Subject: [FFML] FW: Re: [fanfic][Ranma]Divided I Stand: Chapter 7 Rev 0
From: Donald Lee Granberry
Date: 10/14/2002, 2:21 PM
To: Fan Fiction Mailing List



------ Forwarded Message
From: Donald Lee Granberry <noharness@mac.com>
Date: Mon, 14 Oct 2002 12:00:29 -0500
To: Eric Sturgeon <stirge@eyrie.org>
Subject: Re: [FFML] Re: [fanfic][Ranma]Divided I Stand: Chapter 7 Rev 0


Once again, mostly proofreading.

On Sun, 13 Oct 2002, Donald Lee Granberry wrote:


 
       "Unlike most _ursines_, pandas lack normal heel pads on their hind
feet. This characteristic makes their tracks unique and easily spotted in
the wild."

Heel pads or heel-pads? Pick one. (Hmmm, I sound all confrontational and
stuff. Not intended.)

 [No problem. I have this ass-eating coming.]

       "I see," the reporter said, still not very enthused. She picked up
the scientists clipboard, then got excited. "Do all of them eat this much?

Lost an apostrophe in "scientist's".

Seventy kilograms of bamboo, five kilograms of daikon, two kilograms of
yams, three kilograms of carrots, six pika and two dozen goose eggs? Goose
eggs?"

What's a pika, anyway? Chu? ;-)
 
[I'll post a link once I issue the revised copy.]



       "Why don't we go down to the coffee shop," the scientist added. "My
treat."

Wonder how many people will point to this and say, "Put in a question
mark."
 
[I don't know, but it does not need one.]

I have to find the Master before he finds the Eye of Mefusutafuriisu. Soun

<Mephistopheles> No wonder I couldn't find my eye! Some Japanese guy stole
it!
  
[I had not expected a reader to puzzle this out so quickly.
Congratulations.]

I should have known that Soun's wife would have sold it instead of throwing
it into the sea as she promised. Nabiki takes after her so much it's scary.
She said she would ride out with her father on his fishing boat and throw it

This is just the teensiest bit clunky. The last she you reference is
Nabiki, so the natural assumption here is "Nabiki said she would ride
out[...]" On the other hand, this is stream-of-consciousness stuff in
Genma's voice, so, like all dialogue, doesn't necessarily have to make
perfect grammatical sense. So, whatever works for you.
 
[Okay. I'll sand on it a little.]

help that my Akane is such a hothead. He looked back over toward Ranma sat
in a folding chair, one hand covering his eyes. Come on, Ranma, Soun

"toward where Ranma" or perhaps "toward Ranma, who sat".

       Soun watched as Ranma slowly got to his feet and began walking, no,
stalking towards the dojo. He's got that Saotome scowl on his face, Soun

Stylistic choice, but I would "walking--no, stalking--towards". Oh, and it
should be "toward".
 
[I was going to revise to read "amble", but I like "stalking" better.]

thought feeling more than a twinge of alarm in his chest. That's not good.

I would put a comma after "thought".

       Ranma walked on by, as Soun looked on in silence. Ryuu Kumon and
Ryouga Hibiki came and stood on either side of Soun and the three of them
watched in silence as Ranma slid the shoji of the dojo open and step inside.

You've changed tenses in the middle again. Needs to be "stepped".


If she's shouting, shouldn't there be an exclamation point? Alternatively,
if this is meant to be one sentence with the speaking action in the
middle, you need a comma instead of a period.
 
[An error that is too seldom caught by anyone. Thanks for flagging this one
for me.]

       "Yeah, okay, but that don't mean you should...should be doin' this
kind of stuff?"

Why a question mark? A lot of the normal rules for grammar and punctuation
are discretionary for dialogue, but the question mark here just doesn't
make sense to me.
 
[Mostly because I screwed up when editing the sentence from its original
version.]

       "Because you're a girl, dammit!"
 
       "Am I, now? And was I girl whenever I got splashed three days ago, or
was I guy stuck in girl's body?"

This, while it has nothing wrong with it technically(and especially given
that it's dialogue), clunks on my ear. I'm sure you intended to write it
the way it appears; I just like a lot of articles, I guess.
 
[No, not really. I have, for some inexplicable reason, developed the nasty
habit of not typing articles when I thought I had. Then, when I proof read,
I somehow "read" the articles I thought I typed. It's a pain.]

       This was followed by a prolonged silence; until Akane said in a
surprisingly soft voice, "Sit down, Ranma. The three of us have to talk."

You shouldn't use a semicolon except to connect two sentences, and what
you've got here is a sentence and a prepositional phrase. I would probably
do, "[...]silence, not broken until Akane said, in[...]" (Although that
second comma is definitely a style thing.)
 
