YS8s7l you are stating and the best way by which you assert it.

i1QN4D Very interesting information! Perfect what exactly I wanted!

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3hSZ4L Very good article post.Really looking forward to read more. Awesome.

This is one awesome post.Much thanks again. Cool.

It's pleasant sitting at work to distract from it�to relax and read the information written here:D

I totally agree with you! I know I sound a bit like a generic spambot but I'm not, I'm just not sure what else to put. I love reading TG stories, but unfortunately it can get somewhat stale, or worse: irritating. I dislike it when characters become almost comical parody's of a normal person. When an author is trying to hilight that 'this person is bad' and they do so by making the character cartoonishly evil, or they do the opposite, by making a character the paragon of all that is good: an amalgamation of Mother Teressa and Ghandi.

Thank you for writing!

Magic and technology become indistinguishable at some point, or something like that Arthur C. Clarke said.

Gender is not two-valued, but a continuum.

Male or female is not the question, but: is it a good story?

For me, a good story is one that nourishes the soul.
That could be a well-written, if structurally simple, wish-fulfilment.
That could be a longer-winding series, with believable characters I get emotionally attached to.
Or it could be kind of intellectual kickoff, maybe sci-fi, that sets my thoughts rolling in a new, and hopefully better direction.
Imagine a positive utopia that realistically could come into existence ... is there something like that alreday here? I can only think of Iain M. Bank's Culture novels where several sex-changes is common during a lifetime of a person.

If I don't like a story, I choose another. Because there are so many. Keep them coming, writers!
And Many Thanks to Crystal for keeping up the good work!

very interesting and all, but the ultimate questions still remain; which are you, and who are you?  Is the author of these words male, or female? Your article is completely without hint of your gender, and it would be interesting to learn how your sex influences and seasons your views(men who write such works would seem to either subconciously want to be their own protagonist, or are deathly afraid thatit would happen to them anyway, whereas does a female writer of such fiction do so out of the need for revenge, because of some real or imagined wrong that they have suffered. You also state that you have written stories, well let's be able to read your fiction too.

Although I thought some of your arguments were a bit simplistic, I find myself in some agreement.  What gets me is the story that stops or runs off into some short little fetish during or right after the transformation.

A fair number of such stories are Mary Sues, wish fulfilment fantasies with the main character a thinly disguised version of the author.  This is particularly true of the short short that ends at or just afer the transformation scene.  (It's not always true; I've written a few such stories myself -- "The Map" being the most obvious.)

I figure that there's three things we can do with such stories:

* put up with them; just as we hope the others put up with the ones
 that we right.  Many are even enjoyable as one-shot reads.

* looks at them as sources for ideas and techniques: how did the
 author tell the story, set the scene, was the transfornation
 accomplished in an unusual way that you might like to use in a
 story?  It's always possible to learn.

* if you like the author's style, tell him so, and encourage him/her
 to try for a longer story form or just to continue the story past
 the tranformation.  If we're lucky they will, and if they do,
 encourage them more.

I must agree with Tigger. I find your synopsis flawed on many levels. True, there are many that write nothing but grunt, moan and groan hard core sexual stuff, but many, in fact most do not use that device to carry the plot, if any. Many authors find a genre that suits them, and write to that genre specifically, like myself. Many of these authors cast their characters in tones that reflect their personal experiences and/or dreams, which does not detract from the story in any way, and usually enhances it. To write from personal experience is a way to embue the story with some portions of delight, and that cannot be taken lightly.

There can be no separation of the writer and the story or you risk the scenario you paint of a "movie of a television screen". There has to be an emotional attachment from the writer to the characters or the story is nothing more than an essay with no plot, only a beginning and an end.

The ability to use words to paint a picture sounds easy, but many have tried and failed until they grasped the fundamental basis of telling a good story, regardless of the genre. Emotional attachment.

