Hello there Andrea. I'm sorry it's taken me so long to get to this. My 
computer decided to deep-six, and it's taken me awhile to get it back up and 
running. I saw this last night while I was digging through the avalanche of 
accumilated junk in my e-mail box and have only recently had a chance to look 
at it. Anyhow, let us see what there is to see. 

Onwards...

In a message dated 2/16/03 10:17:58 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
email_andreas_art@yahoo.com writes:

Chapter 1 A Long Desired Return



From the top of the stairs Kasumi called down, "I'm going to 
bed now.  Good night."



"Good night," her sisters and Ranma replied in unison. The
television's audio was set low, so they could hear her gentle
footsteps and the shutting of her bedroom door. Ranma glanced
at the stairs then at the digital clock set in the VCR.

stairs, then at the digital clock in the VCR.

Going through your C&C the first time, I noticed that you seemed to like 
commas. :) I'm probably going to ignore most of these. As far as I can tell, 
I'm not incorrect in my lack of use. Also, while I'll admit that the story 
isn't a particular 'fast' one, so many commas will, imho, slow it down in a 
manner I do not want. 

"Kasumi goes to bed pretty early," he commented. "It's only
ten o'clock, and tonight's a Saturday to boot."



"Well, Kasumi has a lot of chores on Sunday and she likes to
finish them early," Akane explained. "She's very responsible,
unlike some people around here I could mention."



"Huh," Ranma snorted. "I also guess that she needs more beauty
sleep than certain tomboys I could mention."

This is an (inadvertent) insult to Kasumi.  How about 

something more along the lines of “She cares more about her 
beauty sleep than certain tomboys I could mention.”

You're the first one to notice this implication. God knows I didn't. I'll 
probably change it as you suggest. 

She pulled her covers up to her shoulders and laid on her 
back,

and lay on her back

Missed this one, dammit. 

that she would be hard pressed to describe if asked to 
explain. 

Remove “if asked to explain”

Yeah, that would tighten it a bit. 

A cool breeze caressed her gently, almost with a lover's 
touch.

It may sound better to say “A cool breeze caressed her 

gently, with a lover’s touch.”  Or even “A cool breeze 
caressed her gently; a lover’s touch.”

I'll give it some thought. I have a bad habit of overusing qualifiers like 
'almost' and 'seemed', giving my descriptions a touch of a hesitant tone that 
I don't want to project. I'm trying to break myself of it.  

A noontime sun blazed in a sky bluer than any she'd ever seen
in Japan. She looked down, and found herself not in a 
nightgown, or one of her housedresses, but a flowing white 
blouse, trimmed with fine lace, and brown deerskin breeches. 

She looked down and found… fine lace.  One her legs were 

brown deerskin breeches.  (You should separate the blouse from
the breeches because even though we know better it makes it 
sound like the blouse is also trimmed with breeches.  Har har!)

Meh, I don't see it as such. It reads clear enough for me. 

Instead of house slippers one her feet 

slippers on her

I HATE it when little things like that get by me.

She wore no ribbon in her hair, preferring to leave it to 

flow past her shoulders in waves, free and unbound.  (Also 
why not do some explanation or short comparison like this: 
Whereas at home she needed to tie back her hair as well as 
her adventurous spirit, here she wore not ribbon in her hair.  
Here she preferred to leave it, etc.)

It'll be considered. 

Kasumi threw back her head and laughed joyously. "I'm back!" 
she cried, throwing her hat in the air, pirouetting 
gracefully. She caught her hat and set it on her head and 
laughed again. 

Did she throw the hat up, or did it boomerang out and back 

to her?

Didn't you know it was an enchanted Hat of Expedius Return? No 
self-respecting chapeaued adventurer should be without one. 

Dude, she walks fast.  ;)  Try something more like “she had 

explored and wandered here almost every night, and had seen 
its length and breadth”.  Although you can’t really say that 
because as she tells Tofu later there are a lot of places to 
which she’s never been.)

That I'll probably try to change. When I first wrote Chapter One I wasn't too 
sure where I was going to go with the story, nor what truly was the extent of 
her travels.

Worries for her little sister, abducted by the bird folk of 
Junsendo, and the stresses caused by the chaotic wedding her 
father and Uncle Saotome had arranged somehow inhibited her 
from dreaming.  

Pheonix People (capitalize this)
Also, why would the HUGE stress of her mother’s death allow

her to wander in the Dreamlands, but the other huge stress of
Akane’s abduction prevent it?  If nothing else Kasumi would 
need this wandering time to relieve the much greater stress 
that she must have been experiencing.

