Dear Reader,
This is my new, generic C&C disclaimer. I've had some problems recently with authors who have gotten a little . . .personal in their
response to my C&C. Hence, the following:

1)EVERYTHING is In MY Opinion ONLY!

2) I'm commenting on the STORY. NOTHING I say should be taken personally.  My comments and criticisms are directed at:
a) story telling
b)Dramatic Tension
c)Characterization
d)Plot

3)ALL my C&C is based on the kind of things I read and write. I am telling the author what I liked or disliked and why. I C&C as if the story were going to be published in the real world, for money. I'm suggesting
changes that, IMO, would make a better story.

4)I'm not a professional editor. And even  professional editors make mistakes.  Different people like reading different things. NEVER
try to please everyone. Write what you like, the way you like.
BUT . . .please do not jump up and down on the critic/editor because s/he didn't love your story. I'm giving my honest opinion, as clearly as I know how. 

Perhaps you disagree with me. Perhaps I am wrong. Maybe I see something you don't, and maybe you don't care. That's fine.  Fiction writing is very subjective with a lot of room for disagreement.

BUT

Please don't get personal. No sarcasm, cutting or denigrating
remarks. And no profanity.  It wastes time better spent on writing.
If you think my C&C is so far off the mark,just delete it, unread, and go on to something more interesting.

I hope this prevents any further misunderstandings.

some writing resources that may be useful:
http://members.aol.com/MacedonPg/writing.htm

http://www.realchangenews.org/StreetWrites/Exercises/index.html

http://www.sff.net/people/lwe/miscellaneous/laws.htm

http://www.dragonsquillandink.com/Resources/writing_resources.html

###########################################################################


Comments@@



"Cat Who" <tprara@catwho.net> wrote:

<SNIP> @@I suggest putting author notes at the end

of the story..

* * *

War Games

By Cat Who

* * *

Inuyasha and Ranma 1/2 belong to Rumiko Takahashi.  Noir belongs to Bee 
Train and its creators.  Tenshi ni Narumon belongs to Studio Pierrot 
and Pastel Cat. This is a work of fanfiction. I make no profit, 
although Nabiki is probably making money off of it somehow, knowing her.

* * *
Chapter One
* * *
Nerima, Tokyo, Japan
* * *

"Arms up, then to the side," Ranma Tendou said to his Advanced Class of 
Anything Goes Martial Arts.  There were only three of them that had 
reached the upper class, two of them now sixteen year olds who had 
started eight years ago when Ranma was only seventeen, and Akane.

@@ " . . .and Akane." what?
HOOK?
This paragraph is awkward and confusing as well as rather bland.
@@@@

The students followed his directions carefully.  Their master, Ranma, 
was one of the most respected martial artists in all of Tokyo, and they 
were pleased that they hard started working on one of his secret 
techniques earlier that day.  They were in the cool down now, 
stretching their tired and bruised muscles so that there would be no 
soreness that evening.

@@Still slow. And, SHOW, don't tell.
@@@@

They held the crane position stiffly, trying not to quaver as they 
stood on their toes.  Akane's grim determination was enough to force 
the sixteen year olds to push themselves to the fullest.  She had been 
in the advanced class for many years now, and really didn't need his 
instruction anymore, but it gave her a break from the monotony of being 
Mommy to their son.  She also taught one of the beginning classes 
herself, with the five year olds who were just learning martial arts. 
Most of their lesson was actually spent cleaning the dojo, but she did 
early kata with them too. Akane had taken to motherhood surprisingly 
well; even if she couldn't cook, she had a certain knack with little 
kids that Ranma himself didn't possess.  She liked them, and they liked 
her.  Even when their four year old son Sounma had been a baby Akane 
loved him unconditionally.

@@The story still isn't really progressing. And SHOW, don't tell.
This is all interesting stuff, but it doesn't belong at the start of the
story. It's best to integrate this sort of information into the story, weave it into the narrative, rather than giving it in a single large chunk of exposition.
@@@@

<SNIP> @@SHOW, don't tell. 
You're about 500 words into the story. It's almost entirely
narration, rather than action. It's bland and doesn't really
seem to advance the story.
@@@@


@@ GOOD \/

Akane stood in the middle of the dojo, her arms crossed, smiling.  
Although she managed a pretty good Chestnut Fist herself, she had yet 
to really master the technique, and probably never would.  Motherhood 
had become her first priority.  She kept trying, however, and Ranma was 
glad that she hadn't abandoned the art after they'd gotten married.

"Last class of the day," Ranma said, stretching his own arms a few more 
times as he walked toward his wife.  "The intermediate class normally 
held at six was cancelled due to school exams."

"That was nice of you," Akane said softly, and sucked on one burnt 
knuckle.  

