I am not fond of this caption ... YOU can fix it!
Well I hadn't planned on double dipping with reader interaction, but figured I'd give it a shot! I made this caption because .. LEGS! and obviously a private plane. I was going to use this as a "throwaway" caption which I'd discuss a bit before posting the caption setting for the next DIY Challenge.
The issue is I HATE what I wrote as I couldn't really convey what I wanted to do with it. My plot was as follows ... Personal Asst. to a rich lady sets up the "engine failure" in the plane and only "one parachute." He figured she'd be noble and let him jump etc ... or maybe he had a "spare" parachute that was good if she decided to jump and abandon him in the plane. No matter what contingency, he was going to be her and his old body (with her in it) was going to die somehow. I even had some sort of "I'm going to expose you," blackmail thing tying into it, but I'm not sure why now I did that! I'm thinking perhaps he "blackmailed" her into letting him be the one to jump?
Well, that is sort of unpleasant, but truthfully, we do worse things to guys in TG Captions, so why not let the evil person win sometimes? It is the way life is sometimes. However, what I cannot excuse is how convoluted my writing was in telling it. Yikes!
So this is where you come in! I'm hoping you can rescue me and rewrite it. Either by tweaking it or doing a complete overhaul. You can even have a different plot if you want to! Also, feel free to change the character BLANK to yourself or a friend if you wish. I don't mind you making yourself the star. Here's the original text that was in the caption:
Its a shame it had to happen this way.
I know it was nice of me to “go down in flames” in my personal plane and give him the last parachute. I’m sure the press will find it ironic that I survived when one of the engines started up again, while his lines were tangled to the point where they had to identify him by BLANK’S most recent dental records.
Of course, I’ll have to erase the camera footage where *I* packed the parachute. It shouldn’t be too hard since I am worth billions of dollars .. now. And since he is dead,
I can stop pretending there was a tell-all book about *me* coming out.
I am nothing if not ruthless, but she definitely underestimated my revenge.
I can probably repair “my” reputation even further by supporting my old family.Hope you can make chicken salad out of the chicken shit I posted. Just post your revisions here in the comments section and perhaps I'll either pick the best one, or maybe all of them, and highlight them in the DIY Challenge reveal at the beginning of November. The one thing I request is try to keep it the same length or so as what I've written. It needs to be legible!
And that DIY Challenge? I'll post that tomorrow (Sunday) night!
Today was Rachel's birthday from the Haven, so many of us changed our Avatars in honor of her birthday with images of cats and dogs, as she's an animal lover. This was mine. Very apropos!
UPDATE: I've decided that anyone that wants to make an actual caption with the source photo should be able to do so. If you choose to make a caption, link to it in the comments section, and I'll include it when I revisit this subject in a week or two!
Dee,
ReplyDeleteThat's a compelling story... It's really ambitious to try and work all of those little details in with so little text... I tried, and couldn't do it. The revision I came up with is more about the moment, with a much less filled out backstory. I think it's a bit easier to follow, but thta's because there is less THERE... See what you think :)
"It’s a shame it had to happen this way...
She really shouldn’t have threatened me,
the arrogant old broad! Looking down at now HIS sleek, sexy legs and perky breasts, Ron had to admit that she hadn’t been THAT old, and she sure had taken care of her body!
Of course, as the world’s richest female BILLIONAIRE, she could afford to! Well, now HE would take care of it for her...
It had been too easy... Katherine was so
predictable. It took her less than 10 seconds to throw her personal assistant under the bus!
Engine failure over the mid-Atlantic, a “stuck” seatbelt, only ONE parachute... He watched her face as she calculated. With NO hesitation, she pulled out the TALISMAN and whispered a few ancient, alien words.
Ron, suddenly in Katherine’s body, acted
confused and angry as the new “Ron” waved cheerily and leapt out, abandoning “her”.
His only regret is that he couldn’t see her
expression when the chute failed to open...
“Katherine” smiled. This was going to be FUN! "
Anyway, I didn't count words. I edited your cap with the same size font, and this was literally all I could FIT in there. I hope you like it :)
Seems good to me. Definitely less convoluted than mine, My story needed details and I'm better at leaving things fuzzy and vague, which wouldn't have enhanced my plot at all.