Some of this, such as just why we see Kasumi and Tofu in the Dreamlands and 
not certain other characters, I'm going to try to touch on at least tangently 
in the next few chapters. 

She opened her eyes, loosened her saber in its sheath, and sat down in the 
shade of one of the larger trees. From her satchel she produced a small, 
slim volume- her grimoire. 

Dictionary.com defines “grimoire” as “a manual of black magic (for 

invoking spirits and demons)”.  It’s also not a commonly used word, and 
some people may not know what that is right off the bat.  Try using 
something more people would recognize, such as “spell-book”.  This is more 
appropriate, because “spell” is defined by dictionary.com as “A word or 
formula believed to have magic power.”  This is more benign-sounding and 
covers more area than summoning demons.

Oxford Online defines it simply as a book of magic spells. Also I don't think 
using the occasional obscure word makes things too difficult for the reader. 
The definition is quite obviously described in the text. It's not like I'm 
using a full out Clark Ashton Smith or Jack Vance style of description. 

She poured over the incantations, pondering the strange logic
they represented, forcing the enigmatic syllables into her 
mind, where they writhed and twisted in protest. Kasumi 
closed her eyes, covering them with a hand, and in a moment 
the turmoil subsided. She sighed in relief, snapping shut the 
book and returning it to her satchel. 

snapping the book shut (I know it’s grammatically correct 

either way, but this way flows better.  You can, of course, 
choose to ignore any or all of my suggestions.)

What are these spells?  You should take a paragraph here 

to explain what they do, and why Kasumi thought they’d be a 
good pick.  Sometimes it’s ok to make your characters 
enigmatic by not explaining their reasons for doing something,
but so far you’ve been writing a lot about what she thinks and

how she acts, so it’s inconsistent here.

I'll consider it, but I'm probably going to keep it the way it is. The prior 
exposition was , imho, necessary. Descreptions of what the spells do are not. 

She rose, glancing up at the sun. It had just started its 
decline. With speed and good fortune she should reach Ulthar 
before sunset. Picking out a trail to the west, she headed off,
whistling happily.

The trail snaked through the trees, curving gently and 
twisting treacherously in turns. 

”twisting treacherously in turns” is redundant.  Besides 

that, immediately before “treacherously” you’ve got “gently”.
Dissect what you meant to say through this sentence and try 
again.

I'll see if I can clean it up. 

Kasumi walked it with wide, confident strides, surefooted and 
swift. 

Are you sure you mean wide strides?  Did you mean to say 

long?  Wide indicates that our dear Kasumi is bow-legged, or 
something.

Yeah, I'll swap it with long. 

She whistled or sang when she could spare the breath to help 
pass the time, un-fearful of the forest, but not unwary, 
keeping her saber close at hand and her spells foremost in her
mind. 

She whistled - or sang when she could spare the breath - 

to help pass the time.  She was un-fearful of the forest, but 
not unwary, keeping her saber close at hand and her spells 
foremost in her mind.  (You seem to be in love with long 
sentences.  Try to go through this story and future chapters, 
and break down you long sentences into shorter ones.  Short 
sentences don’t mean dumb sentences, but long sentences can 
often sound pretentious.)



As she walked along the trail she saw many of the forest's 
denizens going about their simple business- birds, squirrels, 
a few times a deer foraging in the underbrush or in clearings. 

Prime example here of a sentence that could be separated 

into two.  “As she walked along the trail, she saw many of the 
forest's denizens going about their simple business.  Birds, 
squirrels, and a few times a solitary deer foraged in the 
underbrush or in clearings.”

Matter of personal taste, I guess. 

More unusual creatures also caught her eye. Plump Zoogs the 
size of tanuki poked their round, furry faces cautiously 
through the foliage of their trees to peer at her curiously. 
Scintillant mynahr birds flitted from bough to branch, their 
emerald and ruby plumage glittering in the sunlight, quite 
literally sang for their supper.

Scintillant – Wow, my spell check tells me this isn’t a 

word, but Dictionary.com says it is.  It’s a adjective for 
the word “scintillate”, meaning “to throw of sparks, to flash, 
to sparkle or shine.”  It can also mean “to be animated and 
brilliant” as in “dinner conversation that scintillated”.  
Now I know.  Just for any one else that was curious, now YOU
know!



