In response to Gary Kleppe's message which began:

If any kindly readers would like to read any of my other
stories, other parts of this story, or occationally rough

occasionally

I'm especially grateful for your help in correcting my
spelling errors, Gary.  You see, sometimes I don't spel 2
gud.  Although, it's usually only one or two letters I get
wrong. (he said optimistically, as always) heh heh.

    It was getting late in the evening on the Nerima
street. It was primarily a business area filled with shops
and restaurants, but most of them had closed for the night.
There weren't many people around. Two figures, a man and a
woman, could be seen standing in the gap between two
buildings. They were talking. An unbiased passerby could be
forgiven for thinking they were transacting business of an
ancient and rather sordid kind as she was young and quite
attractive and he was much older. This was not the case. 

Lotsa passive verbs here... active ones would give it a more dynamic
feel. (E.g. Two figures... stood in the.... They talked.)

Thanks for pointing this one out to me. I also found myself
asking, "What time was it on the other streets?" when I
looked again at the way I phrased this.  Rewritten to:

     It was late in the evening in Nerima. This particular
street was primarily a business area filled with shops and
restaurants, but most of them had closed for the night.
There weren't many people around. Two figures, a man and a
woman, were standing in the gap between two buildings,
talking to each other. An unbiased passerby might think they
were transacting business of an ancient and rather sordid
kind as she was young and quite attractive while he was much
older. That assumption would be a mistake.

I think that'll do it. 

    "She demanded we stay to help protect the household
from... er... you, Miss Shampoo." 

    "That no make sense. I not understand. Explain." 

Well, those walls are expensive to rebuild, y'see....

heh.  You know, I'm told Shampoo keeps on doing that
crashing through the wall thing all through the manga. One
wonders what Amazon architecture is like, if all Amazons
have this habit.

    Without a word the man turned and strode away toward
the Tendo house. When he came into the light it was possible
to see he was carrying a shopping bag from which protruded
the necks of two paper wrapped saki bottles. It was Gemna
Saotome. 

No, it was GENMA Saotome. Nice plot twist here... but again, the
description here is passive. It gives the feel of detatchedly watching
the scene, not of being a part of it.

Ooops, the case of the repeating typo, eh? As for the
passive voice here... I was hoping at least some of the
readers would be surprised to learn that this is Genma. I
think it's a habit of mine to write the lead up to a
(hopefully) surprise bit in the passive voice to sort of
signal that something's up.  Do you think a more active
voice would help better?  I mean in setting up the surprise?

    Behind him, Shampoo stood still and silent in the
darkness between the two buildings. As always, she thought
to herself in her native language. The difference would have
surprised most people who knew her, if they could hear her
thoughts.

I don't think there's any need to explain that.

Certainly not for you and me, but I'm told that there are a
lot of people who read and even write these stories who
aren't all that familiar with the canon story.  That would
certainly explain the "Shampoo the bimbo of death" who
appears in so many stories. I'm trying to make the point
that this version of Shampoo is just about as bright as
Ranma and a hell of a lot better educated, if only in her
own language and culture. It grows out of that assumption
and/or article of faith of mine that a world class martial
artist just can not be stupid, and actually should be very
bright, indeed. A point that not everybody agrees with, BTW.

    When Ranma met Captain Furutomo in a kissaten near the
docks he had been worried about the reaction to his curse.
When the Captain offered the job on his boat Ranma felt he
had to tell the story of his little problem. The Captain
hadn't believed Ranma at first, but a quick demonstration
with cold and hot water had convinced him. The Captain's
only concern had been put to rest when Ranma beat him in arm
wrestling in his girl form. He could do the job in either
form. 

"Form" there is an awkward repetition... maybe you could change the
latter one to "gender."

Hmmm... good point.  I think I'll try it this way:

The Captain's only concern had been put to rest when
Ranma-onna beat him in arm wrestling. He could do the job in
either form.

I'm not going to quote each spelling correction for the sake
of saving space. I'll just make the corrections, and
appreciate them, too, of course.

