Sorry for taking so long to reply on this -- Job, life, etc.
His experiences had long been full of violence. His enemies,
sometimes his friends, and even his greatest rival he had fought, and
lost but once. Even after the loss he carried on, keen mind growing
ever sharper with every battle.
his greatest rival -- the greatest rival (I think)
lost but -- lost too but (unless there was some form of romance between
them...?)
Had only lost once, perhaps? I'm not sure where this implies a romance?
I intended the 'but once' as kind of an archaic form of speech, but it
isn't terribly important if it's confusing people.
In retrospect, keep what you've written; it works better, I just
failed to parse it right the first time.
Special character = evil.
The elipses character will not display properly on some browsers, much
like smartquotes (which aren't, damn them!), so I would advocate
ditching them in favor of the traditional home-made elipses.
I blame Word, I thought I caught all of those before I posted ;)
Most annoying, they are.
Ah, this must be it. A large dresser far bigger than Cologne
needed, stacked of what appeared to be every day clothing and supplies.
He almost missed it, but it was difficult to hid things from one who
studied hidden weapons. He pulled a pry-bar from the sleeve of his robes
and unceremoniously embedded it into the back of the dresser.
That first sentence is quite jarring. Might want to rework it.
"He paused his rapid searching, this must be it."? It's kind of an
ackward flow there both ways. *ponder*
Well, give it some time, or try approaching the sentence with a
different opening. Maybe shuffle some of the other parts of the
paragraph around until you're satisfied with it.
Gun? Eh....
Tragic when members of the warrior caste turn from ancient fighting styles
to modern weapons of destruction. ;)
That's true, but I don't know that it's my first thought upon seeing
a gun in the fic. My suggestion would be to incorporate more of that
specific line of thought into the story; it could lend a lot of
strenthg to what has a lot of potential to be an otherwise weak scene.
A ltitle self absorbed considering that Ranma just got SHOT.
Perhaps... But that assumes that P-chan is aware that Ranma was the one
that got shot *evil grin*
Plus, Ryouga is nothing if not obsessive, the idea that Akane would
simultaneously reject him and sacrifice her own life for the sake of
Ranma would not leave him thinking too clearly.
Maybe, and maybe I'm slow, but you need to _show_ us that in the
story. ;)
Intending to imply here that Ryouga's view on the situation is somewhat
less than complete. From his point of view, Akane must have knocked
Ranma out of the way. Should I add in more to elaborate that?
Or revise; less is more.
But something to help make this point clearer would be quite welcome.
This is a little vague, isn't it?
Good point, not sure how I can add too much without tipping my hand as
to the situation though?
Consider not so much adding more as revising what's already written,
perhaps? Maybe even say more with less! You could probably drop a
line here and there to make the scene more vague, sketchy, and
otherwise... panicked, really. That would allow you to easily sneak
in only the details you want, while leaving the rest to become
clearer later.
You did your best, and therefore, so did I. :P
Greatly appreciate the feedback, thanks for taking the time. Typo wise
(good god I need to learn ; vs , ) I've already correced those, hopefully
I've addressed a lot of the clarification that needs to be done, though
I'm also gaining a great respect for why it takes so long for authors
to come out with the next chapter ;)
True enough. Now get yourself onto the list, young author, and give
back to that which has given to you. Me and Mr. Sommer alone can't
C&C every fic that comes past, especially considering how much time
my job takes away from me. I will try, though. And thusly.... o_~
--Kurt Montgomery
magius@iastate.edu