"Arthur Hansen" <arthur@kindred.net> wrote:

Rising Sun - Ascendant

I haven't done any fanfic comments in quite a while, so here's some. As
always, take only what you agree with and/or find useful, and just file
the rest under one particular cranky reader's opinion. :)

I've only seen a few episodes of L&C, so I may miss things because of
that. If anyone wants to correct my knowledge of said series, please
either do it off-list or include a general opinion of this fanfic.

A fan fiction story revolving around the world of "Lois & Clark: The New
Adventures" and "Ranma 1/2." No infringement of ownership is meant. It is
just for fun.

It's generally considered proper to credit the creators of the
characters in your disclaimer. Takahashi for Ranma 1/2, and Siegel and
Shuster for Superman, maybe also including whoever developed this
particular TV adaptation.

"Daddy! Daddy! Hurry up! Kasumi's going to be on TV soon!" a young girl
that looked to be almost fifteen called out. The little TV in front of her
was set up in front of several mats. On it was shown some sort of official
occasion. The living room looked quite festive, if a bit messed up.

You may want to work on the narrative point of here. Rather than this
kind of cinematic perspective (the viewpoint of a detached observer who
doesn't know who the characters are or what they're thinking), you could
describe it from the viewpoint of one of the characters in the scene.
This might involve the readers more as we feel part of the scene, and
also lets you show us what one of your characters is thinking and
feeling.

Even without a specific POV narrator, I don't know that it really serves
any purpose to have the narrator not know who these people are. Your
reader doubtless *does* know, unless this is going to a Superman list
somewhere.

Also, as long as I'm in big littany of complaints mode ^_^, three
skipped lines between each paragraph is a bit much in my opinion. My
instinct is to think that these spaces indicate scene breaks.

"Kasumi made it, so I guess it is. Candied popcorn looks funny, doesn't it
Nabiki" Akane responded. "Daddy! Hurry up!"

NABIKI: I'm not a verb, Sis. What would it mean for popcorn to Nabiki?
Would I get a royalty if it did that?

When a character identifies who is being spoken to, you MUST set the
identification off by a comma. Otherwise you completely change the
meaning of what is said. Ranma saying "I want to eat, Akane!" is
perfectly normal, whereas without the comma he is espousing either
perversion or cannabalism. You also need either a comma or a question
mark after "Nabiki", depending on whether or not it's intoned as a
question.

"My name is Jumi Damoku. I'm pleased to meet you," Jumi said. Most of the
other girls just ignored the greetings, although a couple did nod.

Since she mentions her name right there, you probably don't want to
mention it again in the attribution. This comes across to me as
redundant, like "'I'm really angry!' he said angrily."

"Ladies? Are you ready?" the director of the cooking contestants asked. At
their nods, he led them out into the brisk afternoon. February was quite
early in the year, but as luck had it, it was more than warm enough for
the cooking demonstration. The six girls were led to a special table, near
where the Prime Minster, Emperor and President of the United States were

Prime Minster, Emperor, and President of

(You're talking about three different people. "And"ing or "or"ing more
than two items requires commas after each except the last. Otherwise it
sounds as though "Emperor and President..." is identifying who the Prime
Minister is, which would mean that there've been some interesting
political changes. :))

The charismatic President Presley nodded a greeting as the young women

PRESIDENT: Thankyew. Thankyewverymuch. And now I'd like to do a little
number called the State of the Union address. o/~ Well, since mah VP
left me, the country's all shot to hell....

"You'll do fine!" Kasumi said with a smile. As she watched, Jumi didn't
make any more major mistakes, but her cooking looked very... regimented.
Almost like she was cooking by rote.

Showing an example of what makes her conclude this might help make the
point here.

Kasumi smiled in return even as she snuck a glance at the new seeming
utensils.

new-seeming
(if you mean that they seemed new; otherwise I don't know what you mean.
Since "seeming" doesn't make any sense by itself, you need the hyphen.)

The director of the services suddenly called her attention and
asked that they start to bring up the food for the dignitaries. As Kasumi
stood in line with her pretty bowl full of Sukiyaki, she kept going over

Sukiyaki probably shouldn't be capitalized, unless it's a specific brand
name.

What was her family name, any ways? Damoku! That was it. The name sounded

name, anyway?

Kasumi's face blanched, even as she saw Jumi moving forward to serve
President Presley. With a sudden burst of adrenaline, Kasumi dropped her
bowl and slammed into Jumi, just as her innocuous spoon sprouted a
throwing spike! "Assassin!" she screamed as tried to twist the weapon away

as she tried

>from Jumi with her relatively basic martial arts, spoiling the attack at

the stunned American.

Suggest mentioning the spike *before* Kasumi makes her move. Without
that, it makes it seem like she's acting just based on the name, which
is too precipitous for her. It's Kasumi's POV here, so show us the scene
step by step as she experiences it.

