Thanks for taking the time to write so much!
I'll place my comments where they may fall, and then I'll
summarize them. Brace yourself, I don't pull punches.
I don't like people pulling punches
with my work, and I think I owe other people the same.
Same here. IMO, receiving substantial criticism is the
only way to improve as a writer.
Akane put a sympathetic hand on the bereaved wife's shoulder and
murmured a few words. Then, with a last glance and nod at Ranma,
she shepherded the Saotome and Kuonji children out. As she left,
little Keiko asked if this meant no more of Uncle Ukyou's
okonomiyaki.
While I agree that this was rather brief, the fact remains
that if you want
to gloss this part over it's your choice. My problem is with
the assumption
that the average reader would know or conclude who 'little Keiko' is.
Was this really a problem? The use of 'Uncle' fingers Keiko as
a Saotome child, I thought. Slight echo, too, of Ranma choosing
okonomiyaki over Ukyou.
Ranma uneasily shifted the umbrella from hand to hand, shrinking
from a slight patter of drops. Ukyou: dead and gone. The child
Ranma brawled with; the youth Ranma adventured with; the man Ranma
drank with, played shogi with, commiserated about women with.
Gone for good.
Here is where my possibly subjective problem with the male
Ukyou depiction stands out - Ranma still thinking of Ukyou
as male. This from the man who asked 'Ucchan, do you love me?'
Has something happened in the series that I have to know about?
Point taken. I'd forgotten that little episode momentarily, but
you're right, that makes it crystal clear that Ranma certainly
thought of Ukyou as female at the time.
"Ukyou-sama," whispered Konatsu once more, "you shouldn't have
exerted yourself like that! You were no longer young."
True, Ranma thought, but Ukyou always had been protective of
Konatsu. The former female ninja's skills were formidable, but
she didn't have the will to use them in her own defense. Once,
'Mourning Becomes Ukyou' played on Ukyou and Konatsu's gender
ambiguity well; here we have to agree who indeed is truly male or
female. I don't know about you, but it blunts whatever emotional
reaction I am supposed to have toward the fic. The 'former female
ninja' is a case in point; why does it have to be hammered into
us that she was female? Why not just use 'former
ninja'? Why not keep all references to her gender through pronouns?
Agreed. This will be changed.
Ukyou wouldn't have even been breathing hard after leaping over
the counter of his restaurant, rolling up the sleeves on his thick
arms, screaming about jackasses, and clobbering the man who'd
attempted to pinch his wife. This time, the unaccustomed strain
'Wouldn't have been'? As opposed to what and when? 'Once'? A complete
rewrite of this paragraph would do it good.
Yes.
had proven fatal. Of course, Ranma wasn't exactly young himself,
either; his balding head and the shallow bulge around his waist
testified to that.
Ranma has not aged well, I see. ^^; Only thirty-eight and already he's
beginning to look like Genma.
Well, Genma is only a few years older at the time of the series.
"I miss you," Konatsu murmured, "I miss you so much it hurts.
Never... never again to feel your arms around me, your breath on
my neck, your fingers in my hair... And the children..."
This sounds like (and I certainly hope it wasn't what you
meant to say) Konatsu misses the feel of Ukyou's fingers in
the children. This sounds like a rather disturbing form of
quality time with the kids.
It was intended as disjointed stream-of-consciousness thought.
Oh well, it's clear it didn't work. Rewrite time.
Ranma grinned momentarily as one memory in particular crystalized.
The placement of 'in particular' really hurts this sentence,
especially with a word like 'crystallized'. If you are dead-set
on using 'in particular' or the basic idea then I suggest you
reposition it within the sentence, like 'Ranma grinned momentarily
as a particular memory crystallized in his mind.'
'Momentarily' is another word that seems out of place in
conjunction with 'grinned'.
If I had to rewrite this sentence it would come out as something like:
"A smile momentarily crossed Ranma's face as he recalled one
particular incident."
Or something like that.
I like your suggestion and will probably use it.
Luckily, it'd been Konatsu, and not Akari or Akane who'd been
splashed, but Ukyou'd been livid over the damage to Konatsu's
kimono. Ranma chuckled at the memory of the lumps Happosai and
Pantyhose had carried on their heads for the next few days.
Which, to people not familiar to the series, would really
seem strange, as up to this point Konatsu had been referred
to only as female, with no signs to the contrary. Why wouldn't
the water affect Konatsu? The writing style has an odd, sometimes
disjointed mixture of showing and telling.
Given my pronoun choice, I felt I needed something to show the
reader that this isn't an alterverse. I also wanted another Ranma
remembrance, a more concrete one, in here. SODVM seemed to
coalesce the two nicely.
I think I'll keep this scene, but add a few other thoughts of
Ranma's to reinforce their real genders.
Uneasy, Ranma switched the umbrella to his other hand. He knew
he'd never been good in situations like this, but Akane had been
insistent in pointing out what they both knew: someone really had
to stay with Konatsu for a while. The kunoichi was quite capable
of catching lethal pneumonia from being too depressed to come in
out of the rain.
Another break in the mood. Granted, Konatsu could very well
freeze to death out in the rain and has enough of a martyr
complex to carry it out, but the
way it is stated here really shatters the mood, making Konatsu's grief
almost comical. The 'lethal pneumonia' line in particular is
really damaging to the mood.
Will change.
