My. Haven't heard a peep out of you for so long I had thought you dropped
out of fic writing altogether. Nice to see you back:

All C&C is simply my opinion and can be cheerfully ignored.  =)

And as usual, I pick and choose what I want to hear. Just like one's spouse,
when you stop and think about it. :)

Chilled night air blown off the river breathed
down Yoshi's neck, seeking warmth yet only
succeeding in making him shift uncomfortably
while it continued ever onward, unaffected.

Gah!  As an opening sentence this leaves a lot to be desired.  Too long,

too

hard to follow.  "Chilled night air" isn't quite right, as it makes it

seem

that someone has bottled night air and put it on ice.  =)

Maybe something like:

The chilly night wind blew off the dark river.  It breathed down Yoshi's
neck as if seeking warmth, yet it only succeeded in making him shift
uncomfortably.  Undaunted, the breeze continued on.

That's rough, of course, but I think illustrates that you can make this a
bit easier on the eyes without losing the descriptive aspect you were
looking for.

Agree. I tend to do longer sentences like that when shorter ones would
suffice. Will change.

Four paragraphs of C&C on the first sentence.  A new record for me.  =)

Yes, but it's good C+C, so I forgive you. :)

He felt cold, colder than he could ever remember in
his twenty-two years of life. It was curious, since
no more than half an hour ago he was numb to the chill

What was curious?  Avoid passive sentences like this whenever possible.

I know I should, but the truth is I use passive sentences a lot. Too much,
probably, but there are times when I prefer the flow to the prose they give.
With that being said, I'm still taking your advice and making the change.
You're right.

Perhaps simply replacing "It" with "Which".  Also, change the tense of the
sentence to the past perfect.  "Which was curious, since no more than a

half

an hour ago he had been..."

The cold would be ending soon enough. Sooner,
if he so desired.

Oooh.  Suicide is painless.

All depends on how you do it. I think trying to kill yourself via paper cuts
would be long and painful. :)

Oh, there would be a few moments of intense, probably
painful cold, but then it would drift away and he would
experience it in decreasing amounts until there was nothing
left to feel, or so he assumed. It was what he had heard
others say, and what he believed.

Hmm.  I don't like this spelled out.  The reference to suicide would be

much

better implied, like it was in those first two sentences.  Leave out this
exposition and let your readers be left with a vague feeling of unease.

I was leaving it vague at first, but intended to spell it out later before
Urd shows up. I'm not exactly infamous for my... subtlety, shall we say.
Worse, nearly every time I try to be subtle, I get too subtle and people
miss what was being said. I actually went against my normal tendencies in
waiting this long. Still, I agree with trying to keep it less obvious a
little longer and will try to cut some of these things, but it might not be
much, I'll warn you in advance.

On the upside, most people didn't want to deal with
the snow and, between that and how late in the evening
it was, avoided the park.

Gah!  Another convoluted, difficult-to-break-down sentence.  Try something
like:

On the upside, the snow and the late hour combined to keep most people

away

from the park.

Yes. Much better.

A shuddering shook Yoshi's body,

Hmm.  Of course a shuddering would shake.  It's like saying "The punch hit
him."

Argh! I have done this type of mistake before on a multitude of occasions.
Let me tell you about the time I described something as 'a round sphere'...

On the other hand, upon rereading your example, I don't think it's a good
one. After all, the punch might miss its intended target, and making mention
of it connecting isn't all that bad :)

 "Yoshi shuddered" is simpler and better.

Ordinarily, I dislike starting paragraphs, especially long ones, with a
person's name if it can be avoided. This is largely because early on I
tended to start over 75% of my paragraphs with someone's name. Obviously
it's unavoidable at times, especially in short multi-person dialogues when
you have to clearly identify speakers, but I do try to find ways around it
and am still learning. With that being said, I'm changing it the way you
suggested.

He looked back and forth across each side of the bridge,
but still no one had appeared. An omen, perhaps, one
that told him this was what he was meant to do.

