How much 'justification' do you want wityour transformation.

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How much 'justification' do you want wityour transformation.

Postby Tigerharpy » Fri Jan 11, 2019 4:43 pm

By justification I mean how much do you actually care about the conceits that facilitate the transformation you're reading about and how much detail to you prefer in that portion of the story?

How much do you want to get into the nitty details of magic, pseudo science, and technobabble that explain how it's happening?
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Re: How much 'justification' do you want wityour transformat

Postby Alara » Sun Jan 13, 2019 12:57 pm

I've always felt the details of how the switch happened are basically irrelevant. Like a good scifi or fantasy story, you want the world or the unearthly aspects to cohere enough to maintain suspension of disbelief; improving those aspects beyond a point adds nothing to the story itself.

Keeping things vague is sometimes more persuasive and compelling than trying to lay out the whole process for the reader. Most writers don't do technobabble well, and sometimes the most powerful thing to do is leave aspects of the process up to the reader's imagination.
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Re: How much 'justification' do you want wityour transformat

Postby TFManWriter » Sun May 26, 2019 8:40 pm

I write transformation stories and give just enough info on why the transformation is happening. Tend to leave it to the reader to fill in the blanks. More important to add the heavy description of the transformation.
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Re: How much 'justification' do you want wityour transformat

Postby Godleydemon » Mon May 27, 2019 4:40 pm

Honestly, it depends on the reader. If you "just want to get your rocks off" I imagine that kind of person really doesn't give a damn how you get there in the end. On the other hand though, I personally enjoy a well written thought out story. Something that makes sense. I can't tell you the amount of recent stories I've read where a negative transformation happens to someone, for really, absolutely no reason besides they wanted to write a transformation for that character.

I CRAVE justification for things like this. I don't need to know every single detail about how a specific magic or technology works, but I do want to know it's limits or what types of things it can do. In my recent story I've been writing, I recently imposed a limit to the nano machines in it. Just so I can limit the amount they can actually do in the narrative by restricting their abilities. I also added in some fundamental weaknesses that takes the main character off guard and proves, "your not all that".

In a narrative standpoint, it really depends on what audiences your writing for. I prefer more detail, other don't care about the detail and just want to get to the good stuff. I've coached writers for process related transformation before in the past, I've always stressed detail in writing. To many authors just skip to the good stuff, and don't do any build ups or even a modicum of world building. You don't have to do alot, just put in a little effort to expand your story enough that it actually builds up to the good stuff, making it better.
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Re: How much 'justification' do you want wityour transformat

Postby Ephemerous » Thu Nov 14, 2019 9:19 am

It really depends on the nature of the story. Let's say you are writing a story where a woman is turned into a robot. If the story is essentially just a transformation scene ending when she is a robot, then going into elaborate detail about the history of robotics and their role in society is just getting in the way. If the story extends past her transformation and deals with her life after the transformation, then the level of detail can be helpful. If you throw in extra detail and justification, it should matter to what actually happens in the story.

On the whole though, I will enjoy a well-written transformation scene whether a justification is given or not.
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Re: How much 'justification' do you want wityour transformat

Postby Lamebrain » Thu Feb 13, 2020 3:24 pm

I believe very strongly in world building. It encourages you to create rules for your setting and characters to follow. And simultaneously encourages creativity when it comes to finding ways around those rules you've established.
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Re: How much 'justification' do you want wityour transformat

Postby Schlock_Ness_Monster » Fri Oct 29, 2021 1:20 pm

I set up and explain the catalytic trigger and the "rules" for the process at the very beginning, and then established, rarely ever bring it back up unless it's necessary in plot. I tend to write pseudo-science fiction Jekyll & Hyde/She-Hulk type stories.

I also think those rule sets are necessary to keep everything grounded.
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