C&C time!
Remember, this is all my opinion, so feel free to ignore anything that you
don't agree with.

On 4/15/07, Kinai <kinai@mixmail.com> wrote:

Hi.

It has been a long time since I sent any chapter to FFML. I hope that
everybody like this.

Disclaimers:
- Ranma belongs to Rumiko Takahashi.
- This story is made for fun and is meant for the enjoyment of the fans.
- I have to thank Kirra for revised the prologue. Thank you very much.
- Please R&R.
- If anybody wants be a pre reader and help me you only have to e-mail me.
I would be
happy to accept. Thanks.
-----------------------------------------Chapter 1: Secrets Unveiled.

Nodoka was drinking tea quietly in the living room of the Tendo's house.
Little volutes of
steam rose from the hot liquid. The warm cup laid between the delicate
hands of Nodoka,
who from time to time, brought it near her lips and drank a sip.

The tranquillity and silence reigned in the house and only the martial
shouts of the
students, muffled by the distance, challenged this calm.

Martial shouts?  You mean the shouts of people practicing martial arts?

=93Good afternoon.=94 Nodoka greeted them with a smile while she stood up;
however neither
teenager returned the greeting.

Did you copy and paste directly from MS Word by any chance?  The inverted
commas didn't translate awfully well to ASCII characters.  Try saving the
fic in text format first.

Ranma stood by the entrance of the living room with his eyes fixed on the
floor, avoiding
eye contact with his mother. At his side, Akane stared at him. Her hands,
crossed in front
of her, held her school-bag with so much strength that her knuckles had
turned white.

After a moment of odd silence among the three, Ranma looked at Akane. She
frowned and
pointed at Nodoka with a slight movement of her head. Ranma turned towards
his mother.

Why would Ranma avoid his mother's eye contact?  That tends to imply that he
is uncomfortable in her presence, or being deceitful, or being unusually
deferential to her.  The dynamic between Ranma and Akane that you have
described here is that Akane is the one pushing Ranma to talk to his mother;
in which case, he might be avoiding _her_ gaze rather than his mother's.

In any case, I'm not sure that Ranma would be so passive.  Whether he likes
to admit it or not, it's pretty clear how he feels about Akane by the end of
the manga, and he's just been told that his mother didn't really want them
to get married.  I think that he'd want answers from her, and he'd be pretty
upfront in trying to get them.

Also, Akane seems a little passive.  Why wouldn't she just ask the questions
herself?

Akane huffed and started to repeatedly hit her school-bag with her
forefinger.

Uh... Bakusai Tenketsu doesn't work on schoolbags, Akane.  :-)

________________________________________

While the sound of the bell, which indicated the end of the class, echoed
throughout the
halls, Ranma stretched in his chair to get the stiffness out of his
muscles. At his side,

Awkward phrasing.

Something along the lines of:
"The sound of the bell echoed through the halls, indicating the end of the
class.  Ranma stretched out in his chair, trying to get the stiffness out of
his muscles."
reads a little better, IMO.

Akane went to talk with her friends while the rest of his classmates stood
up, started to
clear their tables or talk among them. Ranma took his school-bag, opened
it and, without
hurry, started to put away his books; until he felt unexpectedly, that
somebody pulled his
arm gently. On raising his head he met Ukyo's inquisitive glance.

Actually, this whole paragraph is phrased oddly.  I can work out what's
going on, but it's not being presented terribly clearly.

=93Why have you been avoiding me all week?=94 She asked seriously, yet
almost in a whisper, so
no one, especially Akane, could hear her.

"...avoiding me all week?" she asked seriously...

It's still the same sentence, so you don't need a capital S in she.

=93Come on Ranma! Don't tell me that you really wanted to get married.=94
She answered in an
amusing and slightly sarcastic tone.

An amusing tone, or an amused one?

Neither realised that Ukyo's laugh have caught Akane=92s attention, and
this one approached
them with an angry face. But Ukyo continued on, so Akane couldn=92t
interrupt her, either
Ranma added anything

Really awkward phrasing again.  Try rereading your story out loud; it will
really help highlight this type of things.

"This one", I'm guessing, is referring to Akane?  "Approached them with an
angry face" could be replaced with something like "approached them, an
expression of anger on her face".