Konatsu was just a beautiful now at thirty-eight as she'd been at
sixteen. Only a wrinkle or two around the eyes gave away
Konatsu's true age. They'd made a good couple, though: the
brawny, rough-speaking husband and the modest, soft-spoken,
kimono-wearing wife. In private, Akane sometimes wished she had
Konatsu's looks.
Since the viewpoint character is Ranma, it would be better to
say something like, "Akane had once confided to Ranma that she
sometimes wished she had Konatsu's looks."
"What would you say to me, were you here, Ukyou-sama? How can I
go on? What must I do?"
Konatsu is on the verge of becoming too shrill to be
sympathized with. I feel at lot of it has to do with word
choice, however; much of what she has been whispering to
herself is already cliche. If you can't change what she
has to say (admittedly, many people would say these things
without any regard for rules of cliche), then change how she
says it, or present it in a way that makes her grief stand
out. Small details like running her fingers over the engraved
letters or looking skyward or even a description of the
expression on her face can convey the message with more clarity.
Good point: show, don't tell. I'll add some material such
as you suggest. I'll see if I can't 'un-cliche' Konatsu's
words to some extent, but I chose those words partly because
I think seriously grieving people _would_ be somewhat cliche.
The sun chose that moment to peek through the clouds. A few
tears, clinging to the smudged lipstick on Konatsu's cheek,
gleamed briefly. Konatsu slowly stood, looking up and slowly
raising a clenched fist to just below her chin. "Ukyou-sama... I
promise I will keep the restaurant going! I promise I will raise
our children so that you will be proud of them! Only then will I
consider joining you!"
I... don't know what to make of this. I really don't like
this scene. It feels too much like a buildup for some punchline
that is never coming. The two 'slowlys' in the second sentence
don't help, either. I do like the smudged lipstick bit, though.
What if Konatsu never said these things aloud.
for example? Then the scene, because the viewpoint is through
Ranma's eyes and not Konatsu's, would look like this:
The sun chose that moment to peek through the clouds. A few
tears that clung to some smudged lipstick on her cheek gleamed
briefly. Ranma watched as she faced the sky and stood, slowly,
clenching a fist and holding it to her chest. He saw a resolve
grow in her eyes, a resolve he had rarely seen in
her before; smiling to himself quietly, he knew that it was
time to go.
Or something. ^^;
I like that. I'll probably use this, too.
care. But Ranma knew that once Konatsu made a vow like this,
she'd stick to it. You just had to be around to offer some
practical advice once in a while.
Who is 'you'? Ranma? The general public? The readers?
Per Gary, I'll change to 'He' (Ranma).
these days. Your choice with the gender-specific referrences,
however, seems forced; whether it's my own personal taste or
the apparent lack of buildup for them is debatable. The problem
lies in the apparent lack of transition from male to female or
female to male; it's as if Ranma never thought of Ukyou as
female, which is jarring. Was Ukyou as female so forgettable
as not to be remembered on her funeral day?
You're right, that is disconcerting and jarring. Justifiable,
maybe, but certainly rude on my part.
Another thing, Konatsu is portrayed so weak as to be almost
laughable. Granted, Ukyou was always the stronger-willed of
the two, and Konatsu is expected to grieve, but the things she
says simply don't endear her to the readers. Perhaps actions
can speak louder and clearer than words in this case.
I think you're probably right about this. As you've already
suggested, a few actions and fewer words should help this.
At any rate, this was a departure for me, and I'm interested in
feedback on tone and style.
Tone and style: I like the distance you've placed between the
viewpoint and the epicenter of grief; the problem here is that
you don't play that distance fully. You don't take advantage
of the fact that the viewpoint character, a well-defined
character, is not the most affected by the death
of Ukyou. So you tell and tell without filtering it through
Ranma's biases, through his experiences, through the nature
of his perceptions and insights.
All we have is Ranma placed there so that someone can watch
Kunoichi's struggle with her grief, and provide a few of his
own memories. The interaction is not there. There doesn't even
seem to be any clearly-defined relationship between Ranma and
Konatsu. You have chosen these two particular
characters to be the main players in the story. You have to
show everyone why the story cannot have been told using anyone
else. Why Ranma and Konatsu?
All good points.
As it stands, the tone is diffuse, the emotional message is
only partly conveyed, and some of the lines are tired and trite,
which really is an injustice to what you're trying to achieve.
I agree, which is why I wasn't happy with the story as it stood.
Your's and Gary's feedback should help it a lot, though.
The good news is there is nothing that a good rewrite can't solve.
Here is why I thoroughly C&C'd both Mourning Becomes and For
Ukyou: One of my all-time favorite Ranma fanfics is Webdragon's
'Saishu No Wakare'. To me, it still is the clearest demonstration
on how to portray the grief that comes with such a loss.
In Saishu No Wakare, Ranma's grief is so clear and what he
has to say is so very like Ranma that it never becomes trite
or comical. Ranma does things in that fic that clearly shows
that the story could not have been told that way through
anyone's point of view but Ranma's. The way he acts, the way
he tries to speak to Ukyou and imagine how she would have
responded... That is good stuff.
I have downloaded this and will read it.
Oh, and don't be discouraged. I really am this thorough with C&C. Just
imagine how I am with myself!
Oh, I'm not discouraged. I like getting really thorough,
well-thought-out criticism.