Flunking your high school English class is nothing to be proud of. It should
however be your clue that the universe is telling you "Hey You! Yeah, YOU!
IMPROVE!"

As to what readers, or potential readers, expect, is the same thing you
expect when you open up a fanfic and start reading. we expect the author to
use spell-check. we expect the author to proof-read. we expect the author to
offer their best effort, and then edit the story until it's better than they
thought they were capable of.

Your spelling is acceptable. So is your grammar. Sentence structure is fine.
The problem with the story in this case is that the story flow is rushed and
disjointed. reading it was like watching a man have a seizure while driving
down the freeway. Nobody else can see what's in your head. we can only see
the scenes as they are written down. This is why we have editors, to call
attention to these problems before people try to burn you at the literary
pyre.

------Some stuff from another message------

The points that were brought up are as follows:
1- You have Ranma and Ryoga both start chasing after lesbians before
going after each other. Why? Dare I suggest that this is a fetish of
yours that you wanted to quickly play out?

I'm a lesbian.

***
Nothing wrong with this here, but if it's going to be a fantasy thing, maybe
you should offer some character development as to why two very macho hetero
characters become, in essence, lesbians? One way this has been done well is
Tatton Ranma by Hung Nguyen.
***

2- There is no logical progression for them to go the direction you've
pointed them in.

Ummm... there isn't?

3- Both Ranma and Ryouga are wildly out of character. Unless you can
give some reason for them to do this, no one will accept it. If you've
read "They Outward Part", you may find some insight on how the author
takes a character and gets him to accept a situation which, under all
other circumstances, would be utterly out of character for him. Hell,
even a knock on the head giving them both amnesia would at least be
something.

What is 'they outward part'?

***
Thy Outward part is an excellent Ranma 1/2 fic by Richard Lawson that
actually offers a great deal of character development to explain Ranma
getting together with a guy after his curse is locked. see link section
below.
***

In short, what you posted was an idea. Not a story. The idea should
either be considered the skeleton or perhaps the goal of the story. If
you take what you wrote and build a framework around it, you'll be going
the right direction.

How?
***
You do this a lot actually. what you need to do is fill in the spaces
between the big events with details that help to explain how the characters
got from one big event to the next. Ryoga is terminally shy around women.
give us a scene or three where he gets over this, slowly. I don't know that
Ranma would ever really consider taking up with Ryoga. show us a series of
scenes that go from Ranma & Ryoga fighting every day to the True Love &
Lustiness that Haruka & Michiru enjoy. Heck, why did Ranma agree to take
Ryoga to Jusenkyo in the first place? Do they use the locking ladle to
remain female, or do they keep the normal curses? do they ever have straight
sex? Does one of them want to have a baby? These are questions that you can
choose to answer in writing a story.

I'm willing to offer private help with this, if you're willing to actually
use it and write more than an outline.
***

If you want the rest of the FFML to take you seriously, you have to give
some thought to what you are trying to get across when you write
something.

What is it you want the characters to do?
Why do you think the players would do something... especially if it is
out of character?
How will other characters react when someone does something? In many
cases, just getting to the goal is not enough. The conflict the
characters cause as you move them to the goal is often more important
than the goal itself.

To all the above questions, I dunno.

***
Then think on them, and write down the answers when you figure them out.
incorporate those answers into the story that you write. A Journey is not
about the destination, but the roads traveled to get there. it isn't "Often"
more important, it is "always" more important. Watch any movie (not by Ed
Wood), and you'll see an example of this. it goes from scene to scene,
slowly building up, slowly telling a story. It doesn't feel like a 16 year
old learning to drive stick, lurching from plot thread to plot thread.
***

FYI: Ranma and Ryoga becoming lesbian lovers has been done before. The
trick is not getting them together. It's getting them together in such a
way that the audience believe it could be possible.

What's the url for this fic, please?

***
There are, of course, a great many places to find great FanFics, both lemon
and non-citrus. some great collections can be found as follows:

http://www.florestics.com/ The Lost Library of Florestica - lots of great
work here, Dark Phoenix, Josh Temple, and Jeffrey Vasquez are the top 3
there IMO.

http://ladycosmos.anifics.com/ Lady Cosmos' Fanfic Library - a very large
collection of fanfiction, on a great variety of anime series.

http://www.ranmafics.com/ Ranchan Totally Crossed Out! - really large
collection of x-overs!

http://home.comcast.net/~kmresponse/ranma_fanfic_categories.html/ Ranma
Fanfic Categories - decent sized list of Ranma 1/2 fanfic organized by
category.

http://rakhal.com/FFIndex/lstmain.html/ - The Penultimate Ranma Fanfic
Index - not as complete as it's title suggests, but still pretty darn big.
nope, strike that, it's huge! months of reading material here!

*****We now return to your regularly scheduled email.*****

I've offered you encouragement before.

I've offered suggestions on how to write better.

Now, I'm challenging you to re-write this fragment to not less than 10,000
words.

*I* think you are capable of accomplishing this, the plot certainly is
capable of withstanding it.

The question is, do you want to have everyone continue to berate you, or do
you want to throw it in their faces, standing proud of the work you've done
when you get positive feedback praising your work, and nobody able to
legitimately bash your writings? (some people are going to gripe just to
gripe at this point) You can do better. Choose to do so.

Now, what do *YOU* want?

Torrey Jones,
Gandalf The Green

This is the price of freedom: Your last pint of blood, ounce of pain, drop
of courage. Paid in advance. -- Gene Roddenberry's  Andromeda

-----Original Message-----

This could have been fun.

Could have.

Problem is, it was written without thought, without contemplation of
the choices possible.

What did you expect from a teenage girl who flunked her english class, ny
bestseller?

http://kitsune.anifics.com/sig3.htm



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