I'd like to thank everyone who has taken the time to read my story, especially the members of my discord server, who've been crucial in helping this revision get to the level of quality that it is. Over the course of six months, it went from an alright story I would say to a pretty good one.
Dog Boy started with some stories that I had read in the past. The Goosebump's book My Hairiest Adventure was one of these, as well as a story I found on Deviant Art a number of years ago, called something along the lines of "Walking in Dog's Paws" - a bit of homage to, if you will, can be found in the footprints on the story's cover. While when I first read these stories I enjoyed them to some degree, they both had things that I didn't really like the direction of. What is the transformation over in such a brief moment "off-screen" in the Goosebumps book? Why in the Deviant Art story, does our protagonist have to be the only one that changes?
Further, I've seen a lot of stories involving transformations online that are just the transformation. All that is present is a setup, the transformation, and some kind of tacked on ending, where the transformed individual runs off, having been punished for their misdeeds, or runs off happily. This is also done clean cut. No one knows the person disappeared, it is never addressed, or the entire universe changes to one where the person was always in their transformed state.
This to me, is not the interesting draw of transformation stories. If we look to a notable film with a transformation, Brother Bear (which probably was one of the things that made me a furry) Kenai has to face the awful reality that his brother sees him as a ravenous beast that must be killed. Further, Kenai is struck with having to face his own weaknesses and wrongdoings. It is not a perfect film by any means, but it understands why transformation can be such a powerful symbol in fiction, and why it has existed since we began telling stories.
That was the kind of story that I wanted to write. While I have read many nice pieces of short transformation fiction, I wanted to write something as much about the internal transformation of the characters as outward one.
My first draft of Dog Boy was on furaffinity, and totaled only 38 chapters. It was not terribly well revised - I didn't even check for spelling and grammar errors before posting the chapters - but it was a decent enough story, and with such a drought for long form transformation fiction, I found a lot of people who enjoyed it. That draft I finished about a year ago, in March of 2022.
While I did like the story somewhat, I felt that I could do better. Besides getting a better version of this story out there, it would also be a way to further improve my writing skills. I also in this new version, wanted to get this story to other sites than just furaffinity.
And now I stand on the other side, after many months of reworking the plot, completely tossing out the original first chapter, cutting out many things... but at the same time, I fleshed out some characters a lot better. I improved the conflicts, Matt and Jackie's relationship, and actually had a tone transition near the end of the book rather than whiplashing the reader straight to action like in the first draft.
The story is not perfect, you can obviously see some story issues here and there, some character motivations may feel off - but I was able to make something that people enjoyed, and was able to create serious moments that people resonated with, which for a piece of online transformation fiction is a pretty respectful feat I'd say.
Now, I've talked a lot about transformation fiction, and what it means to me. I want to briefly touch on the transformations in me. When I first started writing the first draft of Dog Boy, we were still somewhat in the pandemic. My life wasn't honestly in the best of shape, and I enjoyed writing stories as a form of escapism. In the year and a half about since then however, I've felt my life reorienting in better directions. With that however, I feel like I need to do some active reorienting.
This part I imagine, will be hard on some of you, but there's no other way around it, I am not going to be writing as much furry fiction. Besides the fact that keeping up with regular updates on specific days can be challenging, I've felt simply that I've focused too much of my life on stuff in the furry community. I still really appreciate the furry community of course. There are many great people, creating great things - but my life needs to be more than that.
My life, in general, needs to be more than the world online. I've becoming caught up in focusing on update schedules and rising numbers rather than going on dates and keeping up with assignments. It has become all the more present in my mind that I am nearing the end of college, and I will then have to decide what my life is going to be. Although, again, I've enjoyed working on this story, and interacting with people in the furry community, I've asked myself quite often if I would find more fulfillment in life in putting a spring in my step, and putting myself out more in the real world.
The worlds of fantasy and science fiction can be wondrous. We can explore questions about the universe, about humanity, how we might be different if in a different, magical place - but these pieces of fiction can only benefit us when they motivate us to go out into reality, not replacing it.
So I have decided that furry fiction will have to be more on the backburner moving forwards. Do not consider this me quitting, as I find it hard to imagine that an idea won't strike my fancy - but do not expect either that I'll start dropping a new story tomorrow. While I do have ideas, and even things written I could all share with you, if there's something I've discovered from the world of online stories, there is little more painful than getting ten chapters deep into a story you really love... only to discover this story was last updated in 2011. I am not in the business of promising a story, and leaving the reader only the fragmented illusion of one.
I was procrastinating putting off writing this last part to Dog Boy, mostly because I've been feeling sick lately and haven't wanted to do anything - but I think it's for the best that I'm writing this when I am. This may sound rather corny to some, but I watched the animated film Rango last night. As a fan of animation I could speak volumes about what I really enjoy about it, but on this particular watch, a line in the film stuck out to me - that no one can walk out of their own story.
No matter how much we enjoy the world's of fiction, we must accept the fact their stories end. We as people have to continue on with life, no nicely constructed narrative dictating our experiences. But in a way I find that to be more fantastic than a story, as we are protagonists that can decide what we will do. We can have relationships with people more fleshed out, more meaningful than any character on a page.
And something I hope, as I work to take charge as the protagonist of my life story, is that my writing will become more polished, more rich in detail and substance, as I have more life experience. As happy as I feel happy with Matt and Jackie's relationship, it has felt hollow to me - as it is not something I have yet had the opportunity to experience.
I want to work on my other, non-furry stories. It is the unfortunate fact of life that my furry stories I can't really share with people in real life. Whether they are averse to unsavory things they've heard about furries, or simply find it weird, I must accept the fact that getting people to read stuff is already difficult enough. I don't feel too disappointed by this. I can feel at peace with what I am interested without having to shout it on the rooftops. And besides, my interest in anthropomorphic art is not my entire personality, but just a small piece.
I hope that I can pour those other interests into amazing stories someday. I actively am working on them, but unfortunately cannot post them online, as it voids exclusivity publishing rights, which I do not want to lose as an option someday (I am however, willing to share my google docs if you join my discord server 🙂). I really want to be able to share all of those stories with everyone, not just the people who've read Dog Boy, but also my family, my friends, and countless potential people out in the world. Perhaps I'll never accomplish my dream of being a published author, but I can live with it if I am not doing it as a career, but at least get to share my stories.
In the end, while I'm going to be working more actively at refocusing my life, and focusing more on my other writing, I'm grateful for the opportunity I had to better improve my skills, and all the support I've received from you, the readers. I know many of you will think of this author's note as awfully dramatic for following the story that preceded it-
But that is the way that I view things. The world of fiction is all about exploring crazy, unrealistic universes... while at the same time, exploring things that resonate with all of us as human beings. And in the end, I'd say that's what Dog Boy is all about - that no matter how the world changes, no matter what differences we may all have - we are all human, deep down.
Rocky
January 29th, 2023
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