Tuesday, May 28, 2013

The Groom Wore White?


No wonder brides are so scatterbrained on their special day!


Here is a tale of a caption story that truly got away from me and how I tried to reel it in. This was SUPPOSED to be posted last night, but I fell asleep!

I owed Lacy a caption return, and was busy with real life, but would usually try to set a few minutes each day to thinking of ideas for a story line, for her and a few others I owed, Sometime around the middle of May, I went through pictures on my hard drive and at least found this one which I thought would work well for her. I set it up in caption format, then put it away for later.

When I came back to it last Saturday, I had a storyline in place, of Lacy and her wife doing a recommitment ceremony, but with Lacy in the gown. Not quite an overused trope, but it has been done before and I thought I could bring something new to it. With her preferences somewhat in mind, I started writing.

And that is when my "naughty mistress" nature took over. I write "on the fly" inside the captions so I can edit things down and get a good sense of where the story needs to end. Things took off here though, and veered quite far away from where Lacy would like them. Specifically, she asks in her preferences, "nothing with cross dressing out in public," and "no humiliation." I can often do sweet and loving captions, but apparently my mindset was set in dominatrix mode. By the end, I wondered if I was better off just giving it to someone else, as it got away from me quickly. In the end though, I had chosen the picture and the plot for Lacy, and I wanted to see it through. I cut a few paragraphs, and ended it with her being renamed Lacy Butts, then saved it figuring I could either fix it, or offer it as a blog exclusive.

Then I walked away. I made a few more captions that day, a few that are going to be blog exclusives, and ones that I made for Commentator and the previous post for Leeanne. After that, I kept it in the back of my mind until I had some time during the week. I opened the caption up again and tried to see where I could pull things back and/or refocus the story without cutting too much out or gutting the original idea.

As I read through it, when I took out some of the previous dialog, I noticed that the wife went from zero to bitch in about 3 seconds. However, knowing that all brides have anxiety, and knowing that Lacy would be understandably nervous of dressing up like a bride and re-enacting their wedding vows, he completely misunderstood why his friends were there, so she teased him and went overboard with it .. mostly because of his nervousness he misread the entire situation. From that stand point, I could still go over the top, AND draw the reader in ("what is going to happen? HOLY SHIT are you kidding me? WHOA!") THEN let the air out of the balloon for a happy ending.

And to be truthful, many peoples fantasies are things they would NEVER want to happen in real life. People tend to keep them to themselves, possibly letting one or two close friends hear about it. When we think about those plots, its exhilarating and cathartic, but it would drive you insane if it actually happened. I think this caption is a good representation of what would happen if you thought said fantasies WERE to come true.

Even so, the reader has no idea if the wife was kidding about everything, or just some things.. Perhaps he WILL take her last name, Will Lacy be servicing his wife on the kneeler, and why exactly am I officiating the wedding? The implications and possibility of exposure are still there, but much more subtle now. That way, its a happy ending, but perhaps a kinky one too!


DISCUSSION QUESTION: How did this caption resonate with you? Did this behind the scenes look give you a decent enough explanation of my thought process? Anything else about this that I should go into more detail about or questions that need to be answered?

3 comments:

  1. Great cap Dee! It seems pretty rare for someone to write in a good tease in a cap. Most of the time the cap format is too short so you end up going right for the zinger ending. I think that makes this really powerful as we've all been trained to NOT look for the tease. I know halfway into the cap I was expecting our cute little lacy here to be shaking like a leaf as her parents, friends and other family members watch her take the vows and new last name!

    The cap resonated very well with me. As much as I enjoy the farfetched and impossible fantasy, reading a fun scene like this that could really happen to anybody brings a big smile to my face. I really enjoyed hearing how you worked on it to take a fun cap and retain its appeal while still making sure it fed into Lacy's preferences. The only thing more that I'd like to see is what you originally wrote. I'm sure reading the original draft would show how much work it is to change the overall tone of a cap.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I think the hard part about writing a tease is just how far it should go before becoming overboard.

      I don't have the stuff I cut out, but it had his ex-girlfriends there as maids of honor, and I started writing about a "real" best man .. at that point is where I knew it had gone too far for Lacy. She definitely didn't want men in captions made for her.

      Delete
  2. Great post Dee, Lacey Butts, LMAO!! Dementia has her hat in everything it appears. When this happens to me I will have her be my Reverend......

    I am still around. I wish Hailey and I were on a shopping spree. No such luck. My job has changed direction and I am now traveling for a bit. I am not gone forever. I will be posting things shortly. Just have to get a chance. Thanks for worrying about me though. It means a lot to me when my friends from the community start wondering where I have been. I promise I won't ever leave completely. At least not without saying good bye. But that isn't in the cards.I will be talking to you soon.

    xoxoxo Katie

    ReplyDelete