Snippage throughout.
moved like a cat! His feet found purchase anywhere, but did not make a
NABIKI: Big deal. I can find purchases anywhere too.
TATEWAKI: I'm growing tided of your "Mount Kuno" game, Nabiki Tendo...
"Since it didn't like it was going to be a very interesting fight, I
decided to end it quickly with a Fire Burst. Unfortunately, he batted
it out of the air like a ball of yarn and back at me! Of course, I was
We're really pushing the cat analogy here. :)
As intended. =^.^=
pipe. "Anyway, the burglar had started to tie me up when I woke-- (that
is), when I snapped out of my meditative state. The fool had fallen
Happy's little prevariacations are funny, but don't overdo it. The one here is
basically just a repeat of the one two paragraphs previous.
Agreed.
Soun was still upset. "Akane, are you sure you won't stay here?"
"No way!"
"But I can't just leave your daughters alone, Akane..."
AKANE: My WHAT?
SOUN: Er... I was going to tell you. It's a time paradox thing.
Sisters, daughters. Close enough! At least I got the gender right!
The two bolted off, leaving the rest of the party confused. Ukyo
was berating herself for falling for one of Genma's stupid tricks, and
everyone else was wondering whom Ranma and Akane were talking about.
While 'whom' *is* technically grammatically correct, it sounds oddly stilted
here, especially with the technically incorrect construction (preposition at
the
end of the phrase). Suggest either changing it to 'who' or rephrasing as
something like: 'was wondering to whom Ranma and Akane were referring.'
Changed to "who". And there's nothing *technically* wrong with ending
a sentence with a preposition. It's just considered bad form.
A solid crack of knuckle against bone could be heard below.
"Akane?!" Ranma immediately jumped back down to where he had heard the
noise. He landed at the other end of the alleyway, which was lit by a
streetlight, above. Stark shadows were everywhere.
streetlight above. (Don't need the comma)
You can never have too many commas!
Hidden within the shadows between the two buildings, only their
silhouette could be seen. A silhouette carrying something large over
Suggest: 'only a silhouette could' ('their' should not be used in the
singular)
Yep, that's a better way of avoiding the pronoun gender issue.
He blinked. "They're bigger then I remem--" Ryoga slammed a fist
into Ranma's head.
"You PERVERT! Stop molesting Akane!!!"
Suggest moving Ryoga's action to the paragraph in which he speaks.
Agreed.
Ranma grinned. He might be stuck fighting with two idiots, but
there was no way a pervert was going to run away from his "haul". They
had him, now.
him now.
It's an adverbial *clause*, I tell you! A clause can too have one word!!
"Yaaa!" Startled, he failed to keep his center of gravity under
himself, and face-planted into pavement. Akane ran over to him, making
sure to stay in a fighting stance. Instead of protecting her chest,
however, her back hand clutched P-Chan to her bosom. With her forward
leg she booted Ranma.
leg, she (you can never have too many commas. :))
That's my line. :p
...and P-Chan clawed viciously at the thief's face. The mask was
pulled down to the thief's throat, and the kerchief was unknotted. A
cascade of silky lavender hair fell out of the kerchief and down the
thief's back.
And of course, seeing the anime haircolor does nothing to help them identify
the
person. Hey, it never did in the original series! :)
And indeed, it didn't identify Shampoo. It was the breasts and "Aiya!"
(Not to imply that Ranma can identify Shampoo's breasts by feel, from
behind...)
Nonetheless, this storyline was intended to be manga-only, so the
references to Shampoo and girl-type Ranma's hair have been removed.
"Uh, I'm sure Shampoo was just being bait. You know, pretend to be
another panty thief like Happosai and lure the thief out into another
fight. Right, Shampoo?"
Ranma said this, I presume?
Is there anyone else who could have said it?
I thought it was pretty clear from the context...
Cologne continued her story. "As is the way of things, we had a
child but nine months later." The group shuddered. Better to leave
thoughts of the wrinkled mummy unspoken! "Happosai left during his
girl's childhood, and the village was glad that his influence was gone.
My daughter was a powerful martial artist, who soon grew up, married,
and bore Shampoo's mother. She died in childbirth.
