EvilStratagemini@aol.com writes:
A first person story about the training trip he took
Note: your lines are a little long; it'd be more convenient if they
were wrapped at, say, 75 or 72 columns rather than 80
Genma's View
Chapter 1
By Evil Stratagemini
I am not a crook, wait... wrong speech...
I do not own Ranma 1/2, Even if I did, would you believe me if I said so?
I am not making this for money, after all who would pay for a fanfic?
And finally don't sue me, I have no money, and most of my stuff is worthless
to sane people.
With all that out of the way let's proceed to the Fanfic!
*****
My name is Genma Saotome, and I am a failure as a father.
I wasn't always this miserable drunken wretch you see before you. I
wasn't always pathetic. Let me tell you about when my son was first
born.
GENMA: No need to talk about the second... or the third... or the
sixth.
My
wife Nodoka was nine months pregnant, and her water had just broken. We
rushed to the hospital in our neighbor's car (not having one of our own), and
I was scared out of my wits. I mean my beautiful wife of five years was in
pain, she was gasping and her face was red, I had no idea what to do.
We got to Tokyo General okay, and the doctor's rushed her to the
doctors
maternity ward. For 7 hours she was in horrendous pain and it terrified me to
no end. I had never had a child before and neither had she, but I knew 7
hours was a long delivery time. When the clock struck 10:50 Ranma was born,
my first glimpse of him was a bloody blue infant, something that looked very
little like the child my wife and I would grow to love, but the nurse dried
him off and wrapped him in a blanket and when he finally gained some color in
his skin handed him to my wife.
You're comma splicing here; furthermore, that sentence is really long,
and contains a bunch of conceptually independent clauses. Try saying
it aloud, and you'll probably find that the natural pauses you insert
in the sentence suggest different punctuation. (Maybe, maybe not;
that's the technique I use, and it seems to work well for dialogue)
Sugg: "When the clock struck 10:50, Ranma was born. My first glimpse
of him was a bloody blue infant, something that looked very little
like the child my wife and I would grow to love; but the nurse dried
him off and wrapped him in a blanket. When he finally gained some
color, the nurse handed him to my wife."
[...]
I had the best of intentions, I never intended to be gone for ten years,
but I'm a perfectionist with regards to my son, he was never good enough,
never "Manly" enough. So for ten years we trained. Ten years straight you
ask? No. I had my son go to school, using what money I could earn doing what
odd jobs I could to get him into a good private school, no public school was
good enough for my boy.
For one year every thing went smoothly, but then something happened.
everything
[...]
This went on for nearly a month, until Ukyou approached her father about
an engagement to my boy. Now I don't know why she did it, I don't know why
Ichiro agreed, but the next day, Ichiro told my boy that he wanted to speak
to me. Ranma led him to where I was practicing, and Ichiro approached me
about the engagement. Now I didn't remember the engagement to the Tendo's I
was drunk when I made it, and all that stuff I said about him having prior
arrangements was just so much hot air.
You're being inconsistent here about what the bartender knows. I'm
assuming the listener isn't familiar with these events, so doesn't
know 'all that stuff'. If he does know all that stuff, then most of
Genma's speech is pointless.
[...]
The little old lady? Well she was just a nearly blind old lady. Ranma didn
't love her, she was just a warm lap to lie down in, a warm lap that hadn't
thrown him into a pit of starving cats.
And here again, what little old lady?
[...]
When we left Kyoto, Nodoka was once again catching up to us; we went as I
already said, to China. In china we wandered about for a year, visiting old
China
[...]
Author's Note: Well how do you like it? I'm still not sure if I'll continue
it or not, though if I do, I plan to take it well through volume 8 of the
manga. Please Review, I need the help writing I think.
Well, some overall notes. First person is really hard to do,
imo. First person with flashbacks is even worse, because it gets
difficult to not 'tell' rather than 'show'. I think this is a trap you
fell into; I ended up skimming through large sections by the end, in
part because of that style. Also, I never was really sure where you
were going with the fic.
This sort of thing makes an interesting writing exercise (trying to
figure out a character's motivations, or demonstrate how their
perception of events differs from the norm). But unless you're really
enjoying writing it (always a reason to write something ;-), I'd
suggest trying something new. There's a real danger that you'd only
end up summarizing the entire series, without adding more than a thin
veneer of original content.