Donald Mc <drmj1@earthlink.net> wrote:
Subject: [FFML] [FFML][RANMA 1/2}
From: Donald Mc <drmj1@earthlink.net>
Date: Sat, 06 May 2000 11:22:15 -0400
A Ranma 1/2 Fanfic
By Donald McElreath
The Sound of Silence
Chapter 1: Meeting
Disclaimer: These characters belong to Rumiko Takahashi. She created
them, not me.
I don't have even a fraction of her genius.
Okay, right off the bat, formatting complaints. Since you posted a
corrected version after this one, I won't bother mentioning word
wrapping. But you don't need to put [FFML] in the subject; the list
software does that automatically. And please put the title of your fic,
so people can keep track of it in our mailboxes if we want to. Like so:
Subject: [Fanfic][Ranma 1/2] The Sound of Silence, Chapter 1
by stones in the garden and a cherry tree in one corner. Nice, you may
think, but so what?
Look closer and you will see a middle-aged man with a mustache and long
black hair
sitting on the porch with something clutched in his hand, tears
streaming down his face.
He stands and walks into the house calling for his three daughters.
Again you might
think, so what? Ah, my friend, but this is where the fun begins.
Don't talk directly to the readers. As a storyteller, you need to
convince the readers to suspend our disbelief -- to believe that the
story is actually happening. There's nothing quite so fatal to this as
the author addressing us directly.
Frankly, I'd cut this introduction entirely. It doesn't show us anything
as to what the story's about, apart from telling us that it takes place
in Nerima -- which, given that this is a Ranma fic, isn't exactly a big
surprise.
"Why should I care?" came her response. "Not everyone thinks the world
revolves around
boys, Nabiki."
Nabiki put her hands behind her head, stepped back through the dojo's
sliding doors, and
headed back towards the house. "No? Then I guess this wouldn't
interest you."
What, may I ask, was the point of showing this? It's completely
unchanged from the original. Even the dialog seems word-for-word
identical to Viz' translation of volume one, with some very minor
changes.
Give your readers a little credit. We know who Akane is. If we haven't
read this scene in the manga, at least we've seen it in fanfics many,
many times. What we *don't* know is what's different in *your* alternate
version of things, and what the consequences of this difference are.
That's what you've got to show in an alternate universe, and as quickly
as possible while people are still giving the story a chance.
Nabiki moved closer and poked a finger at Ranma's chest. "_He_ is a
girl."
Soun Tendo, master of the Tendo school of Anything Goes Martial Arts,
realizing his
dreams were lost, handled this as only he could. The world started to
spin as he saw the
faces of his daughters, Ranma, and the panda flash by before...
THUD!
He fainted.
Still nothing that really seems different. Well, Nabiki is wearing a
kimono, whereas she had a tank top and shorts in the original, but that
hardly seems significant to the plot.
At this point, I've started skimming through the story.
Still getting no response she took the smaller girl by the shoulders.
She felt Ranma flinch
at the touch but she didn't pull away. Then Akane realized something:
how quiet Ranma
had been... where the scars were.
"Ranma? Please."
Opening her eyes Ranma slowly turned to face Akane.
"You can't talk, can you?"
"Nope, I can't. Not a word."
"Oh. Finally, I understand why you-- HEY!!"
At last, we find out what's different in this continuity. Should've
gotten here much, much earlier, IMO.
Ranma expected to see pity or even disgust in Akane's eyes, but all she
saw was concern.
The eyes and face of a friend. The last of her emotional walls fell as
years of pent up
frustration, pain and loneliness burst free.
Akane became concerned when she saw the other girl start to shake and
her eyes fill with
tears as she shook her head. Suddenly Ranma sobbed and collapsed, or
would have if
Akane hadn't caught her. Silent, wracking sobs tore through Ranma's
body and Akane put
her arms around the redhead trying to give her what comfort she could.
'Kamisama! What happened to her?'
Yeah, what? Must've been pretty drastic to change his behavior so
completely. Not that we have to know right away, but you better have a
convincing explanation ready for when it *is* revealed.
Akane only barely noticed her sister leaving. Her full attention had
returned to Ranma.
She couldn't have missed the way she stiffened at the mention of her
father.
"Ranma? You don't want to see him do you?"
A shake of the head.
"But you have to don't you?"
A nod.
Akane paused before asking her next question.
"Did he... Is he responsible for what happened to you?"
Ranma stiffened again, then nodded.
AKANE: Is this going to be a Genma-bashing fic?
RANMA: (nodnodnodnod)
A moment later the red headed girl from before surfaced and glared at
her father.
Kasumi stated the obvious for everyone. "Now he's a girl."
Genma had moved to the edge of the pond, not even noticing the glare on
his child's face.
"My own son. So humiliating. So humiliating."
Ranma leapt over his head from the pond and kicked him into the water.
A panda with a
pair of glasses hanging from one ear stood up in the pond and faced the
girl.
Okay, here we go again with the transplanted scenes. Unless there's
something different of significance here, we really don't need to see
this.
*Who are you to talk, bamboo for brains?* Ranma signed.
Now I'm completely confused here. Ranma here is acting like his usual
self. Where's the person who was sobbing into Akane's arms a little
while ago? Is his personality changed in this continuity, or isn't it?
C&C welcome.
Thanks to my prereaders (I'll get your names next time) without whom
this work would be far
less than it is.
Alternate universe fics are easy to write, but very difficult to write
well. You've got to convincingly show the readership, in the short time
while you've still got our attention, that (1) something important is
different in your continuity; (2) the changes follow the logical rules
of cause and effect, and are not just at the whim of the author's
character biases; (3) this difference is going to result in a story that
still has enough conflict to be interesting; and (4) there's enough of
the original manga characters left that it's still a Ranma story that
Ranma fans will find worth reading.
In your case, IMO this means cutting out all the scenes that were lifted
more or less word-for-word from the original series. Just changing
Nabiki's clothes and a few words of dialog isn't enough. Get to the part
that makes YOUR story different right away. Not only that, but you need
to show us some idea of the possible consequences that Ranma's muteness
might have as the story goes on. Also, be consistent about your changes,
like Ranma's personality as I've already mentioned.
Finally, and this is more of a subjective thing, but I'll mention it
anyway: chartacter bashing. Specifically, Genma. One thing to me that's
a strong indiciator of this is when characters who in the manga had
nothing against someone suddenly take a strong dislike to him in a fic,
and that's the case here. This is the sort of thing that makes me
conclude that the author doesn't like the character.
It's true that Genma's made some spectacularly stupid blunders in the
manga, and Ranma's suffered because of it. But that's balanced by the
fact that he gave up a good portion of his life to successfully train
Ranma into one of the world's best martial artists -- time during which
he could have spent being fed delicious cooking by a beautiful wife,
instead of begging for scraps on the road. That's probably why Ranma in
the manga, despite a lot of insults and fighting on the surface, is
loyal to Genma when it comes down to it. That's the kind of balance that
I'd like to see in this fic but don't so far.
Gary Kleppe
http://www.execpc.com/~kleppe/comics.html