Subject: [FFML] Re: [fic][fusion][R1/2/Nuku-Nuku] After the Flesh
From: "DB Sommer" <sommer@3rdm.net>
Date: 12/11/1999, 2:48 AM
To: "Alan Harnum" <harnums@thekeep.org>
CC: <ffml@fanfic.com>

You wrote:


At 12:54 AM 12/10/99 -0500, DB Sommer wrote:
Came across this on a disk a little while ago. This is actually a
revision
of something that I posted a little over two years ago (back when I was
REALLY not good)

Eh, it's all comparative.  I think the truest sign of any writer's
development is an increasing dissatisfaction with previous works.  :)

Too true. Although I think I was more disappointed in the grammar aspects
of the old version of this rather than the plot of the story. Some of that
still shows through, even with the revisions I've done.



and which few people will probably remember. Hopefully it
should read a good bit better now, and I plan on writing more to it once
my
previous commitments are finished (like Vacation Days). I finally got a
title I liked too.

It's right for the story, yeah; good titles are hard.

Usually I don't have a problem with titles. I probably have come up with
close to a hundred for either fics or chapters to fics, with less than ten
of them making me feel anything worse than ambivalent. But this one just
wouldn't come. I went through two or three 'official' title that I despised
before I stumbled onto 'After the Flesh'. Once I came up with it, it felt
right.



Commenting as I go along...

Using my MO, I see. ^_^


Those were the last words she heard in the dream before she woke up. The
morning light streamed through the pink curtains of the single, small
window in her bedroom at the Nekohantan. Light poured into her eyes,
prying
them open and rousing her for a new day.

I recommend conjucting the last two sentences here into one, or altering
them, as they currently both start with the same subject (light).

Hmm. Will try to come up with something. Right now I'm drawing a blank.


It took her a moment to recall
those last words that had lingered in her mind, but when she tried to
remember the dream itself, she failed. It had faded with the new day.

Something about the first sentence in this section seems awkward; I think
it's got something to do with the repeat of 'last words', which you used
only a few sentences earlier in the same paragraph.

Okay. Will probably just rework the last sentence. How about:

She tried to remember the dream she had just had �it had left a pleasant
feeling with her� but she failed. It had faded with the new day.


That really wasn't important. Shampoo went to her window and gazed at the
world. Outside, it was a day like any other, or at least it would seem
that
way to everyone else. To her it was a special day; her favorite day of
the
year, ever since she was a little girl. The sort of day that came only
once
a year. It was her birthday.

Ack.  So many uses of "day", one after the other, most of 'em all saying
basically the same thing, leading up to a revelation that we've already
grasped from the beginning of the fic.
  I'd suggest trimming this part, it
reads very chunkily.

Done.






jumped out of bed and quickly threw on her most attractive red and
green outfit to impress her husband.

Very imprecise description.  Narrow it down, make it more precise.  If
what
she's wearing is important enough to mention, the description needs to be
less general.

It's not important. I'll just leave it at 'attractive outfit' and cut out
the colors.


She was going to start his day right
by giving him one of her patented morning glomp's

glomps

to get him going.

Nice to see the author of Shampoo 1/2 giving a more traditional,
manga-based depiction of Shampoo.  :)

Especially considering I've only read about 4 or 5 issues of the manga, and
only two of them had Shampoo appearing in them. ^_^

with her (the first choice) she had given him an alternate gift idea of a
pair of pretty earrings that she had seen in a store the other day. The
best part was that the jewelry was dirt cheap. Even Ranma, as broke as he
usually was, could afford to get them for her.

Yes, but this is assuming...

a) Ranma cares about her

b) Ranma remembers

c) Ranma is more sensitive than a dead tree

:D

Hey, misassumptions are good part of what the Ranmaverse is based upon. ^_^


That depressing thought triggered others, and that horrible wedding
fiasco
was at the top of the list. That incident had almost literally blown up
in
her face. Ranma hadn't talked to anyone for almost a week before
eventually
forgiving all of them for their behavior at the wedding. Actually,
offering
to repair the damage went a long way to that forgiveness. Shampoo had not
wanted to destroy Ranma's house,

Destroy?  Hardly; the wedding bombing does a little damage to the dojo,
but
nothing at all to the house, at least from what can be observed in the
manga.

Again my lack of manga knowledge hampers me. Serves me right for only
reading outlines to some of the later volumes. Now that I think about it,
was the broken up wedding at the Tendou home, or at the Saotome residence?


his monster form had not been such a good idea. True, it had bought Ranma
the time he had needed to get some hot water and change the arrogant ass
back into his human form. That had allowed Ranma to beat the hell out of
him, but Tarou had managed to get his hands on the bike first and
crumpled
it into the twisted metal ruin before her eyes.

