Trickster Fiction Manifesto

TRANSFORMATION FICTION

 There is a lot of "transformation fiction" out there on the web, and by fiction I mainly mean captioned images, however there are text versions as well, heck, Amazon even has a sort of category for it.   The themes vary, with people changing gender, race, age, weight, species and what have you.

Some are presented in the form of science fiction, some as fantasy, some frankly as nothing more than porno, some as "magic reality" in that remarkable things happen, but it stays, more or less in the realm of what could possibly happen, and some.... well in some stuff just happens.

However, just as presentations as diverse as Eastwood's Unforgiven, Disney's the Apple Dumpling Gang, & TV's Lone Ranger, are still all recognized as Westerns I think this sort of fiction is close enough to a genre to at least call it that, and if you’re willing to go that far with me go just a little further and let me indulge myself by calling it Transformation Fiction.    

`Transformation Fiction: Fiction in which the main or one of the main themes is one or more of the characters physically changing to a fantastic degree, and their and others action to that change.'

Well there you have it, TF in a nutshell, period, end of paragraph, thanks for showing up and drive home safely.
 
And yet......

TRICKSTER FICTION

I would like to put forth my thoughts on how to do T.F. better, using a style for doing it that I call Trickster Fiction.

In the folklore, mythology, and even pop culture, you'll find a character type with a thousand & one names who yet share certain traits; the mythologists call these characters Tricksters.

They range from Hermes, to Loki, to the Native American Old Man Coyote, to Bugs Bunny, who, as different as they all are, have certain things in common.

They are subversive, boundary crossers, rule breakers, and  shape shifters, who regard mundane societies' fixed ideas about genders, race, class, caste, and how life should be lived, with at best humor, and more often contempt.  Another common thing about Trickster stories is that they often have a touch of the surreal about them.   So when I do my stories & captioned images I like think of them as Trickster Fiction.

Well bully for me..... So what?

I'm hoping that it's different enough that my writing about what I think it is might inspire some to create Transformation Fiction where they otherwise might not, whatever you choose to call it, and whatever form it takes.

 TEXT TRICKSTER FICTION

Text Stories  
First of all I would say that Trickster Fiction is best done quickly much like Flash Fiction or Prose Poetry, however I would also say that perhaps Flash Fiction with its (more or less) limit of 1000 words is too restrictive, the best length for this being between 800 and 2300 words, quick, but still enough room for some color and character development.  Epics are all well and good, but Trickster seems to be an impatient critter and the twist at the end is more shocking if you don't have to wait to long for it.

Speaking of the twist some things that Trickster Fiction needs are: 

A. At least one bold arresting image, something that paints a picture for the mind's eye

B. Surprise, an "I didn't see that coming" twist.  

C. Transform someone.  

D. Humor, even if it's a grim horror story Trickster still seems to need a bit of the funny, even if it's just a low key piece of dark humor.

E. Lyrical prose, try for a prose poetry feel that does more than just tell you what's happening.

Forget Hemingway with Trickster Fiction; think more along the lines of Raymond Chandler.  

F. Metaphor & simile are your friends, however

G. Stay away from clichés!  Or use clichés, but screw with them as a way of pulling the rug out from under the readers’ mental feet.  

H. THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX!
 
I. Shun restrictions, cross borders, if "They" say you can't do it that way DO IT! However....  

J. Have a beginning, middle & end, however far off the beaten path you may get, it's still a story, breaking rules is one thing, cheating is something else altogether.

 

PICTURE & TEXT FILES

Most people refer to pictures with a bit of writing under or beside them as captioned images, and that's what they are for the most part, and I'll get a little crud here and say that most of the examples you will find, save for a few here and there, are unimaginative crap.

I would say of most of the ones you will find, 9 out of 10, no make that 24 out of 25, amount to nothing more  than a cheesecake shot with written under it the equivalent of  "Timmy use to like girls with big titties, now Timmy has big titties!"

Oh please... A pox on these captioned images!

I say it's a real story forget about it.

In his controversial book, The Alphabet Versus The Goddess, Leonard Shlain speculates that when writing was introduced millennia ago it resulted in a change in the way the brains of those who understood the concept of letters forming words worked beyond just the obvious effect of being able preserve thoughts, It changed what society itself was.

Further, he speculates that the coming of the internet, with its intimate bonding of text and image is, in as yet unknown ways right this very minute, creating what will amount to a new way of thinking, the next profound change in society at large.

