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Description

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Hello to anyone new that's reading this for the first time. It's been a long time since I've posted this and it's blown up in popularity over time to an extent I never would have imagined. I'd just like to retroactively say that, while I do think this guide can serve as a helpful tool for up and coming writers, I don't recommend taking everything objectively. I wrote this guide astonishingly early in my writing career, and though I've made a few updates to it there's still a lot of advice that I'm not completely proud of giving nowadays. With that in mind, thank you all for reading, and happy writing.

transformation story (also known as tf story): a story in which a character physically and/or mentally becomes something different, and the change to that is detailed within the story.

Introduction

If you're like me, you have, or are yet to have, a similar story: you love reading transformation stories and became a deviant to write them. But are you ready to write one yet? Are you comfortable writing one? If not, then this guide will explain the necessary steps I, CrazyNaut, take when writing them. Soon, you will be a fluent TF writer too!

Part I: The Writing Process

First, we'll be taking a look at the skeleton of it all: the basic writing process. These are the basics of what you need to know about writing each story!

Step 1: Planning the Story

Before you write a TF story, or any story, you need to know what you want to do with it first.

First, you need to know who or what the subject will become. You start out by deciding:

Real or Fictional?
Human or Non-Human?
Animate or Inanimate?
You can also pick out additional effects, if necessary, to add some spice.
Transgender (TG): a male becomes female, or vice versa
Age Progression/Regression (AP/AR): someone becomes older or younger
Mind Control (MC): someone's memories and/or personality are changed and/or added to
Next, you need to pick out a subject to be transformed.
Give it an age and gender that will comply with additional effects.
Make him fit in with the transformation. (Ex. Video game character TF? Make him a gamer!)
Now you need to decide on the setting.
When will the story take place?
How many places or worlds will be involved?
Will the subject transport to another world?
Now you need a trigger, which is what will transform the character.
Does it relate to what your subject will become?
Where will it be found? In a store? In a forest?
Plan out the beginning, and get a good idea of how it will tie in with the rest of the story.

Step 2: Writing the Pre-Transformation

Whether you want the main feature to be before, after, or during the transformation, you need to put effort into the pre-transformation. Otherwise, your story will feel awkward.

This is optional, but you can set up a backstory to base the transformation on.
Maybe another universe has conflicts?
Maybe the trigger has an interesting history?
The first real step, set up your character.
What's his name?
How old is he (or give us hints)?
Can you describe him?
What about him/her relates to his fate?
Where is he now?
This is optional, but maybe you can develop a little story for the character. Perhaps you can add:
A short backstory
Interaction with other people
Evidence of his/her personality
Next, the character should come into contact with the trigger. Maybe your character...
Finds it somewhere odd?
Takes it home?
Questions it?
Wants friends to see it?
Whatever the case, the character needs to transform from it. Maybe your character...
Eats/drinks it?
Uses it?
Pockets it?
Does what is instructed not to do?
Remember, you can do whatever you want to the pre-TF story. This is just an idea list, because the possibilities are endless!

Step 3: Writing the Transformation

Now for the fun part: turning your character into another. Remember, you've got to nail this part, because this is what your audience came to see. Here is some advice on making the transformation.

You need to start the transformation. Some good places to begin include:
The eyes changing color and growing/shrinking
The hair changing color and growing/shrinking
The feet or hands growing/shrinking
The clothing changing
Fur sprouting from a visible area
As you continue, there are different approaches you can take.
Go outwards from the first spot (hands to arms, hair to eyes, etc.).
Transform a part that corresponds with the last in some way (hands to feet, stomach to chest, etc.).
If the clothing is changing, you can do it with the transformation or following/preceding it.
Remember the additional effects!
TG (Transgender): Make sure to swap out your characters privates.
AR/AP (Age Regression/Progression): Remember shrinking/growing in the appropriate body parts.
MC (Mind Control): Try to make this the end of the transformation, or gradually after it. Remember to only change what's necessary.
Also, DETAIL DETAIL DETAIL! describe as best as you can what happens. Imagine in your head the process of the change, how it works, and describe it in your own words in a way that's also interesting. I'm not saying you always have to be extremely detailed, but if you use something as basic as "his hands turned into dog paws", you might as well just write "and then he became a dog", because your story has been rendered boring.

Remember, always make sure your changes make sense.
Changing clothing? Make sure the clothing is never TOO small on the character.
Don't go all random on everything. Don't make the first transition chest to feet unless your story benefits that way.
Never put mind change before the transformation is done unless the remaining changes are too minor to notice.
Another thing worth going over is knowing your changes. As previously mentioned, it's always good to have a few reference pictures with you of the end result. If you have a good human or OC to transform in your head already, it won't be too hard to notice the differences!

