Working through more backlog....

Troy Thomas <Silentnova@go.com> wrote:

I hope this wasn't too rushed. Nonetheless, I think it's a fairly decent read. ^_^

We shall see. :) Hope this un-timely response isn't too late to be of
any use.

Ranma 1/2 and its characters are the creations and properties 
of Rumiko Takahashi. Excepting flames, if you have any 

Yay, a serious disclaimer that gives credit where credit is due! (But I
think it's "property," BTW, even in the collective like this.)

Nodoka Saotome was smiling. She was humming. She was chopping 
a carrot into perfectly equal slices without any moment of 
hesitation.

In general, it's a good idea to keep your sentence structure varied, and
to limit your use of "was" verbs. A sentence like "She was Xing" can be
translated to "She Xed" (e.g. "She hummed"), and tbey generally have a
more dynamic feel in the second form.

Her husband, Genma, lumbered into the kitchen, and opened the 
fridge.

I'm not sure why you feel the need to tell us that Genma is her husband.
Nodoka knows this already, and doubtless your reader does as well.

"Dear, would you please wait until dinner is finished?" 
Nodoka asked.

"Nodoka, I'm sure nobody will mind if I have a little snack 
before the dinner." Genma responded, with a look of innocence 

dinner," Genma responded,

"responded" is telling you directly that Genma said the line of dialog,
so it's part of the same sentence. If it were an unrelated action, your
punctuation would be correct:

dinner." Genma's face held a look of innocence.

on his face.

Nodoka slightly turned her attention towards her husband. "I 
would mind." she warned, emphasising I. When she finished 

mind," she warned, emphasising "I."

Again, "warned" refers to the line of dialog, hence the comma. Also note
the quotes, since it refers to the word "I".

Beside the fridge, Genma sulked for a moment, before turning 
out of the kitchen towards the living room, where happiness 
could be heard.

What does happiness sound like? ^_^  Could do with some more sensory
detail here.

Quietly, Nodoka said to herself, not knowing her son Ranma 
had just entered the kitchen, "I hope this family Christmas 
dinner is the greatest ever!" She smiled, noting the irony in 
her words, since it was the first dinner held for her family 
in eleven years.

Why is that ironic? I don't get it. Irony is when something ends up
accomplishing a purpose oppsite to the one for which it was intended. If
Nodoka wished for a Happy New Year and it turned into the Year of the
Ancient Perverted Martial Artist, that would be irony. (Okay, so that
was a dumb example. :)

Unknowing to Nodoka, Ranma quietly slipped out of the kitchen 

Unknown to (I think)
As written, it seems to suggest that Nodoka considers Ranma to be
ignorant. Which may be true, but probably not what you had in mind. :)

"I want a Christmas to remember." Nodoka said, gently 

remember," Nodoka

(Look for this elsewhere; in the interest of not belaboring the point,
I'm gonna stop pointing out each individual instance.)

smiling.

Noddy's thoughts here could do with more detail. Saying that she wants
this Christmas to be the greatest ever doesn't really tell us much. The
phrase could mean a million different things to a million different
people. Show us enough detail so we know what *her* idea of a great
Christmas is.

Ranma looked about the living room. He saw his father 
speaking and laughing with Soun Tendo, an old family friend. 
He saw his fianc�e Akane Tendo, Soun's youngest daughter, 

fiancee, Akane

(The accented e will show up as a blob on other platforms, so it's a
good idea to stick to the standard character. Since "Akane Tendo" is
identifying who "his fiancee" refers to, and doesn't have a "who was" or
similar connector, you need a comma setting it off. Though you can
probably just drop everything between "fiancee" and "cheerfully" since
we all know who Akane is.)

cheerfully speaking with her friends Yuka and Sayuri.

Again, I don't see why you need to tell us who everyone is. We know
already. Assume your reader has read at least some of the original
series, especially when it's a popular one like Ranma.

Ranma's tensefully glanced over at Akane, who had just seemed 

I don't think "tensefully" is a word, and you don't want the "'s".
Suggest something like:

Ranma stole a tense glance at Akane, who

Also, "seemed" doesn't seem right. Presumably she did in fact look away
from him, no?

"Ucchan, glad you could make it." Ranma replied, to his 
friend and other fianc�e, Ukyou Koniji. "You enjoying the 

Her name's spelled "Kuonji." Also, since you haven't been using the
extra-u romanization for anything else (e.g. Souun Tendou), it should be
"Ukyo."

