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That genre again....
12 years ago
Time for another genre rant (or something like that).
He grabbed the item, but that proved to be a mistake as it lit up his hand in a sensation of fiery pain, as if he'd just grabbed a hot coal from a campfire. Ow! He dropped it as quickly as he'd touched it, and he could see his hand was blackened from contact with whatever it was.
But that wasn't ash or soot that burned into his hand as he inspected the injury. That was fur, and claws.
"What the heck!?"
The stinging sensation burned its way up his arm like a flame consuming a wood match and his mind exploded in a headache of stinging fire as it finally reached his chest and proceeded to radiate everywhere from the inside out. He was aware of his body hitting the ground before his vision blacked out; the burning consumed all his senses as it coursed freely in his veins, from his hands and arms down to his lower body and into his legs, culminating in a long, black tail and an incredible, nauseating pain that probably made him throw up everything he ate before what thoughts were left in his mind finally checked out of him.
Is this about the shortest TF sequence ever? You don't get to "see" anything, you don't get any of those "bits" of limbs or organs stretching and shifting around into their new shape or size or location. No, my narrator is basically locked inside the main character's head at this point, so all you get to know is what the character does: That something's happening to him, it's happening fast, and boy does it hurt.
Now while I'm under (personal) obligation to not post the whole story, I can nonetheless assure you that once he wakes up, he does get a few minutes to look his (post-TF) body over and go "what the fuck?" alongside a full physical description of what kind of animal he was turned into.
So why did I keep the TF sequence itself so short? Because the surrounding story is not even really a "TF story" in the first place, just a "story that happens to utilize a TF element". Sure, that TF does play a key role in resolving the central (internal) conflict, but in terms of wordcount it occupies just less than 1% of the total writing.
And that's how I view the genre as a whole. There are tons of TF stories in the category listing, but any time I skim one of them, once I get to the point of the actual transformation scene I basically just mentally tune it out. "Oh, he could feel his body blah blah blah, and blah blah blah, then yada yada yada, and more blah blah blah, until finally yada yada yada." Sure, 'whatever floats your boat' people say, but mine it doesn't. Even if I have to Pagedown several times, I prefer to skip these details rather than read them; the "bits" just aren't important to the story.
Rant mode off. What say you?
He grabbed the item, but that proved to be a mistake as it lit up his hand in a sensation of fiery pain, as if he'd just grabbed a hot coal from a campfire. Ow! He dropped it as quickly as he'd touched it, and he could see his hand was blackened from contact with whatever it was.
But that wasn't ash or soot that burned into his hand as he inspected the injury. That was fur, and claws.
"What the heck!?"
The stinging sensation burned its way up his arm like a flame consuming a wood match and his mind exploded in a headache of stinging fire as it finally reached his chest and proceeded to radiate everywhere from the inside out. He was aware of his body hitting the ground before his vision blacked out; the burning consumed all his senses as it coursed freely in his veins, from his hands and arms down to his lower body and into his legs, culminating in a long, black tail and an incredible, nauseating pain that probably made him throw up everything he ate before what thoughts were left in his mind finally checked out of him.
Is this about the shortest TF sequence ever? You don't get to "see" anything, you don't get any of those "bits" of limbs or organs stretching and shifting around into their new shape or size or location. No, my narrator is basically locked inside the main character's head at this point, so all you get to know is what the character does: That something's happening to him, it's happening fast, and boy does it hurt.
Now while I'm under (personal) obligation to not post the whole story, I can nonetheless assure you that once he wakes up, he does get a few minutes to look his (post-TF) body over and go "what the fuck?" alongside a full physical description of what kind of animal he was turned into.
So why did I keep the TF sequence itself so short? Because the surrounding story is not even really a "TF story" in the first place, just a "story that happens to utilize a TF element". Sure, that TF does play a key role in resolving the central (internal) conflict, but in terms of wordcount it occupies just less than 1% of the total writing.
And that's how I view the genre as a whole. There are tons of TF stories in the category listing, but any time I skim one of them, once I get to the point of the actual transformation scene I basically just mentally tune it out. "Oh, he could feel his body blah blah blah, and blah blah blah, then yada yada yada, and more blah blah blah, until finally yada yada yada." Sure, 'whatever floats your boat' people say, but mine it doesn't. Even if I have to Pagedown several times, I prefer to skip these details rather than read them; the "bits" just aren't important to the story.
Rant mode off. What say you?
