"Freemage ." wrote:

Date:  Tue, 27 Oct 1998 23:24:59 -0400 (AST)
From: "Philip C. Mak" <pmak@cs.dal.ca>
Reply-To: "Philip C. Mak" <pmak@cs.dal.ca>
To: Kanomi <kanomi@hisnhers.com>
cc: ffml@fanfic.com
Subject: Re: [FFML] [Ranma][Lemon] Nothing Wrong with this Picture

This was a really nicely done Ranma/Kasumi lemon. One thing that I find
frequently gets overlooked in Ranma/somebody lemons is the usage of
Ranma's girl side. Your fic did that, and showed that Kasumi didn't

mind

it at all.

Hmmm... Actually, I've been seeing a lot more of the Onna-Ranma thing in
Lemons, lately.  Still, this was a better than average example of the
concept.

Not that I want to show any big interest *grin* but, which ones? :)
Did I mention I maintain (badly and lazily) the Sakura Lemon Fan-fiction
Archive?

Just one thing which stuck out glaringly at me; the usage of male

pronouns

even when Ranma is in female form. Especially since this is a
lemon...doesn't this line sound kinda weird:

up against HIS soft, curvy frame, nuzzling at HIS breasts for a

moment,

The usage of the female pronoun also makes it easier for the reader to
ascertain what form Ranma is currently in. Personally I find fics told

>from the perspective of a character (rather than a neutral narrarator)
are

harder to follow/less clear and its harder to keep track of everything
that's going on (e.g. Ranma changing forms); using the female pronouns
when Ranma is female would really help here.

Even more helpful would be picking a verb tense and sticking with it.
You can get away with one for the current action and one for the
flashback, or you can stick to past tense for everything, but your tense
should definitely not be switching in the middle of paragraphs.

I have reread it tonight and was appaled at the number of places where I had
made those tenses faux-pas.  It's due to a change in the middle of writting
from a present tense description, to a past-tense one.  I'm revising
everything, to find all such 'errors'.

The he/she thing has been endlessly debated, and will probably continue
to be unresolved.  I think it worked here, for the simple reason that,
as the story was told from Kasumi's perspective, it reflected how she
viewed Ranma--essentially "male", regardless of form.

When I actually started writting the 'fic, the only real reason I had to use
male pronouns for Ranma as a girl was to add to the shock value of the first
scene. Then when I decided to write it as a first person story using
Kasumi's point of view, it became obvious I couldn't use female pronouns.
The Kasumi I'm writting about is not shallow, and sees in depth into people.
Such mere things as being even better rounded than she herself is wouldn't
stop her from thinking of Ranma as a he.

BTW, your quotes showed up as strange characters...there should be an
option in whatever word processor is using to make it use normal quotes
(aka turn off smart quotes)...or perhaps try saving in "MS-DOS Text"
format as opposed to just Text.

Agreed.  While Hotmail can handle the quotes when I'm reading the story,
directional quotes make it almost impossible to use source text for C&C:
The original text winds up as a bunch of gibberish.

Frankly, if Mak-kun hadn't written, I probably wouldn't have, either,
and that would have been a shame, because the story itself was very well
thought out, and deserves some good notice.

I never noticed that problem until Mr. Mak mentioned it. My Netscape mail
displaying the text perfectly.  I've corrected this (I hope) by forcing
MS-Word to save as DOS Text.

BTW, it isn't really necessary to go into too much more detail on The
Breakup (as you considered in your notes), except perhaps to explain how
they got the parents to accept the idea, and why the fathers didn't
immediately try to set up an alternate choice.

--Freemage

That was one of those things I really didn't want to touch because I can't
come up with any satisfying answers to those questions.  Soun adn Genma have
shown an incredible singlemindedness on that subject, especially for such
wimps in so many other things.


Well, right after this, I'm posting a ravised version, with those freaky
quotes fixed.

Kanomi