Trying Something New

[Cursebearer]

Ah, thank you all for the overwhelming response! I will definitely be doing the Chang for my first crack at this. I'm curious what you all think about the approach I'll be taking to this series of transformations going forward. I'm not sure how much desire there is for something more narratively dense from me when I know the meat of it all is really just the transformation itself. Is the world at all interesting, or will it end up being more useless fluff for this community? Any thoughts are appreciated.

Likewise, I'd be interested to hear what direction might be interesting to take for the Chang transformation. At this stage, the woman will certainly be Chinese. There's no strong indication of exactly what triggers a Chang to become a tiger, so I was considering the trigger to simply be nightfall, and the transformation will kost likely be painful and unwilling. Beyond that, I have nothing in mind for direction at this stage. Any input from those who wanted to see weretiger is appreciated.

Also, those of you who voted for the spider should know I still plan to write that piece as well but the Chang will simply come first.

[Amahain]

Originally Posted by Cursebearer

Likewise, I'd be interested to hear what direction might be interesting to take for the Chang transformation. At this stage, the woman will certainly be Chinese. There's no strong indication of exactly what triggers a Chang to become a tiger, so I was considering the trigger to simply be nightfall, and the transformation will kost likely be painful and unwilling. Beyond that, I have nothing in mind for direction at this stage. Any input from those who wanted to see weretiger is appreciated.

That's good - I prefer involuntary transformations.

I'm thinking about the "vengeful spirit" aspect. Maybe the protagonist and another person somehow managed to piss off some spirits. The protagonist gets cursed to turn into a man-eating tiger, the other person is cursed to be hunted by that tiger.

If you go for the longer, more detailed story route, I would add some buildup to the transformation. One thing that I would keep in mind is that tigers actually have striped skin under their fur. Over the course of several days, the protagonist might see more and more stripes forming on her skin, marking her as cursed (kind of like the pentagram on the hand for werewolves).

And here's an interesting challenge: you're writing as a Westerner for a Western audience, and I think it would be kind of difficult not to root the story in Western culture somehow (by making the protagonist Chinese-American, for example) - people write about what they're familiar with, after all. See if you can avoid that temptation. Have the story set in China and make the main characters culturally Chinese.

Edit: But the college girl thing works too.

[Cursebearer]

Originally Posted by Amahain

That's good - I prefer involuntary transformations.

I'm thinking about the "vengeful spirit" aspect. Maybe the protagonist and another person somehow managed to piss off some spirits. The protagonist gets cursed to turn into a man-eating tiger, the other person is cursed to be hunted by that tiger.

If you go for the longer, more detailed story route, I would add some buildup to the transformation. One thing that I would keep in mind is that tigers actually have striped skin under their fur. Over the course of several days, the protagonist might see more and more stripes forming on her skin, marking her as cursed (kind of like the pentagram on the hand for werewolves).

And here's an interesting challenge: you're writing as a Westerner for a Western audience, and I think it would be kind of difficult not to root the story in Western culture somehow (by making the protagonist Chinese-American, for example) - people write about what they're familiar with, after all. See if you can avoid that temptation. Have the story set in China and make the main characters culturally Chinese.

Edit: But the college girl thing works too.

Another great post, thank you! I'm not set on the college girl proposal yet, so please don't hold back with your own ideas. Especially since you've given me some interesting hurdles to think about and that's a big part of what this project is about. I will try to dig into some research on the Chinese myths for were tigers to see if I can't meet your challenge of authenticity.

Thank you all so much for the continued input. Please keep thoughts coming, you've all been wonderful help.