David Johnston wrote:
<snip>

Comments:  Highly contrived, not very exciting and rife with spelling
errors.  Many stories, even ones like "Hearts of Ice" have begun too
soon, starting the story too far in advance of the action and I think
this story is one of them.  

Hearts of Ice started too soon?  Okay...  So, where *should* it have
started?  I'm honestly curious here, since I'll do anything to improve
one of my stories.  If you can convince me, I just might fix it.  :)

I personally think it started in just the right place (obviously, since
that's the way I wrote it).  ;p  But that's only because I happen to
like the rather Jr.-High-School-English-Class theory that most (not all
-- there are always exceptions to the rule) good stories follow a
pattern of storytelling.  Namely:  Introduction, Rising Action, Climax,
Falling Action, and Denouement.  

I believe that stories of novel length, like Hearts of Ice, can afford
to have a little bit of an introduction, as long as most of the annoying
fanfic cliches can be either avoided or somehow used in a fresh way.

Now, as far as The Chaos Chronicles are concerned, I don't really think
where the story began is the problem.  I agree that it's way too
contrived (Just another Demon-Akane/Saint Ukyo fic:  Ranma suddenly
abandons Akane -- even being willing to commit sepuku to get out of the
engagement 9_9, and runs off with Ukyo to the Masakis) without giving
any real believable explanation for the circumstances.  But maybe that's
just me.  I have to confess that as soon as Ranma started griping about
Akane's mallet beatings, I scanned the rest of the fic, and hit delete. 
Too OOC for my personal tastes.  Also, I don't usually swallow character
bashing of any kind, but least of all, Akane bashing.

Just one person's opinion, but those are my $.02 on the matter.

Krista