Donald Lee Granberry wrote:
This was rather disappointing, Brian. The quality of a yarn does not hinge
on Ranma being matched up with Akane. More importantly, you have no grounds
for making such an assessment based soley on the name of the author. If this
was as far as you wanted to go while doing C&C for this story, then you
should not have posted any of it. In my opinion, you owe Robert a public
apology for this stunt. I know you and your work have been abused on FFML a
few times, but I don't recall Robert being a party to it and you should not
be taking it out on him.
I don't see that you're in a position to criticize me, actually.
You don't know me half as well as you seem to think you do, acting all
high and mighty to stomp on me for daring to express an opinion -- one
that I do not hold alone, I might add.
In light of some of the other "C&C" I've seen offered to the author of this
piece, I'm beginning to think that I am well-advised to abandon this forum
altogether. Mr. Haynie has written some of the best comedy to ever pass
through the FFML e-mail server and he is being treated rather badly for
offering what promises to be yet another hilarious piece.
Humor is subjective. I am not the only one who read this one
without even smiling once. It, like most of the author's works,
combines the worst of cliche with the expectation that name-recognition
will move the title.
To no one's surprise, it doesn't.
So, I have to wonder about the motivation of those nitpicking about the
finer points of "canon" and offer him no help whatsoever when it comes to
actual improvements needed in his work. If I seem angry to you, that's a
good thing, because I am well and truly peeved about this.
"You're being mean to him, and I like him, so stop."
You'll not I actually told him exactly why his story didn't work for me.
He's welcome to rework his story to fix what I percieved as flaws,
if he wants. He's not required to, but the option is there. I didn't
just say, "This story sucked," which I could have. It's a fair piece,
but why bother reading it, given that I already know how it'll end? I
personally think that if a story's going to be that predictable it
really needs something that'll carry it through that predictability and
keep the reader interested.
Your stories have it.
This one did not.
Regards,
Don Granberry.
And you have my regards as well, Mr. Granberry.