Light Hawk wrote:
C&C would be much appreciated.
Okay...
Ryoga was lost but only this time it was in thought. He was
You've got some dubious grammar in this fic and I don't know if I'll
catch it all, but this sentence (being the first one) stands out as
an example. You don't need to use "but" and "only" - either will
do, but using both is redundant. And there should be a comma after
"lost."
trying to figure out why he kept getting lost all the time. He had
tried using maps, compasses, and he even tried stellar
navigation but it was all for naught. The only truely good thing
Comma after "navigation."
"truly"
about his ability to get lost at the drop of a hat was that he got to
see the world for free. He had bought many gifts for his beloved
Akane over his travels. She loved the tartan scarf that he gave
her after a recent trip to Scotland and a small moon rock sat on
her book shelf along with many other trinkets from his travels.
He also didn't mind the fact that he knew about half a dozen
major languages fluently and quite a few minor ones as well.
Right now, however, it looked like English was the way to go
because he seemed to be in London. Yep, London alright.
There was Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, and....the Eiffel
Tower??? All he did was turn around. Or so he thought. Ryoga
surely couldn't remember and just took it that he wasn't paying
attention, as usual.
Paragraph break here.
You should be aware that you're taking a liberty with the
character of Ryouga which is going to put a lot of readers
off your story. The exaggeration of his poor directional
sense is a common ploy in fanfiction. Sometimes, it's used
to enhance the comic effect (as in RpM's "The More Things
Change" and its follow-ups). Even Takahashi-san indulges
in a bit of comic exaggeration towards the end of the series,
with Ryouga ending up in Moscow. That's okay.
For the most part, though, Ryouga's bad sense of direction
is just that - an inability to know where he's going. What
you've got here goes well beyond that. And since this is a
somewhat serious piece (sweet in tone, not dark, but definitely
not loony comedy), it seems very strange. Ryouga is not
just losing his way, he's teleporting around the world every
other second, going to the moon (you imply), and later on
you have him walking on water. He doesn't just have a bad
sense of direction, he has a host of phenomenal super powers
that he can't control. It's a bit much.
The thing is, your story doesn't need that. It hurts you
more than it helps. You can achieve what you're trying to
do here without going overboard with the globe-trotting
Ryouga thing, by simply keeping him wandering around Japan
as he does in most of the original series.
Walking along some long forgotten path in
the middle of some long forgotten mountain range he comes
across a fairly large boulder blocking the path. One Bakusai
Tenketsu later the path is cleared but Ryoga stays where he
was. He had never really thought about what it takes to perform
You're really jumping around between past and present tense
here. It makes your writing seem very rough.
the move since Cologne taught it to him. The words "See with
the mind and not with the eyes" kept running through his head.
No matter how hard Ryoga tries to shake it he just can't get it out
of his mind. It almost seemed to be telling him something but
was being intentionaly vague about it. Whatever the case was,
"intentionally"
he didn't have time to waste thinking about something as trivial
as Cologne's training methods. He had a Tendo Dojo to find.
Starting back along the path Ryoga gets back to walking and
feeling sorry for himself. Too lost in his thoughts Ryoga didn't
Comma after "thoughts."
notice a bunch of pools with bamboo poles sticking out of them
or the ocean that he seemed to be walking on. It was kind of like
those old cartoons where they didn't fall until they realized they
were standing in mid air.
Night time finally falls for Ryoga and he begins to set up camp
in the middle of the woods somewhere. It was here that he
managed to collect all of his random thoughts for the day.
"The Bakusai Tenketsu requires for me to see the breaking
point of a rock with my mind and not with my eyes. All it takes is
a little focus and there's the dot that allows me to remove that
rock." After saying this his eyes lit up as he formed an idea that
just might work. It was so simple that he was surprised that he
didn't come up with it sooner. Ranma had always found a way to
revise his techniques whenever he needed to so why couldn't
he. The concept behind the Bakusai Tenketsu was so basic that
"to, so why couldn't he?"
it could be easily adapted to his directional problem. So after
sitting down he started looking for a direction point instead of a
breaking point.
Here is where I think a little more description is in order.
While it's clear he's applying the breaking point technique
to pinpointing where he wants to go, I don't get any sense
of how he makes the transition. Such a thing would require,
I think, a huge leap in perception, where he learned to
expand his perspective from looking at a single object (a
rock) to comprehending the world as a whole.
The idea is far from impossible - it reminds me of many stories
of personal enlightenment in the Buddhist tradition. But I think
you aren't doing justice to the philosophical leap that Ryouga
is making here by skimming over it so quickly. Which is why
you could do more with the story.
The idea of Ryouga applying his breaking point training to
curing his sense of direction is interesting, but I think it
would be more so if it mirrored some sort of growth or
awakening in Ryouga's character. Rather than just having him
wandering around until it suddenly occurs to him to try a new
way of doing things, why not shape events a little more so he's
forced to grow and change? Give him some conflict to face,
something to overcome. I'd like to see more events which
inspire him to expand his horizons and think of things in new
ways, which would more naturally lead to his revelation.
After unsuccessful tries to find the Tendo Dojo and Japan he
decided to find something closer, like that river he could hear
from somewhere. After a little consentration he saw a nice little
"concentration"
dot form off to the left and behind him slightly. Eureka! A way to
find his way around places. Of course it disappeared once he
got to where he was headed but even he could find something if
he could se it. He was sure he would be able to work out the
ranging some other time and was content with heading straight
towards the river and then right back to his camp several times
just to make sure he was doing it right. Tears welled in his eyes
and cried unashamed till he went to sleep that night. Ryoga, for
the first time in a long time, was happy and knew that wherever
he set out to go the next day, he would get there.
--
Again, it goes by too quickly for my tastes. I want there
to be more than just an idea that leads to a new direction-finding
skill - I'd rather see a series of events which causes Ryouga to
change and mature, thereby curing himself along the way.
Of course, that would probably call for a much longer story.
Not necessarily - some people can do short fiction which is
so sharp and precise that it conveys worlds of information in
a few words. Check out Kawabata Yasunari's "Palm-of-the-Hand
Stories" if you really want to see how well short fiction can
be done.
In any case, I think you've got the beginnings of something
to work with here, but it's still very rough in a lot of
places. The exaggerated direction sense thing is not something
you need here, and detracts from your story. But you've got
the glimmerings of a character study for Ryouga which could be
really neat, if you have the time and patience to coax it out.
Best of luck,
Grayson Towler
http://www.rigroup.com/~grayson/relentless