DeleteI think the major problem I have with the storyline is - what about the pilots? I mean it wasn't just the two of them in the plane unless one of them is a pilot and in order for the cap to work BOTH of them have to be capable of flying the plane.
ReplyDeleteIf you want to get Halloweeny about it Damien is blackmailing her. She and the paid off pilots plan on dumping Damien over the ocean but he switches with her and she gets dumped instead. Later she sabotages her plane so the pilots go down removing any witnesses to the original deed.
Oh and most planes will glide for quite a distance without engines so a landing is very possible...
DeleteWell, I had thought either the assistant WAS the pilot too or had paid off the pilot. A plane that size should be able to be flown by one person, well I can't identify which type of plane it is, but I have a friend that is a pilot and they fly planes around that level I think.
DeleteI am wondering if that is exactly what I was thinking with the blackmail angle that I hadn't truly developed. Perhaps he'd said that so she WOULD try to dump him and then he could make the switch. The pilot could certainly be taken care of if she were truly rich enough.
To be honest, even after I read the cap a few times, I still don't see what's wrong with it. I actually like it.
ReplyDeleteThe only thing I would have done different, is the video footage. I would have made sure it would never exist up front, but that is not something that gets in the way of the cap.
I like Britney's take on it as well.
Well, I thought that a private plane like that would likely have security footage and a black box,and there would have to be at least a cursory investigation, likely from an insurance company standpoint and/or aviation department. She could probably buy her way out of it, but physical evidence WOULD have to be taken care of. Thanks for liking it .. the kernel was there but the outcome was lacking from my point of view.
DeleteHi Dee its a great plot. I thinks its a lot for the one person to tell though , I would set the scene first maybe as I have written below then you can add the reason and method as you planed before. It also solves Helena's dilemma to if the pilot side is covered and maybe he could have planted a diary to make the investigators think the pilot was bitter and twisted and so had flipped. if you feel you need to cover more bases.
ReplyDelete(reporter) Ms Cannon. Your first flight since the incident last March when your personal pilot abandoned you mid flight. Nervous?
(Ms c) Oh well maybe a little pre flight jitters but on the whole things are fine. and I always have a crew of two now.
Reporter) And you well be taking flying lesson I hear.
(Ms c) Yes last time it was down to auto pilot and the wonderful air traffic controllers
Yeah, perhaps an evil villain monologue might not have been the best route to tell the story.
DeleteOver the next week or two, I think I'm going to take the advice people have given, along with any rewrites, and post the results at some point. Its nice to know I can post things that were less than stellar and get to see responses that are on the mark and still positive. I think its a testament to this community. We WILL make this caption(s) much better, I'm sure of it!
For anyone that wants to take their own shot at making a caption with the source photo, I am adding it to the post itself. Just save it to your hard drive and make your own! If you do, I will link to it when I post a later review/revision of this caption.
ReplyDeleteHi, Dee. I like the picture (and inspiration struck) so I created a new caption for it. It's a totally new story, rather than a rewrite. Hope you like it!
ReplyDeleteYou can find it on my website, Amanda's Reading Room, via the above link.
Also, a JPG of the caption is on my DeviantArt page: amandahawkins71.deviantart.com
I like the cap just fine, but here is my version: http://dr-psychos-transformations.tumblr.com/post/100722963708/gloria-was-proud-of-seemingly-universally
ReplyDeleteGloria was proud of seeming to be universally competent. She pretended to skills she didn’t possess, like flying an airplane.
When I offered to fly her to Australia and hide aboard the plane so it would appear she’d flown herself, she praised my loyalty — though she may inwardly have called me a “sucker”.
Over a remote chain of islands, I parachuted out, to her horror — but not as much as she must have felt moments later, when she found herself parachuting into the sea.
I landed in Darwin and took up Gloria’s life without any difficulty. My old self mysteriously vanished, but so many people do.
I wonder whether she drowned, or swam to shore. Perhaps, in my old body, she is even now serving as a slave to the islanders.