Also, has Ukyou seen Akane approach, or hasn't she?  I guessed here that she
had, but only a few lines down you refer to Akane being behind Ukyou.

Ranma looked at Ukyo who saw clearly in the face of her fianc=E9 the
surprise and confusion
that her words had caused. The idea that Ranma didn=92t know anything
about the plans of her
mother assailed Ukyo. A question pronounced in a low voice at her back
interrupted her
thoughts.

I'd take that "Ranma looked at" off the beginning of this paragraph.  It
implies that the subject of the sentence is Ranma, when in fact, it is
Ukyou.

=93Why?=94

Ukyo=92s words had stopped Akane just when she had gone to grasp the
shoulder of her rival;

Ukyou's words?  Which words?  Was Akane reaching out to Ukyou prior to
asking her question?

so when the young chef turned around, she met Akane=92s half-outstretched
arm. Ukyo noted
that Akane=92s hand shook slightly and her face had the same expression of
surprised and

Correction: surprise, not surprised

disbelief of Ranma=92s. Akane didn=92t pay attention to Ukyo. Her eyes
were fixed on Ranma,
with the vain hope to find an answer to her question.

=93Why?=94
________________________________________

Ranma finished his story and the silence returned to the room. Akane had
stopped to hit

Stopped doing what to hit her schoolbag?  Or stopped hitting her schoolbag?

her school-bag and both teenagers observed Nodoka with the hope that this
one refuted
Ukyo=92s words. However Nodoka merely continued looking them with a sad
expression. All that
could be heard during a few minutes were the deadened noises in the dojo
and the birds
chirping outside.

Akane's anger had risen greatly after seeing Ukyo talking to Ranma, but
the words of Ukyo
had covered her rage with surprise and confusion. Nodoka's inappropriate
and rude question
filled Akane with rage; a rage hidden under her surprise, but which was
fed by her confusion.

=93Since when do you care about our opinion?=94

Ranma and Nodoka looked at her surprised by her outburst. Akane had the
head lowered, her
glance fixed in the floor, her shoulders sank and all her body trembled
with rage.

Correction: Akane had _her_ head lowered

=93Now it turned out that you told Ukyo to sabotage our wedding. Why? Do
you enjoy fucking
with our lives??=94

Akane rose her head on saying the last question, and Ranma=92s mother
could see the tears
that flowed down by Akane=92s cheeks. Nodoka sighed and shook her head.

Why is Akane crying?  Nodoka hasn't told them at this stage _why_ they can't
get married.  She's frustrated by all of the perceived interference in their
engagement, but I just can't see Akane breaking down in tears just yet.

=93You don=92t understand. You and Ranma can=92t marry.=94 Nodoka=92s tone
emphasized the
impossibility of this union.

=93Why?=94 Ranma exclaimed before Akane could react.

=93Because you and Akane are siblings.=94 Nodoka said.

The big question is why Nodoka has, up until then, approved of the marriage
if she knew that they were siblings.  She does have some wierd ideas about
relationships, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't extend to incest.

No, the only way this could work is if she only just found out herself, and
given that it is Nodoka rather than Genma you're talking about (i.e. a woman
rather than a man), you're a little limited with options.  For instance, she
would know if she had given birth to two children or none.  She would also
know if she'd had an affair with Soun Tendou, and become pregnant a short
while afterward.  However, she wouldn't know if Genma had an affair with Mrs
Tendou, so that's a possibility.

________________________________________

TBC...

Kinai.

Overall, it does seem a fairly short (only one scene, or one and a bit if
you count the flashback), but if it's only a prologue it's probably okay.
I'd prefer to see the chapters get longer and more indepth as you go along,
otherwise you run the risk of skimming over too much of the story.

Also, I did find it a little flat.  You seem to be writing in third person
omniscient style; it's very flexible, but one of the side-effects of it can
be to leave the reader passively watching the scene rather than feeling and
experiencing the scene from inside a character's head.  You have a really
good opportunity to get inside the characters' heads with this story; don't
waste it!  :-)

Hopefully, some of this helps.  I'm interested in seeing where you head with
the next chapter.

--
Rebecca

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