Heh.  Since everybody else is sending these things in, I thought I'd send
mine.  This was written in response to a post on delphi asking the stated
question, and I've since added/edited it a bit for things I've thought of
since the original writing.  So there's a couple more pages and a number of
mistakes fixed, if you've already read it.

Some of it will be redundant, for things already covered in Allyn Yonge's
recent essay, but I wanted to post the complete thing rather than go through
and try to eliminate everything already mentioned.  I think it will still be
worth reading, however.  Let me know.  :)

What Makes A Good Ranma Crossover?
An essay by Thermopyle (thermopyle@tds.net)
http://thermopyle.anifics.com/

######

What makes a good Ranma crossover?  Well, what makes a good story?  The
answer to both questions are the same, really.

Here is the biggest thing, IMO:  Attention to details - Something
Happens.  Why does it happen?  Who does it affect?  What do the
characters think of what happened?  Are there consequences beyond those
who are present when the event takes place, and if so, what are they,
and how do THOSE affect people?

This is true no matter WHAT happens.  It doesn't matter if there is a
global catastrophe, or if somebody simply trips on a rock on the way to
school.  Maybe somebody has to stop at a gas station and because of that
they are a few minutes late for work, and that simple device causes the
entire set of events that makes up the story to occur.  The simple, late
arrival.

What other aspects are there to paying attention to details, other than
accounting for the consequences of different events?

Motivation.  Why do the characters act as they do?  Does this character
find another character attractive and go out of their way to walk down
the wrong hallway every day simply to catch a glimpse of the person
working in their office?  Even if they've never even TALKED to each
other?

What does the other person think of this?  Do they notice, or not?  Do
they get annoyed at the constant low-level peeping, or wish the person
would get a pair of balls and come over to say hello?  Maybe they think
it's amusing and enjoy telling their spouse, who the other character
doesn't know about at all, about all the people at work who are keeping
an eye on them?  If they tell the spouse, why?  To cause jealousy, to
spark a sense of possessiveness, for shared amusement?  What comes of
telling the spouse... or do they not say anything, in a desire to NOT
cause those things?

There are tons of things people do every day for the flimsiest of
reasons--but they do them, regardless.  Toss such things into the story,
and keep track of habits and the small desires and wants of the
character, and you make them more real.

Secondary/Tertiary characters.  What about characters that you don't
focus on?  Well, what do you know about people other than yourself?
What do you notice other people doing, what do you think their
motivations for doing these things are?  Or maybe you just wonder,
because you DON'T know.  Your character will have these same thoughts,
if written realistically.  They will either have a tendency to ignore
what's going on around them, in which case you should write the story
appropriately and not mention many details as the character wouldn't
pick up on them, or they'll pay different degrees of attention to their
surroundings, and notice things about different people, where they live
and work, and what is happening around them in general.  If your
character pays attention they should have some idea of what the other
characters act like and opinions about those actions and behaviors.
This reflection or view of other characters is part of what
characterizes YOUR character and gives them depth even if you don't care
at all about the other characters or they don't have any actual impact
on the story itself--the details add, regardless.

Plot.  This is attention to details over the course of the story.  Plot
is how the details add together, what the sequence of events which you
are writing about creates for a story line.  If you pay attention to
details as you go along, make sure each movement from one thing to
another makes sense, is believable, then the plot and storyline won't
have holes in it.  IF, that is, you are giving as much thought to
details as you need to and asking and answering the necessary questions
that somehow relate to your story or the characters within.

Does having a holeless plot mean that you have a good story?  No, it
doesn't.  Your writing will invariably reflect your own opinions to some
degree, no matter how much you try to erase them, unless you are a VERY
good writer.  A good enough writer can reflect false opinions into their
writing, to create the mood or to build towards the purpose, or what the
author envisions, of the story.  Maybe somebody who doesn't give a shit
about recycling does a lot of studying about it to write a story about a
character who DOES care about recycling, and is in fact extreme in the
way they view pollution and try to fix what they see of it going on
around them.  But unless you have this goal firmly in mind from the very
beginning you won't be able to write like this.

