At 12:19 AM -0800 17/11/2002, haxchan wrote:
Well, thank you for your interest, and I'm certainly glad you
enjoyed it. As for needing to know the Manga, I would disagree, as
you don't truly have to know any of the manga, although being
acquainted with the story helps to show the contrast between the
situation I created and the original version. There are parts that
will suprise Ranma fans, such as Shampoo's death, Ranma's curse
being intentionally brought on by his father, and Ranma 's curse
locked into his female body (to say nothing of Akane's story).
As for it being hard to follow, I certainly agree, as reading back
over it I don't give a great deal of clues as to who speaks, except
that it almost always follows a back and forth sequence. I wonder,
do people think a story is bad if certain lines require thinking
about to decipher who said them? It's especially hard in this case
because the characters do not follow their usual mannerisms. To be
honest, I didn't really care about making the dialogue
easy-to-follow, although that's something I'll consider in the
future. Thanks for your input, and I'm happy you liked it.
Hey, does a fic have to be easy to follow? Does it work with Panda's
Dream, in the FFML's opinion? I'm curious.
I would say that if the reader has to stop to puzzle out who's saying what
(as I did a few times in this story), then it becomes a lot harder to "lose
oneself" in the story. The reader's attention is interrupted, and this
really cannot help but detract from what you want them to take in.
More generally, any time a reader has to work to follow what you've written
-- even if it's only that you've used an unfamiliar word! -- you need to
consider revising.
In the case where it's simply not clear who's speaking, making tings plain
is only a matter of a couple of words. There's really no excuse not to
take the trouble (unless of course you _want_ things to be obscure, which
is another matter entirely).
Cheers,
Angus
--
Wow, two commentary-type postings in as many days! There must be something
wrong with me. :)