For specifics, though, you'll need to look the end result up.
Real animal? That shouldn't be too hard, just look up its biology!
TG? You don't have to look up male/female differences on Google, I've found a lot of it out in other TG stories! And you don't need to be too specific there, either.
Fictional character or creature? Use the wiki you can find it on! It will usually have at least some information you didn't know before.
Don't know the name of a body part, or a clothing article, or a hairstyle? Try to find it on Google, or if you really can't, another TF story with it!
Remember, if you really have trouble with this the first few times, don't be afraid to just try our best and nail it next time, maybe with some audience help!

Step 4: Writing the Post-Transformation

Your audience just sat through your character changing, so leave them off satisfied.

First thing's first: you need to set your character off again.
How does he feel about what happened?
How does he react to it? Does he say anything about it?
Does he try out his new body, maybe seeing his new... parts?
Maybe he was asleep during the TF, and is now waking up?
Are there other people around him reacting to this?
Is he in a bad position, like maybe he's trapped?
You can end the story here, or you can expand. What would happen to your character post-TF?
Would unsuspecting people find the character?
Would this lead him/her into a new life no one is aware of?
Does he/she undergo MC?if not during the TF, now's the time to do it.
Does he end up in another world?
One more thing: if you're going to make another part, the only thing that you REALLY need to add is a cliffhanger. If you want fans to read part 2, you need to give them something they want to read for! I won't say much here, because you need to get creative, other than a few suggestions:
Cut to somewhere else, with someone we don't know doing something
The main character is knocked unconscious
He finds someone or something we don't know yet
Something big is about to happen, but doesn't yet

Step 5: Posting the Story

You might be wondering why this is important, but before you post a story, you need to take certain measures to make your story easy to find and easy to identify.

But before posting, you need to reread your story.

Make sure you replace any "temporary fillers".
Is there anything else about the story you don't like? Change it!
First, you need a title. That's very important.
It's often best to include TF in the title, along with other effects (TG, AR, MC, etc.).
Perhaps clarify what is the end result.
If you want, include an actual title that is somewhat related to the story.
Head to the tags section. Include tags for:
tf, transformation, and other effects
The character or thing the protagonist is becoming
What media it comes from (if it's a fictional character)
Anything else relatable you imagine someone searching
Now it's description time. Don't leave it blank. You should consider:
Why you wrote the story and chose the character
Interesting facts about the writing process of it
If not in the title, the TF end result
And once you're sure everything is how you want it, you should be ready to release your story to the public! Good luck with that!

Part II: Important Elements

I hope you caught all that, because you should be ready to create a plot, character, and transformation! But throughout your writing, there are several elements you should always keep in mind. We'll be going over five.

1. Personality

Whether your story is a long, ambitious one or even a quick one, it's always great to give your characters distinct personalities. It keeps things interesting and entertaining, especially with the reactions! So we need to make sure your characters have character.

First, you need to decide on the inner character. For example, is the character…
Normally happy or depressed?
Nice or mean?
Excitable or easily frightened?
Now, more importantly, you need to express the character. You can express someone's inner character through things like…
What he says and what others say about him
The things he does, in the same manner
What the narrator of the story says
His contributions to the plot
His reaction to the changes
Do whatever you want with personality, just make sure your characters actually have it!

2. Narrator Text

Your story pretty much needs a narrator. Every story does! And whether your story is narrated by some average narrator or one of the characters even, you'll need to know how to handle what it says.

Setting up the main character is the first thing the narrator should do, usually at the beginning of the story, or maybe after a bit of backstory. Whether the narrator is that character or just a normal one:

Introduce him, with name and some context, maybe some personal info.
Maybe you can set him off with him doing something, probably something important!
Remember, if the character setup is long, throw some dialogue in there (see next section)!
The narrator should also be used for the transformation itself. You should know what to do: describe the changes with detail, like how it feels to the character, how the character sees it or doesn't see it… things like that! And afterwards, ending the story should work the same way as the beginning, as mentioned in Part I.

The most important part is to be descriptive, because in almost every case, the narration will take up the majority of the story. There are many ways you can apply descriptiveness!
You can talk about the scenery, maybe it plays some kind of role with the plot or the character!
Talk about the events with description, with some character POV, and you can turn an event as simple as picking something up into an important one!
Maybe even use description in the character's feelings, and you can make something like "he was sad" a paragraph long and interesting!
Of course, use description in the transformation itself!
The possibilities are as endless as the amount of narration you'll be writing!

3. Dialogue

Dialogue is a wonderful story element. Almost every story you find will include it in some form, so you'll need to know how to write it well!

The first thing you need to know is that dialogue usually needs to be its own paragraph. It's easier to read the paragraph that way and it makes reading the story much less confusing, especially in conversations.