Like I said, controversial, for one thing he’s a surgeon, not an expert in linguistics, and his book has been known to piss such experts off to no end, and Loki knows experts are never wrong, just ask them.

Still....

Why miss out on the opportunity, even if the idea is only partially on the button?

MAKING PICTURE / STORIES

And even if it's `the bunk' a little more effort.... or in some cases, any effort at all in the first place, couldn't but help!

So how does one go from Captioned Image to Picture / Story?
My suggestions would be:

1. Forget the cheesecake *, and toss the porn right out the window, look for pictures that suggest a scene from a story, so that once the story is applied it will make it seem that the picture was staged and taken for the story, not the story being inspired in part by the picture.

*unless of course you have a really good idea that goes with it!

2. That being said let the picture carry a good deal of the weight of the narrative. If a picture is worth a thousand words then a good innovative picture can turn a 3 or 5 hundred bit of flash fiction into a 13 or 15 hundred word short, short story.

3. If you can find two or more pictures even better, heck there you are with another thousand words! Half the fun can be seeing how well you can get two disparate images to go together with your words.

4. A sentence or two just won't do, go for at least 150 words, 800 seems to be the best length in my experience. Okay... the file ends up being larger, and it takes some practice getting them all in and around the images, but what you gonna' do?

5. Play with the way pictures & text go together, it doesn't have to be a straight picture above, words below kind of thing. Make an ad from a magazine, a comic strip, a review from a film with images and other such permutations.

6. Refer to the suggestions for text Trickster Fiction above.

There you have it, that's what I call Trickster Fiction, am I just trying to make something out of not much at all by giving it a name?

`Shrugs' not what I think.

Opinions no doubt will vary, but I like it, and hey, whatever the case, I just hope it inspires a few more folks to try their hand at it.

Last Altered Covers for the Week

Still More Altered Comic Book Covers

And of course you can see them larger by clicking on them.

Father Time Has Never Been More Cute.

DC comics, the company that many years ago gave the world the first transgender super-villain in the form of the Ultra-Humanite when he stole Delores Winter’s body, has with it’s new project known as “The New 52” (what is it with them and that number lately?) has introduced another gender shifted character.

This one, known as Father Time,  is found in the pages of Frankenstein, Agent of S.H.A.D.E.

First appearing in 2006 as a shady white haired bearded gentleman, looking somewhat like Uncle Sam, who during a conflict with the Teen Titans has his skin melt, later he shows up again but in the form of a young African-American man, it being revealed that he has the ability to regenerate himself and, or so he says, has a habit of taking on a new form every ten years of so.

His latest regeneration however cut short when a revived Captain Marvel villain known as Black Adam pulls his face off apparently killing him.

Don’t bet on it, Father Time, though there is no guaranty that this is the same fellow, as all the series in the New 52 seem to be taking place in a different “Universe” from the one where those other shenanigans where going on, has returned in the pages of a new series titled Frankenstein, Agent of S.H.A.D.E., and this time in the form of a young Asian girl who is the leader of an organization called The Super Human Advanced Defense Executive or S.H.A.D.E. for short (shouldn’t that be T.S.H.A.D.E.?)

To cut to the chase here, basically it’s Hellboy and the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense with Hellboy replaced by the Frankenstein Monster (who in the DC Universe is an adventurer slash superhero) the other characters replaced by post-modern versions of some of DC’s minor characters from the past such as the Freedom Fighters and the Creature Commandoes, and the old man in charge has taken the form of a girl in pig-tails and wearing a domino mask, talking tough and toting a .45 automatic.

Issue # 4 has just come out as I write this.   

Girls' Black Magic Romaces

The concept for Girls' Black Magic Romances came to Wally Shumway, at the time a Fuller Bush salesman, while “stretching his legs” at a rest stop between Deadwood and Mystic South Dakota on June the 30^th 1954 during a full solar eclipse.

“I had never really payed any attention to funny books before then,” said Mr. Shumway in a 1988 interview conducted by Comics Media while Wally was staying at the Dunwich Hospital for Extreme Twitches & Hysterics. “I was just setting there drinking a Moxie and eating some Turkish Taffy and suddenly I thought starting a comic book was the best idea in the world.”

Comics Media: “that was it? The idea just came to you, there was no other inspiration?”