[I avoid semicolons like the plague and don't know how this one got into my
copy. I will fix it.]

       Ranma's tone put Soun in mind of a sword leaving its scabbard.
   
Shortly thereafter, a meaty thud shook the entire dojo from its foundation
posts to the ridge of its roof. Several of the shingles rattled.

Is this one paragraph with a line inserted, or two paragraphs and you
forgot to indent one?

 [This comes from my ongoing battle with Microsoft Word for Mac OSX. For
some inexplicable reason, this version of Word does not give the user a
means to hunt down and replace tabs. Worse, if Word inserts a tab for me,
which it is wont to do even though I have turned all its auto-formatting
features off, the text editor I use to replace the tabs with blank spaces
will not recognize the tab automatically inserted. Now, why would you have a
program that auto-formats after it has been instructed NOT to do so, and why
would you have this auto-formatting feature insert some oddball character
into the text when it does this on its own, instead of an ordinary tab
character? Bet your ass on one thing, Lord Redmond, as soon as Nisuswriter
for Mac OSX hits the streets, this version of Word will get tossed off of my
machine. I am sick and tired of fighting this son-of-a-bitch!]

       "I thought you might have, Saotome," Ranko replied then giggled.


       Pansuto Taro sat by a fire where he had camped on the bank of a
mountain river, roasting fish and waiting for his rice to finish cooking. He
wished he hadn't bothered with the rice.

Just a quick aside here, nothing at all to do with the story, just that I
finally figured out how it is that "pansuto" is supposed to mean
"pantyhose": It's like "terebi" or "no-to", and is probably written in
katakana. Or maybe I'm wrong and still stupid. Whatever. Sorry I'm wasting
your time babbling about inconsequentials.
 
[Yes. "Pansuto" is Engrish for "Pantyhose".]

Oh, and you left the u off of "Tarou".

touching it, but finally, his curiosity won out and he picked it up. It
proved to be a letter from Happosai and it read:

I would like "which read" rather than "and it read", but that's me.

had forced the old monster to change his name. He would love to watch as the
Saotome roasted the old man alive after his name got changed, but he could
not let them do anything too serious to the old man until then.

The way this reads is that Happosai is getting his name changed and then
they're killing him. Adding a comma after "alive" should alleviate this
problem.
 
[Urk! I can't believe I blew this one. I'll fix it.]

partner cum prisoner, formerly the curator of the Tokyo Museum of Gemology

Isn't it usually something-cum-something? I don't know, I can't find any
rules about it, and it's not common enough for me to readily recall any
examples to back my feelings up.
 
[I don't remember the use of hyphens, but then usually don't. I'll ad them.]



       Akane smiled then knelt down beside Ranma.

I think I'm coming to the conclusion that I use a lot more commas than you
do, and I'm wondering if it's not just totally a style thing, but anyway,
I would put one after "smiled".
 
[I went through a terrible phase wherein I used commas everywhere. Now I
tend to leave them out where I should have used them. Of the two
inclinations, this one seems preferable. I wlll fix it.


 
       "You what?" Ranma asked sounding alarmed and annoyed. "What'd ya do
that for?"

The implication here is certainly that Ranko told her, but Ranma is
reacting as though it's expressed. Certainly with dialogue you can
generally do what you want, especially with someone whose language is
as coarse as Ranma's is supposed to be, but I do find it just a tad
confusing.
 
[Given that Ranma is rather inarticulate, and that he and Ranko have so much
in common, this, to me at least, seems a natural response.]

       "Oh, me!" Akane exclaimed, clapping both hands to her cheeks. "I
forgot all about that!"



Anyway, general commentary...Entertaining as usual, and an actual plot
emerges from what's been basically a character study so far. Also,
whoo-hoo, sex! My favorite part.

However, and realizing it's a rough draft, it seemed a little...Hmmm.
Choppy, maybe, is the word I'm looking for. I'm a little tired myself, so
maybe it's just that. Or maybe it's that I tend to write lots of long,
rambling sentences that aren't quite sure where they wanted to end, and
some of them could probably be two or three separate sentences but I'm
never really sure where to cut them off, and especially when a character
takes multiple actions all in a row, I'll have them run, then jump and
grab the ledge, then pull themselves up into a handstand before doing a
backflip into a standing position(anybody recognize that?); I've never
written any characters doing any such thing, but that's the sort of thing
I mean, where it could have been several shorter sentences, but the string
of shorter sentences feels wrong, but then the big long run-on sentence
is, well, a big long run-on sentence, much like this one. Anyway, we write
differently. And that's probably a good thing.

Thanks for going to so much trouble for me, Eric. I'll have revised copy out
on Friday.
 
Don.

------ End of Forwarded Message


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