"Bitch!" Jumi hissed out, she started to flip the irritating young cook

out, as she
(or something like that; as written it's a run-on sentence)

out of the way. She suddenly screamed in pain as one the American Secret
Service men suddenly blurred, faster than her father could as a master
martial, smashing her forearms into splinters.

martial artist,

And here you've kinda sorta slipped into Jumi's POV. "Irritating" is
obviously her thoughts, and the stuff about her father is relating it to
how she would look at it. It's fine to use her POV, but you might get a
tighter scene if you're consistent and not hop around from character to
character until the scene changes. Or at least be *consistently*
inconsistent -- hop around to whichever character is important at the
moment but make it clear when you do it.

Also, if you are going to use a particular POV, then get what you can
out of it. How would it feel to have your forearms shattered? It's
certainly not something you would just note in passing unless they're
prosthetic and easily replaceable.

"Something is going on!

ED WOOD: The President was almost killed! And someone's responsible!

Someone is yelling about an assassin," the
announcer yelled in a panic. The TV view swayed alarmingly.

And now we're back with a remote POV of someone watching the TV.

"My poor daughter!" Soun Tendo started crying mightily

Period.

Across the open field of the park, two cars suddenly surged through the
crowds that parted ways for the black-suit wearing men in the sedans.

black-suit-wearing
(or)
black-suited

Before the cars even stopped moving, the goons that looked like security
where opening the doors and pulling out guns. They were not standard

where -> were

issues 9-millimeter handguns; rather they were fully automatic machine

standard issue nine-millimeter

"Kill the foreign dogs that are ruining our great country!" shouted a
heavy-set fellow yelled out in his native Japanese.

GUERILLA 2: Sir?

GUERILLA 1: Yes?

GUERILLA 2: There are no dogs, sir. All of them are human beings.

GUERILLA 3: Look over there, you idiot.

INU-YASHA: Huh?

GUERILLA 2: KILL!

"I see bombs in the second car with a remote detonator!" Arnold shouted.
That was enough C2 to fry everyone within blocks! What kind of maniacs
where these?

were these?

Off in a van about a half mile away, the man who had masterminded the
attack suddenly opened the door and started walking casually off. He had
nothing that would show him to be involved. And in an hour, he would look

Suggest: he had done nothing

"Everything is clear now, Mr. President. You should be safe," Secret
Service Agent Dan Barr.

said.

"Thank you, Mr. Barr. We were very lucky today. I must say thank you to
that girl!" President Elvis Presley said.

So it really is that Elvis?

Kasumi giggled. "I've cut myself worse cooking dinner, Mr. President-Sir!
It was an honor for this humble member of the Tendo Clan to serve Japan
and our Emperor!" Kasumi stood up wobbly. "It was really nothing!"

stood up wobbily.
(or)
stood up, wobbly.

"I'm so sorry, but my father mentioned the girl's family during my
self-defense training! I should have remembered sooner! It was only-"
Kasumi's leg's almost buckled under her. She clutched at the nearest
person, which happened to be President Elvis. "Oh, I'm s-so sorry! I must
be in sh-shock, still!" Her legs did collapse finally.

ELVIS: Women swoon over me all the time. Thankyew.

AGENT: Or did, back when you were young and handsome. What was that,
fifty years ago?

ELVIS: Shaddup.

"The knife was poisoned!" a Japanese security official said as he ran up.
"I've been trying to discover who had been cut, but with the confusion and
so many people being injured, I wasn't fast enough!"



"Nonsense! I'll personally guarantee her the finest medical treatment in
the world! You have my word on that!

AGENT: That's the same guarantee you made to the voters during your
re-election campaign, wasn't it? But there are still millions of....

ELVIS: Shut UP!

Silly man, why did he keep distracting her from the light? She was sure
that she could hear her mother singing in the garden.
La-de-daaaa-fi-raay-laaaaa!

This is a pretty good use of Kasumi's POV.

"Damn! Her heart has stopped! Don't die on me! Damn you, don't die on me!
Live, damn you! Live!"

BARR: You've never given up on anything in your life! So live!

KASUMI: *whap* Enough with the movie references!

BARR: She's alive! It worked!

Dan Barr screamed into the hurricane, far out to
sea. His enhanced senses were almost overloaded. He had to place himself
in between the positive pulse of the lightning bolt; otherwise, he'd be

himself between

("in between" is redundant)

The powers of an Ultra Enhancement Secret Service Agent are immense. The
only mortals more powerful on the planet were Kryptonians, as far as
Daniel Richard Barr knew. He reacted dozens of times faster than human
could conceive of thinking, bullets bounced off of his chest like they wer
e spit-wads.

wer e -> were

Kasumi was blessedly unconscious, but her heart beat, Dan realized. In a
moment, he had streaked off at three quarters of his normal top speed. He
breathed a sigh of relief as he say the Japanese girl breath. Then

as he saw the Japanese girl breathe.

"I don't know how much you remember, but you were dying. Poisoned,
actually. Supposedly there was no cure, but President Presley ordered me
to use an Ultra Enhancement to save your life." Dan smiled widely. "It did

Should he be blabbing state secrets in front of the hospital staff?!?