Wally Shumway: “No that was pretty much it, well there was also this big bald headed fellow who was all of a sudden just setting next to me who said I should call him Uncle Aleister, he was always there encouraging me.”

CM: “Uncle Aleister?”

Wally Shumway: “Yes, I think he was English, and no one but me ever seemed to be able to see him, never did found out what his last name was, funny huh? Anyway he gave me a lot of the ideas I used in the comic, plus he would leave from time to time saying he was going to `do some pushing' on some people and after that sure enough people who before had said there was no way I could get a comic like Girls' Black Magic Romances published, or if I did get it pass the Comic Code Authority changed their minds and it sailed right through.”

Indeed shortly after Wally's sudden “inspiration” he found himself in the offices of National Periodical Publications with stories he had somehow quickly written and drawn at various rest stops and hotel rooms en route from South Dakota to New York, although he had not really shown any artistic talent before that trip.

There Wally and his project was discouraged, and at times laughed at outright by those in the then struggling comic book industry. Then strangely and with no problems it was approved, passed the censors and hit the stands with a February, 1955 date for the first issue. While never well distributed, and no real numbers existing on it success (no one in comics at the time, even those who wrote and produced for it would talk about it on being contacted) it still appeared for 223 monthly issues, ending with the July 1973 issue featuring a story entitled “I double dated with Anubis.”

1. Becky Smith, Voodoo Queen! 12 pages

2. Dead Reckoning With Roses (with recurring character Mrs. Polly: Romance Necromancer) 8 pages

3. Captain Tootsie ad 1 page

4. Letters to the Secret Masters (letters from readers) 2 pages

5. My Ice Skating Date on the Astral Plane 9 pages

1. My Hidden Troll Girl Heart 16 pages

2. Letters to the Secret Masters 2 pages

3. Sam Spade Wildroot Hair Tonic ad 1 page

4. Nostradamus' Prom 13 pages

1.  Exguytu Chickoyonum! 22 pages

2.  Undead Letter Page 1 page

3.  Mid-Summer Nights Blind Date 9 pages

1.  She Stole My Heart, Then She Stole My Body! 10 pages (With only 69 issues so far this was the 23rd body swap themed story)

2.  My Candy (Pentagram) gram for Valentine's Day 10 pages

3.  Love & Runes. Letter page 2 pages (this was the 15^th time the title of the letter page was changed.

4.  My Boyfriend is the Reincarnation of my Great Grand Mother! 9 pages

5.  Half page In House ad for Brave & Bold # 30 and the second outing of in Justice League of America “The Case of the Stolen Super-Powers!” out that month, bottom half of page given over to Tootsie Roll ad.

By Bell, Book & Candall

Jane had done everything she could to get into the good graces of her mother in law, but Lillian Zhang would have nothing of it.

Her clothes where not right, the house she kept for her son was not right, she didn't feed her son right, she didn't do anything the right way for her precious youngest child.

No matter what theme the elder Mrs. Zhang took for her latest round of fault finding the former Jane Dillon was sure what it all really boiled down to was that she just couldn't deal with the fact that her little boy had married a fahn quai or that is a foreign or white devil.

While the whole large Zhang clan had adopted western first names, Lillian being "fahn quai" itself after all, she however made it clear

that Jane's Don Zhang was really Zhang Guoping Yan, well not in so many words, but that was what Jane was sure all of Lillian's scrutinizing was about, "not taking care of him like he needs" indeed thought Jane.

Of course like any modern American couple Jane didn't "take care of her husband" any more than he took care of her, they took care of themselves just doing it together in the same place while sharing the expenses, Don Zhang was a rising executive in a company that manufactured medical equipment, while Jane was a registered nurse at a teaching hospital.

So they were a modern couple, and her mother in law didn't like her one bit, and made herself quite the pill about it. Why not, like so many other modern American couples, didn't she just ignore the older woman for most of the year other than holidays and let her stew in her own juices while they lived their lives apart?

Two simple reasons, they lived less than a mile from her husband’s parents, and Don, to be honest about it, was more than a bit of a mama's boy.

Jane's was not an uncommon problem, nor one that anything could really be done about other than deal with it as best she could, that at least was the attitude Jane took until word started to spread among the medical staff at the hospital of a new surgical team who had just transferred their major procedures to the facility where she worked, It wasn't long before everyone was abuzz about the three doctors and their unique cliental.

