Subject: [FFML] [FIC] (Inspired by: Re: Re: (No Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2005 06:42:39 -0500)
From: Raye Johnsen
Date: 4/26/2005, 8:12 PM
To: ffml@anifics.com



--- Joe Fenton <jlfenton@npgcable.com> wrote:

Using MS WORD is the _worst_ thing a writer can do.

Since Mr. Tynes has not taken up the gauntlet....

_______

Akane came running into the living room, vaulting
lightly over the kotetsu and landing facing the
sliding panels that led to the verandah, her arms
windmilling slightly on landing, drawing attention to
the leaves of white paper in her hand.

Nabiki looked up from her newspaper, having seen the
paper from the corner of her eye, and asked lazily,
"What's that, Akane?"

"Huh?  Oh, it's a creative writing assignment for
school.  Here, read it over for me?"

The pages being thrust into her hands over the
newspaper, Nabiki had little choice but to do as her
sister asked.  She sighed and took the pages.

Ten seconds in, her left eyebrow started twitching.

A further ten seconds later, her other eyebrow joined
in.

Her nose started twitching thirty seconds later.

She laid down the first page, and her hands clenched
on the remaining sheet.

Nabiki finally laid down the second sheet, and picked
up the cup of tea that had been sitting before her,
and sculled it, with the air that she dearly wished it
was and was severely disappointed that it had not
spontaneously become sake.

"So what did you think?" Akane asked anxiously.

Nabiki took a deep breath.  "You need to use a
spellchecker.  Also a grammar checker.  Remind me to
get you a thesaurus for your birthday.  Also, I
clearly need to explain proper paragraphing and
punctuation to you, but in the meantime, commas are
your FRIEND, and when in doubt, USE the apostrophe."
She looked at the now-empty cup of tea longingly. 
"Your plot was cliche and you didn't spend enough time
fleshing out the characters, so they didn't feel real.
 You used incredible coincidences to resolve your plot
without explanation and everything ended too quickly
and neatly."

Despite this list of faults, Akane was grinning. 
"Anything else?"

Nabiki shook her head.  "Not that I could see, no."

Akane nodded decisively.  "Right.  I'll have to
reformat it into HTML or something and then send it to
a plain-text ML and print it out from there, to
totally muck up the formatting."

Nabiki blinked.  "Why would you do that?"

Akane giggled.  "Because the assignment is to write a
story using the worst things a writer can do, of
course!"

______

The Worst Thing A Writer Can Do

by Raye Johnsen
raye_j@yahoo.com

"Ranma 1/2" is copyright Rumiko Takahashi, Shogakukan,
Kitty Film, Viz Communications, and associated
parties, ie, NOT ME.

Because choice of word processor is, IMHO, *way* down
the list....

Raye 

raye_j@yahoo.com
livejournal: http://www.livejournal.com/users/windtear
http://www.thejohnsens.com/index.html

"It 'went away'?  'I dwell in darkness without you'
and it WENT AWAY?"
  -- Sorcha, 'Willow'

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