At 08:39 PM 2/5/00 -0800, Richard Beaubien wrote:
Masan Productions Proudly presents
A Fanfic works based on KOR. and Hime-chan's no Ribbon (Plus other series. :)
Kimagure no Ribbon
Episode one: A hen shin is rather hen, actually . . .
I was going to go through line-by-line, but I realized that there
are a lot of small grammar and punctuation mistakes, repeated over
and over. So, in the interests of brevity...
1. Commas. You need to review the rules regarding their use.
There are many places where you missed using one for a direct
address, a compound sentence, or an interjection.
2. Capital letters. Things like saxophone and cherry shouldn't
be capitalized. Things like "Vice-Principal" should be. "Magic
Kingdom" may or my not be, but whichever way you choose, do it
consistently (and don't capitalize one word and not the other).
3. Extraneous Japanese. Aside from honorifics and words that
don't translate elegantly (like "omiai"), there is no need for
Japanese in an English fanfic, as a rule. It's usually better
to use English instead.
4. Repetition. You should read through your fic again looking
for it, and eliminate it. For starters, you use the word
"wondrous" quite a lot near the beginning, and you often use
"then" twice in a sentence -- at its beginning and again at its
end. There are other instances, too.
5. Apostrophes. You seem to be missing almost all of them.
6. Watch out for their/there/they're, its/it's, your/you're,
and other such groupings. Make sure you're using the right word.
7. Don't type numbers below 20. (2, 5, 10, etc.) Spell them out
instead.
A few comments on specific fic sections:
Ami looked on in awe, as the whole fight took less than two minutes and
looked like a whole blur to her eyes.
Most fights in real life are rather short, actually. I'd guess that
the scene you wrote would take no more than 20-30 seconds from the
time the first guitar pick hits to the time the thugs run away.
"So sorry I'm not a genius," she answered tersely, before slamming the
door closed.
If this is so, then it's something you're changing for your fic.
In the manga, Madoka is fairly bright, enough so that she's near
the top of her class. In the anime (which you seem to be basing
this on, since Madoka is a fighter), she's even smarter. She has
little trouble with math or history, at least, and is reasonably
fluent in English. She may not be at Ami's level, but she's
demonstrably smarter than average by a good margin.
Madoka just looked on with a confused look on her face. "Magic Kingdom,
are you guys serious? There is no such thing as magic!"
"Then how do you explain the talking broom then?"
I'm surprised Madoka didn't faint dead away at the first sight of the
broom (she does have that thing about the supernatural...). Even so,
I can't see her questioning the existence of magic, given the evidence.
And she was pretty sure that it was
not possible for a common household broom to float and talk at the same
time.
At the same time? I think you mean "at all." Or else I've been
missing something... ^_^;
Pokota interrupted Madoka's response though, a wicked look in his eye,
"Are you sure about this, I mean if you keep this up I'm afraid I'll have
to tell some stories about your childhood. Including the time that you.."
"You couldn't know about that, You wouldn't tell them about that, would
you?" Madoka yelled, full of panic.
"Sore wa himetsu Desu," Pokota laughed in reply.
Tired joke, BTW.
"Okay, Okay," Madoka sighed as she gave up, knowing full well that she
probably couldn't win this argument. "I'll do it, I'll become a magical
girl for you Margaret."
I have a hard time seeing Madoka cave in to blackmail. It doesn't
seem to fit her character. It'd probably be more effective if
Pokota just pleaded; Madoka is soft-hearted.
"Really!", Margaret exclaimed, "Just put the ribbon and necklace on and
say Parallel Parallel turn me into whoever ni nare while looking into a
mirror."
"Now you need to change back, all you have to say is Rurerapa Rurerapa
Turn me back to normal nare while looking into a mirror. Okay?"
Using Japanese for catch phrases such as these is acceptable, even
to me. It's not unlike a "special technique" in martial arts fics,
that way. Using English would also be acceptable. It's up to you.
But please, PLEASE, don't use both. It sounds hideous.
General comment:
I'm not sure I see the point, really. Why would Madoka want to
use the ribbon's power? Hime-chan had a certain lack of faith in
herself when she started, and then just got to enjoy using the
magic, but I don't see either applying to Madoka to that extent.
And she's a lot closer to adult, so there's not as much incentive
for her to imitate adults as there was for Hime-chan.
If Ami is going to be a recurring character, you might want to add
[SM] to your tags.
If Kyousuke is still an Esper in this fic, it could lead to
problems, if you haven't thought about the ramifications. For
one, you don't want his powers to overshadow the ribbon, I
presume.
Scott Schimmel Ex ignorantia ad sapientium;
Ex luce ad tenebras
"You really aren't normal, are you?" - Miki Koishikawa