Subject: [FFML] [C&C] Different, But Still The Same-Chapter 1 (2nd draft)
From: "James Champagne" <galathane@hotmail.com>
Date: 8/10/2002, 9:59 PM
To:

Sorry for catching the train late. I don't know if you still want critique
on the 2nd draft, but here's some more C&C. Edits are by themselves,
smartass comments are in parentheses. Bits snipped here and there. More
general comments follow.

Usagi: "WAAAAHHHHH!!! I don't WANNA be a redneeeecckkkkk...!!!"

*********************
Entry #114

Mom graduated from medical school today, I'm so proud of her.

today. I'm so proud

The ceremony
was very moving. I still feel kind of bad though, she put it aside

though. She put it aside

when I was
born and it's only recently that she went back to finish. But what's done
is
done. Now she can begin her residency. She hasn't said where yet though.
Dad
sent flowers, but mom threw them away without even looking at the card.

(Seems a bit harsh.)

I hope we stay in Saint Paul, I love

Saint Paul. I love

the winters here. I've said it before
and I'll say it again. Ice is nice.

(But isn't wetter better? Ami should at least enjoy the ol' swimmin' hole.)

Amy Lynn Angela Anderson, sighed

Anderson sighed

(At least she has the right kind of name for weher she's going!)

as she stepped out of the elevator onto the
seventh floor of the condo building. Here she was, the best student in
school, honors program, band,

(What instrument, BTW?)

and volunteer at the boys and girls club
mentoring young scientists, and her math teacher was still giving her only
mid-level calculus. Where was the challenge? Some nonlinear
four-dimensional
differential eqautions

equations

 at least. Something she could sink her teeth into.

"Or at least give me time in the chemistry lab," she muttered to herself.
"She

She

had been brushing her teeth yesterday morning when it suddenly occurred
to her that a nine-volt battery, xenon gas, and the cheese on the pizzas
in
the cafeteria could be combined to create fake

artificial?

muscle tissue that the human
immune system wouldn't reject. She had rushed back to her room, sketched
out
the formula and presented it to Mr. Carson, the chem lab teacher, he had

teacher. He had

looked at it, turned white, told her that it was very nice, and then took
a
bottle from his desk drawer and began taking long gulps from it, his hands
shaking almost as violently as they had since

when

she had made the lab table
float in mid-air.

She hadn't meant to make it float, but the chemical spill right before it
had
been sort of her fault. If only Doctor Knight of Pacific Tech wasn't so
damn
good at explaining particle physics.

(These sentences seem a bit unconnected. Maybe Ami has also reconciled
simple chemistry with quantum physics while she was washing her hands before
dinner, but still...)

She could almost hear his voice.

'Amy Lynn, would you like to help me probe the Universe?' Protons, quarks,
Doctor Knight explaining fusion in...intimate detail while demonstrating
how
to probe the universe on the Accelerator...Amy Lynn's mouth began to water
and she felt her knees began

begin

to buckle.

And Doctor Knight was fairly good looking as well she supposed. If you
went
for that sort of thing.

(Uh...insert sweatdrop here)

Pulling her key out of her pocket, she unlocked the front door and was
startled to see her mom packing things into boxes.

"Mom?"

"Good news dear, I found a residency, we're moving!"

(In the immortal words of Zsa Zsa Gabor, "Goodbye, city life!")


*****************
Amy Lynn stared out at the scenery as her mother's convertible whisked
them
down the back road.

(How did the scenery look? Details!)

"Where are we going again?" she asked.

"Juuban Hollow," her mother replied. "It's where I was born."

(Ahah! I sense a potential plotpoint.)

"Juuban...Mom, Juuban is a Japanese word."

(Is it? "Jyu" is "ten", I think, which is why in the anime you see signs
saying "10-ban", but I don't know itf the name of the area is a "word" by
itself.)

"I know, dear. After the Interment

Internment

camps, many Japanese headed south-east to
found their own community. The locals migrated in, and eventually the
community became a small town that merged with Garic's Hollow.

(Okay...this is a wee tad bit difficult to buy into. I can see
Japanese-Americans wanting a new start after the war. But to move from the
West coast to the American SOUTH? I guess the premise needs an explanation
of some kind, though. Maybe Juuban Hollow is in the Florida panhandle. I've
heard that there's a pretty high tolerance for odd stuff thereabouts.)

The town
doctor is getting ready to retire-such a dear man-and I made arrangements
to
have my residency in Juuban Hollow. When it's over, Doctor Jackson will
retire, and I take over his practice. Not to mention my student loans get
paid off."

(Ah, the things we do to get that particular monkey off our backs! But to be
honest, this kind of country practice doesn't seem like much of a career
move. Now, if Doc Anderson were a VET, that would be a different story. A
rural veterinary practice is a real prize, even in a poor area.)

"But why? Mom, it's not even cold down here."

"You'll adjust, dear."

("Yeah, Mom, I'll adjust the AIR CONDITIONER.")

Juuban Hollow proved to be a single street lined sporadically with old
wooden
buildings on both sides.

(Life is simple here in Grover's...oh, sorry, wrong script!)

Only one thing caught her eye. A blond haired girl

blonde girl [or] blond-haired girl

sitting on the roof of an old pickup truck parked by the side of the road,
a
big black Great Dane sitting on the ground next to the front wheel. For
just
a moment, Amy Lynn's eyes met those of the blonde and she felt the chill
of
recognition. Then the moment had passed and the girl and her dog were far
behind.

