Different Kinds of transformations?

[CowgirlMermaid]

I've been trying to write mer series for years now.
And everytime the story get changed because I get older, 18 years right now,
and I want the story to be grown enough for that age, not really so childish anymore.

I've got a dozen ideas, but how the girls/boys turn into a mermaids/mermen gives me a bit of trouble
Since the usual touching water, moonpools, necklaces, rings and letters stuff is overdone.

I'm looking for a new mertransformation way.
Do you guys have any ideas you want to share?
Or even some story ideas or plots?

[deepblue]

FYI- we have a thread for writers here and we've talked about such things, and you might want to check it out. http://mernetwork.com/index/showthread.php?5504-The-Mer-Writers-Thread

[Seatan]

I would say a curse... I doubt many people would really, truly want to be turned into a mermaid. Or some kind of alien technology like in Animorphs (loved that series!)

[Mermaid Wesley]

Shed scales like a snake! That's how I explain it to kids if they see me taking my tail off. Oh no I just have to shed my scales to get human legs! And then to go back to mermaid... They could actually start growing scales and stuff. Instead of the *swirl of magic* TA DAH


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[PhaylennMurúch]

I have a series that I'm working on and am working with the theory that the transformation isn't exactly pleasant and isn't instant, bones elongate and flesh re forms (as one character says, "it hurts, it's gross to watch but it is so worth it"). My science also pegs mers as being bulky (either looking overweight or very muscled) out of water because in order for the change to occur you need the same amount of cells (there is no creating out of nothing). It's also a safety thing (along with hair changing color), you can't identify someone if their mer form is 30-40 lbs smaller in the torso. It is also a completely voluntary event after the initial experience, so no avoiding water or H2O style hijinks.
I do have some psychokinesis tossed in there because it was way too much fun describing my 'evil' mer killing someone by freezing the water in their body, but I think that I did a good job with the science behind it.

[Echidna]

many traditional stories have an item needed for the transformation, usually a skin or "dress" (sealskin for selkies, featherdress for swan maidens...), and if this is lost or stolen, they cannot turn into their other form and are stuck as humans.

You can easily use this by saying your tail(skin) is what enables you to be in water (which, in a way, it does).

Maybe those tales were even inspired by real things- like divers who needed their warm sealskins with flippers to dive, and if they lost it, they were no longer able to face the icy water.

[Sherielle]

You might put in a touch of realism. I know that most stories talk about how their legs grow scales and then become tails. Biologically, it's wrong. What technically should happen is their legs would shrink to the pelvic fins and their tailbone would extend out to the actual fish tail.
Just my two bits.

[CowgirlMermaid]

I've been toying around a bit with the idea of a human wound being in contact with mermaid blood, which triggers a body transformation...
bit unrealistic but still interesting

[CowgirlMermaid]

And two years ago I wrote a short(15 min) movie plot for school.
It was about a teenage girl who lived with her single parent dad.
One day on the beach the girl finds a mermaid with a hook in her fin and she frees the mermaid.
After havinf touched the mermaid, the girl slowly transfoms into a mermaid herself.
First she gets gills on her neck, then she grows webbed fingers and eventually a tail.
The mermaid she saved, doesn't seem to know what's going on.
But her dad does and tells her the story he had always kept a secret.
Her mom was a mermaid, and stayed on land with him, the girl was born ans raised, but then her mother needed to get back to the sea because she was needed there. And because of the part mermaidblood in her, the girl would become a mermaid herself and would need to start living the ocean.

The movie would start with a black-and-white scene with a little girl holding her dads hand and a woman walking towards the sea and diving in, to never return to land again.