leaving that out make it more exciting for you?
I was trying to do something new here, but I still have the urge to give more of a detailed back story for everything, so maybe it's just me. Let me know! ^_^
Great cap Jennifer!
ReplyDeleteWe're all going to have to thank your fan for inspiring you to make this cap! I think it's perfect as is. When I read the cap the first time I was close to your intent. The only difference I got was that they 'picked' Michael to change them into girls over Jeremy turning them as well as Michael into girls.
Either way it works wonderfully. It's always a fine line between explaining to much making it 'great' for a smaller audience and 'ok' for a wide audience, or explaining to little and making it possibly great for a wider audience. I think you were spot on that line!
I LOVE the caption! You took it someplace I never would have seen in the image and it worked so well. I especially liked how Chris and Brian were offered that little bit of hope and had the rug pulled out from under them. It’s kinda evil but that’s what they with Michael were going to do to Jeremy so no one’s innocent here.
ReplyDeleteWhile I believe the caption does stand on its own I appreciate that you spelled out the backstory for those who might be interested. That’s what’s so great about dialog captions in my opinion. It would be unrealistic for the characters to reveal every detail, so much is left to the reader’s imagination to fill in. You also see through the dialog the personalities of Chris and Brian and you can imagine their relationship.
Let me give you my take on the scenario that played out in my head when I initially read the caption: The four characters are part of some magic user group in which everyone is of dubious moral character and using one another to get ahead. The group is going through a power struggle. Chris and Brian somehow have this ace in the hole, a particular spell book, but they are followers not leaders. They make a choice to swing the tide towards one of their other friends who’ll step up, Michael or Jeremy. It seems they made the wrong choice.
Really enjoyed this cap, and I think basic character dynamics came across very clearly using a minimum of material.
ReplyDelete-Zak