Hello!
I thought I’d take a brief moment to write about Filth. Not because it’s an amazing story but just because I wanted to do a retrospective and because I did an outline for a chunk of it.
First up, are you curious what one of my rare outlines look like? Wonder no more!
Filth was originally going to be a fairly straight-forward story. I’d asked a while back for some transformation story ideas and one of them was a mouse TF for a college student. I took that and adapted it into a rat since I like rats slightly more than mice. I have a pretty basic formula for my stories – character gets transformed for whatever reason and then has sex with someone and either infects them or not. And now you know all of my secrets.
As with all of my stories, I had to come up with a trigger and some information on the character. Now, I know rats are not disgusting filthy creatures. They can apparently make neat little pets. However, I went at least partially with the old sewer dwelling trash digging type of rat. Hence, “Filth”. Now, that title put me in the mind of the story being filthy in some way (beyond) sex so I thought about corrupting some poor innocent young woman. Yay. My favorite!
Would she just be a cute naive lady? Hmm… ah, strict religious upbringing. Another of my favorite. Especially since it can tie into the whole ‘filth’ theme with a super crazy strict religious upbringing and how sex is sometimes viewed in them.
And there was the story. Strict religious upbringing, she messes around and gets herself cursed and turns into a rat. She would then have sex with a guy and change him. The end. Originally the curse was never going to be explained but was basically a “magic and God/Devil exists and, oops, you sinned and since you were in a crazy religion, that has some power effects on you!” thing.
A comment on the first chapter over at SoFurry got me thinking. A reader wondered what happened and another mentioned some ideas so then I started wondering. That’s when I sat down to plot out my ideas. The image above is everything in the story after chapter 1. It also has a bit of quick research on rat behavior for her changes. All fit nicely on one page.
I thought, okay, where’s the curse from? I thought she’d need a physical effect for it and, so, like the old werewolf pentagram, she’d have a visible mark. And since she was religious, it’d be something from a demon. I did a quick Google search for demons and Beelzebub showed up in one search as having the ability to change humans into animals. Sold! She now became cursed by him. Owned by him. My reasoning is that her religion is odd yet powerful enough to attract attention by certain entities. Bub notices one of their flock sinning and since he’s all about lust and such, bam. He has a way “in” and changes her, slowly breaking her down until she’s fully his.
And since I now had a big demon involved that can change people, why not make it more fun and include other people? Bub is shown as a fly type so I picked a few creepy crawlies (and a carrion crow) and added them into the mix for fun. Again, part of the reasoning is that rats are often thought as disease carriers and mixed with demons wanting to corrupt mankind, I decided to take that.
Last note. Originally (as you can see in the outline) Abigail was just going to run off to the sewers and hide. When I was sitting down to edit chapter 3 so I could release it, I decided the ending was a bit weak. I tossed a few ideas around and decided last minute that, no, she wasn’t done. Or, rather, Bub wasn’t done with her. She would carry her infection back home to try to convert one of the last true religious strongholds. Slight touch to really add a bit of spice. She’s not a mindless slave to the demon (as she struggles against him) but he’s got a very, very strong hold on her.
There you have it. A small bit of insight into how the story came to be and the thought process behind it. This is pretty typical for my stories as I’ve changed many of them mid-story.
Thanks for listening and reading!