Hi Henry! Thank you for your advice. You bring up some good general writing 
points, and I'll try to address them...

He promptly dismissed her, and looked over Himeko at Chikane. "Never
mind that. Just where the hell have you been, young lady??"

The word "dismissed" tells us your judgment, but doesn't show us his
action.  We know what you think he's doing, but we can't see why you think
his actions are dismissing her. If his words are strong enough to carry
this message by themselves then you don't have to tell us this and you can
simply remove that phrase like this say:

"Never mind that." He looked past Himeko at Chikane. "Just where the hell
have you been, young lady??"

Hmm...  how about a compromise? I like the word 'dismissed'. It's clear and 
concise, and I kinda feel that, by using it, I'm saying something about the 
character...

"Never mind that." He promptly dismissed her by looking over her at Chikane. 
"Just where the hell have you been, young lady??"

"Ichirou, please, calm down!! At least let them step into the house
first!"

A worried, but composed voice managed to throw some water before the
powder keg could go off.

Himeko looked over and saw that a slender woman, wearing a dark, solemn
kimono was pulling at the man's arm. She wore her blue-black hair - the
same shade as Chikane's - in a conservative bun, and her face was lined
with apprehension. She could only have been Chikane's mother.

I assume that these first two paragraphs belong together and have been
somehow split.  Also the second paragraph seems to be as much about the
reactions of the other people in the room as much as it is about this new
voice.

The paragraphs were meant to be split - as you say, the first one is the 
introduction of a new voice, and the second one is about everyone's reaction 
to the voice...

I suggest moving the description into the paragraph with the spoken words
and moving the sense of relief into this third paragraph.  But instead of
telling us about throwing water, why not show us Himeko reacting, as if
she had she had some sort of watery relief?

Hmm... I'm going to address this 'show the story' comment below...

Himeko was still feeling sick and horrified. She hugged herself,
despite the summer heat.

What does the hug have to do with the heat?  Why not show her being
chilled in some way "despite the summer heat"?

Well... generally, when it's really hot out, you don't hug yourself, because 
it feels gross and sticky? And, I was kinda hoping that it was pretty 
obvious from the happenings of the immediate preceeding scene, why Himeko 
was feeling upset... was that not clear?

Presently, she heard a knock on the guest room door. She didn't really
want to see anyone except Chikane-chan, and her beloved would have
known to just enter anyway. There was second knock on the door and
reluctantly, she answered, "come in."

Why not take a few minutes to do a search in your text editor for adverbs
that end in the string "ly" and ask yourself why you need to tell us this
"ly" adverb instead of showing us why things are "ly"?

Ehehe, I'm sorry. ^_^;;;  I love adverbs too much...

I thank you for your advice, and the importance of 'showing' a story over 
'telling' a story, but I must admit that I'm a bit reluctant to go through 
and start replacing adverbs with more description. Mostly, it's because I 
feel like my writing already reads like peanut butter, and I really wonder 
if more descriptions would only serve to clog the thing up more? I really 
admire folks who can use the fewest number of words to invoke a scene in a 
reader's mind. Since I lack the sophistication to do that, I have the 
tendency to clobber the reader with a literary semi-truck...

Maybe this is a good discussion topic for the list in general... how much 
description is really necessary? At what point do you stop providing readers 
with clues for interpretation, and start to force-feed them?







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