Doctor's Bell, Book & Candall where plastic surgeons, hardly a rare breed in that part of the country, these three however did procedures that, as far as Jane knew, no other surgeons preformed.

While there were thousands who performed the operation that make Asian look more western, these doctors did the opposite, and not only that they had also perfected a number of other techniques for changing the shape of chins, noses, cheeks, brows and the whole architecture of faces so that at the end the recipient, most of whom were of European descent like her, were, as far as the eye could tell, of Chinese, Japanese or East Indian descent, It was widely held that even natives of those lands couldn't tell one of their patients, though born of Irish, Italian or Spanish genes, from a native of their country.

Jane was struck with a whim to check this out further, just to see mind you. Getting an appointment with the originator of most of the procedures, Doctor Bell himself, Jane's lark started to take on a more substance in her mind.

Seeing the professional atmosphere of the well-appointed offices, seeing other normal seeming people in the waiting room, it all started to seem less and less like a lark and more like something that she just might actually consider doing.

The tipping point for Jane came with her talk with Dr. Bell, after examining her, and taking a photo he showed just what most likely would be the results of his operating based on her bone structure & musculature.

The computer showed someone who was still very much Jane, only a Jane who seemed to have perhaps one parent who was Chinese, not really all that much of a difference really, and yet so very different!

"Now I can't promise this is exactly how you would look," explained Dr. Bell "there are always things that we can't anticipate." Jane didn't care, the idea appealed to her more and more.

Just like that Jane's lark became her getting things started, first of course there was a psychological exam, which Jane passed easily & before even she knew it she was signing the papers and getting a time set for her surgery.

Then there was her husband, "you want to have surgery to make you look Chinese?" asked Don, "not exactly Chinese" she replied, "this is just like those Asian women who have their eyes operated on to look... wider, I think this will make me look so much better, it's really not that big a deal."

What Jane didn't tell her husband was that what she was really anticipating was the look on mother in laws face when she saw Jane's new look, the women really got under her skin that much.

Her husband accustomed to the idea, and sworn to secrecy, when the time came Jane took time off work and reported to be prepared for surgery.

Never having had plastic surgery herself Jane didn't know what to expect, however It seemed much like any other medical procedure, though doctor Bell and his staff did seem to spend a lot of time emphasizing how, despite his tests, years of experience, planning and his and her best expectations, there was still no guarantee how the end results would look, Jane attributed this to common plastic surgeon caution in an era of high litigation.

Eventually Jane found herself in the operating room surrounded by doctor Bell, nurses, gas passers, & various attendants & interns, counting backwards under the gas mask she faded to black.

Jane awoke in a hospital room, her head swathed in bandages, before too long various people came in to take blood, ask her how she was doing, take more blood, eventually even doctor Bell made a brief appearance to assure her the operation went even better than had been expected, to wish her well, and check the little space on her charts that said he had entered the room and so was entitled to more money.

Then there was the pain, and the itching and swelling, and the weeks of waiting. As the time came to take off the bandages, Jane aware from her work as a nurse what that would be like, decided to spare her husband the view, along with her viewing him viewing the bruised early stages.

Returning to the doctor's offices alone for the unveiling which showed her to be even more swollen and bruised than she had imagined, Bell however said things were on their way to settling in very nicely for her new look.

Be that as it may, Jane still didn't want anyone she knew to see her until all the healing was done. So after leaving the doctor she headed to a hotel room to rest, and let nature take its course.

The hotel was a nice place for some off time, with great room service and its own 4 star spa / salon.

Within a week the swelling and bruises were almost gone; at the end of a week you couldn't tell she had had any plastic work on her face at all.

However before that Jane became aware of just what the result would be, doctor Bell had said there was no guarantee what the results would be, but she had not expected anything like what she saw in her room's mirror.

The face was really nothing at all like computer's guess, she barely recognized herself at all, she had the same dark auburn hair, and the same green eyes, but the hair surrounded, and the eyes looked out of the face of a woman who was not only 100% Chinese, but a Chinese woman distinctly of the Han ethnic group.

" I'm Chinese!" said Jane to herself rubbing her face as if to prove the image in the mirror was  real, "Nothing to do but go home and drop the bomb," she told her new self as if talking to someone she had just meet, "but first, in for a penny, in for a pound."

Jane made another visit to the salon and had her hair dyed black, along with a new style, parted down the middle, an application of White Camellia Oil, gave it a shine she approved of her husband was at a loss for words. "Honey.... you look..... Fantastic..." he said, even he hearing the flatness of his tone.