A good plot usually has a number of things, the biggest of which is an
interesting main character.  If the reader can't care about the main
character, they can't care about the story, and thus what happens in it
might as well not.  A world that is interesting.  A character that the
reader can't help caring about in some way will fall flat if the things
occurring around them are of no consequence or are simply unbelievable
(unless, of course, the story is about the character's trying to deal
with this sudden lack of reality around them) or uninteresting.  The
most believable character will be less interesting no matter how clear
and strong and deep their motivations if the story is about a man trying
to graduate college, there is no tension at home and the family
situation is hunky-dory, and there is no love interest or conflict with
the students/teachers.  Nobody gives a shit about somebody whose main
problem in life is that they can't stay awake while studying.  While
that is realistic, people live real lives and don't need to read about
the real life of somebody else for their reality fix every day.

So, to go back to the plot thing; a good plot includes a goal of the
main character that is somehow romantic in nature.  I don't mean romance
as in the quest for a girlfriend/boyfriend or something like that, but
rather romance as in a sense of adventure, a quest, something that
tosses in the unlikely into the otherwise boring and very real life of
the main character.  There has to be something out of the ordinary for
the story to be worth reading about.  The goal of this character doesn't
even have to be met; they can, over the course of the story, realize
that what they desired from the very beginning isn't what they REALLY
want.  Then the story is about self-realization to some degree, where
the character gets a better idea of what they want out of life, what
makes them happy.  This can also be used with any other plot device,
whether it's the end of the world is nigh and the character just
'happens' to be in the correct place at the correct time and have the
resources to stop it, or whether the story is simply about a middle-aged
man who is discontent with his life and wants to quit his job, is
looking at women ten years younger and fighting with the one he's been
married to for twenty.

How effective a plot is also depends on the target audience and how well
the plot HITS that target audience.  Like the one about the middle-aged
man.  Some people would find that particular story to be interesting (I
probably wouldn't).  If you were writing that story you would have to
include all types of details that would fit in such a situation.  Kids,
job, co-workers, boss, old friends, in-laws, etc.  Everything a middle-
aged man would have to deal with.

If you are writing a story about the bastard son of a Elf who was exiled
along with his indiscriminate father who should have stuck to Elven
women instead of human, you STILL have to deal with those issues.  The
character might not have kids or in-laws around (he leaves his father,
of course, and blames the old man for all of his troubles), but he would
still have other people that he would interact with regularly in some
way, expectations that he has to meet and requirements to fulfill in
order to make a living, and there will always, always, be some authority
figure present, whether it is a boss or some undefined city guard or
gang of trouble-makers that have to be steered clear of.

The bastard son of an exiled Elf might not have a single thing in common
with a man going through a mid-life crises and worrying about his beer-
belly and receding hair, but both characters still have the same types
of people and situations they have to deal with as a simple course of
being alive among a group of others.

Attention to the details that the audience, who, in this situation,
would expect certain things to be addressed because they've already seen
stories with similar scenarios, is VERY IMPORTANT.  A fantasy fic that
doesn't have magic or fighting, well, this will most likely not appeal
to most fantasy readers.  So you have to include that or write the story
in a way that something else, which isn't the main focus of most fantasy
stories yet is something that those same readers will think is important
and interesting, is addressed in a refreshing way that keeps them
reading despite the lack of what they usually expect and, to some
degree, READ those fantasy stories for.

Details are VERY important in a story.  Yet... CHOOSING those details is
more important.  In the above example with the middle-aged man it would
be a mistake to have a lot of time devoted to the way he takes lessons
in fencing (which is totally out of character for the average middle-
aged man who has a beer-belly and receding hair--bald men don't fence!)
unless his fencing lessons relate to the overall plot by providing him
with a way to meet regularly with the extremely fetching young fencing
instructor that looks simply fantastic even covered in those white
padded clothes that hide so very much.  If you go off on a tangent that
isn't related to anything it will detract from the story.

Touching upon details that don't have an impact on the story is fine and
good and it adds depth, but letting yourself get side-tracked into
giving those details too much focus, when the story isn't about those
details in any way and it's not part of the plot or a major issue you
want to address with the story, is a mistake.  A fantasy adventure story
is fine, and traveling through the woods is fine, mentioning having to
run behind a tree to take a shit is a bit too much information, and
telling about how hard the character has to squeeze and that they have
to use their hand to wipe, with the hopes of coming across a stream with
which to clean said hand soon, is WAAAY too much information.  While you
might be tempted to add in a detail like that, whether it be for simple
fun or in a desire for accuracy, it's not something the target audience
would approve of at all and it would instead annoy the hell out of them,
possibly enough to cause them to quit reading.

