At 10:08 PM 1/24/00 PST, "Peter Vela" <bluezboy@hotmail.com> wrote:
"'Ey Nabs, watcha doin?"
When replacing the first letter of a sentence with an apostrophe to
indicate a dropped vowel or consonant, the apostrophe is treated as the
first letter--thus, this should be: "'ey, Nabs, whatcha doin'? (The
apostrophe to replace 'g' at the end of the sentence is also missing)
Nabiki acknowledges Ranma with a mere nod of her head as she peers quite
intently at the computer screen. From what Ranma can tell, Nabiki is very
amused with something she had just been reading.
Writing in the present tense often sounds awkward, and this is one such
time. You also need to settle on a narrative voice; is this from Ranma's
third-person limited perspective (as "From what Ranma can tell" suggests),
or is it from an omniscentient perspective (as later parts describing
Nabiki's mind and actions without the filter of Ranma's perspective appears
to suggest). A lack of clear narrative voice is often a sign of an
inexperienced writer.
Curiosity aroused, Ranma pulls up a chair and joins her.
I wonder about this. Why would Ranma be interested? He's never displayed
the slightest enthusiasm for anything computer-related before this; I get
the feeling you had a story you wanted to tell and simply used Ranma in the
belief that it would make your story more popular.
Nabiki turns her head slowly and regards Ranma in a way one regards a
blissfully ignorant child.
This is what I meant by confusion of narrative voice. Omniscient or
limited perspective? You have to make a choice.
"Nooo... see the AFML labels on almost all the messages? They're from a
mailing list."
Wow, just like this one! What a coincidence.
"Mailing list for wha'?"
Ranma's diction seems even worse than usual. He comes across sounding like
a hick with all the dropped letters, instead of someone whose speech
patterns are simply rather rough. Generally, when speaking, you can drop
the end consonant if it doesn't leave a vowel dangling ("Mailin' list", for
example). People generally don't drop the ending consonant if it leaves
the vowel dangling, however ("Wha'", for example) as that makes the meaning
of the word unclear. It's good advice (at least, until you get good enough
at writing dialogue to do it automatically in your head) to read out the
conversations in your stories to make sure they sound natural for the
character.
"A mailing list for anime amateur fiction on the web."
Technically, this should be "A mailing list for anime amateur fiction on
the Internet." The web is not the Internet, and vice-versa. Getting facts
like these right are more important than a lot of people seem to think.
"Jeez! Ya' already spend half the day laying around readin' those romance
mangas!"
"Ya" is a substitute for "You", not an abbreviated word created by dropping
the ending letter. The apostrophe is not necessary. Not only that, but
Ranma's statement goes against a lot of what we know about Nabiki; where in
the manga do we see her reading romance mangas? She's hardly a romantic
soul, as the story in parts 9-13 of Volume 29 of the manga demonstrates.
Nabiki smiles sheepishly at the martial artist.
Sheepishly? Nabiki sheepish? Doesn't fly. The characters seem to be OOC
for no reason other than that you want them to be; another mark of a story
idea grafted onto the Ranma universe without any thought put into how to
make it fit.
"Yeah, well it is addictive. Especially the AFML. It's basically taken over
my life... by the way Saotome, what do you think your doing in my room??"
Was this the moment where you realized that Nabiki's behaviour up until now
was extremely OOC? The fix doesn't work at all. "what do you think you're
{watch those synonyms, too} doing in my room?" should have come at the
start, but then, I suppose, you wouldn't have been able to do all the
heavy-handed exposition.
And... Nabiki addicted to an anime fanfic mailing list? Nabiki wouldn't
deign to be a member of any anime fanfic mailing list I've ever seen; she's
got better things to do than that. There's no profit in writing fanfic.
The only member of the Tendo household I can really see getting into fanfic
would be Kasumi; after all, she's home all day with nothing to do, doesn't
appear to have much of a social life, and might enjoy the chance to take on
another persona.
"Oh, Akane told me to tell yo..."
The ellipses indicate that Ranma is trailing off in his speech, rather than
being interrupted, as the incomplete "you" and the next paragraph would
appear to indicate.
A dash indicates an interruption of speech; ellipses indicate trailing off.
It's fairly simple.
"Nabiki!!! When're you getting off the line! All I can hear are beeps when I
pick up the phone!!!"
Okay... where to begin? First of all, too many exclamation marks; no need
for more than one of them after each sentence, and the second sentence
should have a question mark instead of an exclamation mark.
Secondly, "When're" is an improper contraction to be made by Akane, whose
diction is generally quite good.
