At 10:00 PM 8/24/98 -0500, Ranma Al'Thor wrote:
On Mon, 24 Aug 1998, Scott Pollert wrote:
Just call me John. I'm not old enough to insist people use my last name
only :)
Thank you. I've run into some people in my life who were rather insistent
about the use of the last name as being 'proper'. Better safe than sorry, I
suppose.
Yes, but I don't usually even get a brief list of major problems. Or even
a 'I liked it'. Or even 'I saw it'. I don't even get hate mail :)
Well I'll have to see what I can do to change that. (The 'I liked it' bit,
not the hate mail. ;)
BTW, when can we expect to see more of Marmalade Moon?
How do I summarize an 110 kb fanfic into a handful of paragraphs and make
it meaningful C&C?
Point out the major problems. The plot's usually harder to fix than
spelling and grammar problems, but major holes in the plot, bad
characterization, etc, can be pointed out fairly quickly.
Hmm... I'll keep this in mind. Thank you. This was rather bothering me.
Having an approach, any approach to answering it helps.
FS 6&7
Hmm... These probably weren't two of the better chapters of FS in my
opinion. Mostly because, like another poster mentioned, they were a little
*too* silly. While I usually enjoy silliness, there's an undercurrent of
darkness here that I dislike. Maybe it's just me, but the whole 'locking
Ranma into cursed form' isn't something I consider silly. You've taken away
I do. Ultimately, I consider that the constant insanity that the Ranma
cast goes through HAS to make them somewhat blase with regard to more
weirdness, especially since many of them are used to turning to cats,
ducks, etc. Do we ever see Shampoo or Mousse experience any real
psychological stress from their curses? Does Ranma even take any real
long term effort to find a cure for his curse? No.
While I understand your explanation for this, I have to point out that
you're arguing from the point of the author, and I from the reader side of
things. So far, Ranma has been stuck in cursed DJ form for close to four
chapters I believe, or close to half the posted story. And the reader
hasn't been given any clue as to when, or even *if*, he'll get unstuck.
There's a bit more anxiety from that POV I believe.
FS 8&9
These two chapters were better than the last two. By toning down the
silliness a notch, you made the chapter more palatable. I am curious as to
why you've chosen to make FS a spoofish fic more in the tone of "The
Nameless Sequel" by Mike Loader than the silly, yet serious tone of
"Putting Your Heart in the Right Place". I think that's why I had trouble
swallowing the last two chapters as well.
And some of it is simply that I dislike excessively serious Ranma fanfics
most of the time. Ultimately, Ranma 1/2 is a rather farcical comedy, and
while you CAN make it serious, the characters appear more and more
dysfunctional the more serious a tone you take unless you change them.
This is not intended to start a 'Should there be Serious Ranma fics' flame
war. It reflects my personal tastes. (I have read fairly serious Ranma
fanfics I liked; I have written a few with fairly serious elements; But my
own liking tends to run to comedy oriented Ranma fanfics)
I have no problem with fics being either silly or serious. I think that the
real problem with 6&7 was that you seemed to violate your own continuity.
Up till then, there had always been a slightly seriousness underneath all
the silliness that held everything together. In 6&7, that seriousness was
pretty nonevident and so the story seemed to go a little overboard.
Actually, I'd say that was very good C&C. I rarely get a lot of comments
which fundmentally challenge some aspect of what I'm doing without being a
'I hate you' letter. I hope this gives you a better idea of what I
was thinking when I wrote these. Thank you very much for your time.
Thank you for listening.
=====
How am I, Scott Pollert, author of no more than a half-dozen spamfics, none
of which were over 10k, suppose to criticize someone like *John Biles*,
Like you did up above! I may have written a lot, but I'm not good at
giving insightful comments. I didn't agree with some of what you wrote,
but it all showed solid thought about what I had written, and it was a lot
better done C&C than I know I've provided for some stories.
Thank you.
Well, length has nothing to do with quality. I can think of a few authors
whose work I really don't like who have produced HUGE amounts of work. I
just can't help myself; every time I try to write a short story, it turns
into an epic.
I wasn't trying to suggest that length is the only thing that seperates the
great from the good, but it does play a big role. Besides the added time to
develop characters and story, a larger fic has that much more time to
imprint itself onto its readers. Which is why some of the best loved
fanfics, are also some of the longest, like Hearts of Ice, Chasing the
Wind, or Sailor Moon Z.
I take no offence. I didn't realize I was particularly scary, though.
Thanks for commenting!
And thank you for responding so graciously.
John Walter Biles : MA-History, Ph.D Wannabe at U. Kansas
ranma@falcon.cc.ukans.edu
rhea@tass.org http://www.tass.org/~rhea/falcon.html
rhea@maison-otaku.net http://www.maison-otaku.net/~rhea/
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Scott Pollert [pollerts@hsonline.net]