The various plot devices used all cater to some form of reduction in the guilt that so many feel. If you are "forced" to become a female, then it is out of your hands, and thus, you aren't guilty if you like it. If you start out wanting to dress as a female, and somehow, by some quirk, find a way, then discover a symathetic family, would you deny your own feelings? Probably not. You would use that chance to find out if what you think is true, and thus, zero guilt. Magic? Why not? Magic has so many variables that anything is possible, which also relieves the guilt since you have no control over it.

Rome fell, only to be replaced by other, more powerful nations. Look at Rome today, and tell me how much power they have, then look at the U.S. Just who is more powerful? History is the only judge, but when they write the history of TG fiction, I hope they look at how we managed to express ourselves, then decide that we had some darned good writers, and we all tried.
Rather than hide under the cloak of an un-named source, I proudly call myself a writer, and my name is Janet Stickney      

Truely a lovely eassy worth taking the time to read. Made me think a little how I spent part of the day talking to my girlfriends how men and women think differently.

Crystal's StorySite, for me, has become a premier reading experience.  Though I enjoy seeing her sunny face up in the corner smiling down to me, this is because of the quality of both the site's construction and the stories contained therein.  I do not consider these author's work to be anything other than entertainment.  I read them for their novelty and writing, not for their enlightenment or their crusade value.  If I wanted to read essays of criticism and high ideals, the many newsgroups would be the place I would expect to find them.

Essays such as the one read here are not meant to be insulting, but they express an opinion that can have mixed results.  Writing is an art, as noted by the essay's author, but that art is the product of craftsmanship that is learned from constructive feedback.  I wonder what that author was thinking he/she would accomplish with such a poke at his/her fellow writers.  I've written such high sounding comments, mostly about editing, and all they do is to annoy the people I had hoped to help or to convince.  Such comments are more seen as self-serving than helpful, regardless of how correct they may be.

Someday, I will post the TG story I am working on, when it reaches my standards, not some else's.  Until then, I am happy to express my pleasures with the reading of stories by the many authors hosted by Crystal's StorySite.  Hopefully, if the bar is not raised too high, a time may come when I may be one of them.

--CMB

this reminds me a great deal of the long, late-night debates that used to fly about in the student union coffee shop of my collegiate days too long past. Everything had to be so deep, and have profound and abstract meanings to satisfy us.  We'd gnaw each story-tidbit to the bone seeking TRUTH and too often, forgot to be entertained.

Frankly, I think of the TG Genre as being like a Borders or Barnes and Noble Bookstore.  There's everything from "comic books" to very complex, deeply meaning tomes of great insight.  that's a good thing.  there are also a lot more 'fun to read', escapist novels and stories then there are 'Great Works'.

this is a generality, but I think that most writers in this genre write first to entertain themselves.  In my own case, I was stunned when the sysop of the bbs on which I posted my first story wrote back to me telling me what a great story it was.  that was frosting on my cake.  The point here is that if the original idea had not appealed to me, had not tickled my fantasy-bone, it would never have become a story in the first place.

And if I had read this essay before posting it, it might have stayed on my hard drive forever for fear that it would be found wanting against these standards.  "No way these people would like my stuff."

I don't think that is the message the author wanted to send, but it is the one I received reading it.

My message is: Write.  Maybe you will write the Great Novel, or maybe you will write a 'romance novel' or maybe you will write a 'comic book'.

Or maybe it will just be a fantasy.

and any of that is better than not writing when the words need to come out.

tigger

I have been searching for comments like this.  I see myself as a social revolutionary (apologist?) trying to use the social positives in the TG phenomena.  It's a quid pro quo argument.  I don't recall any stories where the protagonist's ego wasn't the center of attention.  To become fully human means you not only get your needs met, but you also need to focus on giving others what they need.  Very few stories have this touch of emotional connection with others.
I'm delighted to see someone else use abstract thinking.  Thank you very much.  

This is a very nice essay, and if I were giving out grades I would give you an A+. I think I have a good idea who wrote this(yes I'm psychic!), and would like to say that I agree with you all the way. Good job and thanks for writing!