Thirdly, why wouldn't Nabiki, easily having enough money to pay for it, get
a second line, or even ISDN or cable? If she's become so addicted to the
Internet, she certainly wouldn't hesitate--the story where she buys the
concert tickets shows that she isn't miserly.
Nabiki faces the kitchen destroyer with a cool expression on her face.
The "kitchen destroyer"? Oh, I see, it's the "bitch goddess"
characterization of Akane. Since Ranma and Nabiki are OOC, I guess you
decided to make an even set.
"Akane.. who pays the bills in this house?"
And here come the fanfic cliches. Family wealth (the size of the Tendo
house alone indicates a wealthy background) is much more likely to be the
major bill-payer in the Tendo household; Nabiki is never seen in the manga
to contribute a cent towards household expenses, and everything we know
about her character suggests that she never would.
Ranma swears inwardly that he can see the steam rising out of Akane's ears
and nostrils as she slams the door on her way out. He breathes a heavy sigh
of relief.
Yup, definitely the "bitch goddess".
"I think you�re the only person that can talk to her like that and walk away
in one piece."
Nope. Akane never goes after noncombatants, and the only one she ever
really overreacts to is Ranma--even then, he'd have to do something worse
than tying up the phone line and refusing to get off for her to get
violent. Akane responds mostly to personal insults (which Ranma seldom
hesitates to deliver), not simply to people doing things that annoy her;
look at, for example, the Tsubasa story in the manga.
Nabiki smirks. "Of course... she might be a hot shot martial artist, but I'm
her big sister and I�ll still kick her ass when the need arises."
"Amen."
Totally OOC. Ranma never shows this kind of hostility towards Akane in the
manga, and, as he has repeatedly demonstrated through his actions, is very
protective towards her when she's attacked or insulted.
She turns back to the screen and begins typing away furiously.
"Whad'ya doin now?"
Writing a better fanfic than this one? Let's hope so.
"Sending a test message."
What daring. I'm sure it will make her a hero to everyone on the mailing
list.
"But wasn't that last message from a guy that got banned for sending one?
If he got banned for sending one, it would be difficult for him to send a
message. You need to construct your sentences so that the meanings are
clear. e.g.:
"But didn't the last guy who sent one get banned?"
"Ya� got that right, Saotome. Test messages are a no-no�
Where to begin, redux.
a) "Ya", not "Ya'" (it's also not a good idea to use special characters).
b) "..." not "�" (special characters again).
c) You forgot the ending quotation mark.
"Heh? Won't you get banned?"
If the moderators are on their toes, probably. Test messages waste
everyone's time, which is why they're generally banned from most MLs. Then
again, they might be merciful, warn Nabiki not to do it again, and see what
happens.
"Hope not. But it doesn't matter, it's only a temporary ban anyway.
Also� there�s this one moderator� he�s a bit blunt and smug when it
comes to his replies. I think he takes life waaayyy too seriously, so I
reckon I�ll brighten up his day.
If Nabiki's test message is of the calibre of this one, I suspect the
moderator would have to have a deficient sense of humour for that to occur.
But I'm just doing this for fun. I'm trying
to find a way around the mailing list rules. Nobody, and I say nobody,
outwits Nabiki Tendo.�
Where to begin, Part 3...
a) Lose the special character at the end of the speech (�->")
b) Why such pointless, silly, childish actions from Nabiki? There's no
profit involved in an action such as this; Nabiki doesn't generally do
things that could get her in trouble unless there's profit at the end.
Ranma grins at Nabiki�s enthusiasm. "How�re ya' gonna do that."
Where to... oh, never mind.
a) Lose the special character in "Nabiki�s"
b) Remove the extra space in ""How�re ya'"
c) I'd mention how OOC it is to have Nabiki and Ranma all buddy-buddy like
this, but I'd only be repeating myself.
"Well, if I put the test message in a form of a fanfic, the moderators might
not be able to anything about it."
Perhaps not. The moderators of a mailing list are, after all, bound by the
rules laid down in the charter of the list. But it's not only the
moderators who are in charge of the list; each list generally also has one
or more owners, who physically own the servers that the list is run off of,
and put their own time, energy and money into providing the list, free of
charge, to the listmembers.
One of the things these owners can do is deal with people who are breaking
the spirit of the rules, if not the letter.
"Cool."
No, it isn't. It's a childish act of defiance that wastes the time of the
moderators, the time of the listmembers, and the resources of the list.
"Naturally. So while it's essentially a fanfic, it's a test message as
well...anyway, I haven't sent anything to the AFML yet and this is pretty
exciting for me. It's like the equivalent of having my name up in neon
lights!"
