Subject: [FFML] Re: [Fanfic][Macross] The Drogan Schedule 02
From: Angus MacSpon
Date: 2/3/2003, 3:12 AM
To: Timothy Groves
CC: ffml@anifics.com


                           Disclaimer

I  don't  own  Macross.   If I did, I would be far too rich to be
bothered writing fan fiction.


02:  Situation

Hasukawa looked up at the fighter in disgust.

"Cripes.  Three years spent flyin' goddamn Valkyries.  All I want
is to be assigned a Lightning.  Is that too much to ask?"

The  plane  captain  snorted.   "If  you've been flying for three
years, why are you still only a Warrant Officer?"

"Shut up, McCoy.  Gimme this bird's list."

McCoy shut up, and handed the  gripe  list  over  to  the  rather
volatile  Warrant  Officer. "She's got no down gripes against her
at the moment."  He had to speak rather loudly;  the mecha hangar
was  a  noisy  place, what with a lance of Destroids preparing to
march.

I'm really not sure how to say this.

I like Robotech fanfiction (though I'm not sure why; I don't actually
have too many fond memories of the original series).  But I find yours
unreadable.  And for one simple reason.

Please, please, PLEASE don't justify your text this way.  It really
doesn't work.  A word processor can adjust inter-word spacing, and
even inter-letter spacing, so that fully justified text looks good
(or at least okay).

But in plain ascii text, it always looks awful.  You end up with
sentences wih two or even three spaces between words, which catches
the eye, distracts the reader, and makes the story much harder to
take in.  You need to be minimising the barriers between your story
and its audience, not throwing in extra ones.

Just because you have a program that can do this for you doesn't mean
that it's a good idea to do it, sorry.  As I said, I really couldn't
read this at all.

Angus
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