On Tue, 28 Mar 2000, Gary Kleppe wrote:
Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2000 15:54:25 -0600
From: Gary Kleppe <kleppe@mediaone.net>
To: ffml@fanfic.com
Subject: [FFML] Re: [Ranma][fanfic] Divided We Stand
"Algerhorn Kessler" <lunarhound@crystal-tokyo.com> wrote:
[snip]
Once I got to the meat of it, this looked pretty promising. The idea of
female Ranma having identical memories to the male version and both
believing that they're the real one has a lot of really good dramatic
potential.
this has been done before. i like the idea, though, and would like to see it
done by someone else, differently.
Some suggestions, though.
First of all, do you really need the introduction? Maybe the stuff about
the complexities of the universe was supposed to awe the reader, but my
reaction was more like "What does this have to do with anything? Get on
with the story!" And I do NOT need to be told that Ranmaverse Nerima is
a wacky place filled with mayhem where Murphy's law reigns supreme, or
whatever. Credit your reader with knowing something about the series,
especially when it's a popular one like Ranma.
My advice would be to start the story from where female Ranma wakes up.
This is when the real conflict in the story starts, and it'll be easy
enough to fill in the backstory as you go.
Secondly, you need to brush up on your manga. There weren't "insanely
powerful martial-artists" and "bumbling magicians" showing up constantly
in Nerima trying to steal away Akane; about the only ones with a serious
interest in wooing Akane were Kuno, Ryoga, Gosunkugi, the other Furinkan
boys, and Shinnosuke -- none of whom are terribly powerful. Female Ranma
probably had more wannabe-boyfriends than Akane did.
You're right about no 'bumbling magicians' except gosunkugi, but as for the
insanely powerful martial artists... IIRC Kirin and Toma were both after
akane. i might be wrong though.
Cologne's never used spells or mind control against Ranma. She's never
shown any knowledge of mysticism at a level that would allow her to cast
spells. Now, it's possible that she's been keeping such knowledge a
secret, but in this case once it's revealed Ranma should react
accordingly.
It's your story, of course, and your prerogative if you want to change
the back history. But in this case, it seems like it would serve your
story just as well to get it right, and you wouldn't have to worry about
people like me losing our suspension of disbelief because you're
contradicting what we know about the series.
Finally, please remember to put in a comma or two when a speaker gives
the name of the person(s) to whom he/she is speaking. Otherwise you can
end up completely changing your meaning and even being unintentionally
humorous. "How do you feel, Ranma?" is a reasonable thing to ask our
pig-tailed boy. "How do you feel Ranma?" is something that only Happosai
would be qualified to give an expert answer to.
Or Nabiki.
Good luck, and I look forward to reading more of this.
Gary
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