If you remove the sentences I suggest above, this will again bill

foreboding

as Yoshi's intention is made more and more clear.

This I am far more reluctant to do. Yoshi is not very committed
to this course of action, and that's intentional since Urd talks him out of
it so easily. These sentences are a case of him almost looking for someone,
anyone, to try and stop him. Perhaps not consciously on his part, but that
is what's being hinted at here. I think I might rephrase that it as 'Perhaps
it was an omen telling him...' though.

Again Yoshi's eyes sought the water below. The lights
still danced across the surface as the wind continued
to blow, paying no heed to his discomfort.

You're getting a bit repetitive, describing the same things over and over.

This is one of the problems with writing and revising for four hours
straight and getting
progressively sicker with each half hour but forcing yourself onward. I
meant to cut a lot out of the final revision and ended up not slicing more
than a handful of sentences. Things started blurring into one for me, but I
was intent on sending something out. Next time I'll exhibit restraint and
look it over again when I feel better. This needs to be revised at least one
more time and the opening gutted for stuff like this. I think I used cold or
a variation of it fifty times throughout this thing. >_<

It occurred to him as he stood there, regarding obsidian
depths that could have they reached two hundred feet down
instead of a mere twenty from as far as he could see into
it, that no matter what the priests at his temple  contended,
the world really didn't care about you.

<Richard's head explodes>

You'll be happy to know yours wasn't the only one.

Whoa.  You really went overboard with the sentence structure here.  I

don't

even know what "depths that could have they reached two hundred feet down
instead of a mere twenty from as far as he could see into it" is supposed

to

mean.

Already cut. It was confusing and unnessesary, and I realized it the moment
someone pointed it out to me, which was also when I came to grips with the
fact I should have gone through one more revision while not ill. :)

It left abruptly, disappearing in a heartbeat. In the
beginning it lingered, becoming less noticeable as
other smells, none ever so sweet, drowned it out
until he could smell it not longer. It was shouting
in a cavern, listening to an echo that dwindled ever
softer into the distance until it became unheard.
Though if one tried hard enough, believed strongly
enough, they might convince themselves they could hear
one last sound even when it had drifted into nothingness
long ago.

In case you think I have nothing good to say,

Eh? Pointing out mistakes is something good to say. Even if it ends up being
more a
matter of personal taste, it's far better to question someone about it, if
only to make them reassure themselves of the reason something is written the
way it is.

this is excellent descriptive

pose, well-paced and evocative.

Thanks. I've always felt descriptive imagery is my weakest ability as a
writer. Frankly I don't enjoy writing it, and I usually have to make a
conscious effort that takes time to get it to work. This was such a passage.
It took a lot of time.
I'm glad it worked. :)

The first thought that struck him as his eyes
fell onto the woman, who leaned over the railing
and looked idly in his direction, was that she
was a goddess descended from Heaven, come to
deliver him from oblivion.

Hurm.  I kinda dislike this, that his first impression is *so* spot-on
accurate.  Since we know from the AMG tag that she is a goddess, it

feels...

unsubtle to have Yoshi react this way.

Hmm. It was supposed to be a touch of irony. After all, how often have we
heard this applied to the sudden appearance of any beautiful woman? Given
the way she acts after his initial assessement, he'd reconsider it in his
mind, of course; the stereotypical angel does not behave the way Urd does.
Still, I thought it a twisted sort of irony, being rightbut for all the
wrong reasons.
 I'm inclined to leave it in unless otherpeople feel the same way. It's not
absolutely
necessary, and I'd rather it wasn't distracting, so it can easily be
changed.

The only odd thing about her was the white
plastic bag that was slung over her shoulder,
the bottom sagging from an object within.

That's the *only* odd thing about her?  ^_^  Dark-skinned women with
platinum blonde hair are rare enough as it is, plus her unusual attire.

The

plastic bag should just be another of the oddities associated with his

first

perusal of Urd.

