Forums:
I am new to Big Closet and I am posting some of my older stories daily.
I write short stories. Some would say very short, but I think 3,000 - 4,000 words is ideal for a short story.
Every one of them is a stand alone - solo. So I depend on new ideas.
The common thread in my stories is that they MTF transitions forced by circumstance, that might be real.
I push the boundaries of reality sometimes, but I think that my forced changes should be possible, if improbable.
That means no magic.
I also avoid the hackneyed "wife/girlfriend/mother/aunt feminizes husband/boyfriend/son/nephew" formula, unless there is a twist.
I am looking for new ideas from readers and other authors.
Of course I will share ideas. This is not one way traffic.
Is anybody out there who wants to contribute ideas so that we can grow our artform?
Maryanne Peters.
P.S. To understand me better, please read my stories
You see there were these 2 astronauts...
Maybe you're not into sci-fi; but this one I thought of in regards to your "forced by circumstances", and its yours if you want it; although I wouldn't be surprised to learn it's already been done...
A married couple or boyfriend and girlfriend are on a deep space mission far from our solar system. Their spaceship crashes and the man is totally smashed up, just about dead, when some kindhearted (but perhaps genderless) aliens find them and save the male's life with their super-advanced technology. But having no idea of what a human is supposed to look like they use the woman astronaut as their model when they reconstruct the other one's body- breasts, more delicate facial features; vagina, ovaries + uterus, the works. They fix their spaceship too, and on the long trip back the wife---who's bisexual---shows the new female that it's really not so bad being a girl. That could happen, right?
~hugs, Veronica
And remember...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifLqzLEB3E0
A priest, a minister and a rabbi. . ..
So he was MOSTLY dead.
Maybe you should add a third person -- that the aliens made from left over parts -- for dramatic tension.
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
This?
Polyamory or menage... I hear that reverse harems are all the rage these days. After all, #whychoose?
-- Daphne Xu
love it
sounds like a fun story
All this and World War II...
In late 1942, farm boy David Marion goes down to enlist in the Army on his 18th birthday. He's short and skinny and needs a haircut but he figures he should do his part for the war effort but his folks wouldn't let him join early. Through a paperwork mixup, he gets recorded as Maryanne David and assigned to the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps and sent to Fort Des Moines for training as a typist.
He keeps trying to get someone to listen to him, but he keeps being told that his only recourse is a Dishonorable Discharge so he might as well stay in since the Army does need clerks and typists. He also keeps being told he's to cute and pretty to make a good GI Joe.
When the WAAC is absorbed into the Army as the WAC in 1943, he thinks he's got a good chance of getting everything straightened out but getting there ends up requiring him to be pretty so he can get promoted and instead finds himself assigned as private secretary to a Colonel who seems to be falling in love with him. Confused, he tries to point out to the Col. that he's a guy. The Col says okay, we can get you out of the Army only one way, you have to get married.
Since the only identity papers poor David has are as Maryanne, well, she's going to have to marry a guy. And she'll need her commanding officer's permission for that. The Colonel, a widower with two small children, offers to solve both problems by giving Maryanne permission to marry the Colonel himself. After consideration, Maryanne accepts.
I've had this plot on back burners since 1997, you're welcome to it.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
You might quarry the Writers Challenges
In the forums here at BCTS there are loads of entries offering challenges for any writer to pick up. They aren't contests; they're ideas that are there for the taking.
Also, regarding your avoidance of magic, remember Arthur Clarke's statement that "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." When I read that, I picture him, open-mouthed, reading Harry Potter or the Narnia books. If he counted them as works of Advanced Science, can't we do the same?
- io
Where do I find the
Where do I find the challenges? As I said, I am new here.
In the meantime there are a few ideas here that I can work on.
Maryanne Peters
It's the Final Item...
...on the Forums page. That page is accessible via the link in the row up top that begins with "Home", or by the Forums line in the box at the right of the page that's headed with your name.
Eric
Sorry, Maryanne, I should have thought
Yes, it's where Eric said. Here's a direct link:
https://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/forums/writers-challenge
- io
Plots
I have checked out that forum.
It has some very old stuff, but i have found a little grist for my mill - just a couple of kernels.
Let's try to get this thing current and humming (?)
Maryanne
The other way
Does Arthur Clarke's statement invert? "Any magic is indistinguishable from sufficiently advanced technology." I have my doubts.