Remember to make the dialogue necessary, by the way. It shouldn't just lengthen your story, it should establish character, advance or set up the plot, or even just entertain the people reading them. Don't just put needless dialogue into your story just to lengthen it a bit.

Also, try to have your dialogue convincing enough, as if someone would actually say it. Make it dialogue, not forced story development in quotation marks. And put emotion in it, too!

And outside the marks, where you'd usually write something like "he said", don't be afraid to add some context! It could do many things right, like help make the dialogue less awkward by not making the person say everything that's happening.

Don't: "What?" he said, "I wonder what that electric burst was."
Do: "WOAH!" he exclaimed, knocked back by the shock, "What just happened!?"

Theres so much more to dialogue I can't explain… so if you really need a guide for it, here's a second one: fav.me/d9797tv

4. Suspense

This is important. Your story will not look all that professional if the transformation or other events in the story start or end so suddenly! You need to learn how to build up to an event and end it so they make the story more interesting! You must master the art of suspense.

First, you need to know that just because something might be obvious, that doesn't mean you should make it obvious for the characters and apparent narrator. There are just times where you have to act like the audience is unaware of what's going on.

I really don't have much else to say other than this: to help you set up or conclude something, don't just talk in the perspective of the narrator, also mention how the other characters think and do. Use their emotions, the five senses… things like that. That'll add some much-needed interest.

Don't: There was electricity at his hand, and he was growing yellow fur! … The changes were complete. He looked at himself, and he was a Pikachu!
Do: He felt an electric tingling at his left hand. He looked down at it, confused, and gasped in shock to see yellow fur growing off the back of it. … Once he thought the changes were finished, he looked down at himself. He looked over his new paws, his tiny body, and that familiar lightning-shaped tail. And once he saw his face in the mirror, he came to the realization: he had become a Pikachu.

That example was pretty basic, actually. Be as suspenseful as you'd like, because we love being in the edge!

5. Grammar / Visuals

Your story may be great, but if it looks like someone who doesn't speak English properly made it, it'll be a pain to read, and will probably be skipped. I mean, it could be made by a foreigner, but still, you need to make sure it looks good.

First off is the obvious: grammar. I don't mean to be the grammar police, and a few small grammar errors, or even a story filled with them, can be fine as long as it's still readable. But when it gets hard to interpret stuff you've written, you have a problem. Either way:
Reread the story, and speak out every sentence in your head to see if they sound correct.
Make sure all the correct punctuation is there. Trust me, a lack of it gets way too confusing.
We have technology, don't be afraid to use autocorrect and similar functions!
Also, it needs to look visually appealing. There are multiple things you need to do to accomplish this, many of which others skip. For example:
Break up your paragraphs. DO NOT make it all one big thing.
You have the power to use bold, italics, and underline. Use it all to your advantage!
Center your text whenever there's something like a standalone time transition (such as 2 Hours Later).
With all this in mind, your stories will look organized, easy to read, and more professional!

Part III: Miscellaneous Rules

This set of rules isn't something I can tell you in the other steps. They're short, general things to remember when writing your story.

Obviously, don't be offensive. People you offend could be reading it.
Don't be racist, homophobic, etc.
Don't attack a specific person/group of people.
It's okay to bash on a company or celebrity a little, but don't treat them like the devil.
NEVER CRITICIZE YOUR AUDIENCE. They're the people who give a damn about your stories in the first place.
If your story is of a fictional character, always stick as close to the source material as possible. Never use speculation, or stuff like that, like Mario's said "Goomba genocide". Unless, of course, that's the type of story you want.

Always have story elements make sense, unless it's not supposed to. Don't let the reason something doesn't make sense be "for the sake of the story".

Remember, don't be too mysterious. We want to know what your character will become, so don't hide it from the title, description, tags, and story itself.

Always have in mind the audience you'll probably get. You don't always have to match cute critters with cute stories, as with other examples like that, but it's something to keep in mind, in addition to the side effects, setting, etc., when coming up with everything.

And now we come to the most important thing to remember. A bad video on YouTube that gets a lot of views gives a bad impression on the creator, but views provide a big benefit to him/her. A bad deviation on DeviantArt that gets a lot of views gives a bad impression on the creator and gives him/her no benefit whatsoever. A bad TF story is pointless, so if you're going to make them, enjoy doing them like I do. Put effort into it. In other words, don't just make a TF story you can look back on and just say, "Damn, this was popular". Make one you can look back on and say, "Damn, this was good".

Conclusion

Congratulations! If you've followed the general context of these steps correctly, you should be on your way to becoming a transformation writer. So what are you waiting for? Hop onto Microsoft Word and start typing!

Have a piece of advice that's not here? Leave it on the comments below!

As always, stay smart, stay safe, and stay human!