You're right, but I need to point out the bag with her initial apperance.
Any ideas on how I should rephrase it so it draws his eye (and subsequently
I make mention of it to the reader)?

"Where'd you come from?!"

Even though I do this too in some of my fanfics, it behooves me as a

C&C-er

to point out that multiple punctuation marks such as !! or ?? or ?! are
grammatically indefensible.  Leave out the exclamation mark and find some
other way to convey his startlement.

This is the one, and I do believe only one, I use. It is a question
delivered in an excited way. I really don't want to add, 'he said, startled,
either before or after in this case. It just doesn't feel right.

Her smile held a mix of
sarcasm and amusement in equal amounts.

Get rid of "a mix of".

Okay.

Even as distracted as he was, he would have heard her approach,

Even as distracted as he had been, he...

Got it

But he caught himself and instead gave out a terse,
"I am about to jump off a bridge. I'd say it's a little
late to talk to someone."

In keeping with the theme of explicitly stating the impending suicide, I'd
leave out the "I am about to jump off a bridge" bit.

Here I'll agree again and snip away.

He was making fun of her.

Er, *she* was making fun of *him*.

Argh! This one was inexplicable. I know I looked it over five times at
least, and I never caught on. It took me a moment after someone else pointed
it out for me to realize I had transposed things. A clear case of the writer
filling in what he knows is supposed to be there rather thanreading  what's
actually
there, I'm afraid. This is why I'm beginning to consider taking on
prereaders even for shorter works like this, to catch the simple mistakes I
overlook. On the other hand, it does give readers something to comment on as
well. :)

And of course there's the whole reason of why we
celebrate it, very important to me and my...
co-workers.

Hmm.  Mixing mythologies here; can't imagine the Norse gods caring much
about what the Christian worshippers celebrated.  =)  But perhaps you

could

chalk this up to professional courtesy between competing offices.

A!MG plays fast and loose with that sort of thing, and it's the sentiment
I'm going for rather than theological arguments. Although someone else's
similar
comments about this made me wonder what it would be like to do a spamfic
with the three goddesses hanging out with Vikings way back when their
pantheon was
still in full swing in Scandinavia.

This new tangent offended Yoshi for some
reason he couldn't understand. "You're
getting off the subject."

"Oh, yeah. Sorry about that." Though her
words were in apology, they lacked a feeling
of sincerity.

Heh.  She's getting off the subject but she's doing her jobs, distracting
Yoshi out of his cycle of depression.  Well-done, Urd.  =)

Urd: Thanks. ^_^

"So she died?"

Hurm?  This seems an unwarranted assumption on Urd's part.  I would have
assumed that they had simply broken up.  It's quite common that one half

of

a couple idolizes the other, without reciprocation.

Actually death was the first thing that would have come to my mind,
ironically. I guess it goes to show how morbind I am. ^_^
 Of course what this really does is force him to correct her
misassumption by explaining things to her (and subsequently, to the reader)
which is the primary reason I wrote in the misassumption. It seemed a
natural way to get him to open up. Once he starts talking about Mariko, he
can't stop himself.

Without her, I can't go on, no matter how hard
I try. And now it's come to this."

Nice passage here.  Slightly incoherent, rambling a bit, but perfectly
natural for someone spewing out their thoughts all at once.

That was what I was going for. I like to think that whereas descriptive
imagery is a weakness for me, dialogue is closer to a strength. :)

Each word weighed heavy with resentment and anger,
carrying with it the woman's emotions. It was like
being force fed empathy, and he found it impossible
not to swallow.

Not sure why words weighted with anger could be called the same as

empathy.

Actually it's referring to the emotions, and here it's some of Urd's more
divine abilities coming to the forefront. In this case, he is literally
receiving what
she's feeling, and it's only partially diluted. Think I should change it
around in some way?

The slap across his face was hard enough
to leave a hand print across a cheek already
reddened by the bitter temperature.

Woot!  Way to go, Urd.  ^_^

This was actually one of the earlier scenes that sprang to my mind when
conceiving of this.