Just like Reverend Prez. I'm sure a lot of you remember him.
There is a difference between negative attention and positive attention.
Perhaps someone should explain it to Nabiki.
Ranma, one eyebrow raised and looking at Nabiki with a strange expression,
exits the room without another word.
What, not another "Cool", to have Ranma mindlessly affirm Nabiki's actions?
"Now to send this sonovabitch... (took me long enough to write it)"
Sadly, probably not as long as it took me to C&C it. On to part 2...
�Shit. I can�t believe I got away with it! Muwehehehe!�
Where to...
a) Lose the special character quotation marks. (I'm going to stop
mentioning this, as you should know it by now; they recur throughout the fic.)
b) People sometimes do get away with these things once, generally with a
warning. If they push, however...
Turning in her brand new Ikea ergonomically correct swivel seat, Nabiki sees
Ranma poking his head through her bedroom doorway. Immediately composing
herself, Nabiki assumes the superior, but sexy expression that we all know
and love.
Correction: "Nabiki assumes the superior but sexy..." ("but sexy" modifies
"superior"; therefore, no comma.)
�Well, I heard that hyena laugh that I have nightmares about and thought
Kodachi took to attacking you.�
�Do you SEE Kodachi anywhere in here??�
Too bad. Kodachi might make things interesting. Then again, on prior
evidence, she'd probably be OOC.
�Good thing you don�t have a cathedral ceiling like Akane�s room, Nabs.�
Cathedral ceiling? No; even a glance at the scene (in Viz Volume 2) where
Kodachi is clinging to the ceiling of Akane's room makes it clear that the
ceiling is flat.
Nabiki snorts as she observes Ranma with a dry expression.
�Saotome, IS there anything else??�
Remarkable. Not only is Nabiki OOC compared to the manga, she's OOC
between the two parts of the story. The first part has her all buddy-buddy
with Ranma as they join forces to bash Tomboy Wench Akane, and the second
part has her treating him like yesterday's garbage. If you can't be
consistent with the manga, at the very least try to be consistent within
your story.
Looking suitably shocked, Nabiki righteously chastises the younger Saotome.
�It�s a fanfic thank you very much, and I expect you to address it in the
appropriate manner.�
a) Join these two paragraphs into one, to indicate that "righteously
chastises" connects to the dialogue.
b) The appropriate manner for addressing a fanfic depends entirely upon the
quality of that fanfic.
�Okay, okay. Fanfic it is. � An impossibly huge sweatdrop makes it�s way
down Ranma�s temple.
Punctuation and special characters just seem to get worse and worse as this
goes on.
�Yeah, so, what happened.�
Don't forget your question mark.
�See, Saotome not one admin replied to my posting��
Really? That must mean that Nabiki and the author aren't entirely
synonymous.
�Heh, those�re private replies. Probably flames and death threats and the
like� I�d be expecting a lot of people to be pee�d of because of what I
sent.
So would I.
Most likely accuse me of wasting their time and inbox space� y�know
those stiffs that can�t spare five kilobytes on their Coldmail accounts.
You know, this is exactly the same justification I've heard used for
shoplifting. "It's a big company, they have lots of money, what does it
matter if I take a little from them?"
And yet, companies lose millions of dollars a year due to shoplifting.
Why? Because it's never just one person thinking they're special.
Many rules are in place not because a single action is problematic, but
because the accretion of actions were the rule not would be problematic.
The FFML, for example, currently has around 1800 subscribers; if even 10%
of them chose to post 5k test messages, it would be a huge, annoying
problem. To prevent this from happening, test messages are banned from the
list altogether.
The question for Nabiki: what makes you so special? What gives you the
right to waste the time and resources of the list with your puerile
clamouring for attention? Unlike rec.arts.anime.creative, the FFML is
unmoderated; it can be unmoderated because most listmembers do follow the
rules. What gives you the right to break them?
Especially the moderators. I was expecting them to crucify my ass, but as
you can see��
Perhaps the moderators restrained themselves because a public ban was
exactly what Nabiki wanted. The moderators are not that stupid, after all.
Ranma scratches his head. �Who�s that Daly guy.�
�Y�know, the guy that got banned for sending a test message he thought he�d
get away with��
Wow. His name's very close to the guy who got banned on the FFML for
sending a test message he thought he'd get away with.
********
From: Musashi<miyamoto@fanfiction.com>
To: Nabiki Tendo <show_me_the_$@hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: [AFML] [R1/2][shortfic]The Test
Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2000 18:57:09 -0500 (EST)
Why is it that you feel the need to push us?