"It's pretty good, Ranma. Your mom is a good host." Ukyou 
replied." She stepped closer to him. "What'd you get me, 
Ranchan?" she asked, a bit too seductive for Ranma's liking.

"That's a secret." Ranma said, disguising a retreat from 
Ukyou's personal space by turning around and away from her. 

Not much of a disguise there, is it. ^_^;;;

RANMA: Don't think I'm running away from you, just 'cause I'm, um,
running away from you!

You might want to change the line of dialog. He might well say something
to that effect, but using those particular words is to Xellos for my
tastes. :)

Ignoring Ukyou, Shampoo said to Ranma, "Ooh! Shampoo is 
thirsty. Let's go get something to drink, okay?" She lead him 
to the refreshments table. "Fruit Punch!" she quealed.

squealed (I think you meant)

"I'll give you a punch!" Ukyou shouted. "How dare you ignore 
me! I was trying to threaten you!"

Heh.

"Shampoo don't care. I not interested in easy win fight! 
Tonight is Christmas." Shampoo took a glass cup, and then 
filled it with some juice.

I like the characterization of Shampoo here.

The chase, it had two outcomes. The prey escaped or the 
hunter returned home with a prize and a meal.

Nice use of metaphor here. I'm not sure about the phrasing; it seems a
bit clipped and unclear, but then again that might be appropriate given
Ranma's mental state at this moment.

"You, Spatula Girl, is job of wife to soothe husband's hurts. 
You not wife!" Shampoo shouted, flinging a snowball at Ukyou.

Now if this were really canon-flavored, that would've missed and hit
Ranma. ^_^

Ukyou looked at Shampoo, who was laughing, and then herself 
began to laugh. She packed some snow together...It was 

together.... It

definately time to begin enjoying Christmas.

definitely

To her right, there seemed to be a snowball fight...The 

You may want to reword to avoid the accidental rhyme (right/fight).
Besides, again, some sensory detail would be better than just telling us
what she concludes. What does she hear/see that leads her to this
conclusion?

"I heard my mom say she wanted a great Christmas...How is she 

Christmas. How

or

Christmas.... How

(If ellipses end a sentence, use four dots rather than three; and you
need a space after them in any case.)

"Hey you two!" Nabiki called out. "What are you up to, huh?"

"Hey, you two!"

The couple under the bridge began to sputter out denials, but 
were interrupted by Kasumi, who stood beside Nabiki, "Oh my, 
is this true Akane? A secret romantic meeting on Christmas?" 

this true, Akane?

(When a speaker identifies who is being spoken to, set the
identification off by a comma. Otherwise she's asking whether this is
"true Akane", i.e. not an impostor.)

Nodoka squeezed the hand of Genma, who was laughing with 
Soun. She was happy. Everything, for one night, was brought 
together in a perfection.

together in perfection.

("perfection" is an abstract and singular concept; you can't have "a
perfection.")

Everything was merry. Everything was Christmas.

End Side-Story

Okay, overall impressions time... your writing's pretty clean, and
mostly good grammatically; a few problems as noted, but all fairly minor
issues that can be fixed. Where it lacks, I think, is in detail, and in
what you might call flavor.

To take an example, there's about a zillion places where you simply tell
us "she smiled" or something like that. (Well, okay, I just counted and
there were only six. But even so. ^_^) It gets tiresome to keep reading
the same description over and over. Sometimes you can just use another
word, but generally the best cure for this problem is to give more
detail. What kind of smile was it? Exactly what did it look like? How
did it differ from other smiles you might see elsewhere? Note that
descriptions that give you a direct image of what something looks
(and/or sounds, smells, feels) like are, generally speaking, the best
kind.

Story-wise, I liked some parts of it. The catfight turning into a
snowball fight was a particularly nice touch. I think I could've gotten
more into the story if there'd been more narrative detail, as I talked
about above -- particularly as regards the characters' thoughts and
feelings. The part I liked least was the ending. It seemed forced, as if
you were trying to jam a happy ending down our throats. "Everyone was
happy. Everything was marvelous. Happy, happy, joy, joy! Did we mention
that everyone was happy? Well, they were." This is very different from
Ranma canon flavor; in the manga, these kinds of warm and fuzzy moments
are pretty much always balanced by something humorous happening. Which
is not to say a fanfic can't differ from canon in its approach, but
yours *was* tagged as canon-flavored, and I think following Takahashi in
this might help you make an ending that feels less saccharine.

Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year.

Likewise!


Gary Kleppe
http://www.akane.org/gary/comics.html
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