"Do you honestly believe that stupid idea about
there being one and only one person in the entire
world that you are destined to fall madly and
permanently in love with?

Well, Keiichi and Belldandy might believe, but that's another story.  :)

Is it destiny, or is it just something that happened? That's the question,
and one not dealt with here. Moreover I would contend it's moot. Whether
it's destiny or not, it's real, and that's all that really matters.

The woman spoke again. If ice had a voice,
it would have sounded just like her. "Oh no
you don't. You most definitely do not ever
want to wish for that. Be happy you can give
up your memories to the past rather than having
them remain with you forever.

Very nice, my favorite part of the fic.

Thanks. I thought it turned out nicely, but since I'm the author I'm
terribly biased. :)

  Urd demonstrates nicely that
being

a goddess is not all joy and happiness and being able to do neat magic
tricks.  It's an aspect to her nature I've never considered before, but

one

that I think fits quite well with the concept of being the Goddess of the
Past.

And I've opened your mind to possible new ideas regarding a character. How
very flattering as well.

My only real complaint about this passage is that it's one big block of
text.  But in a few descriptive connectors, something like:

Urd's voice grew slightly bitter.  "It makes letting go difficult and
forgetting impossible."

Of course, maybe Urd isn't bitter here, but I'm try to show what kind of
possibilities you have for breaking this up a bit.

*Sigh* Someone else made mention of the same thing here. One person I was
able to write off as just a difference in opinion, but two people mentioning
it in the same spot means I should reconsider breaking the dialogue.

That was not to say he was cured: he was still
miserable since Mariko remained in his heart,

I'm glad you didn't go with "suddenly it was all better".  This is much

more

realistic.

Agree. In fact, the 'character gives one speech and every problem ends up
solved and and everyone lives happily ever after' is one of the cliches I
dislike intently. I avoid it like the plague and get annoyed when I read it
in most stories.

Going from one extreme to the other, Yoshi held
a brief vision of slipping and plunging into the
river now that he had found the resolve to deal
with his situation through other means.

Hmm?  Another confusing sentence.  From the context, I'm guess you're
wanting to convey that he finds this an unattractive option, but this
sentence doesn't really convey that.

That was what I was going for. I'll see about rewording it.

"Ice cream in the middle of winter? Why not?" Not
knowing what else to do, Yoshi slung the bag over
his shoulder, intent on going home, eating the whole
thing, and getting the first decent night of sleep
in months.

Honestly, I'd prefer that you end the fanfic here.  The scene back at the
temple seems tacked on, and it breaks the mood too much, and is, again,

too

expository, spelling out things (like the fact that Urd is the Goddess of
the Past) that are better left implied.  Leave it like this and you have a
very nice, melancholy story that's paced nicely.

And here I'm going to disagree (except maybe the 'Goddess of the Past' bit,
since we know who she is if we're reading this). I definitely want to wind
things up on a more upbeat ending. Urd does have issues with remembering the
past, particularly when it comes to romance, but she has dealt with them
before she met Troubadore, and in time she'll deal with them afterwards as
well. It might be hard, but she is a strong character, as evidenced in her
talk with Yoshi. I wanted to bring her back in line with the same usually
happy person you see in the manga, but this is meant to hint at depths that
aren't really touched upon all that much there. The melancholy brought on by
the season is for the most part over. She was telling the truth to Yoshi
about wanting someone to talk to. Likewise the scene brings it back into the
feel of the manga, which I like to think makes the story a little better
since it can be more easily fit into the series in the mind of the reader.

Overall, a nice story DB.  ^_^

Thank you. And thanks for the useful and detailed C+C. It's given me a bit
more to work on before the final version of this will be ready. But hey,
that's one of the reasons we send our stuff to the FFML in the first place.
These are just rough drafts with which we hope to receive input to make them
better, and I assure you your C+C has made it so.

Hope to see more of your works again as well. Though depressing (albeit well
written) Robotech stories I can do without. :)

D.B. Sommer

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