Shadowbakasama wrote:

This is a Ranma continuation and multi-cross-over with Sailor Moon, 
Tenchi Muyo!, Mermaid Saga, Ah Megami-sama and Mamono Hunter Yohko.

This is my first time writing a fan fiction, so please review and tell 
me what you think.
 

Okay.  First item:  choosing a massive crossover as your first fanfic is 
probably
a bad idea.  Start small.

           Ranma Crossing Over too the Wild Side
 

(sp) that "too" should be "to"

   
               By Paul Bennett aka Shadow


Prologue: The wedding disaster continues

The wedding was a disaster, a little slice of Hell on Earth. Ukyo and 
Shampoo had been hired by Nabiki to cater the wedding. (Hey she couldn't 
afford to get anyone else at the last minute, plus they agreed to do it 
for free, can't beat that.) Of course she wasn't expecting to get 
explosive okonomiyaki and pork bun bombs thrown at the groom.  Then Kuno 
shows up with a katana to save the bride with his sister Kodachi in a 
black wedding dress to steal the groom.  Genma, Ryouga, and Moosse fight 
over the cask of Nanniichuan until Happosai drinks it, thinking it was 
sake.  While all the cursed men are trying to get the old freak to barf 
up the water he throws out a batch Happo Daikarins, knocking out 
Ranma-chan (he got wet when he tripped over a fire bucket while fighting 
Kuno), causing damage to the Dojo and wiping out the wedding cake and 
drinks, at setting a few fires.  After all this Kuno was still waving 
his katana around, spouting bad peotry, and trying to get Akane in front 
of the priest, Kodachi has a bouquet of roses (probably with paralysis 
gas) and is looking for her 'Ranma-sama', Ryouga is looking all 
depressed and building up a large green aura, and Ukyo and Shampoo are 
playing tug-a-war with a scorched, unconcious Onna-Ranma.  
 

Well, let's see:  your basic spelling and punctuation is okay.  You mix 
tenses,
however.  Fiction is normally written in a consistent past tense, and 
you vary
between past and present without any obvious reason.

Your third sentence, in parentheses, breaks the fourth wall, and basically
invites readers not to trust you as a narrator.  Directly addressing your
readers is very hard to carry off successfully; I recommend you don't try
in your first fanfic.

As story-telling, opening your story with a recap of the failed wedding at
the end of the manga series is a bad strategy, especially at this length.
Most of your readers know this material; you're just boring them (i.e.
giving them reason not to read any farther).  Ideally, you want to open
with a sentence which will intrigue and interest your reader.

Ranma-chan wakes up and takes in his surrounding and tempts fate by 
saying "How could things get any worse."  BIG mistake.
 

For instance, you might have opened here:  "Ranma woke up and wearily
surveyed the wreck of the dojo in the aftermath of the failed wedding."

The phrases "tempts fate by saying" and "BID mistake" are further breaches
of the fourth wall.  Again, the effect is to distance your readers, to cause
them to not trust you.

Also, the use of "Ranma-chan" is a gender indicator, as you seem to be
using it here, is not recommended practice.  For one thing, "-chan" is not
a flawless indicator of gender; "-chan" can refer to a male (as, for 
instance,
Nabiki's habitual "Kuno-chan").  Second, it encourages laziness on your
part:  in scenes where Ranma's current gender is important, you should
tell us more directly, but it often is not important.  And sometimes it is
in your interest NOT to let us know right away.

Akane finishes off Kuno with Mallet-sama(tm) smashing him into the thru 
 

This whole "Mallet-same (tm)" is a fairly recent fanfic invention which
I've seen before, too many times.  Your use of it will tend to cause 
your readers
to doubt you have anything original to say in this fic.

the floor, and turns around glaring at Ranma-chan, with a red battle 
aura burning around her and seeming to have wind blowing her hair and 
wedding dress around yells "I don't know, you seem to be having fun your 
girlfriends fawning all over you! ON OUR WEDDING DAY!! THIS IS ALL YOUR 
FAULT!!! I should never have gone through with this! I should have known 
better than to trust a LYING HONORLESS PERVERT LIKE YOU!!!" and she 
swings Mallet-sama(tm) and sends Ranma-chan and Shampoo through a wall 
with a cry of "RANMA NO HENTAI!!!"
 

This entire paragraph is a single run-on sentence.  Your writing
will be much more effective, in most cases, if you break it up into
short, punchy sentences.

As story-telling, this action of Akane's (the first thing that actually
happens in your story) is very problematic.  Many or most of your
readers on this list, frankly, will stop reading right now, as this will
strike them as pointless Akane-bashing.  Why?  Because canonical,
manga Akane never acts like this, so your readers don't understand
why Akane is acting like this now.  Now, if the scene were carefully
set well after the manga series ends (for instance, at a second failed
wedding several years later), your readers could be persuaded that
there are scenes they've never seen (yet), but which you will
flashback to, which will enlighten them.  But since you've carefully
established that this is the failed wedding at the end of the manga,
your readers know that there are no such scenes.  So your readers
are clueless as to why Akane is acting this way.

I'm going to stop here, as the rest of this prologue seems to just
repeat the same kinds of problems, as well as not advancing any
plot significantly.



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