I got c and c! I know, I know, I'm probably too excited for my own good....
but still!
It's not terribly difficult to arrive at the conclusion that Soichi and
Kimiko are, in fact, Otoko- and Onna-Ranma.. so if this is not the case, or
if you want people to think it isn't the case, you're going to have to
eliminate the two clues that lead people to think she's Onna-Ranma. One is
to
remove the line about her being redheaded: onna-Ranma is the only redheaded
girl I can think of in Ranma �, or you could also remove the line that
talks
about the curse being split.
*sigh* I had a problem with this myself. I had to make a difficult
decision, post nearly fifty pages of a story on the first shot and irritate
everyone on the list, or have it be slightly confusing. I decided to go
with number two.
Oh, and about the curse, I meant the one where Ranma's hair grows
uncontrollably without the dragon's whisker. Sorry if I didn't make it very
clear. I'll go back and work it in there.
Most of the rest of the story is very well written: any grammar or spelling
mistakes fell below my radar, well short of the level needed to annoy the
reader. That's a good thing, too many stories have rampant spelling/grammar
mistakes that annoy the hell out of the reader. So, grammar is not going
to
be the issue you thought it would be.
YES! I CAN SPELL! Sorry. It's just that you're talking to someone who
spent much of her adult life
*still* spelling 'grammar' incorrectly.
Plot, on the other hand, is where you should spend your time. There isn't
much yet - a lot of setup is going on - but you should give a hint of where
things are going. All we know now is Nabiki is suspicious, that it involves
a
girl named Yuki, who we know nothing about, that Ranma has apparently run
away with his girl side, and Akane is annoyed by Ryouga. While these are
interesting, as is they do not constitute a plot.
Argh. That whole length of confusion thing. I pull these together rather
nicely (well...in my opinion anyway) a little later into the story. Do you
think I should start doing it earlier? I tried when writing, but found I
couldn't do it without disruputing the flow.
There must be some way to
unify the elements and give direction to the story. A foreshadowing of why
Ranma popping back up is bad news, what Nabiki would do when she finds out,
etc, is needed.
Hmm...interesting...I'll be sure to go over that again...how can I do that
without giving too much away...think, stupid brain matter! Think....
The POV jumps around a lot, maybe more than it should, but I don't know
about
that being too much of a problem. The alternative is running into the
problems that I have in Ranmazoku, where everything is from Ranma's
perspective, and can be a real pain in the ass... it's always better to err
on the side of too many shifts in POV than too few.
I've written things entirely in first person before. I barely made it to
the end.
Nabiki is the character
who could stand to be jumped to a little less, maybe try condensing two of
her scenes into one longer one.
Maybe, I figured that she needed the space between paragraphs to think, then
again, Nabs is pretty smart. =) I'll see what I can do.
Also, there are probably too many one-line
paragraphs; again, they could probably be condensed, using short paragraphs
to break up Nabiki's train of thought.
*hangs head in shame*
I don't think that'll be happening. It's a written flaw I borrowed from
Gary Paulson and I'm afraid that it won't go away without extensive therapy.
Thanks so much for the feedback!
-Linda
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