- Kenji M. (nexuspost@hotmail.com)





>From: Adrian Tymes <wingcat@pacbell.net>
>To: ffml@anifics.com
>Subject: [FFML] Re: [original] MGT: Uninvited Magic chapter 1
>Date: Thu, 27 May 2004 13:48:13 -0700 (PDT)
>
>
>--- Kenji Murasaki <nexuspost@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > In the area of description,the story is weak.
> > Allowing for generic setting
> > can
> > only go so far in an original story.
>
>One has to allow for a certain amount of that.  You
>can't set an elaborate stage, thoroughly develop each
>one of a wide cast of characters, and weave a grand
>plot all in one sentence (of reasonable length,
>anyway).  I got the impression that this was more
>setting the stage of what magical girls were, and
>their war with the hunters; something to set the stage
>to set the stage, as it were, drawing the readers in
>so they'll read through exposition in later chapters.
>Of course, said exposition should come in said later
>chapters...but that's an issue for those chapters,
>not this.

Agreed.  I'd hardly look for anything Tolken-like (god forbid, I'd pull my
eyes out with toothpicks if that were the case) in someone's first
chapter, but I'd also like to know a little more about our heroine/hero.
I don't believe that the first chapter balances it well.

>
> > Rather,
> > her comrades, teacher, and mother feed that
> > information to the reader,
> > instead of situations arrising where she's actually
> > forced into a decision
> > all of her
> > own.  This becomes much more heavy handed after the
> > exam scene.
>
>Again, I disagree.  She exists in a world.  That world
>feeds in to her decisions.  Moreso in her case than in
>most, perhaps, but that's the nature of her
>situation.

Then I guess my standpoint would come more to a ratio of
monologue to action.  To me, the story set out to do pull me
in and empathize with what Amber has to go through, yet it
stumbles along by displaying her in a light that assumes that I
am already quite familiar with her dilemas, internal and external.
The contrary is true, I'm flying nearly blind because of a lack of
environmental clues.

There is speak often of the hunters as a seek-and-destroy nazi
group, but the two attacks were little more than random
occurances.  This world seems to be overrun with these 'hunters',
but the only token damage seen is a wholesale decimation of
extras and what can count as an isolated incident inside a
considerably sturdy building.  If nothing else, I'd hope these ideas
are brought to light in preceeding chapters.  If being a magic girl is
to be  a curse, I'd much like to feel that it is, like, for example, reading
a chapter of "Variations of a Theme".


> > Amber's first battle makes the forced prose
> > apparent.  She casually
> > disregards
> > the death of a classmate, seemingly more concerned
> > with her own wounds,
>
>An realistic touch, actually, for those who have
>become used to death.  See soldiers, or the more
>violent of gangs.  Neither does this conflict with
>the others' reaction to her death: Amber was
>supposedly more able to protect herself than normal
>people, thus her death - especially in magical girl
>form - is less expected and more shocking to her
>teammates.

That's a problem.  Chapter 1 gives us a novice soldier in a war
that's fallen people and creatures of tougher ilk.  She doesn't show
any traits that I could classify with a soldier, no shellshock, hardened
maturity and focus, no snap teamwork with her comrades.  But she
feels presented as if she HAS these qualities, and the opposite is true.
She's, in a way, a crossdressing, less introverted Shinji Ikari.

Realistically, I'd have expected her to crack under the pressure and
damage something, likely herself.

- Kenji M. (who's wondering why the hell Mozilla isn't parsing the
hotmail markup correctly)

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