On Mon, Jun 29, 1998 at 01:56:01AM -0700, Brian wrote:

[Big snip]

	Kasumi walked around Akane and went down to the sidewalk.  She turned, heading for the dojo.  "Come along, Akane."  Kasumi's mind still puzzled over what could have possibly caused Nabiki to faint like she had.  <I hope nothing's wrong.>  With that thought in mind, Kasumi continued walking towards the dojo.  Her limp completely gone.  Akane followed slightly behind.

"Her limp completely gone." is a sentence fragment.

Interestingly enough, I pointed this out while I was prereading, and 
suggested a fix.  

I suppose, for matters of style, characterization, etc, there is room
for interpretation, and you may choose to heed or ignore the advice of
prereaders as you see fit.  However, the above sentence is most definately
grammatically incorrect.  You won't find anyone knowledgeable about English
grammar who will call it otherwise.

So, I'd have to ask what exactly the point of using prereaders is if you
aren't going to heed their advice, even in a case like this?

There are other things to consider as well.  When other people find glaring
grammatical errors in a story that I preread, what will they think of my
prereading abilities?  Probably not much.  

You generally use prereaders because you are interested in making the story
the best that you can.  Prereaders invest their time helping you do just that.
If that's not what you're interested in, why bother wasting their time?  Why
bother wasting yours, for that matter?  Why not just fire it off to the FFML
as is?

I'm not angry at you--yet.  I like the story, and think it has a lot of
potential--otherwise I wouldn't have volunteered to preread.  I'm still
willing to preread future chapters.  However, if I am going to continue
to put effort into prereading, I expect you to reciprocate by fixing 
the problems that are pointed out.  (Whether or not you fix them the
way I suggest is irrelevant, as long as it gets fixed.)

-- 
  -Sean Connor (sec@softhome.net)

    The day Microsoft produces something that doesn't suck is
    the day they start making vacuum cleaners.