"I'm sure you are wondering what is going on?" Elvis waited for her nod.
"Good. I was sure that you would. Saving your life necessitated a rather
dramatic step in your life that we could not discuss with you at that
time. I'm sure you're read about the United State's recent use of

States'
(there are more than one state)

The president took a deep breath. "I don't want anything from you. You
have done an incredible deed, selflessly throwing your life on the line
for this Old Rock Star. You have been handed a marvelous opportunity, an

Don't capitalize "old rock star". It's a general description, not the
name of something specific.

opportunity that is a once in a life time chance." President Presley

lifetime

"My oldest daughter is lost and missing! WAAAAAH!" Soun Tendo cried as he
sat in the middle of the living room.



WAM! Table, meet father.

That sound effect is usually spelled "WHAM". Since you're writing a
narrative and not a comic book script, I'd either drop it, or try to
work it into the context a little better.

E.g.: With a WHAM, table met father. (or something like that. Look for
this sort of thing elsewhere.)

"But he won't stop crying, Nabiki!" Akane said, frustration growing.

Don't they have bigger things to worry about at this point? Aren't they
likewise concerned about Kasumi?

"You have to give him an ultimatum first and then hit him if he doesn't
quit. See? Watch! Father, you need to stop crying so you can go out and
find Kasumi!"

That's a reasoned argument, not an ultimatum.

"My middle daughter is threatening me!" said father babbled.

No, she isn't.

SOUN: My daughter is trying to reason with me!

Seriously, Soun comes across here as much more of a pointless buffoon
than he does in the manga. If he's going to be comic relief, at least
try to make him interesting comic relief.

The two sisters looked and each other and then dashed to the door. It slid
open with a crash. "Yes?" they cried out.



Dan Barr just blinked in surprise. "Er, this is the Tendo residence?"

They sent this guy? Why? Isn't his job supposed to be protecting the
president? I would think that a visit like this would be handled by
someone from the State department, or the American ambassador to Japan,
if not by Japanese officials (since the Japanese government is evidently
in the loop with the whole thing). If they knew about the Tendos being
super-martial artists then they could justify sending this guy because
of his powers, but they don't seem to.

"Give me back my sister!" Akane yelled, rightly figuring that this person
was behind her missing sister.

How could she possibly figure that at this point? And we've definitely
lost our POV here. Only Akane knows what Akane is figuring, and she
wouldn't be able to add "rightly."

She was easily holding him about a foot off
the ground, which is very impressive for a petite fifteen year old.

which was
(narrating in past tense)

"I have a video tape! She explains everything for you!" Dan blurted out

NABSY: What, no digital video?

BARR: We didn't think foriegners would have high-tech like digital
video.

NABSY: We're Japanese, idiot. We *invented* high-tech!

quickly. This family was nuts!

BARR: What family wouldn't take the word of an unknown agent from the US
that they could trust us with their daughter? Only complete weirdos
would ever suspect foul play in such a situation!

(No criticism of your story here; a government agent probably *would*
think like that. ^_^)

"My daughter nearly died! WAAAAAH!"



WAM. BAM! SLAM! CRASH!



"Iteeee..."

...bitsy spider?

You're rendering Japanese as English here, so be consistent. Don't throw
random Japanese words into dialog for no reason. It would be fair to use
Japanese if you were writing from the American agent's POV and he didn't
understand Japanese, but then you should do it consistently for all the
Japanese dialog in the scene (or just mention that they said something
and not tell what they said until it gets translated into a language he
understands).

"Yes, I am the master of the Tendo School of Anything Goes Martial Arts."



The Secret Service Agent just blinked. He must have mistranslated that.

Huh? Why?

One of the biggest problems with crossovers is that in the rush to put
two series together an author will often neglect aspects of the story
that are important for its own sake. The most important aspect of any
story is conflict. Conflict means a situation with at least two possible
outcomes, each of which having strong forces in the story pushing toward
it.

Right from the beginning, your reader should get a sense of what the
main conflict is in your story. In general, your story starts where the
main conflict does, and ends when that conflict is resolved or is
clearly never going to be resolved. If your conflict hasn't started yet,
then what you're writing is probably backstory that is better just
summarized or shown in flashback scenes after you've shown us why we
should care about it.

Conflict does not have to be external. Usually the more interesting
conflicts take place at least partially within the mind of a character.
Kasumi slugging it out and matching wits with supervillains would be a
conflict, but it would be more interesting if she had to overcome some
sort of limitations in her own personality to do it. Maybe Kasumi is too
trusting, and she has to learn not to let Elvis and company exploit her
for the wrong purposes. Just one example.

Speaking of the king, er, president, as long as you're going to have
President Elvis, try to take advantage of it. So far he's only done what
most anyone else might have done under the circumstances. Only in one
offhand, throwaway comment did it matter that he's Elvis Presley. If
you're going to use it, make it matter.

In general, use Superman (or TV adaptation thereof) as a springboard,
take what serves your story but don't feel obligated to follow it too
closely. The Superman series' milieu  is designed to make Superman
interesting to read about (or view). Your job is to make super-Kasumi
interesting to read about, which may require changes.

Again, these are just my suggestions. Use whatever you decide you agree
with, and best of luck with this and any other fanfics.


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

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