That's the question everybody's asking, isn't it? Why is Nabiki, generally
a mature person concerned with making a profit, acting like a bratty child
trying to get attention?
Nabiki gives Ranma a pitying look.
�Poor, poor attempt at humor, Saotome.�
Just like this fic.
�Hold it, hold it there Saotome. Say no more� please. I�ll pretend that I
didn�t hear that from you. I mean, seriously! Is that the only thing you can
think of? And what�dya think he�s gonna do if he accepts a challenge? Brain
me with his keyboard?! Jeez� get a grip. The guy�s probably sitting at home
in front of his computer, wearing a �truth is out there� t-shirt and eating
five pounds worth of Taco Bell for dinner.�
Well, I've eaten at Taco Bell, but never five pounds of it at once. And I
don't have any X-Files t-shirts. So it can't be based on me. Phew.
To: miyamoto@fanfic.com
Subject: Re: [AFML] [R1/2][shortfic]The Test
Why is it that you feel the need to push us?
Just wait for the sequel. ^_-
Wow. If Nabiki wants to be banned so badly, she should just flame somebody
on the list. Or post private e-mail--just cutting off the names doesn't
make it right, you know, especially if someone tells the moderators you
posted their e-mail without permission.
"......Nabs, you�re a shit stirrer.�
Which can, depending on your reasons for doing so, be a good thing.
Shit-disturbing to get attention and gratify your own ego? No.
In a darkened room, the AFML moderator known as Musashi hunches over his
keyboard, staring with bloodshot, sleep deprived eyes at the flickering
screen. It had been a long and tiring night of endless comments and
criticisms, coupled with a few threads of off topic spam which he rightfully
banned from the mailing list.
Good for him. I like this fellow already.
�Fools. Don�t they ever learn?� He mutters to himself
a) Obviously not.
b) Question marks and exclamation marks are treated as commas when used to
end dialogue. Therefore: "...learn?" he mutters to himself.
Musashi loves this part of his job. The feeling of power he gets from
sending these delinquents on their way was euphoric. He just wished that
Kami-sama grant him the same satisfaction in his life outside the AFML.
"Kami-sama"? Unecessary Japanese, yet another sign of an inexperienced
fanfic author.
Speaking from personal experience, the feeling is more one of resignation
that euphoria; the insignificant amounts of authority and power granted are
outweighed by the consequences of the job: above all, the enormous drain on
free time (free time previously used for writing, reading and school work)
entailed by having to read every single post on the mailing list would be
enough, even without the extra time spent dealing with posts that break the
rules, and answering questions.
Panting from his exersions,
Correction: exertions.
Tatewaki Kuno smiles, turns off his computer and
heads to kendo practice.
Tatewaki Kuno would not be trusted as the moderator of any mailing list I'm
aware of; he's too erratic, too given to personal grudges, and, quite
frankly, not smart enough.
Stay tuned for:
The Test part 3: �Mr. Moderator!�
No, I don't really think I will. A disappointment, really; what could have
been an effective satire is let down by OOC characters, poor writing and
formatting, and a plot thin enough to slide through the sub-molecular
fabric of the universe. This doesn't seem to be a story so much as an act
of deception, an attempt to gain notoriety (synonymous, perhaps, in the
mind of the author with fame) through an open defiance of the rules of the
FFML disguised as a fanfic.
When that doesn't work, the author tries again; not only reposting the
original "test message" fanfic, but also posting a new chapter, this one
violating the rule about posting private e-mail to the list (changing the
e-mail addresses doesn't count--especially if one of the e-mails you post
came from one of the FFML moderators). Finally, he takes a few cheap-shots
at the moderators while he's at it.
Childish, and a waste of time.
Much gratitude goes to my good friend Damocles for pre-reading.
the NEXUS - http://www.bluep.com/~modesto
So, we have more than one person to blame for this, do we?
I suppose this is my attempt to respond publicly as Alan Harnum, list
member and author, instead of as Alan Harnum, list moderator; to criticize
this as a story, rather than a violation of list rules. It's bad enough
that Mr. Vela clearly has so little respect for the rules of the FFML, and
for the effort, time and money that White Wolf puts into providing it for
him and others; does the story he wrote expressing this disrespect have to
be so poorly-written on top of that?
A public ban seems to be what Mr. Vela wants, but I, for one, am not going
to be the one to oblige him at this moment.
Being a member of this list is not a right, it is a privilege. Why anyone
would want to jeopardize that privilege merely to gratify their own ego is
beyond me.
Ciao,
-Alan Harnum