FFML Draft- C&C greatly appreciated, public or private.

Well, it's coming.  I'll warn you now that I'm pulling no punches.
Spoilers ahead.  Snippage throughout.

"Rain, rain, rain! Why does it always have to rain all the time here?!"
Ami gritted through her teeth, holding a book above her head, but
clutching the rest of her books to her chest. "I can't get these books
ruined, or I'll be in big trouble!"

This is a good opening.  You juxtapose Ami's traditional role as
senshi of water with a girl who hates water...

[...]

A fanfiction based on premise of Ranma 1/2 Using characters of Ranma
1/2 and Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon,

It would be polite to add that Rumiko Takahashi created Ranma,
and Naoko Takeuchi created BSSM.

"An old friend of mine and I made an agreement, long ago, that one of
you would be engaged to his son." Soun cleared his throat as the
daughters blinked in surprise, "My friend has a son by the name of
Ranma Saotome, and if one of you were to marry him and carry on
Anything-Goes Arts, Tendo family legacy would be secure..."

I was really hoping I wouldn't see this.  Everybody's seen the
postcard-arrival-son-grope-dojo-bath-flashback scenes a zillion
times before.  You're not making any significant changes, so snip
the whole thing out.

Doing so will make it more likely that people will read your fic.
A lot of readers don't want to be bothered reading the same thing
again and again.  They'll skim through, looking for the new parts,
and possibly miss something you've changed.  Many will just toss it
aside, figuring that it isn't worth the bother.

I would suggest you delete everything up to the second bath scene.
More on that later.

[...]

Ami didn't see Ranma scowling before she resumed her practice. "Why did
I offer to train her? She's a girl! But... she sure looks cute when she
smiles. Weird, her hair color's blue. Oh, well, she looks cuter that
way.

This sounds really contrived.  *Why* does she look cuter because she has
blue hair?

[...]

"And YOU turn into a panda." Ranma replied boredly, as if he had
witnessed the event before.

Boredly isn't not a word.  Perhaps "lazily"?

[...]

"How? I mean, that's impossible!" Ami finally managed, gaping at the
_size_ of the creature. If she wasn't mistaken, Genma must've gained an
extra 200 pounds of body weight, but that was scientifically
impossible.

So far this is the most interesting part of the fic for me.  At least
as a hint of things to come.  It might be interesting to see what Ami
puts Ranma and Genma through to establish how the curse works.

Obviously she's no Washu, but I can see her repeated splashing them with
water of varying temperatures, to establish *exactly* what temperature
is needed.  Possibly radio-tagging Genma's clothes to establish where
they disappear to...

[...]

"My life, yes..." Ranma-onna clenched her fists, then stormed out of
the pond and drenched her father with a nearby pail of water. "But not
my *manhood!*"

Typically, it's Onna-Ranma (Girl-Ranma), not Ranma-onna (Ranma-girl).

[...]

Ranma laughed, mindless of Ami's increasing temper. Mindless of the
impending danger, she continued, "And there's no way I'm gonna marry
some brainless tomboy--"

Why on earth would Ranma call Ami a tomboy OR brainless, when all
evidence is to the contrary?  A much better insult would be to call
her a bookworm.  He could also suggest that she's *lucky* to be engaged
to him.  Otherwise, there's no other way she could catch a husband,
and she'd end up as an old maid.

[...]

"If you're so uncute, it makes me wonder how dumb you are!"

Uh, this doesn't make sense.

"Don't worry about Ami. She's really sweet girl. She's just slightly
obsessive-complusive in her nature." Kasumi explained.

Only, Ami hasn't demonstrated *any* obsessive-compulsiveness...

These insults were the weakest part of the fic.  There is too much
of Ranma's insults to *Akane* in here.  There's no reason to call Ami
unfeminine or uncute; the dojo scene established that she isn't the
tomboy that Akane is.

Try to think of original comments Ranma might make that are more
appropriate to what happened *here*, not what happened in the
original.

[...]

She sighed as she relaxed in the furo. She shouldn't have let her
temper get out of control like she had against Ranma. Ami knew better
than that, yet she couldn't understand how easily he had managed to
make her lose her cool so quickly. For some reason, the aquatransexual
(which had been the term she had coined to describe Ranma and his
unique curse that seemed to defy logical explanation) had been creating
some unusual sensations inside her; certainly, she never had been this
excited before. It was an one-time opportunity for her to give her shot
in analyzing Ranma and his father's curse personally. It was something
about Ranma's arrogant pride that made her feel unease.

This is where the fic should really start.  Well, after the introductory
collision in the rain.  Use this scene to have Ami remember and/or think
about the encounter in the dojo, Ranma's insults, AND her thoughts on the
curse.

Include the reference to the marriage, but put it first.  It will
provide the context to the readers that this takes place in the first
chapter of Ranma.  They'll be able to fill in the rest.

After drying herself off, she stepped up to the bathdoor and slid it
open, only to face a very surprised female Ranma.

Bath door.  Two words.

No doubt many of you're wondering where this came from. Well, Akane and
Ami happens to be my favorite characters from their respective series
(Ranma 1/2 and Sailor Moon), and I was bit surprised that among some
Akane fans, Ami had been their favorite as well. Also, I also found out
that there was several hentai Akane/Ami images out there in the net,
and they might have had some influence.

It's always a dangerous idea to write a fic with a character just
because you like them.  Usually authors doing this don't address the
faults of the character, making them appear too perfect.  These
characters are uninteresting, and do not make for good fic material.

Plus, you're taking some things for granted (e.g., Ami is cute because
she has blue hair), that other readers might not agree with.

Now few people would want to write a story starring a character they
*didn't* like, but you have to be careful.  You still need a plot in
addition to the characters, and unfortunately, I don't see one here.
This is just Takahashi's introduction with a few slight changes.

Fortunately, though, you have not protrayed as a perfect character.
I do notice some biases, though.

Taking this into account, an idea popped into my mind. What if I
replaced Akane with Ami of Sailor Moon, and how would she react to
having Ranma as her finacee? In this fusion, Ami is NOT Sailor Mercury,
and will never be. This is Ranma 1/2, and Senshi do not exist.

Fiance.  And there's one 'e' for male, two 'e's for female.

If you drop the senshi angle, I would also encourage you to play up
water problems for Ami.  It's a good counterpoint to what people expect.

Your intro reminded me of an SF short story with this guy who was
always being rained upon.  He hated it.  He never found out, but
apparently he was really a rain god, and the clouds were worshiping
him.  ^_^



I'm going to have to reserve judgement on this fic.  There's promise
here, but I really want to see the "new stuff".  I think you fell into
the trap of alternate reality fics where you felt the need to start at
the beginning.

You don't; we all know the background.  What we want to see the
*alternate* part of the reality.

Good luck writing,


Doug

----
Douglas MacDougall     Art and fiction available at my homepage:
dougmacd@thecia.net    http://www.thecia.net/~dougmacd/fanworks/