Hmm?  Shampoo's bike seems perfectly fine in V37 (she's riding it when
she's captured by Koruma and Masara with the mind-control eggs),

This was an encounter with Tarou post wedding.

 and that's
long after Tarou makes his final manga appearance.  Even if Shampoo's bike
did get wrecked by Tarou, it's so essential to the business (for
deliveries
and otherwise) that Cologne would probably just buy her a new one.

No time since then. Mousse said he would fix it, and Cologne was too
worried about dealings back in China to give it anything other than a
passing thought. Perhaps I should mention that Tarou only recently
destroyed it.

that. It was taking all of their combined resources to keep the two
apart,
and it still felt like they were slowly losing ground. If they had not
teamed up, there was no telling what would have happened by now.

Teamed up?  I suppose that's a valid interpretation; I always got the
impression they just decided independently to bomb the wedding, and
happened to do it at the same time.  :)

Well, coincidence is also one of the staples of the Ranmaverse, but I don't
think there's anything to refute the idea they decided to bomb it together,
and it was a desperate enough situation that they would do work together,
IMO

"Hi, Shampoo-chan," Konatsu greeted in return. He had taken to calling
her
that since she dropped by so often. Shampoo didn't really mind it. It
made
her feel wanted.

Hmm.  Konatsu really doesn't do the -chan thing, or at least that's the
impression I've gotten.  He tends to call everyone -san or -sama; -chan is
too familiar for him.

Okay. Changed to 'sama' then


Konatsu continued. "Ukyou-sama said something about going to visit her
relatives in Kyoto. She should be back in a couple of days. In the
meantime, she's letting me run things. And she's paying me an extra
twenty
five yen an hour!" He beamed.

Shampoo thought that was nice; he was almost making minimum wage.

Not even close; twenty-five yen is about a quarter at current exchange
rates, I think.

Will up it to a hundred, but remember that the stated sum is 'extra',
meaning he's getting it on top of his regular pay. Hell, I don't know if
there actually IS a minimum wage in Japan.


The news,
however, depressed the hell out of her. She had really wanted to see
Ukyou.
Wasn't there anybody to celebrate her birthday with?

Everyone's gonna jump out now and yell "SURPRISE!".  Right?  Right?  Good
pathos.

Right idea, but the execution on the plan ends up being a little faulty.

time. She realized he was going to be busy for a while, and perhaps all
day. There was no chance of he would abandon his post and celebrate with
her, not that she really knew him that well to begin with. It was with a
depressed sigh she made her farewell and departed.

Shun the passive voice!  :)

Yes, Oh Great Harnum. I hear and obey. ^_^


Suggest:  "With a depressed sigh, she made her farewell, and departed."

does it need a comma after 'farewell'?

when she leaped onto him. The pair sat on a bench, close to one another
in
excruciating slowness, their hands met, intertwining their fingers with
one
another. Shampoo recognized the gentleness the two used in that handhold:
it was a lover's grasp. It was something Shampoo had received from
anyone.

I assume that last sentence should be "something Shampoo had never
received
>from anyone.", or suchlike.

Yep. Amazing how one deleted word changes the whole meaning of a sentence,
yes?


"It won't come to that. Ryouga would never hurt a girl, no matter what.
Even one that," Her voice caught a little, "that breaks up with him. If
he
gets really angry, I'll just point out that he was already betraying me
when he kept sleeping with Akane as P-Chan."

Akari knows about this now?  I don't think she does in the manga.

Hmm. Truthfully, I hadn't considered that. I'll reconsider using it, or at
least mentioning when or how she found out if I keep it.


'Compass' finally spoke up. "Why did Akari have to go with Mousse?"

Mousse and Akari... I have a real problem with this.  Even if they were
intending a surprise party for Shampoo, I don't think either Akari or
Ryouga would agree to a deception such as this.  Akari's too shy, and
Ryouga's too jealous.

Hmm. I would think Akane would have been able to talk Ryouga into it (since
Akari was the only choice, as Ukyou mentions). I was planning to mention
later on that Akari essentially got talked into it by the others, and she
and Mousse had actually been practicing the acting for a while to make sure
they got it right (since neither was comfortable with the idea) The kiss is
spontaneous, though. That was why right before they did it they spoke too
low for Shampoo to hear. (And yes, there will be repurcussions which will
be delved into) I could try to add something about it when Ryouga raises
his protest, but to me it felt like putting that information in would have
been forced and awkward. Will look it over again to be sure.



If you're laying groundwork for future chapters here,

Yep.

you really need to
work on the Mousse/Akari angle more.  Don't have them get so close
immediately after the deception, as you have them doing here.  This part
needs work, IMO, to make it plausible in the reader's mind.