At the far end of town, her mother pulled into the driveway of a large
wooden
structure in better condition then most. A second story rose from the back

(Oh, we're movin' on up...)

and in the distance, she could see a hill and what looked like a mansion
atop
it. A mule was grazing on some grass near the front door and regarded them
with curious indifference

can indifference be curious? interested disinterest?

before returning to grazing.

(You don't usually see the mule in the FRONT yard, even in the South,
especially when you have a driveway.)

The front door opened and an elderly white-haired man dressed in a white
lab
coat and overalls over a plaid work shirt came bustling out, grinning
broadly.

Doctor Jackson hugged her as well. He smelled of apples...and some kind of
sterilization chemicals.

(Yikes! He's discovered the recipe for scumble!)

Her Mother handed her a twenty. "Go down to the general store, dear, buy
yourself a soda

(Ah, it's clear this Midwestern transplant hasn't been down home for quite a
long time if she calls it a "soda"!)

and a snack." She turned back to Doctor Jackson. "I'm looking
forward to this, Arthur."

"Surely you're exaggerating, Arthur."

"I wish. You're not going to see many patients and the few you do see are
usually from Black Mountain Plantation where they have a little more sense
then

than

to treat an injury by drinking more beer."

(Hey, there ain't no problem you can get into by drinkin' too much beer that
you can't set right by drinkin' more beer!)

They vanished inside, leaving Amy Lynn to her own devices.

(Which include, probably, an electron microscope, a centrifuge, a portable
spectroscopy kit...)

The general store lay in the middle of town, a ramshackle old building
with a
neon open

"open" [or] OPEN

sign in the window that was half burnt out.

The window or the neon sign?

The painted sign on the
front read "OSA P General Store" in green and gold letters that had been
faded by the sun. A tall, blonde-haired man wearing a white apron, jeans
and
an old T-shirt was sweeping the front walk and he gave her a friendly
smile
as she went past.

 A Great Dane lay on the front the porch, and it's

its

ears flicked as she made
her way up the steps. Now that she was closer and could get a better look,
she realized that a small scar, shaped like a crescent moon adorned

scar shaped [or] moon, adorned

the dog's
forehead. Amy Lynn held out her hand for the dog to sniff and when it
didn't
growl at her, she scratched it's

its

head between the ears before heading inside.

Inside was

were

a few unoccupied tables, shelves of groceries, and a long L-shaped
counter with faded red leather stools. Sitting at the far end, a
blonde-haired girl was perched on one of the stools, chewing on a long
blade
of grass. Behind the counter, a brown-haired girl leaned against the back
counter, arms crossed talking quietly

crossed, talking

to the blonde-haired girl. Another
brown-haired girl, perhaps twelve or thirteen was stacking

thirteen, was

cans on a floor
display.

"Welcome to the O Sap general store," the girl behind the counter said.
Her
voice was slightly nasal, with a New Yorkish accent. "What can I get you?"

"And that's Serena Usagi Ann Tsukino," Molly said, indicating the blonde
as
Amy Lynn realized that it was the same girl she had seen sitting on the
roof
of the truck. "But every one calls her Bunny."

Bunny was slender with round curves and

(redundant? what other kinds of curves are possible? "pronounced"?)

her white shirt and raggedy jean
shorts hugged them tightly. An old, dirt-spotted work shirt was over the
white shirt and her feet were covered by work boots. The white shirt had
been
tied under her breasts to show off a flat midriff tight enough to bounce a
quarter off of and her arms were leanly muscled. As Bunny turned at the
sound
of her name, her work shirt moved and Amy Lynn caught sight of the handle
of
a Machete on her far side.

(Starts major sweatdropping -- I see that Amy, uh, notices quite a bit about
Bunny's appearance. Combined with her, shall we say, lack of physical
attraction to Doctor Knight, it creates the impression that... Er, not that
there's anything wrong with that... But is it intentional?)


Molly, on the other hand, was shorter, but more slender. Her shoulders
were
narrow and her face freckled. Her shoulder length

shoulder-length

brown hair parted in a
widow's peak over her forehead and she wore a light blue shirt with the
sleeves cut off and jeans under a starched white apron.

Amy Lynn took a sip of the float and smiled. The ice cream and root beer
was

were

cold, and felt good as it slid

they slid

down her throat.

Cold was a good thing, in her opinion.

*****************
Entry #120

We arrived in Juuban Hollow today. It's a really small place with not much
to
do.

(Except for the drinkin' the swearin', the scopin' out hot country girls,
the youma rasslin'...)

Molly, who's

whose

mom runs the general store and her friend

store, and

Bunny showed me
around.

I lie. This place is horrible. The library's books are out of date

(They have a library???)

and
there's not even any cellular service so my wireless modem won't work. The
only way to connect to the 'net is with...USA NetConnect...

I HATE THIS PLACE!

For writing this fic, know that you will end your days alone and afraid!

Seriously: BWA HA HA HA HAAAAA...

Somewhat more seriously: Good start, but a little short on incident and
detail. The setting is the real attarction, and more could be said to bring
it out in our imaginations. What time of year is it? The dusty days of
summer, for instance...that calls for appropriate sensory detail.

It's hard to distinguish between Amy Lynn's journal entries and the
narrative. Set them off more clearly from each other.

Bunny gets no dialogue! Apart from the physical description, which doesn't
mention her hairstyle (!) she is a pretty nebulous presence. She shows Amy
Lynn around, but we don't see anything of this scene or their introduction
to each other!

I think it's a good decision not to go straight out for the joke value. The
story so far has more of a "King of the Hill" feel than "Green Acres", and
that's a good thing. A few good potential directions have been set up for
development...

I look forward to more!

Jim Champagne
galathane@hotmail.com




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