"Is it bad?" Ranma asked, concerned.  He held the offended hand in his 
own, eyeing the reddened area critically.

"No worse than usual.  I'll put some ice on it and I'll be fine."  
Akane grimaced, and stomped one foot impatiently.  "Why am I not 
picking up speed?  I've been doing this for how many years now?"

"Six," he answered automatically.

"Six years, and I'm still nowhere near as fast as you! It isn't fair."  
Akane sighed and rescued her hand.  "Come on, Auntie Nodoka will want 
me to watch her make dinner again.  I think we both need a bath first."

"Yeah, good idea.  You go first, then."

Akane gave him a semi-smile, and trotted out of the dojo toward the 
furo.  Ranma let out a sigh of his own, and dropped to his hands and 
knees, inspecting the floor of the dojo.

"No new cracks, it looks like," he muttered to himself, and began 
crawling around.  The floor had been broken and repaired so many times 
that it was almost impossible to tell what the original stain of the 
wood had been.  The walls and the ceiling were much the same.

Bits had been replaced over the years, but the heart of the dojo went 
on.  That was the important thing.  The learning, the concentration, 
the *soul* of the students who studied here was still embedded in the 
walls themselves, even if the walls were no longer the same ones that 
the students had studied in.  The dojo was the thing, and the whole of 
the thing, whether it was the original dojo or not.

@@@@
       /\
@@Now THIS is story telling. You're SHOWING the reader
what's going on.  You're blending narration and
dialogue in a very smooth and natural way. VERY well done indeed.
You could easily start the story with this section. It still lacks a 
really dramatic hook,but it's much better than the original start.
@@@@

At least that's what the Tendous told themselves.  The insurance 
company for the house said otherwise.  The brutal truth was that their 
dojo was old, and dangerous.  More than once since they had started 
teaching classes again had a student broken through the flooring, or 
cut themselves while punching a hole in the wall.  Even though they 
didn't have a mortgage or rent on their home, their insurance premium 
was through the roof.  

And that was with classes limited to an enrollment of five.  The 
insurance agent, one of those very uptight salarymen who wore the 
perfect gray suit with the perfect gray hat and carried a perfect slim 
black leather suitcase, had hummed and hawed as he inspected the dojo, 
and glanced over the notes he had made beforehand.  He had then 
presented them an ultimatum: Either fix the dojo, or have no more than 
six people in it at one time.

@@There's a problem with this. It seems very Western, rather than Japanese.
For instance, for Y1,200 (about $12.00) you get Liability insurance
coverage up to Y100 MILLION. 
http://www.gakumu.titech.ac.jp/ryugaku/office/hoken_gaiyo.html#gakubai

This is just one source. I'm sure there are others.  But the Japanese
seem to have a much different take on insurance than the US.

The BIG outlay in running a doujou seems to be the enormous
layers of "teaching certificates" and "licences" that really amount
to bribes and extortion that go into the pockets of the bureaucrats. 
It's these "fees" that really make up the bulk of a bureaucrats salary.
I'm using "Dogs and Demons, tales from the dark side of Japan" by
Alex Kerr as a primary reference, and 
"Speed Tribes" by Karl Taro Greenfeld as a secondary reference.

I don't pretend to be an expert on Japan or the Japanese. But it's 
important to give a story set in Japan the 'flavor' of Japanese
and this just feels "Midwestern USA". It's all good writing, and
the dialogue is very well blended with narrative. It just sounds
too Westernized. 
@@@@

Unfortunately, even with a maximum capacity of six, the insurance still 
nearly broke them each month.  Tokyo had a great respect for its 
ancient buildings, like the Tendou dojo, which was at least a hundred 

@@Actually this doesn't seem to be true. For the most part, the Japanese
tear down old buildings and cover everything in concrete
and plastic. 
@@@@

years old, but it also liked them to be in a liveable condition.  They 
hadn't been able to get a martial arts teaching lisense without 
insurance, and without a liscense, they couldn't legally teach the Art.

They could't take on more students until they repaired the dojo.  They 
couldn't repair the dojo until they took more students.  It was the 
ultimate catch twenty two.  Ranma hated that there were so many things 
he *couldn't* do.  His art, his whole way of being, depended on turning 
that "couldn't" into "will."  

I will somehow find the money to repair the dojo, he vowed as he stood 
up. I will be able to teach more students the Art.  I will . . . 
somehow.

@@Good. But you've spent around 1100 words simply to tell the
reader that Ranma is in dire need of money and will do just about
anything to get it. IMO you should have done this in about 200 words
or so. You want to start the story late, that is, get into the action right away,
rather than spend a lot of time on what is essentially back-story.  It's all
well written in terms of dialogue and narrative.  But IMO, it's better integrated
further into the story, rather than presented in a large chunk at the start.
@@@@

* * *

<SNIP>

"No, Akane, we don't need any more seaweed."