COLOGNE'S DAUGHTER: Have I told you about my collection of grass blades? Oh,
and
did you know I can recite the digits of pi to a hundred decimal places? Three
point one four one....
SHAMPOO'S MOTHER: Zzzzzzz....
Damn it. And here I meant that she drilled a hole in her head...
(I'll assume Gary is aware of the difference between the past
tense of "bear" and "bore" and is just being a goof. ^_^)
"Hey!" shouted Akane. "Excuse me?" added Ukyo.
Suggest making this two paragraphs, for two different speakers.
Oops. They were originally, but when I hard-wrapped the file before
posting, the text editor strung them together. That's what I get for
not puting a full blank line between paragraphs.
"Indeed, Tendo." nodded Genma. Ukyo blinked. Where had he come
Tendo." Genma nodded. (He's not nodding the line of dialog)
You lack imagination, Gary. :j
Akane had finally managed to pour some water on Shampoo and dump her
in a wicker basket. Ranma eyed the shifting basket warily as sounds of
a cat yowling and sharpening her claws could be heard from within.
"Well, that's one less 'fiancee' Ranma has to deal with," Akane smiled.
with." (You can't smile a line of dialog, unless you're Jimmy Carter. :)
"Is very tragic story. Akane fall in Spring of..."
"Yeah!" chimed in Ukyo. "My Ranchan's not going to marry a
pervert!"
"Yes," confirmed Akane, staring meaningfully at the crossdresser.
Heh heh!
MIKE RHEA: Crossdresser? What,is Tsubasa or Konatsu here?
Ah, love is blind... And so are delusional fools. ^_^
(Scary! He got the comma spacing right, too! [shiver])
"I don't understand it, Khu-Lon. All the younger amazons have
become exceedingly violent of late. They perceive insult at the
slightest thing, and give each other Kisses of Death. But when they
fight, they don't use weapons, and they never strike, or use joint locks
or throws. All they do is grab each other. I don't understand it,
Ku-Lon. What could it be?"
You've used two different spellings of Ye Olde Ghoul's name in the same
paragraph. (The canon Pinyin romanization is Ke Lun, FYI.)
I was my intent to use the Lawson romanization.
The Pinyin romanazation of Mousse's name in Mu Si, yes? That's not very
recognizable. I refuse to use that spelling, and for consistency's sake,
I stay the hell away from the entire romanization. Instead I'll use the
Japanese "Colon". And add a hyphen so it doesn't look so gross. ^_^
Overall impressions: You're relying rather heavily on dialog to carry your
scenes. The actual description of the action is fairly skimpy, and some of the
scenes aren't all that clear, or at least weren't in my mind when I was
reading.
More direct description would help, IMO.
I don't think fan fiction is well-suited to portraying action; it's not
a visual medium. You can't see the characters, or watch their movement.
In particular, written fight scenes have always bored me to tears. So
yes, my stuff is defintely on the "talky" side.
You didn't give any concrete examples of what scenes weren't clear, so
I don't know what to clean up. Of course, the whole chapter suffers from
all sort of constructions that scream "newbie" to me.
I'd like to revise it all, but I'm in no rush to go back and do that
sort of overhaul when it's taken me this long to get to part two! ^_^;
Shampoo as Happosai's descendant is not hard to believe. What's a bit less
palatable for me is that perversion is inherited. I can accept it for the sake
of the story if necessary, and it does lead to some interesting changes in the
character relationships, but it takes a lot away from Happy's character to
think
that his perversion is simply genetic and there isn't some interesting reason
for it in his background.
I *never* meant to imply that Happy can blame his perversion on any sort of
genetic defect. No, he worked hard to be what his is today, and he deserves
all the credit. It's more along the lines of (forgive the Japanese) "He's
such a hentai, he perverted his own genetic code!"
Maybe I can work that into a later chapter.
On to the next chapter now, and let's see how much Doug's writing has improved
in the last two years or so. :)
Ooh, comparative fanfiction! Does writing hundreds of pages improve your
writing skills? Hopefully yes. ^_^ Thanks for your comments,
Doug
----
Douglas MacDougall "You were nicer when you were evil.
http://www.dougmacd.net Cuter, too. Definitely more sexy!"