So, remember; touch on details that don't matter, but only really dive
into the subjects that DO matter in some way, that have some kind of
bearing on either creating the proper characterization, world,
secondary/tertiary characters, or the plot and issues that the story is
actually about.

Okay, here's a big one: finish your story.  Yes, I know, you get to a
hard spot, you start thinking of possibilities, ways to fix it, your
mind wanders, and BAM!  You've got a new idea!  You're not having
trouble thinking of stuff for THAT story, so why not write it for a
while, instead?

Wrong.  Unless you get into the habit of finishing stories you will most
likely continue to switch from incomplete story to incomplete story,
never managing to actually get something done.  The greatest story idea
in the world doesn't count for anything if it doesn't get finished.
There are thousands of abandoned fics on the net that a number of people
thought were great when they were being worked on yet as soon as they
ended up getting dropped or discontinued, they started to fade from
peoples' minds.  Then eventually the site that hosts them goes away, and
even the people that remember can't read it anymore.  Another story
bites the dust.

So... attention to details, attention to details in regards to
characterization, attention to details in regards to the sequence of
events that plays forth over the course of the story, attention to
details in regards to who you are writing for, carefully including only
the details that belong, finishing what you start... what else?

Attention to details in DELIVERY!  To write a good story, you MUST pay
attention to grammar rules, use words that the target audience will
understand (yet still vary enough to not be painfully repetitive), make
sure those words are spelled correctly (and in the correct meaning for
what you intend!  Two is not too is not to!), and keep sentence and
paragraph structure as it should be.  Your writing should be a correct
version of the same way you speak, for the most part...assuming you
speak halfway decently.  If you can communicate regularly with other
people in verbal conversations you can write sentences and paragraphs
correctly, unless you're too lazy in which case you might as well not
bother.

Spelling is something that is generally phonetic.  If you know how to
say something you can sound out the vowels and get a close approximation
for how it should be spelled.  At that point, spell-checkers, a
dictionary to make sure the word you wrote is the word you meant, and
other people (not the world at large, just friends or people you have
found to help you with your story unless you already have a good grasp
on these things) will catch your mistakes.

Repeated mistakes are something a reader (unless they're morons on
ff.net or just idiots in general) won't tolerate.  Seeing somebody
misspell a word once or twice is fine.  Seeing somebody misspell a LOT
of words CONSTANTLY will cause a lot of readers to simply quit reading.
So if you find out from your readers or prereaders that you are making a
mistake, make a note of it and don't do it again.  Nothing kills
interest faster than an author who doesn't care enough about the story
to bother fixing mistakes or learn from the mistakes they've made
previously.  If you don't care about the story you're writing, why
should a reader?

There are a lot of authors on the net who weren't raised to speak
English or were raised in an environment where the people who spoke
English didn't do it very well.  There's nothing wrong with that and
anybody that thinks there is should try writing in the other person's
native language and see how well THEY do.  There is, however, something
wrong with using that as an excuse to not learn to be a better writer in
the language that you are writing in.  If you are writing in English
don't give some bullshit excuse about how you don't know English very
well to explain why you can't write correctly.  Have people point out
your mistakes.  Read PUBLISHED books in the target language, not
fanfiction which is generally less well-written grammatically and
spelling-wise.  If you pay attention to what you read you will become
familiar with the flow of words that is typical in that language, what
the general sentence structure is, you will see new words and increase
your vocabulary if you are diligent about looking those words up to find
out what they mean, and your spelling will also improve markedly.

Does this stuff just apply to foreigners?  No.  You people raised in
England or America or any other place where English is the default
language really need to follow this advice, too.  The best way to get a
sense of how people write is to READ.  Yes, that doesn't really help as
far as creativity goes in writing your own stories, (you have to write
to get good at writing), but what it DOES do is enable you to know how
things SHOULD be written.  Then, you can spot your own mistakes,
recognize problems and shortcomings in your own work, and realize what
you need to do to improve upon them.  Having somebody else who is a good
writer or a good reader check your stories for the elements that good
fics have is generally a good idea because as you start out writing you
don't have as good idea of what to look for.  This person can ask
questions about the plot (which you will later think to ask for
yourself), characterization (ditto), grammar and spelling (ditto, once
pointed out you should be able to recognize problems the next time),
and, in general, ask questions about details that you are leaving out
which need to be written into the story.

