Chapter 7 of Sukeban Senshi! Wai!
First off, let me say I love this grim, gritty, almost brutal, yet
endearing story. The wonderful prose and excellent story flow overcome
any and all errors in grammatical form, and that is the greatest
compliment I can pay to a fic. People, if you haven't read Sukeban
Senshi, give it a try - it's worth every moment of your time.
Of course, being the perfectionist reader that I am, I have to weigh in
to try and correct the common errors in the fic - all in the hopes of
further improving the story. :)
I would have liked to have corrected each and every one in the story,
but I don't have the time (or the energy, admittedly :), so I'll provide
the grammatical ground rules as I see them. Note that my own usage of
commas is not excellent, but these are the incidents that I'm fairly
confident about.
As always, all C&C are my opinions and suggestions only.
Here are some examples:
"And it wouldn't itch so much if you had let us use
even a local anesthetic while sewing you up." Ami added,
helping put away the surgical kit.
(1) When following quotes with a reference to the character speaking the
quote, you need a comma and not a full stop - 'while sewing you up," Ami
added, helping...'. I notice you following this rule sometimes and not
other times. A question mark and an exclamation mark can also be used
when the situation warrants it, rather than a comma, and I think all of
these examples were correctly punctuated in the fic.
"I don't like drugs," Soban tried surreptitiously to
dig under the thick bandage wrapped around her torso.
(2) On the other hand, when the continuation is a character action and
not some form of reference to character verbalization, then it needs a
full stop, not a comma - 'don't like drugs." Soban tried...'
"You stupid----" Words failed her and she clamped
her jaw shut with snap. "You're not a damn bit of use to me
dead."she hissed. Controlling herself with an effort she went
on in a rigidly controlled voice. "Aichou-ko's going to be
outside the door first thing in the morning. You," she
finished sweetly. "are going to help her look."
(3) When you have an interruption in the quotes by a character speaking
or by character actions, it should be ended with a comma - 'You," she
finished sweetly, "are going to help...' - because the rest of the
quotes begins with a lower casing ('are' - correct usage - rather than
'Are' - incorrect usage) indicating a continuation of the sentence. Even
if there are other sentences in the interruption, the last sentence
should finish with a comma if the remainder of the quoted comments
begins with a lower casing.
"Soban?" There was a soft knock at the door. "I'm
sorry to bother you," A petite young woman with dark
reddish brown hair and wearing the uniform of the Island
staff stuck her head in the door. "but I need----"
(4) In a situation like this, where the interruption starts with a
capitalized word, you should probably use hyphens to separate the
interruption: 'sorry to bother you," - A petite young woman... stuck her
head in the door - "but I need----"
The easiest thing would be to move the interruption to the end of
'a soft knock on the door.', thereby avoiding the situation, thus: 'a
soft knock on the door. A petite young woman... stuck her head into the
room. "I'm sorry to bother you, but I need----"
"----you to look at the menu. Huh?" Startled she
looked at her empty hands.
(5) Sentence fragments should be separated by a comma - 'Startled, she
looked...'
"Hmmmm," Makoto flipped through the pages with
a professional eye. "OK, change these items here," She
pulled a pen from a clip and slashed through several lines of
print.
(6) Here you have several options, using the above pointers:
"Hmmmm." Makoto flipped through the pages with
a professional eye. "OK, change these items here." She
pulled a pen from a clip and slashed through several lines of
print.
Or,
"Hmmmm," Makoto flipped through the pages with
a professional eye, "OK, change these items here." She
pulled a pen from a clip and slashed through several lines of
print.
Okay, that's it from me about grammar - Whew! :)
I know I'm not terribly good at following the grammar rules myself, but
Vince, Gary, and many other people have been kind enough to indicate the
areas that need work in my fics, so I guess I'm passing the help along.
Now to my second point. This one is more of a personal opinion than
anything else, so feel free to disregard it. It concerns Part 3 where
Soban gets a rapid power-up. The tone of the story changed extremely
quickly, to the point where it was fairly jarring, compared to the
conversational tone of the fic thus far. The scenes were still
impressive, and the descriptive narrative was awesome, but somehow it
still felt a little lacking.
This may have been your intention - to separate and therefore dramatize
the ending - so I'm trying to remain objective here. I'll just say that
one of the most appealing things about Soban is her tough exterior and
hidden vulnerabilities (and come on, who can resist tough girls with
weaknesses? :), and the way she gets the job done despite those
problems. For her to turn into a 'God-eater', lessens much of that
earlier characterization, IMHO.
Well, that's it. Hope this helps!
Phil.