"Fantastic..... Fantastic! Really really Fan! Tas! Tic!" a long pause came from him, then a curious look "you know you look a little like my cousin Kuan, she's a flight attendant for Taiwan Air.... you're taller of however."

He was shocked, after all marrying a Caucasian American woman had been a big step for him and had colored quite a lot of his life, to now find he was not only married to a woman who like a hometown girl would take some adjusting,

"Jane looks more Chinese then most of the hometown girls!" Don thought to himself. "We'll have to get you a Chinese name to go with your new look he told her."

But that would have to wait, because, just as Jane had timed it, whether she knew it or not, she would be able to reveal her new look at the annual Zhang family Thanksgiving get together, a function she had in her first 3 year of going too stood out at.

Arriving, Jane dressed in a traditional Qi Pao dress, made quite the impression, after that is it was established that Don was not stepping out on her with another woman.

The reactions ranged from aghast, to suppressed surprise, to two who asked for the phone number of the doctor.

Then came the big moment, finding out her mother in law was alone in her bedroom fixing her hair Jane went to see her all by herself.

Knocking and entering Jane found her still fiddling with a comb that did not look like it needed any fiddling with.

Mrs. Zhang.... Lillian.... It's me Jane, I've got a bit of a surprise for the family this year, I think you need to turn around" The older woman did, her habitual disapproving look already in place.

Looking at Jane it slipped for just a moment as her eyes widened on seeing her. There was a long pause, and then she said. "You're wearing a Qi Pao again, huuua, that's for old fashion ladies, get with the times girl, my boy is a big time businessman, he needs a modern woman, you got to dress for success for him!" with that she turned back to her mirror and again started to nudge the jeweled comb here and there.

Stepping closer to look with amazement at Lillian Zhang's refection Jane came to two conclusions. one, her mother in law didn't really care whether she was western or Chinese, she was just one of those women who didn't think there was any woman good enough for her son, and two by damn the old woman had had plastic surgery herself as Jane notice for the first time the woman's eyes had creases in them making them look Western, now the oh so unworthy American wife looked more Chinese then her mother in law!

"Damn!" thought Jane turning round and stomping out the room "I should have asked for the Japanese look that would have shown her!"

Just a Simple (New) Virtuoso Gives Thanks

The Ga-Ru Chinou Method

When, due to his on-line profile showing him to be a childless middle-aged man with no family and a dedicated lone wolf, Tom Newton had been contacted by a research lab and asked to volunteer to tryout a new play on the Suzuki Method of improving the mind via learning to play a musical instrument he had laughed saying he was a bit over the six year old limit for that.
They however explained that what they were testing out was something called the Ga-Ru Chinou Method which was aimed at having the same results as the Suzuki Method, only applied to people 35 years and older. When Tom was also told they were going to give the people they tested The Method on a 500 dollar stipend, and let them keep the musical instrument they would be using in the tests he decided it sounded like a lot of fun and so signed up, that this involved sighing a lot of very long release forms “in case of unexpected results from the treatment” surprised Tom.

That in a random draw he ended being given a cello to learn to play was Tom’s next surprise, a bigger one came when he found out that the Ga-Ru Chinou Method seemed to mostly involve the injection of what he was told were were experimental nanobots fused with cloned and altered T-cells!

The surprises kept coming when Tom found himself taking to the cello and mastering it in less than a week.

There were however some unforeseen side-effects. As Tom's musical talent grew he started to grow younger, which he had no problems with at all, what he did have problems with was that as he grew younger he also found himself first turning into a woman, and then a woman who looked nothing like his former Anglo-Irish heritage at all, also with her new found musical talent Tom found him, well herself really, having thoughts he had never had before.

In the end Tom left the labs and returned home 500 dollars richer and a virtuoso in the cello, she also left it an apparently 23 year old Japanese woman.

Tom had also found out by that time, lessons in the Japanese language seemed were also part of the package, that Ga-Ru Chinon was Japanese for “Girl Brain”, and while at first she did not have one, the still very busy nanobots would soon see to it that Tom Newton, or as she would soon be calling herself Tomiko Nomura, was just a month or two away from that as well.

“You know,” thought Tom to herself after returning home “I'm starting to suspect those folks might have had a second agenda in all this... or am I just being 妄想? …. er I mean paranoid?”