"But it'd add some more texture!"

"Not even for texture, Akane.  Put the seaweed down."

@@Cute
@@@@

<SNIP>

"No, Akane, not that much sake. No!"  Pots and pans banged from the 
kitchen.

"It needs more bite to it!"

"Bite, not a roundhouse kick."

@@LOL
@@@@

The four men stared in apprehension at the kitchen, where culinary 
Things happened.

"Will she ever learn?" Ranma wondered aloud.

"Probably not," Soun said, laying down another go stone with careful 
precision.  "Although Nodoka has been a remarkable influence, I have to 
admit.  We haven't had food poisoning in almost a year."

Ranma groaned at the memory of that last disaster, but privately agreed 
that Akane was getting better.  She at least made consistantly decent 
curry nowadays.  Nodoka had forced Akane to work with a limited set of 
ingredients, and only once in a while did Akane decided to . . . 
experiment beyond that with curry.

@@Dialogue & narrative all good.  BUT, it's still very 
slow going. Nothing particularly new or interesting. It's
a very well done description of "a-day-in-the-life-of" - -
although the "Akane-can't-cook" joke has been
over done - - but it's not getting to the heart of
the story. 
@@@@

Ranma set his son back down, and Sounma immediately concentrated on the 
go game before him.  Ranma wandered over to the central table, where 
today's newspaper lay neatly, only mildly mangled after his father in 
law had finished with it.  Idly, Ranma flipped through the paper, 
noting the baseball scores, blinking at a few advertisements, pausing 
over a few headlines.  By chance, he found the classified ads, and 
something inside prompted him to find the Help Wanted section.

"Lessee . . . chef wanted, no . . . driver . . . no car, hmmm."  Ranma 
scanned them, wishing for once an ad would say something like "Martial 
Artists wanted."   No ad ever said that.  Martial artists, like kabuki 
theatre players and geisha, had a certain note of respect with everyone 
in Japan, but no one ever really *wanted* them for anything.  They just 
wanted them to stay as they were, a comforting reminder of an ancient 
culture that had only decided to take a little break from tradition in 
the interest of becoming a world power.

Then, defying that logic, Ranma saw an advertisement from the Sony 
corporation.

"Seeking qualified martial artist to pose for 3D gaming platform in 
development.  Prefer a medium build," Ranma glanced down over his mid-
sized, wiry frame, "with many years experience.  We need an excellent 
male and female model.  Please enquire in person only.  Bring this 
advertisement to our Personel Department, 26th floor, Sony Building, 
Tokyo."

@@Now THIS section is good. IMO, you should have a _brief_ section
about their desperate need for money, THEN go directly to Ranma
job-hunting. 
IF you need to introduce any of the other information (Akane's cooking
Playing Go, Nabiki & Kasumi have moved out, etc.) You can do so late in the
story.
@@@@ 

@@Almost 2,000 words that could easily be reduced
to 300-500 at most.
@@@@




<SNIP>

@@You've got a good grasp of dialogue and narrative.
Every thing flows smoothly and naturally. I'd prefer a little
richer and more descriptive narrative, but that's an iffy sort 
of thing.

The story line is interesting as well and shows real imagination.
I like how you've set things up to draw Ranma into whatever he's
being drawn into. It has a very realistic feel to it.

Problems?
1)TOO slow. No HOOK at the start, which is mostly 
exposition. 
2)To much 'filler' material. Akane's cooking, Genma & Souun 
playing "Go", the 'martial arts class', etc. it's interesting and well
written, but NOT at the start of the story.

START with Ranma needing money, then go to the Want Ad in the 
newspaper.
OR
START with the 'demons'. It would take some minor tweaking,
but the scene with them talking about 'posted the ad in Nerima' or
some variation that used demons  would make a better start than
 a rather ordinary day in the doujou. 
 Demons placing newspaper ad's is a pretty good hook.

CUT out the fluff. You've got a good story here, but it's buried
in non-essentials. 
You've got about 6500 words. Cut it to around 4000 words.
This will give you a tighter, faster paced story with more
punch. And gives you a better chance of 'Hooking' the
reader from the start.
All of what you've written is useful to you the author 
in fleshing out the story - -in your mind - -, but it's not necessarily
 going to end up  in the story you present to the reader. Some of it '
at least would be better off placed elsewhere in the story, in later
 chapters perhaps. And probably integrated into the story line, 
rather than in chunks of exposition. 

It's really very good, but needs editing. You've got to 'Hook'
the reader early on, and make if faster paced to keep the reader
interested. 


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