It's just about Valentine's Day, so how about a .. Prom Caption? Well, it HAS a bench in it!
Made this for Lacy, who is now a 2 time recipient of a bench caption, though some people might think there was some other sort of magic involved. I wasn't even sure where I was going with the plot line until I hit the end of the first paragraph. My thought at that moment was, "so what is the bench going to do?" to get Ron from where I started to where I finished up. I vaguely recognized that I wanted heels at the end because of her pose and that it would work with some sort of stinger at the bottom of the picture.
Then the EUREKA moment! Her outfit had a bit of a ladybug design .. and right then I had my hook .. and for once, the title of the caption before i had even finished it! From that point on, I knew what I wanted and needed to do, just having to craft it in such a way that I didn't overwrite it for one, and that each word I did use, for economy's sake, had as much of an impact as it could in that limited space I had set up for myself.
And here's where I take something I posted almost 9 years ago(!) and bring it into the present as part of my "ASK AWAY about anything you'd like to know about ANYTHING related to TG captions .. or TG fiction too." week long post segment. HERE is the original post from March of 2011 if you want to look over the entirety of that moment. The question asked was, "If you could teach a class on 'Captioning' what would the title be?"
Of course, I ended up going all "Dee" on the response. Mostly as a start to Captioning 101. I called it, "Ways to Not Fuck Up your TG Captioning Projects with Professor Dee".
LESSON ONE: Don't run your caption into the ground by over-thinking and over-writing it.
Captions should be proofed to the best of your ability, but that is not what I am talking about with over-thinking. Both the picture and the story should breathe, and work together to form a cohesive whole. HOWEVER, there is no reason to have to explain every little detail. If there is a red skirt and heels in the picture, you do not have to describe them as they are already seen, You can mention them getting caught in a street grate if it is imperative to the storyline, but not, "his shoes turned a bright red color, the heels lifting his now silk-stocking covered feet several inches higher than they were a moment ago, as his ankles felt restrained by the strap of the now-changed pumps." Guess what, the picture is already showing this. It would fit into a normal story, but you have pictures so don't bother!!! Use the picture(s) as a shortcut to establish what happened before, is happening at that moment, or is about to happen at the end of the caption. Often, you've got the whole background mapped out for you in picture form, and you just have to supply the action!
LESSON TWO: Stereotypes/Archetypes are your friends .. use them accordingly and with aplomb!
Once again, you've got instant back story. You can either go straight ahead with the standards of behavior, OR go for a twisted version. Either way, people will follow because what you are providing is expected. Guy with a white coat and a clipboard is obviously a doctor. Goths are obviously witches, and cheerleaders are ditzy! Ladies Rooms are where women go to contact the mother ship and enslave the men of this planet. A woman laying on a couch is obviously trying to get a psychiatrist to believe that she used to be a man. Use these to your advantage!
They are basic guidelines, but I still adhere to them, unless I'm trying to break a trope or want to subvert people's expectations. They also are good shortcuts that work. There is a reason why I'm known as a captioner, and not a fiction writer. I like to have everything set up where people already "know" what is going to happen on a visceral level .. a dramatic term would be "beats" .. that set up the story and where the journey leads. Once I've got that set-up work taken care of, I can work within those boundaries, and move around inside, or break the wall and introduce other elements into that world I've created. If the image can give you all that information with no words, or a quick opening sentence .. then I can skip all that backstory and get right to the point. Or I can play with the details and reveal them as the story goes along, which is much better for readers to figure things out as it plays out in real time.
Yeah, I have lots of fun making captions, but I have, and continue, to think about what I'm doing when I am creating. Feel free to keep asking captioning and fiction questions, and follow-ups can make for good conversations / opinions and perhaps I can figure out other things I might be doing that aren't noticeably conscious of making those choices when I am writing captions.
Please do check out the original post too. There are some good comments by long-time TG caption creators that are worth your effort to read them, including Caitlyn Masked and Mistress Simone.
Lastly, was it the bench, or the ladybug, that caused the change in Lacy?