On Thu, 25 Sep 1997, Gi Gi wrote:

~	Two major recommendations at the outset.  1.  If you don't have a 
spell-checker, use a dictionary.  Once you have written the story, sit on 
it for a couple of days and then re-read it.  Haste makes spelling errors.
	2.  Take your story out of the passive voice.  Active voice 
engages the reader's attention.  Also while you are doing that, watch 
your tenses.  Don't shift between present and past tenses.

Well, her is another attemp to a Ranma Fic.  Help is really 
needed.

	Evidence of haste.  here, attempt at 

-----------------
Lonely Christmas
By:  GiGi
-----------------


	The streets were covered with with ice.  Christmas songs were 
heard and kids were running up and down the street, some were laughing 
and some were yelling.  Christmas light shinned outside the streets, 
people carrying gifts, and young lovers walking side by side.

	Try something like: "Singing echoed across the icy streets, 
competing with the yelling of laughing children racing up and down.  
Christmas lights illuminated gift laden hurriers and young lovers 
strolling side by side."  shinned?

	[By the way, it's my understanding that Christmas is much more of 
a commercial celebration in essentially non-Christian Japan.  Might want 
to shift the time to New Years, much more emotional.]

	Shampoo sighed.  She stared at the scenes in front of her.  Ten 
years, it have been ten Christmas which she had celebrated all by 
herself.   She regreted she let him go.  He went away, and for these long 
ten years, she hadn't been able to find him.

	scene,  regretted,  years she hadn't... [implication here that 
she had looked?]

	Shampoo was loonely.  After she told Colonge that she didn't want 
to marry Ranma nor become the next leader of the Amazons, Colonge left 
Japan.  She knew she made the right decision about leting Ranma go.  But 
the desicion was too late.  He had gone.

	
	lonely, Cologne, letting, decision.  [Why?  What were the bases of 
these decisions?  Must be strong reasons, else Shampoo is strongly out of 
character.]

	Seven years ago, Ranma married Akane.  There was no destruction 
this time because everyone had found new love.  Ukyou with Ryoga, 
Koodachi with Mikado, Tsubasa with Akari, and Kuno with Nabiki.  She was 
the only one without love.
	Why did I let him go? Shampoo asked herself.  Now it is too late.
	Shampoo glanced at the clock.  It was already seven.  She figured 
out that there wasn't going to be more costumers.  She decided to close 
the Neotaken and go for a walk.

	"It was already seven, too late for any more customers."  You 
didn't really mean costumers, did you.  (Interesting mental picture.) 
	The Cat Cafe is the Neko-hanten.

	The streets were full of shoppers and the aroma of turkey and 
bread made everyone feel hungry, except Shampoo.  She came to a 
cross-road.  If she goes to the left, she was going to end up in the 
mall, and if she went to the right, she was going to end up in the park.
She took the right.

	Tenses: goes/went.  

	Once at the park, Shampoo sat down on a bench.  She looked around 
her, that's when she spoted two teenagers arguing.

	
	spotted.  I suspect she probably became aware of the argument by 
the sound of the voices rather than spotting an argument visually.

	"I don't want you stupid gifts!!  Can you get the point that I 
don't love you, Ivan?  I told you a million times that I only love 
Carl!!!"

	your stupid

	"But Yuki, if you will give just one chance you will change your 
mind!"
	"That's it!  I'm going!  And don't you dare to follow me!"  and 
the girl stomped away.

	probably better as 'give me just one chance, you will...'

	The scene thigered Shampoo's mind.  She remembered the times she 
had wiht Mousse.  She didn't want the girl to made the same mistake she 
did.  With a leap, Shampoo apeared in front to Yuki.

	thigered???  with same mistake she had.  appeared in front of Yuki.
[Yuki is a good name, means snow.]

	"Hi!"  Shampoo said cheerfully.
	"Umm...hi!"  Yuki said nervously. She never saw anyone jump like 
that.  "How you did that??"

	How did you do that  

	"I'll tell you soon."  during the last ten years, Shampoo has 
perfected her Jappanese.  "Is that boy your boyfriend?"

	
	During the ...  Japanese

	"Heck no!  But why do you care??"
	"I'm going to tell you a story.  Come and sit."  Shampoo gesture 
the girl to sit in one of the nearby benches.

	gestured for the girl to sit

	"Long time ago, there was a boy who was totally in love with a 
girl."  Shampoo began slowly, so Yuki could get all the details.  "But 
according to the rules of the village where they lived, a boy had to beat 
a girl in order to make her his wife.

	Erm.  Maybe 'a boy had to defeat a girl in combat in order...'  
Don't want to give Yuki the wrong idea. ^_^;;

	"The boy didn't want to get the girl like that.  He wanted to win 
her with love and not with violence.  So day and night, he would tell her 
how much he loved her, but the girl refused him.  She refused him over 
and over again, but he came back over and over agian.  He never gave up.
	"Then one day, a boy beat the girl in combat by accident.  After 
that, the girl became obssesed about him.  She told herself every night 
that that boy loved her.  But he didn't becaused he loved another girl.
	"Mean wihile, the other boy still woed her over and over, but she 
refused him.  She told him that she didn't love him.  She told him that 
she hated him.  

	Meanwhile,   wooed.  I'm not certain you *can* woo someone over 
and over.  The implication is that wooing takes place, then stops, then 
resumes.  Mousse persisted in his wooing. But I digress...

	"One day, the girl finally understood that she didn't love that 
guy who beated her in combat.  She discovered that she loved the other 
guy, but it was too late.  The guy already left.  He left without a word. 
 The girl knew that she was never going to find love.  
	"As the days passed, a lot of men came to woe the girl, but she 
refused them all.  The girl saw the shadow of the boy every time she saw 
a man.  His smile, his face, and his voice."

	guy who beat her 
	'woe' is sorrow.  Try 'a lot of men came to court the girl'.

	"Why do you tell me this story??"  Yuki asked.
	"Beacause that girl is me.  Ten years has passed, and for ten 
years I have live in total sadness.  Give that boy a chance.  I don't 
want you to end up like me."
	"But I love Carl!"  Yuki protested.
	"But are you sure that Carl loves you??  Yuki, I was once a 
teenager like you. My only mistake was to refuse that boy.  Give Ivan a 
chance.  Maybe he is right.  If you don't try it, how would you know 
he is not for you?  Don't make the same mistake I did."  with that, 
Shampoo left.  

		Ah, the key sentence.  But are you sure that Carl loves you??

	As she walked back to her appartment, two tears rolled down her 
cheek.  She asked herself why did she refused Mousse. She wished she 
could go back, but that was impossible.

	why she had refused Mousse.

	God, she thought.  How many more Christmas do I have to spent by 
myself??  How many more??

	Not a bad idea for a story.  Once Ranma has made his choice, all 
the other girls are left to pick up their lives, or fail in the attempt.  
We are still left wondering why Shampoo rejected the Amazon life and 
whether her refusal of other suitors was her realization of her love for 
Mousse.  
	Actually I have a suggestion that might account for her action.  
Have a look at my "Bedtime Story" (shameless plug), where Shampoo begins 
to consider seriously whether accepting Amazon-hood unquestioningly is 
the right thing to do.  Something of this sort is needed for us to 
believe in your Shampoo, a paragraph or so reflecting on her growing 
awareness of a life as a non-Amazon which led to Cologne abandoning her.  
Possibly tie Mousse's departure to the same development, and her 
realization - too late - that she wants Mousse to stay.  
 

S h a z o r n				No, I'm not an otaku!
<rayburn@cc.umanitoba.ca>		But I'm working on it... ^_^;