I am duly impressed with the story. It's a nice continuation take on the
OVA series which I have never seen. :)
I'll ignore the usual crap about grammar and spelling, these can be fixed
by anyone skimming over the text...
Anyhow, I think the #1 point that you should derive from my comments is
the inherent power that dialogue and action has over narration. Sharp,
accurate dialogue coupled with action should remove the need to
"overnarrate." Overnarration, while it can be good at times, when
overused can make the story seem dead and the character's one sided.
It's like saying, "Why have the narrator say X and Y happened, or A and B
are having these thoughts, when you can SHOW X and Y, or have A and B DO
STUFF that suggests having these thoughts."
Enough about my blahhing... i probably just put a bunch of people to
sleep.
On Sun, 13 Feb 2000, Raja wrote:
A brilliant arc of white light blinded Urd and Skuld. The sound as it
struck the ground was so loud as to be a physical force, knocking them
both off their feet. Even as she fell, Urd realized what had happened
-- Kami-sama had seen what she and Skuld were trying to do, and put a
stop to it. All at once, the frustration that had been building in her
since Kami-sama had ordered Belldandy to return to the heavens boiled
over, as Urd screamed out to the heavens, "FATHER!"
Heh, quite melodramatic.
Urd was taking down the wash, grumbling to herself, when the phone rang.
She ran back into the temple, momentarily tangling herself in the
Well, technically, being tangled isn't a momentary thing. Being hindered
is. Perhaps you should have her drag the entire line with her as she
answers the phone. :)
clothesline in her haste. "Hello?"
Nice imagery. Urd trying to do chores... :) A couple more disasters
planned for her?
"Urd, is that you?"
Urd's face lit up as she recognized the voice of her little sister.
However, she managed to mask her emotions as she replied, "Well, of
course, Skuld. Who else would be answering the phone here?"
The voice on the other end of the line went from happy to angry in an
instant. "Well, excuse me for calling you! I mean, I'd think you'd be
happy to hear from me, during our --" Skuld stopped short. Urd knew
why.
Actually, the dialogue here is quite effective. You don't need to inform
us that Skuld-sama is throwning a tantrum. :) Just dump the first
sentence and let the dialogue stand on it's own.
"YOU HAVE DEFIED MY WILL."
Kami-sama sure has a strong voice, ne?
Urd and Skuld slowly rose to their feet amid the broken earth of the
temple. Time seemed to have stopped. Darkness had fallen across the
land, but for the ground around the two goddesses.
... with the exception of the ground around the two goddesses.
... save the ground around the two goddesses.
Errrr, just as awkward.
I dunno, "but for" doesn't seem right here.
"YOU MUST BE PUNISHED FOR YOUR TRANSGRESSIONS."
Which brings up an interesting thought about the relationship
between gods and punishment... But not now...
"THAT MUCH ENERGY INTRODUCED AT ONCE INTO THE SYSTEM COULD HAVE CAUSED
SERIOUS PROBLEMS."
The amount of energy introduced into the system could have caused... wait,
it's dialogue... heh heh... never mind.
"Umm...Belldandy...had a lot of friends here. I mean, if we have to..."
Skuld trailed off, uncertainly.
Urd picked up from there. "Yes! Changing the memory of everyone who
has had contact with Bell, and undoing all of her actions, must
certainly take up a lot of power!"
"THIS IS TRUE. HERE IS HOW WE WILL DEAL WITH IT."
Preparedness is next to godliness, right? :)
"Urd? Are you still there?"
Urd came out of her reverie with a start. "Yes, Skuld, I'm still here."
I don't know, but to me reveries tend to be pleasant little things, like
dreaming about Princess Fatora.... errr, never mind. :)
*Where else would I be,* she thought, bitterly. She sighed. "I'm not
cut out for this role I've been forced into," Urd complained.
"Well, I couldn't have gotten away with it! I'm too young to be going
to Nekomi Tech!"
gotten away with it? Oh... Minor nitpick, make Skuld say something a
little more obvious to the nature of the situation.
"No...at least, I don't think so. Everything seems to be fine--all of
the basic code is up and running. There are still some minor glitches
showing up on the main systems monitor, but that's to be expected, I
guess..."
"Yes, that's true. We did have to make quite a lot of changes in the
programming," Urd replied, in that condescending tone that Skuld knew so
well. "But you should have had those problems fixed ages ago."
Heh, again, I think dialogue can sort of carry the feeling of a
condescending tone. But this is fine.
"Oh yeah? I'd like to see YOU come up here and try to do better!" Skuld
shouted back. Urd smirked to herself, pleased to hear that she could
still get to her sister. She let Skuld's rant continue for a moment
before she apologized.
Why not have Skuld rant a bit more... with dialogue? :)
Urd, who was now posing as a graduate student in chemistry at Nekomi
Tech.
Errr... this is a fragment.
As part of their punishment, Urd and Skuld had to implement and monitor
the changes that Kami-sama deemed necessary. One of them had to keep an
eye on the main system in Heaven, while the other had to stay on Earth
to make any spot corrections needed.
I suggest, "spot corrections AS needed." But just a suggestion.
Urd stuck her head into Keiichi's room. Some of her irritation was
replaced by concern, as she saw Keiichi curled up on the floor, head
cradled in his hands. "Another migraine?" Kei nodded, mutely. "I'll
get you something for it. Hold on..."
Heh heh, let me guess. A - Keiichi the Psychic boy... B - Keiichi the
Psycho Boy... C - Keiichi the .... awwwww, forget it. :)
Skuld was in the floating monitor chair in one of the control rooms of
the great world computer, Yggdrasil. She was not happy. At that
particular moment, Skuld had set the screens hovering around her to
display status reports on the many parts of the system that she and her
sister, Urd, had been required to modify, as per Kami-sama's commands.
Strangely, many of the displays were showing problems; system slowdowns,
error messages, broken subroutines, system force imbalances, the
occasional unexplainable glitch. Skuld frowned, puzzled. Yes, they had
had to do a lot of reprogramming on the fly, and they didn't have time
to troubleshoot everything right away, but Skuld had been working almost
nonstop since their new subroutines had kicked in. By all rights, she
should have reduced the number of problems to zero. But it seemed that
for every system glitch solved, several more appeared.
Break this up. If you were printing this in a novel (paperback), I
wager that you'd have a paragraph that takes up 1/2 to one whole page.
By some stroke of chance, Sayoko found herself walking past the
headquarters of the Nekomi Motor Club. She recalled that Keiichi hadn't
shown up for his last class, and decided to just pop in for a moment to
see if he was there. Just making sure that he's not sick or
something...
Heh heh, "A perfectly innocent thing..."
"Well," replied Urd, "I've given him some new medication. We'll see
what happens." She turned to go back to the sink.
"Right," said Megumi, absently. She opened her bag and began taking out
some books. "By the way, where's Bell?"
The cup hit the floor with a crash.
hah. didn't expect that one.