Questions should ALWAYS be asked.  If you are writing about something
you should come up with every question about that topic that you can,
regardless of whether it is relevant or not, because a knowledge of the
questions that CAN be asked will allow you to write in the answers to
the questions that WILL, and should, be asked.  Having somebody else
read your work and look for such things is a great way to get yourself
started in being able to do the same.

However, a note about prereaders and readers in general; while it is
always good to accept technical criticism (assuming the person is right,
anyway), creative criticism is a bit more iffy.  If somebody tells you
something does work and gives convincing reasons for why that is the
case, fine.  But be careful that you don't end up changing your story
completely just because some nice fellow who is helping out thinks that
the story would work better another way.  It's your story.  It's fine to
follow suggestions or realize that the story premise you have in mind
has flaws that make its current form unworkable, but don't simply start
over, writing what somebody tells you to write.  If you do that there's
no point in bothering--have them write it, instead, and YOU be the
prereader.

Now... that is all I can think of for things that apply to writing in
general.  A few comments about Ranma crossovers, and crossover
fanfiction in general:

Why?  So, Ranma happens to take Yakumo's place in a 3x3 Eyes crossover.
Why?  Is Ranma going to end up going through the same things that Yakumo
does, and will the same results occur?  If so, don't write the story.
You're wasting your time and that of the readers.  If Ranma isn't
changing the 3x3 Eyes storyline that is canon then you'd better be
writing about the affect that the 3x3 Eyes elements of the crossover has
on the Ranma storyline, because writing the 3x3 Eyes storyline is
pointless.

This is true for EVERY crossover, not just Ranma crossovers...  Unless
the first story being involved with the other story somehow causes a
drastic change in events or feel for the other story or has a drastic
change in events or feel on the first story, then there is no reason for
the crossover to be written.  A Gundam Wing/Sailor Moon crossover (god
knows why people write those) had better be a hell of a lot more
involved than the GW boys becoming planet knights and romance interests
for the various Senshi and then going on to help beat up Beryl.  The
Senshi already beat Beryl in the canon timeline--why bother rewriting it
with them having HELP doing so?  It's a complete waste of time.  Unless
the fight against Beryl is simply something happening in the background
and the story is really about something else, like the interaction
between the GW and SM casts, then there is no reason to write the story.

This is, again, true of all crossovers.  A Ranma/SM crossover in which
Ranma helps fight against Beryl is a waste of time unless that's not
what the story is about.  If there is no change to the storylines
involved then no matter how well-written the story actually is, there's
no point in writing about it.  You want to write a story about Ranma
meeting and falling in love with one of the Senshi?  Fine.  Do that.
Write about THAT.  Do NOT write about Ranma's helping the Senshi fight
Beryl, with a subplot of a romance angle between Ranma and the desired
character.  The romance is what you should focus on, not the fight,
because the fight is already done in canon SM.

"Wow!" you think, "I just had a great idea for having Ranma help in the
final battle against Beryl!"  Well, that's called a 'scene', and it
doesn't make a fic.  If that's all your inspiration for the story simply
write that scene and provide a brief bit of background info at the
beginning of it to show how Ranma ended up being in such a place.  Or at
the end.  Have NO explanation for what Ranma is doing there until the
very end and play around with Ranma's not having a clue what the hell is
going on, just knowing that these girls in skimpy costumes are freaking
out over him being there and these big ugly monster-types are trying to
kill him.  Then, at the end when everything is over with, have a comment
about how Ranma wasn't going to eat Akane's cooking again cause he never
knew what might happen... and try to convince himself that he MEANS it
this time.  Or just toss in some other little short bit that would cause
him to be in place for the scene to have occurred.  It doesn't have to
be elaborate--that's not what the scene fic is about anyway.  Just dump
in the reason that it's able to happen somewhere and move on to whatever
inspired you in the first place.

