I'm going to have to give this some time
So It's A Man's World is done. I've finished writing it, edited it, and am publishing it to Fictionmania. Here's a link to my main blog post about it, and I'll have links below to the individual parts, but you can click the Fictionmania links as they go to 'my' Fictionmania page.
I've written quite a bit about this story here so I won't go into the subject of it. Time travel to future societies, gets transformed into a woman, has to save the past, lots of sex. Boom, boom, boom.
When I started writing this, I was honestly really excited. Both Just Dance and Gamer Gurl were fun sexy stories, but they were more or less 'cross dresser' stories with a little extra oomph. The sex in them feels visceral and real, but it's still limited to what you can fit in with a guy hiding his penis away. Just Dance had a little guy/girl sex, quite a few BJs, and one quickie anal scene. Gamer Gurl, at least this first part, is limited to sex between the person being dressed and the girl dressing him... but a lot more is hinted at.
Except for some caps and obscura length stories, I've always been blocked in with this type of story. There was one person commenting on Just Dance that really hit me:
"Can you just spend like 1/4 the effort you use to describe blowjobs to describe anal? You’re a great writer but come on please lol."
They're not wrong. I'd say if you broke down my sex scenes between oral, vaginal, and anal, about 90% of them would be oral (blow jobs), 7% would be anal, leaving 3% for vaginal. I'm not complaining too loudly, but I like tackling new things and I've wanted to write creative sex scenes for awhile now that involve more than blow jobs.
I didn't notice it as I was writing this chapter by chapter, but I think I over did it. One complaint I heard was that the transformation was too quick, leaving all the rest of the 'struggle' being internal. Well, I did that so that I could start on more sex scenes and keep them going with more variety. But when I read it through with a clearer eye while editing it... the sex just overwhelms the last third of the story. That feels strange for me to admit, but yeah... I think there was too much sex in this story.
I've written some dark stuff before, but it was all short. It was something you could read in one sitting and either get past or face it and then move on. But the second quarter of this story, the Gilead arc, was dark. D A R K dark. Writing it chapter by chapter, I think I lost the majority of my readers at CHYOA. From that point on, the readership, the favorites, and the comments all plummeted. Once I noticed that trend, I tried to fix it by moving through the Gilead arc faster, but it was too late. I really shouldn't have let it get under my skin... but I did. And it only got worse near the end.
After my vacation, I wanted to be done with this story. I didn't feel it was going well, I'd lost almost all my readership, and I wasn't caring about the subjects of the story. When I got to within striking distance of the end, I hit the fast forward button and finished it fast. On CHYOA, the last chapter should have been more like 5 or 6 chapters. I had a lot of underlying ideas for the 'wedding' but knew it was going to be another slog to get to it. As far as I'm concerned, this is the longest story I've written and it has a bad ending.
But, that being said, I'll hold my final judgement for awhile. Readership at CHYOA is different than Fictionmania and I might get a different response. Before I get into the response I've already received, let's talk about the publishing method.
I knew I didn't want to publish this in bite sized pieces like I did with Just Dance and Gamer Gurl. Posting it to Fictionmania was intended to get more readers as I thought I lost too many people because of the length. People even complained about the length on Thesis. But Thesis still got more readers in a similar amount of time than either Just Dance or Gamer Gurl. And not by a small amount. And with Gamer Gurl, the comments were kind of bizarre with a lot of commentary guessing where the story was going to go. It was fun reading them, but at the same time I just kept thinking to myself "No, you are so wrong about that!".
So even before I wrote It's A Man's World, I knew I wanted to either post it in it's full length or at most post it in two parts. That's before I knew how long it was. While I was editing it, I looked for a natural breaking point and there was one huge easy point. Between them in Gilead and them in Mishigami. The problem with that is that breaks down to a first part with 52,000 words and a second part with 96,000 words. That's just uneven. I cut the ending off as it really did feel like an epilogue (them going back to destroy their notes, destroy the time machine, and the wedding), but that was a tiny portion of about 4,000 words. I even briefly looked at cutting the Mishigami part into two, but that didn't make sense thematically.
Oh well. It will get published in three parts. Part one will be half the size of part two and there will be a tiny epilogue afterwards.