More than once Kasumi shook her head to clear it of the 
hypnotic cobwebs the mynahr's music wove. A twk-man buzzed by,
mounted on a golden dragonfly, raising his lance in friendly 
salutation as he passed; Kasumi reciprocated with a wave of
her hand. Once a butterfly dragon crossed her path, floating 
serenely through the trees, its large prismatic wings barely 
stirring in the air. Kasumi observed its grace and beauty in 
silent admiration.

It’s hard to imagine the butterfly dragon’s grace and beauty

without more description.  Also the twk-man could use some.  
All we know about the twk-man is that he’s male, rides a 
dragonfly, and has a lance.  Is it human-shaped?  What color?

As with the spells, I feel description of these strange passersby isn't 
necessary. Now if Kasumi had interacted with them, as she does with the 
deodand, you'd have a point. Describing everything that crosses a character's 
eye can lead to bloat. 

I thought they were small?  I’m imagining gold-fish sized 

fish, here.  If that’s the case then catching one to eat 
wouldn’t be worth the effort.

More herring size than goldfish. It's been awhile since I've been to the 
annual herring run in my town, but if I remember correctly herring are small 
compared to trout or salmon but large enough to make catching worth the 
effort. 

She peeled off her gloves and placed them neatly in her hat.

In the previous sentence where you describe Kasumi laying 

her hat to one side, you should further explain that she lay 
in top-side down.  Or you should say that she placed her gloves
ON her hat.

Yes, but wouldn't saying that she put the gloves in her hat imply that she 
had placed the hat upside-down? Oh well. 

She washed her hands, laved the sweat from her face and drank 
deeply from the brook, quaffing down handfuls of water to 
quench her dry throat. She sighed contentedly and delicately 
wiped her mouth with her kerchief.



A faint rustling sounded behind her, from the far side of the 
glen.  The small, fine hairs on the back of neck rose as a 
premonitory chill danced down it. Kasumi spun around swiftly, 
rising into a crouch. Her saber rasped free from its scabbard.
Something crawled towards her through the thick sward, 
something lusterless black, large as a man. It froze 
statue-still when it spied her movement, then rose up 
serpentine from the ground. It would have looked like a man, 
a handsome man dressed in leather harness, if not for the 
gleaming fangs so prominent in its mouth, the iron claws 
curving from its digits, the large, murky yellow eyes with the
slit, cat-like pupils.



Kasumi straightened her stance and pointed her saber at the 
creature.

'A deodand,' she thought. 'What ill-fortune.' 

Separate Kasumi’s thought from the deodand smiling by a 

paragraph spacing (or indent, whichever).

Gotcha. 

The deodand smiled widely. Its eyes raked greedily over her 
body. A long, too narrow tongue flitted across its fangs. She 
could feel radiating from it the intensity of its 
anthropophagic cravings. They struck her almost like a 
physical blow. It held out its hands out to either side as if
in friendly welcome and spoke, its voice a resonant baritone.

She could feel the intensity of its anthropophagic cravings

radiating from it.

Yeah, that does sound better. 

"Ah, I recognize you now," the deodand crooned. "Kasumi the 
Wayfarer. You are as beautiful, as... delectable... as the 
stories say. You have strayed quite far from your usual haunts,
I think."

If Ulthar is her usual haunt, then this deodand is sadly 

misinformed.  Five miles isn’t far even when you can’t drive.

Again I plead incompetence... or something... As I said, I wasn't really too 
sure where I was going with this when I was writing Chapter One. I think at 
this point I wasn't even sure that Ulthar would be Kasumi's home away from 
home. 

Another hour of walking passed before Kasumi reached the end 
of the Enchanted Forest. She stepped free from the tree line 
and the thick shadows, out onto a grassy rise. The Skai River 
Valley stretched out before her, green, pleasant and peaceful.
On the far horizon the sun wearily sank behind the sharp, 
distant peaks of the Magnatz Mountains, its tired light 
painting the valley in red and shadows, transmuting the River 
Skai into a curving line of ruddy gold. A cool breeze blew
from the west. Kasumi sat down in the grass, taking off her 
hat and drawing her knees to her chest, content to watch the 
sunset for a few minutes in quiet introspection. 

Start a new paragraph here.

Okay. 

Nabiki watched her sister as she hummed happily to herself as 
she prepared breakfast. "You seem chipper today Kasumi," she 
commented. 

This sentence sounds akward.  Say it out loud and you’ll 

know what I mean.  There are too many “as she”s in there.  Try 
something like “Nabiki watched her sister humm happily to 
herself as she prepared breakfast.”

I see what you mean. I'll try to smooth it out. 

Thanks for taking the time to look over this. I appreciate it.

Jeremy Harper


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