on 3/17/2000 8:27 AM, Thomas Hood <thood@hotmail.com> wrote:
Well! This fic certainly is spawning its own huge amount of C&C. I
feel compelled to add my two cents worth.
And I appreciate it.
Ranma 1/2 is all about immature kids challenging each other to insane
combat and wreaking havoc and mass destruction upon the prefecture of
Nerima. It's slapstick comedy, gender-bending humor, pokes at gender
stereotypes/roles, I could go on. I'm not saying it's WRONG to deviate
from this, I'm just saying you have to add something to compensate for
the lack. You have a certain degree of internal conflict with Ranko,
but it's resolved very quickly and there's no brooding or resentment
or major identity crises.
Well, clearly this is a major deviation. I couldn't possibly write something
in the flavor of the original; I don't have it in me as an author. It's not
my style. The first thing I did was make it serious, and that pretty much
puts the original premise out the window.
I don't think Ranko's internal conflict is resolved at all. I think it's
obvious I'm not making that clear enough.
I personally don't find brooding appealing in fiction. I prefer to show
people having problems by showing how it affects their everyday life. That's
what I'm trying to do here.
Ranko is definitely still having problems. She doesn't know what she wants
to do with her life, she's nervous about having a romantic involvement with
a boy, and her self-confidence is shot. Maybe I need to make this clearer.
Also, you don't necessarily
need to have external conflict about the central issue either. You
could have something ELSE happen that needs to be resolved. Thus the
story expands and becomes more than just a character exploration.
Well, the story *is* just a character exploration. It's about a crisis in a
person's life and how they deal with it. I know that people who prefer more
action in a story are not going to like this. It's not an action-oriented
story. I know that limits its appeal somewhat.
You have to understand that turning Ranma into just an ordinary
girl is simply not interesting. Up to a point, I liked the fic and
continued reading it, but mostly that was because I kept hoping that
someone would come along and challenge Ranko to a duel in some wierd
martial-arts style and shake her out of this wierd apathy she's in.
Ranko's a pretty strong individual, don't you think? After all, she's
survived being trapped as a boy for so long. So all that's gone now?
The love of the challenge, the pride of the school... I understand
she's going through an identity transition, but that seems to be
pretty much done with by the time she enters school. Sorry, Ranko just
doesn't fit my idea of what Ranma would be like if he became a girl.
Pretty dull.
Ranko isn't Ranma. Yes, she is in the midst of apathy. A martial arts duel
isn't what's going to snap her out of it, though.
Ranko does not fit my idea of what Ranma would be like if he became a girl,
either (see Girl Days for my idea of what Ranma would be like if he became a
girl). However, Ranko does fit my idea of what Ranma *might* be like if he
*was* a girl originally.
If you don't plan on introducing significant conflict
into the story(and I mean a conflict where people DO things and GO
places), then maybe you need to reexamine how Ranko as a character
has developed and change the direction of the story, probably right
about the beginning.
I don't think that's the only kind of conflict worth writing about. However,
the kind of story I've written doesn't have universal appeal. Some people
like Dickens, some people like Austen (some like both, but not me).
Ranko is not nearly aggressive enough,
considering her background as a boy. Those habits die very hard, and
are not due to gender, but environment. Also the business of personal
sexual preference is by no means as obvious as you make it out to be.
In a situation with as much ambiguity as this one, I can see how Ranma
would be VERY confused about this, and likely would remain that way
for years yet.
I won't go into it, but I don't agree with these assertions. I think the
opinions you are expressing here are open to debate. I am sure what you are
saying is true for some people, but not others. I don't believe basic
personality traits like aggression are mostly a matter of environment, for
example. I think we'll have to agree to disagree.
Thank you for your comments. I feel guilty just responding to them rather
than seeing concrete ways to improve the story, but I think there is a
deeper problem here. If I am going to keep writing I have to think about
whether I want to appeal to a broader audience, and if so, how I can do that
given my skills as an author. You and several other people commenting have
given me some things to think about. However, at this point, I can't see
changing *this* story in the way you and others suggest. It *is* a character
study, and it pretty much came to me as one inspiration. I kind of had to
write it the way I did. I will take yours and other's comments and try to
learn and grow from them. It may be hard: sometimes, it is better to stick
with the voice you have, even if it doesn't appeal to everyone, than to try
to change into something you're not and thereby lose that voice. In my own
case, this is my first real fiction, so I think I probably have some growing
to do.
Deborah