Actually it has been built up over the 'practice sessions' (that of course,
I haven't mentioned yet >_<). They've gotten to know each other over time
(Mousse's 'odd behavior' that Shampoo made mention of early on was a part
of that) which is one of the reasons they are acting so familiar with one
another. Still, I think that as you say toning it back a bit would be for
the best since most of that was done when this was originally just a one
shot and I didn't have the space to properly bring it along.


In the back alleys of Nerima, Shampoo found herself becoming increasingly
depressed over the whole events of the day. It was a microcosm of her
life.
Nothing ever worked out. Her husband rejected her out of hand. She was
stuck with a stupid curse. She had no real friends here or in China. The
price of being the best there meant everyone saw her as a goal to shoot
for
instead of a human being, so no one other than Mousse ever really talked
to
her. Now there wasn't anyone that cared. She was alone

Given Shampoo's general inability to perceive the truth of a situation
(endemic to the entire cast, but especially her) and that you've earlier
established this as part of her character in the fic (near the beginning),
I don't find such sudden self-realization plausible, even after the day
she's had.  There's no point I can find where the epithany that changes
her
view of her situation so absolutely occurs--no sudden flash of
insight--and, as such, I don't find her sudden ability to see with such
depressing clarity her situation to be plausible.

This needs to be worked on as well... perhaps it could come when she
witnesses Mousse and Akari?

Something along the lines of 'If Mousse could abandon me without a second
thought, maybe everything I never wanted to believe in (such as Ranma
actually being interested in Akane instead of her) is true'?

 The development from naivete to wisdom seems
to come without an obvious bridge; Shampoo in the manga is always bubbly
and cheerful and happy, and also very ignorant of the true reasons behind
things.

Hmm. I kind of thought with her bubbly, cheerful, happy veneer
systematically stripped away in a matter of hours, that other things might
become clear to her as well. There's nothing like having a big wad of
depression suddenly jump into your lap and disrupt your world enough to
make you reevaluate things.

 You've established that she's like this at the beginning of the
fic; the change needs work.

fluids. More messages of pain came in from an appendage as she could
dimly
see a bone sticking out of her leg. Sticking way out. Her body overrode
that injury and made her pay attention to what was going on inside. Her
internal organs were a mess, it felt like someone was sticking flame
throwers in her guts and firing them. Too much pain. Too much.

Yes, and here comes the promised Nuku Nuku aspect...

This is a point where abrupt transition acts very well, to shock and
surprise the reader.

Thanks.

  Unfortunately, those familiar with Nuku-Nuku have
probably already seen it coming from the start.

True. Actually, the first time I posted it was as a Ranma/?? fusion and I
wanted to see if anyone could figure out what the fusion was going to be
with before I actually spelled it out. Without mentioning it in the subject
line, this part served to be a little more dirsupting. (though pretty much
everyone that had read up to that point figured out it was with Nuku-Nuku
as soon as the car hit Shampoo)



Later:

Ack.  I don't like descriptive shorthands like this; you can establish
it's
later from context and narrative, you don't need to explicitly tell the
reader that it's later.  :/

Okay. Started off with this instead of the 'Later:'

'It felt something in the darkness where there had been nothing before.'

That seem better?


Happy birthday, Nuku-Nuku.

Ahh.  Excellent circular continuity with the opening lines.

Thanks. I thought it seemed appropriate to show how much things had
changed. Glad to see it worked.


***

General comments:

I don't have any problem at all with the central idea (Shampoo's cat brain
replacing the cat brain used to create Nuku-Nuku); it works very well,
makes a lot of sense, and presents a number of interesting possibilities.

Yep. One of the reasons I wanted to continue it. The rest of the story fell
into place.


My problems are with various aspects of the story as noted above, mainly
Mousse/Akari and Shampoo's sudden self-awareness.  I think those aspects
need work if they're to plausibly succeed.

I assume the Machiavellian surprise party plans

Heh. A good way to term that.

are necessary for what will
occur in later chapters;

Oh yes. Quite necessary for a number of reasons.

I find them a bit excessive myself, but, then
again, the Ranma characters tend to excess quite often.

Yep. And we know how often elaborate plans backfire into people's faces in
the Ranmaverse. In trying to 'do it right' the gang did their work a little
too well.


Writing, as I would expect, is excellent.

Thank you.


Basically, I think you have a good story idea here, and your central idea
is executed very well.  Work on the smaller details, as I noted above, and
it'll be a winner.

Sure. I'll look over them and see what I can do.


Eager to see the next part!

As I mentioned in the opening, that might be a while (though you never know
with the ole muse. She might get out the bitch slapping glove and start
waling away at me to write this specifically ^_^), I do intend on finishing
other projects first. I seriously do not want to end up like so many others
writers and get five different projects going at once and manage to get
none of them finished.


Ciao,
-Alan Harnum

Thanks a lot for the rather extensive C+C. It was very detailed and has
given me a great deal to think about and reconsider.

D.B. Sommer




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