When I got done editing this yesterday, I was ready to push this out and just be done with it. D O N E done. I'd finished writing this over a week ago at CHYOA and finished it with a rather whiny note. Surprisingly, the 'Note from the Author' chapter got 15 likes. No other chapter had received more likes since March. The average since then is between 4 and 7 likes. The comments I got there were informative though. I already mentioned that they complained about the quick transformation. I understand and appreciate that as it's just not my style. But that was the point... I wanted to try something new. They also commented on it being so dark. They used different terminology ("...everything they were subjected to later seemed objectionable no matter who it would be happening to..."). Another comment came from someone that had been reading my blogs and other writings for awhile (they actually followed me over to CHYOA). They said that they didn't like the darker second part (I'm assuming they meant Gilead). But they also said they appreciated that I stuck with it even though it wasn't their bag. The last commentor said they'd been reading my fictionmania stuff for awhile and they didn't like this one as much because of the fast transformation.
This leads to the problem with a lot of evaluations. I know there is a core audience that I tend to hit and they're, mostly, silent. I have to follow views on the blogs to see trends on what is more or less popular. The people that comment tend to be more diehard and more appreciate fans (quick aside, I absolutely HATE using the term 'fans' but I don't know another more appropriate term). Much of the time, the more diehard fans might like the more experimental works where the bigger wider audience doesn't. But here, with just the CHYOA audience to base this on, I think they're in lock step. I think the 'new' things I tried don't work well. The fast full transformation. It's just not my bag. I think my comfort zone of "crossdresser +" is where my audience sits. A good example might be the book I'm currently reading. I'm reading Stephen King's "You Like It Darker". It's a collection of short stories. Before I go to far down here, understand I in NO WAY compare myself to SK. He's a God, I'm a plebe. But I'm reading this story right now about a recent windower that's given a dog that he doesn't want. It's well written and I see where SK is going.... but that's all of the story so far. There's nothing hinting at horror or thriller or gore. It's not SK's bag. And even as a HUGE SK fan, I'm not enjoying this story so far (to be fair, I have about a half of it to go and as it's a short story there's plenty of time to get into the zone). I think that's what this story is for me though. It wasn't in my wheelhouse. My 'fans' don't enjoy the subject matter and I don't attract fans of that subject matter.
Maybe I'd have felt differently if I wrote this 'offline' where I wouldn't have noticed a drop off of readership. That's why I'm holding my final judgement. The posting to Fictionmania will be that audience. It's a more focused audience of transformative gender transformation and they'll be able to read it in one or two big gulps. And after publishing the first part, the Introduction, the Free Union, and the Gilead portions, I have three good comments that give me hope.
The first comment said they'd read it on CHYOA and that they loved it. I imagine they're one of the 4 or 5 people that put a 'like' on every chapter. The next comment was that it was wonderful and great sci-fi and erotica. The last comment really hit me though in that they said they were left on the edge of their seat. They mentioned the world building which is a part that I'm particularly proud of.
I guess we'll see how I feel once all the parts are published and they've been up for a month or so.
For writing it, I kind of went in a different direction for my muse. When I started I knew how much I liked enjoyed having an image of Sadie and Sarah on my screen to keep their looks in my head. I didn't want to publish with those images as I didn't want the reader to be forced to see the characters that way. I've read stories that later had illustrations and the illustrations don't match my imagination, making it difficult to continue. But it still helped me write. So I did that more intentionally with this story.
The first thing I did was get images for the three main characters after their transformations.
Atticus and Catty became younger versions of themselves:
I didn't lean into it to much, but I kept thinking to myself how hard it would be to take these two sexy people as being two brilliant scientists. Think of a movie... would these models be cast as the scientists? Probably not.
I knew I'd need more images later of the main subject, Joy. I didn't look for an image until she was looking over her new body and wanted to have something for me to base the writing off of. All I knew is that I wanted young, beautiful, sexy (and no, beautiful and sexy aren't always the same thing), and someone that would have porn photos. I don't remember how I found her, but I came across a favorite porn actress of mine. Athena Farris. This was the image that I had on my screen while writing almost all of this story:
That look on her face, that cleavage, the curve of her hip. Beautiful.