Any fic which has Ranma or some other character running through the same
things that the original character whose place Ranma is taking did in
the original story is a waste of time.  Hmm... Ranma as Tenchi.  Well,
you really, really, really, should NOT write everything leading up to
Ranma's freeing Ryouko from the cave in the exact same way that Tenchi
originally did.  Why bother?  Tons of people write the 'Here's Ranma!'
scene at the beginning of the manga/anime, with the idiotic (and
extremely repulsive) inclusion of that moronic 'I'm Ranma Saotome.
Sorry 'bout this.' line.  These things can be described in very SHORT
summaries as background info when the real story gets started.  Things
that happen in the canon timeline should be mentioned briefly so that
the reader knows what occurred and to keep in mind the events that
happened yet aren't described in full.  Nobody wants to reread something
they've already seen, with some slight, miniscule change.  Don't feel
that because it happens you need to rewrite it.  Just mention it and
move on.

So... you have a great idea for a Ranma/SM crossover.  You haven't,
however, READ Ranma or SM, or even seen the anime versions of each
series.  Well don't bother writing, then.  The Ranma manga and anime is
readily available for purchasing in a lot of places, as is the Sailor
Moon material.  Or you can easily find scans of the Ranma manga online
with a bit of actual effort, or read summaries of the SM manga.  You can
also download the Ranma or SM anime in either dubbed or subbed form as
divx or mpeg or, if desperate, rm files.  There is no excuse for a lack
of knowledge on your part of these series if you wish to write about
them.  Most series that you will hear of you can get plenty of
information about in order to make your story more accurate with regards
to details about the original series and how things should be expected
to play out, or at least know how you are changing things from canon in
YOUR story.

BTW, do not ask me where to find any of this stuff with the exception of
the SM manga summaries.  If you receive a response it will be a very
negative one.

But wait!  You already know all about Ranma!  You read this fic, which
covers the Saffron arc, and this fic, which covers the Ultimate Weakness
Moxibustion arc, and you read all these fics about Ranma being attacked
at random times by everybody!  You also read a bunch of fics about SM,
so you KNOW the characters, the situations, everything about it!

Wrong.  What you know is how people interpreted those events and rewrote
them themselves.  Oh, and wait, here's the thing; who says THOSE authors
read/saw the original series?  Maybe they based their characterization
and knowledge of the storyline off of fics that they read, as well?
Which means that all your information and knowledge about the series,
instead of being second-hand, is third-hand... assuming that this little
fanfics based on fanfics sequence is only that short.  A lot of people
who write Ranma/SM crossovers don't even read pure SM fanfics, they read
Ranma/SM fanfics which tend to be a lot less accurate as far as the
details go especially in the characterization of the various people
involved.

So it's much better to simply read the original series and then write
based on the information contained within.  You know more about the
background info of the story, you have more details to play with, and
your fic will be more accurate and interesting if you make proper use of
those details.  Or, if you make lots of changes for the purpose of your
story, you know all of the details involved and can make sure those
changes are consistent across the board, rather than missing things
because the fanfics you read didn't mention them.

Okay, now you know all about Ranma and SM.  You're READY to write your
idea!  And it's so cool, too!  It goes something like this: Ranma, with
his chaotic life, gets punted by Akane into Juuban where he gains the
attention of Sailor Pluto who quickly identifies him as a threat to the
timestream because of his tendency to cause things around him to go
wild.  The Outers are promptly sicced on him and the Inners try to kill
him as well although with more reluctance.  He's so cute!  A possible
boyfriend!

Idiot.

For one thing, you're still going by fanfic characterizations of Sailor
Pluto.  She's never shown like that in the manga (or the anime, as far
as I know) and trying to paint her this way in the story is a mistake,
and one that people who do have knowledge of the original series will
find annoying.  If you're going with this cliche, at least be aware that
it IS a cliche--don't believe it simply because you've been brainwashed
by reading too many fics with a common theme.

Is there anything wrong with a rabid, mass-murdering Sailor Pluto who
likes to rape babies with the Time Staff before tossing their remains
through the Time Gates, letting the corpse fall into a room of little
kids as a "You're next" kind of warning?  No.  Well, there IS, really,
but, umm... that's not Sailor Pluto, is the main issue.  If you want to
have that in your fic, that's fine, there's not a problem with writing
the story that way.  The issue, though, is that you need to be aware
that Sailor Pluto does not act like that in either the SM manga or
anime.  If you want to have her behave in this manner, you can't act as
though it's her personality and you've changed nothing.  You need to
show how she got like this, show how such a person could end up as the
guardian of the Time Gates, there has to be SOME reason for her to be
changed in whatever way you are changing her, whether it's the madness
of a thousand years of loneliness, some evil preying upon her sanity, or
a simple case of a mega-bitch somehow gaining power.  Whichever route
you go needs to have the attention to details that the rest of the story
requires applied to it--you need to make sure it's believable if you
want it to work.

