Miriel Church <mchurch@scronline.com> wrote:
This being my first full fan fiction, a few notes maybe in order..
This was more than a few. ^_^
Author pre-notes are useful when you want to direct your fic toward
those who should read it. E.g. "Story contains blood and gore; don't
read unless you have a strong stomach," or "You won't understand what's
going on here unless you first read all eight hundred chapters of my
previous fic." Too much introduction can turn off potential readers.
Most of us would rather *read* your story to find out what it's about
rather than being told beforehand.
\\ // MANDARIN
{ } THOUGHTS
** ** emotions
++ ++ any other language
Again, not necessary. Credit your readers with enough sense to figure
this out from context.
Prologue
martial artists arrived at the dojo. This father/son pair came to
fulfill a promise made many years before, to join the two families and
Cary on the Anything Goes School. Now after a year and some months at
the dojo a breeze started 10 years ago is once more blowing unstoppably
towards them, powered by love, fanned by the wings of honor and
tradition, Soatome Nodaka is once more coming to the Tendo Dojo
looking for her husband and son.
Frankly, I suggest cutting this prologue. It doesn't seem to serve any
use -- doesn't show any hint of what the conflicts are going to be in
the story. Your reader almost surely has read some of the original
series and doesn't need to be told how Ranma and Genma came to the Tendo
Dojo; if you were basing your fic on an obscure series, such information
might be useful, but even then I'd advise waiting until *after* the
conflict in the story is under way.
BTW, it's Saotome Nodoka. (What is it about ol' Noddy that makes so many
people spell her name wrong?)
To the east a full moon is cresting the far horizon; to
the west the sinking sun is setting the distant hills
aflame.
Nice imagery, but it'll read better if you get rid of the 'is' verbs --
*especially* when you're writing in present tense:
To the east a full moon crests the far horizon; to the west the sinking
sun sets the distant hills aflame.
I also wonder whether this has anything to do with your story. Perhaps
you could show this through the eyes of one of the characters so it
doesn't seem so ad hoc? Descriptions are nice, but IMO they shouldn't be
put in just because they're nice.
A quiet time as birds settle to roost for the night, children
are called in from play, families sit for dinner and the world seems to
hold
it's breath for just a moment. Soon the night will awaken bringing
it's own life and action; people going to jobs, parties or strolls in
its (both times).
its = 'belonging to it'
it's = "it is"
{Man, I gotta finish this tonight.. Mother is
coming for my birthday party this weekend, and I still haven't been
able to get this thing done. If it's not pop wanting to train, its
train, it's
Ryoga wanting a fight or Nabiki wanting pictures or one of the other
fianc�e's wanting-- me!! Ok.. it's warm enough, lets see if I can get
this right .. this time.}
fiancees. Never use an apostrophe to make a plural.
This whole speech seems unnatural -- like it's put in to tell the reader
who Ranma is. (Which is unnecessary, as your reader has most likely read
at least some of the manga.) Try to make it more like thoughts that
might more naturally be going through Ranma's head.
The golden light increases as the blue flames seem to whip in
towards it.
{Now relax.. build up the speed and .. there we go.. its working..
it's
concentrate...}
Behind him, peeking over the edge
of the roof, two others watch as he focuses on his work.
Tendo Nabiki and Tendo Akane watch as Soatome Ranma draws his chi,
his life energy, and begins his work, whatever that work may be. They
had
watched him as he climbed out his window, a small pouch of worn leather
Take out 'had' (you're writing in present tense) and fix the line
wrapping.
held in his hands, and jumped to the roof of the family dojo. This was
not an unusual occurrence. What had captured their attention was that
he
Same here.
did this as the rest of the family was called to dinner! Ranma miss
dinner!? Pass on Kasumi's cooking?! Let his father eat his share of the
culinary delights that awaited !!?? NEVER!!
Ranma-the-glutton, IMO, is one of those things that gets horribly
exaggerated in fanfics. True, he likes a good meal, but Cherry (from UY)
he ain't.
" What is he doing?" Akane, the youngest of the Tendo daughters
and
the fianc�e of Ranma, whispered to her sister.
You've slipped into past tense. Write in either past or present tense
but don't switch back and forth. And it's completely unnecessary to tell
us who Akane is.
"I've seen him do this a couple of times, but I still can't figure
out what he's doing -- or where he hides that pouch" Nabiki the middle
Punctuation: pouch," Nabiki
daughter whispered back" and believe me I've looked. When I asked him,
back, "and
he
told me that it was private. I even offered to cut his bill down for
the
information but he wouldn't tell."
"Well, I'm going to find out...."Akane said as she climbed on the
roof and approached Ranma "Ranma.... your missing dinner.. " She said
Ranma. "Ranma.... you're missing dinner.. " she said
(your = belonging to you; you're = 'you are')
quietly, no answer, "Ranma.. are you alright?.." no answer .."What are
you doing Ranma?" again no answer. "Ranma. I'm talking to you!" still
no
answer "RANMA!" once more silence "FINE!! Don't talk to me, see if I
care....
Missing an ending quote mark. And things like 'no answer' are seperate
sentences, so they need to be punctuated as such. E.g.:
quietly. No answer. "Ranma.. are you all right?" No answer. "What are
The flame in Ranma's hands fades, and as he stands, he picks up a
small box and the pouch {but I do care Akane, I just wish I could tell
you how much...}
Ranma might well FEEL this, but I don't see him admitting it to himself.
"Whatcha want Akane?'
want, Akane?"
Not gonna do any more punctuation corrections (my quota's been exceeded
^_^), but it's something you really need to work on. Make it easy for
people to read your fic by formatting properly, and you'll get more
readers.
"I asked what you're doing.. You missed dinner.."
{she's upset.. oh boy..}"Just working on something"
"Can I see?"
"Uh.. no its a gift.. .."
"For Me?.. "
"Uh. No I promised...."
"It's for Ukyou, Isn't it!!" A reddish glow starts forming around
Akane as her anger grows.
Overall, your handling of Akane is pretty good; however, IMO she needs
more provocation than this before flying off the handle. Maybe Ranma
says something that leads her (mistakenly) to believe that the present
is for one of the other girls, or maybe Nabiki, for fun, suggests this
to her.
Before he could enter the Dojo, a blur smashed him into the pond.
"Hi pop, bye pop! gotta go!" And into the house Ranma bound.
bounds, or bounded (depending on which tense you finally settle on)
Soaking in the furro Ranma relaxes and starts to drift off. {I
That's "furo," I think.
finished mom's gift, arranged for delivery, slept, ate, practiced, ate,
finished my home work and still got back too early! It seams like the
seems
only way I can get any peace and quiet is there. If not for that down
I don't understand what 'there' he's referring to.
"He was having a nightmare about Jusendo, his battle with Saffron
last month.. Could he have been using his "soul of ice " technique
while asleep?"
Use 'small quote marks' for quotes within quotes.
"That could very well be the case Akane" As
case, Akane."
Genma puffed himself up with pride "I have trained him to respond to
Sentence fragment. Get rid of the As.
attacks even while asleep! If the dream was vivid enough he just might
have responded.."
Any C&C is of course greatly appreciated.,
Okay... an interesting story, actually, once it got past all the
preliminaries. I'm curious to find out what the deal with that disk
thingy is. You need some serious work on grammar and punctuation, or at
least a good editor to pre-read your stuff. A lot of readers will skip
any fic with this many errors; don't let that happen to you.
Gary Kleppe
http://www.execpc.com/~kleppe/comics.html