"Andrew M. Petalik" <wolf@magma.ca> wrote:

"Hey pop!"

"Hey, Pop!"

(When a speaker identifies who is spoken to, always set the
identification off by a comma. Ranma says "Pop" here to identify "Pop"
as the person to whom he's speaking. Also, capitalize relations like
"Pop" when they are used as names (not, for example, as in "my pop"))

"Yes my boy?"

"Yes, my

(Again, "my boy" is identifying who he is speaking to.)

"I wonder why the old letch never does more than grope women and steal
their underwear?"

Soun Tendou rushed into the room. "Saotome! Don't you dare tell him
that! Imagine what he would do to us. The master knows we are the only
ones who know."

You're being inconsistent with your paragraphing. Either skip a line
between paragraphs (as you do here) or don't (as you did with the first
three).

Ranma looked between his father and his father-in-law-to-be. "This gets
more interesting by the second."

Nabiki stepped into the room. "Come one daddy, this does sound

"Come on, Daddy,

NABBY: Come one! Come all! Step right up!

"Does that mean you intend to pay for the repairs Mr. Saotome?" Nabiki

repairs, Mr. Saotome?"

asked sweetly.
A drop of sweat rolled down his fat head, then he replied, "I guess you
don't want to know too badly then. Very well."
Ranma moved to follow. "I want to know."
"Sorry son, Nabiki has spoken."

"Sorry, son, Nabiki

Nabiki was floored. The ultimate wimp, Genma, just took her own words
and stuffed them up her nose.

Ummm, Genma isn't that much of a wimp. Nothing like, for example,
Gosunkugi is. He does tend to be a wimp around certain people, but
Nabsy, on the other hand, is someone he generally just avoids dealing
with.

She's turned around to ask more... but Ranma and Genma have already left
the premises.

You've goofed up your tenses here. This line should be in the past
tense, like the rest of your story.

"You want to know, don't you son?"

don't you, son?"

"You see my boy, the reason the master never does more than touch is

see, my boy, the

Genma pointed down to his nether region. "Before he took us as
apprentices, the master was experimenting with those annoying
firecracker bombs of his when there was an� *Ahem* accident. The bomb

The ellipses you've got there is a non-ascii character that will look
completely different on different platforms. Just use three regular
dots.

Also, it's generally better to use descriptive inserts than trying to
add stuff that isn't really dialog into dialog. Maybe something like: 

bombs of his when there was an..." He cleared his throat suggestively.
"...accident.

Ranma face was aghast. "OUCH!"

Ranma's

Genma grinned ruefully, "no kidding. He told us this in one of his

ruefully. "No

Genma grinning is a separate action from the dialog. "Genma grinned"
isn't referring to the dialog the way "Genma said" or "Genma asked"
would be. So it has to be punctuated as a separate sentence.

drunken stupors. The next day, when he realized what he had said, he
promised us eternal damnation if word of it ever got out."
"It sounds embarrassing, but it isn't all that bad," at the strange look

bad." At the

his father sent him, he asks, "is it?

he asked, "Is it?"
(you're writing in past tense; note also the missing capital for start
of new sentence and end quote mark.)

"My boy, you have 4 different women after you. This is very ego boosting

have four different
(spell out numbers unless they're very large)

and makes you look manly. Would you ever want word to get out that the
reason you have never chosen any of them is because you wouldn't be able
to do anything with them? I didn't think so."

Since Genma continues speaking into the next paragraph, remove the
ending quote mark.

"Blah," Genma said. "Blah, and blah.

"Furthermore," he continued, "and in conclusion, let me just say blah."

"The master is carrying on his raiding charade to hide the fact that all
he can ever do is look, but never touch."

"So what do we do now?"
"Simple... " Said Ranma's father, "we get in our laugh, then we die."

"Simple," said

RANMA: I meant what do we do about *this* particular situation.

GENMA: Oh.

Interesting idea, and the pace at which it was introduced seems about
right. It would've been nice if you could've done more with the idea
than just explain it. What consequences might there be now that Ranma
does know? Even if you just hinted at one or two of them, it might help.

Anyhow, good luck with any future fics.


Gary Kleppe
http://www.garykleppe.org/comics.html

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