This applies to every character in your fanfic.  It is not just Sailor
Pluto in Ranma/SM crossovers.  One of the most important things to keep
in mind while writing fanfiction is that your opinions and views of
characters will not be shared by everybody.  If you want to write the
standard "Akane is a violent thug, and like a rabid dog, should be put
down" characterization for Akane, that's fine, but you have to realize
that only the people who hate Akane will like it.  If you want to write
a different standard, the "Akane is a perfect goddess who can beat
everybody at martial arts and yes her cooking does bring inanimate
objects to life, but it's out of JOY and LOVE for the magnificent taste
that even unfeeling things like rocks and furniture can detect" type of
Akane, that's fine too, but the same problem applies; only some people
will like that fic.

While reading the source for whatever you want to write about, try to
stay objective.  Don't hate the characters unless they're supposed to be
hated.  Keep in mind that even though characters can do thing you think
are repulsive, Ryouga's attempted murdering of Ranma while sleeping or
during the breaking point or his trying to magically rape Akane using
the Koi Rod being an examples that cause people to hate him, these
actions have to be taken in the context in which they occur, and you
have to look at both the good and the bad things the characters do,
whether it be Ryouga, Ranma, Akane, or somebody else.  If you can get a
realistic and objective grasp of how the different characters behave,
rather than simply going with the "psycho-bitch who loves mallets" or
"ultra-sweet girl whose only problem is that her fiance is a jerk", or
"murderous pig rapist who wants to kill Ranma and then rape the corpse
afterwards" or "poor, tormented, lonely wanderer who has no flaws and is
picked on by a jealous, imperfect Ranma", or "bastard playboy who wants
to fuck as many women as possible with no regards for their feelings or
honor" or "ultimate god of martial arts and everything else who is oh-
so-noble and merely the victim of a wide range of psychotics" cliches,
then your writing will be palatable to a wider audience.

This doesn't mean that you can't write the characters like this.  There
are plenty of fics that are wildly popular that take any of these
approaches.  But a lot of those fics are widely hated, as well.  If all
you're writing for is a specific group, like, the Akane-bashers or
Ranma-bashers of the universe, go ahead and write that way.  They're
probably going to love it.  You'd better make the story a comedy or at
least not expect it to be taken too seriously, though, because
ridiculously inaccurate characterization makes that very difficult to
pull off.

Now, on to the other problem with the idea I brought up some number of
paragraphs ago: You're failing to think things through.

Gee, Ranma has a lot of fiancees, rivals both long-term and short-term
(people that stick around, people that show up and then leave), and he
can do all kinds of neat stuff.  Obviously his life is chaotic.  I guess
that means that his presence would cause Crystal Tokyo to not come into
being.  Yay.  Well, okay, fine.  Let's say that's true, I'll play along.

Now let me introduce another character.  Her life is just as chaotic in
a lot of ways.  She's got magical mascots, a mysterious boyfriend who is
her destined lover from a previous life, and her friends are all magical
warriors who help her fight against monsters trying to enslave the
world.  Oh, and she has a 900 year old daughter who's come back in time
to steal said destined lover away from her.  Heh.  Her name is Usagi.

Ranma has NEVER fought anybody that mattered on a global scale or even
to Japan in general, his problems are all very localized and don't
matter much to anybody but the principals involved.  So if Pluto is
after Ranma because of the chaotic presence he brings to Juuban, she
sure as hell would be after Usagi for the same reason, to a much more
insistent degree.  Woops... forgot about THAT little detail, didn't you?

What's the point here?  Well, you need to consider how the two series
will mesh.  The rules of one series need to be applied to the other
series, as well, at least in the areas in which the two series mix.
Case in point; the Pluto thing.  Be consistent.  It's important.

Problem Three: Originality and knowing the genre in which you write.

