You're welcome. I try to be detailed.
RE: Zhu . . .
I thought she was on the cusp of being an ANC.
That doesn't have anything to do with what you've
written in your stories, only with how she was
portrayed in CotB. This is ONLY my opinion, but she
was just a little too good at everything. Too pretty,
too good at martial arts and the bit with the senshi
was over the top, IMO. It's possible to write a good
story with a character like this . . .
E.E. (Doc) Smith did it all the time. So did Kenneth
Robeson (mostly Lester Dent, with several other
authors under the �house name') with Doc Savage, the
Man of Bronze! But while that kind of character can be
a lot of fun, there's not much depth of emotion. Other
characters in the story are mostly just backdrop or
comic relief, because the Hero(ine) is always right.
There's nothing wrong with that and some best selling
books have been written that way. BUT, if not handled
_very_ carefully . . .you end up with Annoying New
Character instead.
What you do or don't do in your story doesn't have
much impact on CotB, IMO. It will be a help, but if
people HAVE to read your story first, before they can
understand CotB, you may cut out a portion of your
readership. (Especially since your story isn't
available yet.) There IS a way around this. Look at
any series of books, from C.S. Forester's "Hornblower"
to David Weber's "Honor Harrington" {modeled on
Hornblower ^_*}. Each book in the series must stand on
it's own so that a reader can read them individually
or out of order (as I did the Hornblower series. I
started with the third or fourth book in the series)
The author MUST assume that each book in the series
will be read by someone who has never read any of the
others. To accommodate these readers a certain portion
of each book is taken up by "what has gone before" to
bring the reader up to speed. MOST of this information
should be and usually is melded seamlessly INTO the
story line. The reader finds out what has happened in
earlier books, w/o being aware of the process. That's
the real secret. The reader should NEVER know they are
being fed information about books they haven't read
yet. It should blend smoothly and dynamically into the
existing storyline, not be force-fed in large cold
lumps. Some times there is no choice, no better way to
give critical information to the reader EXCEPT in
large doses. Still, the author MUST make it as
painless as possible. Extra effort must be made to
keep it entertaining and original. And it should be
easy to �skip' that part, so regular readers of the
series can leap past what they know. A key to this
procedure is give ONLY information that the reader
MUST know. Timing as always is critical. When you give
information is as important as what you tell the
reader.
For example, let's assume I'm writing a story wherein
Tendou Akane and Mizuno Ami are twin sisters,
separated at birth (due to the onus on twin births in
Japan) I can set up this story in several different
ways; I can write a prologue with an unnamed couple
fighting over their children, the traditional father
wishing to give up a daughter for adoption, the more
modern mother refusing, the fight ending in
separation. This provides sufficient _critical_
information that as the story unfolds the reader
understands Who, What, When and Why of the set-up and
the logic of the plot.
Alternatively, I can simply launch into the story and
provide this critical information at various points
along the way. HOW and WHEN I do this affects the flow
of the story. It's not a matter of right or wrong, but
rather what direction I want the story to go.
Depending almost solely upon this information flow I
can go from comedy to tragedy to drama to horror.
Information flow made all the difference in Oedipus
Rex, after all. ^_*
So . . .
1) Curse of the Banshee should stand on it's own,
regardless of your stories.
2) Zhu stand or falls as a character as she is
portrayed in CotB. What is or isn't done in other
stories has little effect on CotB.
3)Understanding changes to Canon isn't as important as
_believing_ those changes. If you tell a good story,
I'll accept almost anything you do. (I'm using �you'
to indicate authors in general) HOWEVER, a peculiarity
of fanfiction is that readers expect and want certain
things. And the more you differ from canon the more
work you have to do to make the reader accept those
changes. If Ranma and Akane don't get together
. . .that takes effort. If Ryouga is a CPA and Kuno a
Baptist preacher . . .you're going to have to work at
it to make the change acceptable to he reader.
4)Zhu is a New Character. You don't have to make her
acceptable to canon. She was never IN canon. She's
original. What you DO have to do is:
1)make her a believable character
2)make a connection between Zhu and the reader,
especially if she's a main character.
3)Her interaction with other (canon) characters must
be workable. In this case Zhu is beautiful (everyone
seems to comment on it) a martial artist AND a senshi!
Break out the red long-johns with the big <S> on the
chest!
New Senshi are, IMO, the single MOST irritating kind
of character in SM fanfiction. Frankly in CotB the
other senshi seemed to be brought on stage simply to
provide a foil for Zhu to show how wonderful she is
and how much she doesn't need them. IMO her
interaction with the other senshi, especially Rei, was
off-putting. And Zhu doesn't tell Usagi what she
(Usagi) is going to do. Usagi is the princess, the
ONLY reason a senshi has for existing. Usagi tells
Zhou!
Not to mention that Usagi is the most powerful of them
all, Saturn and the Silence Glaive not withstanding.
This is especially evident in the manga. IMO, at
least. But power or not, Usagi is the Moon Princess
and in the chain of command she is at the top, and
orders and permission flow down hill. If you have
changed this, you're going to have to do a LOT of
explaining. And you're going to have to bring the
reader up-to-speed in CotB. Frankly, Usagi is the
God-Empress of the Silver Millennium/Crystal
Tokyo----the resemblance to Japanese royalty/mythology
is pretty blatant. She's got the Imperial Regalia
(sword, jewel, mirror) for example) and the Senshi are
the Moon Kingdom equivalent of the 47 Samurai. Loyal
unto death and beyond. It's evident in the Anime, but
the manga states explicitly that the senshi have only
one reason for living . . .Usagi. So, making Usagi and
the others into minor characters is a pretty major
step. IMO, you're better off not even bringing the
senshi into the story, unless they have a major role.
The same goes for Akane, Kodachi and the rest of the
Ranma crew. Keep it simple.
--- "L.S McGill" <lsmcgill@hotmail.com> wrote:
This is a general post to all of you who have C&C'd
CotB
First, thank you very much. The kind of C&C we've
managed to get so far has
been limited to "That's great" or "This Sucks" with
nothing else to give
any reasons for the explainations.
Jenny will most likely post her own replies when she
has a chance, but I
felt I should make one response on the subject of
Zhu Shu
Zhu Shu (pronounced Who Shew) Is my character.
Her full name is Song Zhu Shu, where Song is her
family and Zhu Shu (both
syllables) is her name. It means Little Mouse in
Mandarin.
So far, most of the responses pointing out the
differences in the SM and
Ranma continuity seem to be directed at the
differences which come about
from my story Ranma 1/2 The Mandarin, and it's
continuation Ranma 1/2: The
Dragons Child.
This is understandable, since I have not yet posted
either on FFML yet. In
this regard, I ask your patience, as I am revamping
the entire 120,000 plus
words of the established story as it has been
published on RAAC and FFN.
CotB takes place at the approximate time as the
final posted chapters of
Dragons Child, so there is much of that story she
draws on. I will
hopefully be publishing the first chapter of The
Mandarin soon, which will
introduce you to Zhu Shu.
Hopefully, when I do, you won't find her to be an
ANC, and perhaps you will
understand the changes to Canon in CotB.
Thanks... L.S. McGill
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