Asayogure wrote:
Ranma Gets A Clue Forward:
What would happen if in mid-story in the Ranma 1/2 universe, Ranma
slowly but surely got a clue? Nothing overt, nothing too rapid or
obvious. But what if instead of constantly running from his problems with
Akane, and his issues with love and what it means for him and his
life if he has to make decisions and abide by them. What would happen if
Ranma got a clue? Shall we find out?
Heya... I remember this story from a while back, and it's good to see it picked
up again. But...
It needs a lot of work.
Unlike most fics that need a lot of work, your spelling is for the most part
reasonable. It's your grammar you need to focus on. You have a talent for
imagery, but your sentence structure (or lack thereof) gets in the way of
the best features of the fic. You really need to have a good editor go over
this with you and point out the flaws that need correcting. The number one
target on *my* list would be your use of sentence fragments; you have a habit
of setting off dependent clauses as their own sentences. Here's a very typical
example from the fifth paragraph of chapter 1:
He just wanted to have a conversation with her, to
hear her speak with neither anger nor sarcasm. Just to
have a normal conversation with the girl he was supposed to
marry.
The second sentence is not a sentence. It should be part of the one before it,
either set off with a long dash or recast slightly to improve the flow. In this
case, I think the latter would be better, as it would eliminate some word
repetition. But my point is, you do this a lot, and the fic suffers for it.
You have some punctuation problems, primarily the use of apostrophes. Possessives
without them, plurals with'em, and the ever popular its/it's confusion. Again, a
good editor (aka prereader) can help you with that.
You need to pay more attention to the voices of the people you're writing. By
chapter 9, everyone is saying "ya gotta" like they've taken diction lessons
from Ranma. This just doesn't work -- it's especially jarring for Kasumi and
Nabiki. Speaking of which, you've done a great job with Kasumi -- in character
yet more than we usually see -- *except* for her speech. I can't see Kasumi
saying to Ranma, "You owe me one". I can see her saying something more formal
and less obvious that means the same thing, but not that particular sentence.
It's more of a Nabiki thing. Your Akane, however, is nicely on target all over,
although I have a problem with seeing "you goober!" as one of her perjoratives.
And finally, the one biggest problem I think this fic has. And that is that
it's not one fic, but two shoehorned together. There's the one which deserves
the title -- where Ranma, because he hears Akane's dream mumblings, realizes
that his feelings are returned much earlier than he would have in canon, and
what happens as a result. Good idea, good story, good execution. Then there's
the *second* story, which is the "magic returns and Ranma is the Great Savior"
epic that suddenly pokes its head up around chapter 6 or so. Also a good idea,
although I think the execution is not quite as good as the other story's.
Ramming both these ideas together into one big tale *doesn't work*, at least not
the way you've implemented it. If the magic returns and as a side effect, Ranma
realizes his feelings for Akane are reciprocated, that would be better. That
would be a unified plotline. But what you have are two different plots, one
of which just came out of left field six or so chapters in, suddenly intertwining
around each other. And unfortunately, both plot lines suffer because they're not
really connected to each other strongly enough. Worse, I felt vaguely
disappointed when the epic started up because I had gotten really into the smaller,
more intimate level which had typified the story up to that point -- then you
suddenly changed the focus and the scope, and as a reader, I was jarred so heavily
that I never quite recovered.
My advice to you is to split these two stories apart. Continue "Ranma Gets A Clue"
on the intimate, person-to-person level, focusing intently on Ranma and Akane.
Spin off the rest of the story as its own beast, possibly opening with Tofu's
dream (or maybe not) but definitely laying the ground work for the villains and
other developments from chapter one, starting off in epic mode from the get-go.
That way, you'll have *two* good fics, instead of one middling, meandering one.
Just my two cents' worth...
-- Bob
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Bob Schroeck
http://www.eclipse.net/~rms rms@eclipse.net
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Just because we disagree doesn't mean I have to kill you, unless I want
to. -- Unknown
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