On Saturday, December 06, 1997 10:59 PM, Talswapr wrote:
A few thoughts on DOH, which was a blast to read:
Wow... I feel privileged. :)
- the opening made me think that this story was going to be
some kind of self-parody. The tone seems tongue-in-cheek,
and the physical appearance of the monster was a little too
"Hollywood."
Well, here's a brief history lesson:
This story was written as a response to the "One hour challenge". In
case you missed it, the challenge was to write a complete story in an
hour. So I wrote everything from the beginning in Australia to the
first confrontation between TOPma and TILkane. It took me forty-eight
minutes, and I posted it to the FFML. It was meant to be just a joke,
a way of contrasting my two major Ranma stories.
Obviously, I didn't spend a lot of time justifying the switch in a
small, simple, throwaway story.
What I didn't anticipate was the overwhelmingly positive reaction I
got, along with many requests to expand on the story. Everyone wanted
to know how the universes would react to the different Ranmas. Egotist
that I am, I couldn't help writing more of a story everyone wanted to
read. :)
So I just kept adding, and kept adding, and no matter how much I wrote,
people wanted to see *more*, until it became the huge fic it is now.
The downside, as you pointed out, is that what I might have been able
to get away with in a small "jokefic" looks very much out of place in a
longer, more serious story.
- it's very unusual for a woman to do any non-emergency flying
in the late stages of pregnancy, particularly transoceanic
flights.
Heh, didn't know this, although it all makes sense.
Since it's not important to the story for Ranma-TOP to have
been in Australia, it would be sensible to keep her travels
domestic.
Well, it's "important" only in the sense of trying to keep a sense of
parallelism between the two Ranmas. Each has a six-year-old child with
another on the way, each lives in the Tendo home with their spouse, and
each was just away on a trip to Australia. What do you think? Are
maintaining these parallels worth sacrificing a bit of realism?
- the scene featuring Akane-TOP really freaked me out. First
of all, it seemed a very ignoble thing for her to do, putting
Ranma through all that pain for her own benefit.
Well, she was there to try and help Ranma, with the added benefit of
testing out her own heart. But you're absolutely right, and I had a
lot of trouble with this myself. I didn't feel good about writing it
this way. Problem was, by far the most popular request was for a
TILma-TOPkane confrontation. It was hard for me to see TOPkane ever
inflicting her presence on Ranma, knowing how much pain it would cause
him. This was the best I could come up with, and I thought it would be
better to acknowledge it in the open rather than trying to have no one
notice, or to have Ranma be seemingly unaffected by her presence.
The insightful "gift" she gives him in return strikes me
as unnecessary.
Well, quite true. Again, I was at a loss to see how Akane *could*
help, so this less-than-difficult bit of reasoning was the best I could
come up with. I'd be very open to other ideas.
Secondly, beginning in The Nature of Love, Akane-TOP became
terribly verbose, her moments in the spotlight reading like
scholarly essays.
Hehehehehehehe... again, I was having the *exact* same reaction. As I
wrote paragraph after paragraph of Akane soliloquy, I kept thinking,
"Seems like she has gotten over her long-winded-speech tendencies." I
was wondering if anyone else would notice. I'll go back and try to
break it up a little.
- I was gratified that the two Ranmas were able to meet and
fight side-by-side. But I wonder if you couldn't do something
more with such an incredible scene, in which a person converses
with himself. Might not such a conversation sound much more
unusu? Maybe there would be a lot of finishing each other's
sentences.
Hmm. This I somewhat disagree with. They have evolved in very
different ways. TOPma went to four years of college and is eight years
older than TILma. Since her marriage, TOPma's life has been much less
tumultuous than "Quantum Leap" TILma's. While part of the point of the
story was to show how much alike the two Ranmas still are, I think they
are sufficiently different to prevent the "I itch, you scratch" kind of
synchronous thinking.
The reference to a significant, secret memory was a nice touch.
Stay with that a little more: perhaps Ranma-TOP could mention
other memories as "evidence" for her case, but do so in a
shorthand manner (i.e., no explanations for the benefit of
the audience).
Now *this* is a good idea. Let me think on it.
It might also be interesting to replace, in this scene,
the individual-perspective narrative that is typical of
Lawson fics, with something that captures both their
perspectives, or neither's.
Hmm. Another good idea, although I'm not exactly sure how to implement
it. Will think.
Everything else flowed very nicely for me. I especially
appreciated the scene featuring Ranma's parents and Ranko.
:) This was actually a scene no one requested; I just wanted to write
it. :)
Taleswapper
Thanks for all the great C&C. I truly appreciate it.
-Richard
sterman@sprynet.com
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