Okay, now, you know the series involved in the crossover.  You have an
idea, you know how the worlds will mix, what way the powers of the
various characters will correspond to their opposite casts and how they
will interact with each other based on the way they react to the people
in their own series.  You're ready to start writing that idea that is
oh-so-far up there now.  What do you do?

You read.  Yes, don't start writing yet.  You have to remember that
unless you are writing for yourself, unless you are capable of writing
with a complete lack of feedback or sense of enthusiasm from your
readers, that you have to do something different.  Taking the same
approach at the same idea and ending up with the same plot and story in
general as something a lot of people have already written isn't going to
get you feedback.  If you don't get feedback you're unlikely to get any
better at writing.  You need people to bitch at you, to tell you what
you're doing is a mistake when appropriate, to point out errors in the
story or in your writing, etc.  Otherwise you might as well not post.
Yes, writing is the way to get better at writing, but unless you have a
way to have your mistakes brought to your attention your improvement
will be slow or nonexistent.  So even if the story isn't exactly the way
you originally envisioned it, it's still best to write something
different.

There's another good aspect to reading similar stories to what you
intend to write, as well; competition.  If you read twenty fics that
have the same basic premise and approach as what you've already decided
to write about and realize that your fic is like all of those then you
have a few choices in front of you; you can write it anyway the same as
you had intended, you can change your story so that it's different from
the others, or you can simply not write that story.  If you write it the
same way all those other fics have it, do it BETTER than they did it.
Make the scenes more dramatic, have perfect grammar, punctuation, and
spelling.  Just blow them away by going so far over the top of the other
stories of the type--but remember to keep it believable in the flow of
details and storyline, don't simply try to overdo everything you saw in
the other stories.

If you change it, take a completely different approach from what
everybody else does.  Try to think of alternate methods of accomplishing
what you had intended to do, or change your intentions so that instead
of writing about Ranma being from the Silver Millennium and having been
Usagi's reincarnated brother who was really supposed to inherit the
throne, instead you're going to make Ranma Beryl's father who was sealed
up by Serenity.  Ranma was completely mad in his previous incarnation,
Beryl's behavior being a combination of hereditary madness and a result
of her mistreatment/deranged environment because of Ranma.  Now, Ranma's
past life is starting to wake up, and tons of bad things are happening
around him as his alternate personality takes over at random intervals.
Everybody blames Ranma, he doesn't know what's going on, he tries to
isolate himself from everybody but keeps waking up in the middle of a
wasted city area despite his intentions to leave civilization behind.
One of these times one of the Senshi comes across him unconscious and
decides to take care of him.  Typical romance setup.  Well, start the
romance, and then have the alternate personality figure out (or not)
that she's a Senshi and kill her.  Where does the story go from there?
Well, it could end up with Usagi doing the whole cleansing thing on
Ranma and fixing things, Ranma dying at his own hands, Ranma somehow
having to confront his alternate personality head-on rather than the two
of them avoiding each other by switching on and off intermittently, or,
well, anything else, really.  But end it in a different way than stated
here, with a different approach, because those have been done already.

Wait a minute.  That's all been done, too, although it's not as common
as the original premise, that of Ranma being related to Usagi and from
the Silver Millennium.  Well, just think of something stranger, then,
and then again and again until you come up with something that isn't
quite like anything else out there.  Then write.

There are lots of ways you can make even a Ranma/SM story seem
interesting.  Not everything has been done.  Just come up with an off-
the-wall idea and run with it, thinking of all the angles as you go
along.  Don't move back onto the traditional path, either, keep it
different.  If you're going to waste an interesting story premise by not
using it to it's fullest potential, exploring the angles that it
presents which other fics don't make use of or have the capability of
supporting, then why bother using that premise in the first place?  Just
stick to your plain old and boring Ranma meets the Senshi and helps beat
up Beryl story.

When writing a Ranma crossover, or any crossover, or just stories in
general, you should strive for originality.  A different approach,
different results, different interactions.  The point of a crossover is
to change things.  Changing to something that's already been done isn't
a change, it's copying or emulating what has already been done, and each
copy loses flavor and makes things less and less interesting as you see
more of the cheap and faded little things.  Keep it new and exciting and
remember to pay attention to details for all parts of the fic, and odds
are good that your story will be read and that people will tell you that
they read it and what they thought.

If not, you have a good basis for trying again.

#####

End.


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