On Fri, 16 Aug 1996 15:48:43 -0400 yinyang said:
: Pic's author:
: Richard Lawson...
: Pic's favorite fanfic by him: Heart of the Family.
: Pic's least favorite fanfic by him: Manual Not Included.
: Then it came; the fanfic was called "Manual Not Included."
: Remembering the excellent storytelling of "Heart of the Family,"
: I sat down in front of the computer and started reading this. It
: was horrible. This was a joke to his writing skill. This story
: was another parody of those "author in his own fics" type
: fanfic. I thought when I wrote "Peter's Journey," they got the
: point. Obviously, Richard Lawson did not read my story or what
: not.
*Or* he didn't see in _Peter's Journey_ what he wanted to express
in _Manual Not Included_. If someone posts a "Ranma and Akane
fall in love" fic, are you going to comment that this was done
already?
: One of Richard's problems is that I don't feel that his
: stories flow. Richard's blocky layout gives me the feeling that
: he wrote paragraphs, cut them out, and then paste them back up
: again. Obviously he doesn't know what indent is, but that is
: okay. On the other hand, he triple spaces between every
: paragraph. That really helps in reading because the eyes don't
: see that many text ar once; however, it feels that there is
: something missing in between the text. So I feel like they
: paragraphs are not flowing together. One way to solve this is if
: Richard can find a better transition to one paragraph to another.
I don't want to be the first to tell you, but paragraph formatting
doesn't really figure that highly with most of us, when we assess
someone's writing abilities. *Form* and *Content* are two
different things that should be viewed separately.
Besides, anyone who has a half decent editing program can
search/replace the blank lines to simple linebreaks with indent.
Reformatting text to one's liking is one of the things that
computers are so good at.
: One of other problem's with Richard is that the use of
: Japanese. I was horrified with his first draft of "Heart of the
: Family." Kasumi called her YOUNGER sister "Oneechan." That
: really mad me sick. Being Asian, I couldn't bear that, for I
: would never call my younger brother "older brother." However, he
: did fix this in the later version. Also, many authors benefit
: from using Japanese in their fics. Richard is not one of them.
: I feel that he doesn't know when to put the Japanese in the
: stories. I think Richard is an extremely good writer to put
: cliched Japanese phrases into his fics. I am glad that he
: stopped using them.
I have to agree here. He *tried* to use non-clicheed words, but
he screwed up a few times with them. His fics really don't *need*
them, to feel true to the characters.
: Last flaw about Richard, he does not do comedy. I don't
: find any of his jokes funny, if they were meant to be jokes;
: especially in "Manual Not Included," I did not find that very
: amusing.
That's all down to personal preference. I'll grant you that
comedy obviously doesn't come easy to him, but when he puts it in,
it's usually good. God, that scene where Nabiki comes home from
the prom, Akane asks her how it was and the following takes place:
Nabiki answered dreamily. "A little disappointing. I understand it
gets better, though."
Akane gaped at her. "What?"
Nabiki started. "Uh, it was fine, the prom was fine."
This makes me laugh out *every* *time* I read it - and that
includes just now, when I copied it here. :)
: Well, these are my opinion and thoughts. Your thoughts and
: opinion may differ. Don't flame me on how you disagree, how I
: overlooked this and that, how I'm stupid, and so on. Nobody's
: mind think alike. Oh, I know I have grammar mistake in this, so
: don't flame me for that either.
Depends.
What exactly do you mean by "Don't flame me"? "Keep your answers
civil, even if you don't agree" or "Don't you dare criticize me or
my opinions"? I'll just assume that you meant the former. :)
: Next author: Plunger (Martin Bennett)
Oooh, you'll have quite a lot of ground to cover, then. He's a
prolific one (and not half bad, either).
Sebastian (Whose mind actually *does* think alike - only they
haven't found out, alike to *what*)