-- Daphne Xu
Koontz's Corollary to Clarke's 3rd Law
Hi Daphne!
Dean Koontz wrote one based on that premise. I forget the title and it would be a big spoiler for that novel anyway so I'm not gonna go look it up; But what the characters thought was aliens using advanced tech turned out to be demons from Hell and the Apocalypse was upon us. But in the afterword he mentioned he was trying to flip that Arthur C. Clarke quote on its head. He was halfway successful, and it was about the last of Koontz's titles that I enjoyed before his books seemed to turn into embarrassing self-parody (and he was already kinda cheesy to begin with...) and hamfisted preaching and I gave up on him...
~hugs, veronica
.
(And then there's the one that I call Kilgore Trout's 3rd Law:
"Any sufficiently alien psychology is indistinguishable from madness..."
that I have fun with in an upcoming chapter of Off the Deep End)
And remember...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifLqzLEB3E0
The other way round
I'd rather read that as, "Anything you think is magic is simply technology you don't yet understand."
Mind you, that could make Harry Potter very interesting.
Penny
Clarke puzzled and bewildered
Honestly, it's just a sloppy, silly phrase. He could easily have done better, but I think his condescension hobbled him, especially when he was pompous enough to label this as one of his "Three Laws."
How is this a law?
Who exactly is it that is mistaking one thing for the other? He doesn't say.
What does the word "sufficiently" mean? He doesn't say that, either.
Probably he meant something along the lines of "People take things they don't understand for magic."
Do they really?
Another word he didn't define: magic. Maybe he was talking about magic tricks and sleight of hand. He could easily have made that clear.
It's also contradicted by his second so-called law: "The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible."
I like much better the formulation of the Tenth Doctor: "What do I believe? I believe that I haven't seen everything."
- io
This should be up Barb's alley.
There's the story about the farmgirl who went out and hired a tractor and brought it to school.
You see, she needed a protractor.
-- Daphne Xu
That reminded me of the classic
"Two Ronnies" (BBC) Sketch, 'Four Candles' (Fork Handles).
Poetry in motion.
Back on topic.
Many (if not all) the variances on forced fem have been done to death and beyond especially on other sites. I got so bored with one site that I simply gave up on it.
So have Cheerleaders, Prom dates with the Football QB, standins in a Rock Band etc etc.
I try to find plots that are fairly original or at least have a very different twist from many other stories. Most of the time it seems to work but it isn't easy.
It has been said many times that 'Every story has already been told'. There are (depending upon who you read) about Seven different plot types in storytelling. Everything else is a variant of that.
Agents and Publishers (and by inference, readers) are looking for something fresh and bright.
Go ahead and write your stories. All the wiritng you do will gradually improve your craft as a writer. Practice makes perfect and all that jazz.
But before publishing any, I'd do a lot of research about your intended market. Is this the right place for them? How are othe stories of the type recieved? If the number of reads, kudos and comments are small when compared to other variances on the genre then perhaps this is not the right place for them. One other author recently found that this was not the right place and has moved to another site where it seems that they have found a far more receptive audience.
Good luck with your writing.
Samantha
Oh Samantha,
Oh Samantha,
Please do tell - what are the seven different plot types so I know what to reach beyond?
My market is people who are interested in TG romance (I guess) so is this the right place?
How are my stories received? Are my kudos (?) big or small?
Anyway, I got a great idea yesterday so I worked all night and I am posting that shortly.
Maryanne
Here you go
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_Basic_Plots
Plot 7
Well, it's rebirth, of course. Every one!
Link to seven basic plots
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_Basic_Plots
These are basic frameworks for plots.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
My ideas
I have plenty of ideas, but I am always looking for more.
I have been contemplating a series based on a fictional website, tentatively called "Transtinder".
It is a dating/relationship site, but I can see by encouraging people to meet someone outside gender normalcy might create situations.
Possible story 1: A girlfriend uses a picture of her boyfriend in drag to catfish, and catches the big one. We he agree to what follows?
Possible story 2: Some guys set up one of their group for a transtinder date as a joke, but it ends up with love and marriage.
Possible story 3: A woman sets up her straight-laced boyfriend with a date to broaden his mind, and ends up with a girlfriend.
I have other stories to finish, so maybe these ideas can stoke a furnace somewhere?
Maryanne
Sounds new and promising
That does sound like a premise that could spawn a lot of stories. Good luck!
- io