I didn't have any more images of characters or situations in the Free Union. But when I got to Gilead, I went back to a couple erotic drawings that I'd recently come upon. Knowing that this was a society that would 'hunt' women (either women attempting to escape or women on their borders from other societies), these really hit home. The one became the basis of the capture drone, while the other was simply inspiration:
I even added a generic photo of a Gilead man. I didn't specifically have this as Isiah or Jonas, but more as a combination of the two:
These last two were inspirational images of Joy in her bondage, waiting for Isiah to 'play' with her and Joy's outfit. No, the outfit isn't exact... again, I wanted inspiration and not a specific image. But they both helped me not only with the imagery, but for writing the scenes.
When we got to Mishigami the first image I got was that of Bradley. I wanted him to be less than perfect and let me tell you, I spent a lot of time searching for a good "Dad Bod"
I think this might be the best use of an image that didn't necessarily spill over to the description of the character. I wanted Joy to think less of Bradley without openly saying it. He'd sneak under her radar with his personality, and by having this image up, it helped color that writing.
The only other characters that got images were the librarians and I only ended up using the one for Montana after the interview scene, even though Mr. Savidge was in a couple more.
I have two images that were inspirations for what Joy was wearing. Her interview outfit for the library and one of her 'Stepford Wife' outfits:
And finally, one of the ways I kept myself interested in writing, was the sex images. While writing Gamer Gurl I had a couple animated gifs that were just of sexy cam/gamer girls in porn like actions. As I already had an image in mind of Sadie, none of them were direct replacements for her. So they were more generic. This time though, I'd specifically picked an image of a porn star so that I could have some more specific images.
I wanted two sets. One of blow jobs and one of actual sex. I ended up finding a couple animated gifs of Athena Farris, but then came on the treasure trove of pornhub and their animated gif searcher. Yeah... I got quite a few. None of these are specific scenes, and only served as generic "Joy having sex" inspiration:
And finally, there was the whole "Intimate Lesson" scenes. I had that scene in my mind even before I began writing this story. All I knew is that the main character, already changed into a woman, would have a robot training him how to be a woman in this society, including how to have sex. The original version I had in my head was before I had Catty as a character and this was only going to be two men traveling in time, one that gets transformed and one that doesn't. The one that doesn't get transformed buys a robot that will help train his colleague while he has to go to work. When he got home, he'd find the subject on her knees in front of the robot, being forced to give it a blow job. That was what I had.
But then I came upon these two video files around the time I was writing in Gilead, and it changed the whole idea. I'm sure you'll see the inspiration:
Obviously they aren't 100% to the scene I wrote. I took from each of them. The mirror was used throughout, but the counter only came in when it was Bradley's turn to teach, as did the binding of Joy's hands behind her back.
I initially had in my head that Joy would absolutely hate these lessons. But by having these videos up and the way they turned me on, I went ahead and added that arousal into the story. Watching herself give head turned Joy on. I think it's a great addition to the story and fits the character and scenes well.
I'll still be using some 'inspirational' images for Gamer Gurl, but I'm locked into an image of Sadie and sadly, it's a stand alone image. I can't find who the model is, if she's even a model, and there are no other images of the person that I can find.
Speaking of Gamer Gurl, I'm planning on moving right into the next part. I think the office/secretary story "You're Not The Boss Of Me!" would be fun, but I'd have a lot of prep work if I were to take that to CHYOA. I'd have to write up an outline then either use what I've already written as mere inspiration and write it all over, or re-write everything I have and post it in 2500 word bites. I'll get to it as I'm still on board with finishing it... but I think Gamer Gurl will be an easier slide back into writing something that both I and my audience is a fan of.
Unlike the first part though, I'm going to make a plan for this second part.
First, I'm going to make a basic outline. I'm going to set it up as a story with acts and a final ending/cliffhanger. I know there will be either a sex scene with Marley or an 'almost' sex scene with him. I know there will be a date or multiple dates with Louis. I know that Sadie's income will start to really come in and then something is going to happen to curtail it, which will lead her into following Sarah further than even Sarah had intended into the FanOnly direction. I'll also have to decide what to do with Todd and Voltaire.
I figure writing out these big tent pole parts, will leave me with either three or four 'acts'. I can then take each act, and write a far more specific outline for that. So while I'll know what generally happens in the second and third acts, I'll be writing the first act with a far more specific outline.
No comments:
Post a Comment