--- David Johnston <rgorman@telusplanet.net> wrote:

Raye Johnsen wrote:

Okay, I know I haven't posted here in years,

normally

posting to LJ, but hey, if the people here are
actually prepared to read something *other* than
Ranma, I'm not going to start studying equine
dentistry.

Please C&C; I LOVE comments and criticism.  
Fair warning: Australian spelling is used

throughout.

One thing that's worth bearing in mind is that a
significant number of 
possible respondents won't know what difference that
makes because they 
come from a nation with no sense of humour.  So it's
best just to ignore 
them when they give you an incorrect "correction".

Yes, that's something I've finally grown up enough to
do.  'Tis a scary day - almost as scary as the one
where I realised I was walking *around* the puddles
and not *through* them.
  

Dear Athrun, Mia, Yzak, Dearka and Shiho (I'm
addressing this to all of you because I know very

well

that you're all reading this),

Well! Here I am, at a house called Freedom. I�m
leasing it through the owner�s personal assistant

and

he seems very nice, but I still haven't heard a

word

from the owner.

I've no idea why it's called Freedom. Not Freedom
Manor, or Castle, or House, just Freedom.

It's short for Freedomicile.

Heh.  I like it.
 

He had sworn to love me and to never leave me. I

had

died; and he had never left. He kept his word. So

I

had to work out how to release him. As soon as I
thought of that, I realized: I had to release him

from

his oath.

She opened the door (with the guardchain on) and I
knew it. It was her. My dream Lacus was standing

in

front of me. Her eyes widened, and her right hand

came

up to her face.

The speech I'd memorized flew entirely out of my

head.

"Hi," I said. (Kira the brainiac.) "I'm Kira �

Kira

Yamato. May I come in?"

If you love something let it go.  If it does not
return to you...hunt it 
  down and kill it.  So Kira was simultaneously
haunting as a ghost and 
alive as a reincarnation.  So...he'd see his future
self wandering 
around their house?  Did that creep him out?

I don't see time as linear.  It's only linear to us
because *we're* linear.  I see no problem with someone
from the nineteenth century reincarnating in the
twenty-fifth century and then their next life
happening in the twelfth.  I did reference it a bit -
in the recurring dreams and the sense that something
missing had been returned.

No, Kira didn't see himself.  There are a number of
reasons, but the most obvious is that they
unconsciously avoided each other - when living-Kira
was in the bedroom, ghost-Kira was in the garden, that
sort of thing.  They were instinctively repelling each
other.  Living-Kira thought he couldn't stay at
Freedom because Lacus wasn't there, but it was really
because ghost-Kira *was*.  

And, yes, when Lacus told him about his ghost-self, he
was suitably creeped out.  The painting of ghost-Kira
was ceremonially burned.

 I
think this story could 
use being a little less synopsising of their
interaction  and a little 
more actually having Lacus writing it down in fully.

I'm not a fan of WAFF so maybe I'm off target here,
but it's generally a 
good idea not to skip over the actual action,
whether it's a slapstick 
scene reminiscent of Caspar or the conversations
that help reveal what 
the heck is going going on.  It's more work, but
it's also more 
effective at involving your audience.  If you read a
typical epistolary 
novel or story, the letter writers usually go into
surprising detail 
about what people are saying and doing, indicating
that the letter 
writer has an astounding memory.

I have to admit, most of my experiences with the
epistolary novel are from the Victorian part of my
English Literature classes, and I strongly dislike the
fashionable Victorian writing styles, so I probably
wasn't paying as much attention to the structures
necessary to the form as I ought to have.

When I wrote this story, I was trying to structure it
realistically as what a modern woman would write in
her diary and letters, which is why the story is rated
PG when, if Lacus *had* fully described her dream
encounters with Kira, it would have been so NC-17 it's
not funny. 

Which is a roundabout way of saying yes, you're right,
and I'll work on that.

Also, I have difficulty believeing that having read
that their meal 
ticket is apparently going insane, that her
entourage doesn't descend on 
Lacus to try to restore her to sanity.  Which might
not be a bad thing. 

There's actually only four letters in the whole thing
- the rest are all written journal entries (I
specifically mention that she has no Internet access,
so it's not a webjournal).  Lacus is very careful to
sound entirely businesslike in the two letters to Sai,
and while she does do her best to discourage Athrun et
al from visiting in her second letter to him, you'll
notice she never mentions anything about ghosts.  The
gang back home have no idea Lacus is doing anything
other than writing more songs and singing to the
rosebushes.  Which she does back home in Tokyo, so
it's nothing out of the ordinary to them.  And she
wants to keep it that way.

  I'm in favour of anything that can add conflict to
a story. 
Alternately if they are inclined to beleive in the
supernatural, sending 
an exorcist in might be a thought.

That's always assuming Lacus isn't doing her damndest
to hide the secret of her ghost-groom, of course.
  

************

Author's notes:

1) I am aware that the official romanisation is

Meer

Campbell, not Mia Campbell. However, this is AU,

and I

like the look of �Mia� better. Especially as it is

not

quite so obvious a throw to �Lacus�.

2) The size of Japanese homes is described in

terms of

�mats� � specifically, tatami (a type of reed)

mats,

which traditionally were used as floor coverings.

For

example, a six-mat room is a room that would

require

six mats to cover the floor completely. Tatami

mats

were/are normally woven to be about a metre long

and

just under half a metre wide. Six- to eight-mat

rooms

are standard for a single�s apartment in Tokyo;
twelve- to sixteen-mat rooms are found in houses

in

more rural areas.

But Lacus Klyne isn't Japanese in your story and
neither are most of the 
people she's writing to.  They're from New York,
right?  Why would she 
be measuring ala Japonaise?  Or at least not
explaining what she means 
in the letter?

No, Lacus debuted in New York, but she and everyone
else are Japanese and living in Tokyo.  The opening is
from 'Tokyo Daily', and a busy general metropolitan
newspaper wouldn't have a piece on a pop artist's
album launch the *next morning* after its release if
said launch wasn't in that city.  I'll try to make
that clearer.  

My paucity of description, I see, is responsible for
the fact that it's not immediately obvious that
Freedom is an old Japanese country home that has been
modernised with electricity and indoor bathrooms. 
I'll have to make that clearer, too.

(Although I *would* like to know why you thought a
ghost dressed in full Meiji court kimono would be
drifting around New York...)

Thank you very much for the C&C!  I really appreciate
it.

Regards,
Raye

raye_j@yahoo.com
livejournal: http://windtear.livejournal.com
http://www.thejohnsens.com/index.html

"It 'went away'?  'I dwell in darkness without you'
and it WENT AWAY?"
  -- Sorcha, 'Willow'

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