Crit. Disclaimer Release 4.26 Beta Version
I'm commenting on the *story* not the author.
I'll give my opinion about what I liked and why,
and what I didn't like and why not. It's up to the
author to decide if there is anything useful in the
comments.
OR
as noted on http://www.sfwa.org/writing/
McIntyre's First Law: "Under the right circumstances,
anything I tell you may be wrong."
O'Brien's First Corollary to McIntyre's First Law:
"We don't know what the right
circumstances are, either."
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
OK, I've read this over a couple of times and I'm
going to give my general impressions, rather than a line by
line crit.
1)Not enough narrative. You're *telling* the story rather than showing it.
Now, there *is* a time to tell, rather than show.
If you're at a point in the story where you need to get over ground quickly or impart some informationfast to keep the flow of the story, then by all means *TELL*, don't waste time showing. However, this story is almost all *tell* and naked or almost naked dialogue with little or no narrative.
2) VERY slow start that is mostly tell, which might be to the good
since it's very close to the original which is fairly familiar to your
target audience.
Still and all, it's slow. IMO, you'd be better off starting with
Ranma & co. at the door.
OR,
Start with Ranma in China pulling the magic staff from the stone. That
was a pretty funny scene. Still too static for my taste, but:
ORIGINAL
A ray of golden light sprang from the heavens, to illuminate the
figure in her tattered gi.
� �A hundred doves sprang from the bushes to circle over her head.
� �Wolves howled.
� �Lions roared.
� �Elephants trumpeted.
� �Badgers made whatever noise it is that badgers make.
END ORIGINAL
This is pretty funny. There are several gems scattered throughout
that remind me a bit of "Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" and the like.
3)The basic idea of Ranma as "the chosen one" a la "Le Morte D'Arthur�"
is a good one. However, I'd like to see *more* of your story and less
of standard Ranma. I've read Takahashi-sama. Now I want to read *your*
story, so spend less time on ground already covered by Takahashi-sama
and many fanfic authors and bravely go where no fanfic author has
gone before.
My suggestion, for what it's worth:
1)Figure out the theme(s)of your story. For example:
Man-against-man, Man-against-nature,
Love vs Duty, etc. and write them down on a list.
Pick *one* major theme to unite the entire story: Ranma's love
of Ryouga vs. his duty to the Amazon Sausage Goddess, for example.
You can have other themes, but it can help to articulate the *major* theme
of the story. This keeps the story from wandering around until if finally
dies lost and alone.
2)Decide on your *two* main characters. You can have as many as you want,
but pick the two most important to you, just to start with. You can have
as many characters as you want, but concentrate on your two main
characters to begin with. It's better to have a very solid protagonist/antagonist
hero/heroine, etc, than a great many diffuse, cookie-cutter characters.
2B) Pet peeve: Names are very important, IMO, and the use
of Nair or Prel, even in a comedy, just doesn't work for me.
3)Decide on major and minor plot conflicts (problems to solve)
and how they are going to impact your characters. That is, give your characters a MAJOR problem that unites the entire story, and several smaller problems to be solved along the way to solving the major problem and resolving the story.
For instance, in the original, the *problem to be solved* was getting
Ranma together with Akane. (Which is why Dr. Tofu vanished, he was
solving problems too quickly. No problem = no story = no paycheck
for the author) There were many lesser problems along the way (magic mush rooms, getting stuck as a girl, kidnappings, demi-gods, etc) and the fun
was seeing how Ranma & co. would solve the problem.
In this story, you've very quickly introduced a great many characters
and a great many possible problems to be solved, but the overall
effect is diluted. Too much, too fast and not enough detail. IMO, slow
down, give the reader more detail, show more and give the reader
time to digest what's going on.
Hope this has been helpful. ^_^
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