Copy-Pasted Disclaimer: I reserve the right to be totally wrong, to misquote
facts and to make errors in judgment. I also C&C as I read, so what I said at
one point can easily be retracted on the next, depending on how the story
progresses. I don't claim to be the authority on fanfiction writing... Hell, I
see C&Cing as a learning experience. Agree? Disagree? Corrections on my
corrections? I'll thank you for it. Ignore all my comments in applying to your
fic? You have the right to do so. Take it with a grain of salt, use what you
can use and ignore the rest. ^_^
And my next victim is... :P
On 9/28/05, Timothy Groves <tailkinker@contrabandent.com> wrote:
Wow. You've got your fic... justified. It looks weird to me, but I can't
exactly call it 'wrong' or anything. How'd you do it? What program did you use,
if you did use a program?
Nabiki shook her head, and looked down at the pigtailed redhead
in the Chinese clothing.
IMO, you don't need the 'the' in between 'in' and 'Chinese clothing'. The prose
flows better without it.
And in a red and black flash, she was gone.
Ooooh. Interesting plot development for a post-series fic.
The kata was one of Risa's favourites, the result of six hours'
study
Suggest: six hours of study (no, the 'redundancy' of using that many 'ofs'
won't affect prose flow... actually, most people wouldn't even notice)
The resulting kata was part wu shuu, part kempo, part
musabetsa kakotou -
I believe it's supposed to be (looks it up on Google) Musabetsu Kakuto Ryu...
_despite_ the fact that there's a whole lot of you using 'musabetsa kakotou'
(no 'ryu'). It's your judgment call.
"You're doing well." He sat down before the iroha,
What's an iroha?
"You know our girl, Kasumi. She has nothing but whims. Though
when she does go after something, it's like watching a bulldog at
work. Total singlemindedness.
single-mindedness (you need the hyphen this time around to separate that
compound word... if you can prove otherwise and your version is correct, I'm
all ears)
You've been with her for the last
month. In China, yes, so she coulda
IMO, this sort of speech pattern ('coulda' as a contraction to 'could to') is
more suitable to the likes of Ranma and Ukyo instead of Nabiki (who I pegged to
have impeccable diction)
"Resilient is one thing. She was depressed as hell yesterday,
and all cheerful and happy this morning." Nabiki took a long
pull from her coffee. "About the family resemblance. Need I
remind you that for Risa to have that much of a family
resemblance, Ranma would have to have been her mother, not her
father?"
Er, Nabiki never took up biology? What a person inherits from his parents (or
grandparents) cannot be simplified that way.
ignored the boxers, giving them no more of a thought than a
subvocalized "bleah."
Heh.
Oh yeah, suggest: sub-vocalized
"And wash that shirt, before you do anything else!
I don't think you need the comma in between 'shirt' and 'before'.
Ten minutes later, the carving completely forgotten, she was
sprawled on the floor of the family room, feet kicked up behind
her, a book open on the floor before her.
Ranma: (shakes head) Youth today and their short attention spans...
Nabiki craned her neck to look, but the page was written in
Korean. She shook her head in disbelief. Akane hadn't been the
greatest scholar in the history of Nerima, and Ranma was mostly
clueless. Why was it that their daughter was so bright?
Risa: (shrugs) I'm just lookin' at the pretty pictures.
"Listen, Risa. I kinda wanted a chance to talk to you."
Y'know, I'm still wondering what happened to Nabiki's speech pattern. She's
usually very sharp in both diction and in the content of her words... i.e. not
this informal.
"First off: You know your mother wanted to be an actress,
Suggest: 'First off...' or 'First off,'
Grammar Rule #51: Note: People just can't stomach too much use of the colon.
B-ut... since there aren't that many colons to begin with, perhaps you can keep
it. Consider this a 'head's up'.
"Surprise, surprise. She was good, Risa. She could really bring
feeling to a role.
(thinks) I... guess. She _is_ very emotional.
"I..." Risa paused. "I kinda thought I might wanna do that."
She picked up the book. "I borrowed this from Shampoo, a couple
of days ago." She dropped the book.
'Shampoo'? No 'auntie' Shampoo? Or 'Miss' Shampoo? 'Shampoo-san'?
Ranma's skill in the kitchen was remarkable, for someone who
Methinks you don't need the comma after 'remarkable'.
Nabiki watched the barely controlled
I think it's supposed to be 'barely-controlled', though I could be wrong (The
confusion lies with the supposition that adverbs + verb descriptor <> compound
descriptor, because an adverb is essentially the 'descriptor of the verb
descriptor'). Your call.
Nabiki bit her lip to keep from laughing. Like her mother, Risa
couldn't cook worth a damn.
Damn.
Unlike her mother, however, she was
showing slow but steady improvement,
canonnitpickingmangafan: That's--!
Can it and go pick nits, canon fan. We know, we know. We know that Akane can
cook... curry, I think. That's steady improvement. But who knows? Maybe the
author's following anime canon... or maybe this is merely from Risa's POV.
canonnitpickingmangafan: (grumblies)
Kasumi's smile became a touch strained. "Perhaps you could chop
the meat. Make sure it's quite small. I'll work on the rest of
the filling."
Heh. Cute.
She turned back, to see Risa running towards her.
You don't need the comma after 'back'.
Nodoka sighed. "I've not looked forward to this
conversation...You see, Risa, the courts were very unhappy about
the situation between your mother and your father. And though I
feel the problem mostly stemmed from your mother, Ranma was not
entirely to blame.
I think Grandma Nodoka meant 'Ranma was not entirely blameless' instead or
'Akane was not entirely to blame. Your father had his faults.' Makes more
sense, considering the structure of Nodoka's little speech.
the out-takes in it, too; you can have a good laugh over it."
FYI, 'outtakes' is an actual, dictionary-verifiable word. No need for the
hyphen (unlike with 'dictionaryverifiable', where you do need the hyphen).
"Okay...thanks, Papa. This means a lot to me." She smiled
impishly. "By the way, we only have a DVD player here...I don't
even know what sort of machine will play this tape. You find one
of them too?"
"Ah..." Ranma scratched the back of his head.
Kasumi giggled.
Heh.
Hmmm... What a nice 'slice of life'-type of fic you got here. Very... 'everyday
life'-ish. Now, I admit I had my trepidations when Nabiki started to spout off
the many, many virtues of Risa (almost thinking that this fic is a Mary
Sue-type of fic), but as I read on, I realized that _that's_ not the point of
the fic. This isn't Risa, who's faster than Ranma and at times looked like
Ranma and can make use of Ryoga's skills... this is Risa, daughter of Ranma
Saotome, dealing with issues regarding life and what eventually happened to her
family.
It's not as dramatic as some of the other fics I've read and reviewed, but I
guess it wasn't meant to be. It was more... subtle in its presentation of plot,
and in order to see its value you've got to see 'underneath the underneath' (I
guess). Aside from some hyphenated words that shouldn't be hyphenated and
unhyphenated words that should be hyphenated, I guess this fic's all right. Not
overly waffy, not overly dramatic... just right.
P.S. There were probably some plot points I've missed (apparently, from the way
this fic is structured, it has some 'prequels' before it, correct?) mostly
regarding Nabiki's change in diction (in this fic, it's different than how it's
usually portrayed in general fandom), and what really happened to Akane.
(shrugs) I'm just here to tell you that, despite the ambiguity from my end, the
fic still worked. As such, I have nothing more to say except...
Keep on writing,
Abdiel
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