[snip]

    "Among some other things she said to Genma was this:
'I've lost everything because of you and that son of your's.

yours.

I'm not here to marry him, you old fool. I'm here for
revenge on both of you. Now defend yourself, old man.' After

Um... I've only read the Viz translations, but that seems a bit
unlikely. Akane eavesdropped on that scene and came away thinking that
Ukyo was Genma's illegitemate son.

Actually, the idea that Ukyou abrogated her engagement in
that confrontation is not original with me. I borrowed it
from Dave Eddy with his permission. Akane might have come
away from witnessing the scene with that assumption about
Ukyou being Genma's illegitemate son and changed her mind
later when she discussed it with Ranma. Remember, in this
version of the story the two of them talk everything over,
but often not right away. I'm assuming that delay has
screwed them up from time to time, and can help explain some
of the seeming inconsistancies between my theoretical
interpretation of the canon and the actual story. At least,
that's my story and I'm going to stick with it, Your Honor.
Yup yup.

[snip]

    She tried to tell him that she cared for Ranma, and
didn't think she could hurt him.

She's managed it often enough....

Well yeah, but he still has all his body parts, and is still
breathing so she hasn't actually _hurt_ him, if you see what
I mean.

[small snip]

    Naturally, he hadn't understood. He wept and told her
how proud he was of his son. At last, Ukyo was going to take
her hard won martial arts skills and go seek the revenge
that honor demanded. As she was leaving he had pressed a wad
of yen notes into her hands and a list of telephone numbers
to call in various places around the country, in case she
ever needed help "dealing" with the Saotomes. He then said
something to her for the first time. Something that seemed
almost like a mantra to him. "No matter how powerful a
martial artist is, not one has ever turned out to be bullet
proof." 

AIEE! Don't start THAT debate again.... :-)

I must have missed something? I know that people believe a
lot of fantastic stuff about martial artists, but this one,
I think, is beyond question. Now, I'm not talking about the
classic fictional confrontation scene with a lot of talking
and plenty of time to get ready for the shot. I'm talking
about cold blooded, mafia style assassination. No talking.
No threats. Not even a glimpse of the shooter.

    She was resolved, finally, to tell Ranchan the truth
and level with him about how desperate things really were.
So what happens? He's gone! He left town and no one knows
where he went or when he'll be back! Shit! 

Tense shift here.

Oops.  I'll try "happened" and "knew" instead of "knows."

    "Huh? What do you mean?" asked Ukyou, obviously off
balance. This confrontation was definately not going

definitely

according to plan. There was supposed to be an argument
followed by a fight which she, Ukyou, would win, of course.
Nabiki's calm and confident manner was very unsettling. 

Methinks Ukyo would think the obvious here -- that Nabby is asking for a
bribe.

Excellent point! And it would only add to Ukyou's confusion,
as well.  I'll add to the paragraph like this:

...manner was very unsettling. Was Nabiki asking for a bribe
right here in front of Akane? That made no sense!

[snip]

real example of manhood had been his father. Ranma now
considered his former crewmates. They were, without a doubt,
men. Perhaps he could impress his mother with his manliness
by sharing a few of Gakaoki's jokes with her? 

    Hmm... probably not. Ranma began to chuckle quietly to
himself. The chuckle bubbled up as he imagined his mother's
reaction and burst out as a full blown belly laugh.

Why not? With Nodoka, that would probably work just fine.

Thus the belly laugh! Still, there remains the important
question of _how_ to _tell_ the joke. "Know what I mean?
Nudge. Nudge. Wink. Wink." or with a completely straight
face?

[snip]

    Two chains with sharpened hooks attached flashed past,
under Akane's feet. She tucked into a ball and tumbled over
as she came back down. She landed on her feet with the
chains caught in her hands. She instantly yanked Mousse
toward her as she stepped back two steps keeping tension on
the chains. She then spun in place and pulled Mousse right
off his feet and into the air as she cracked the chains like
a whip.

Too many "she did this" sentences; try reworking some of them for
variety.

Good call. Thanks.  Rewrite to this:

     Two chains with sharpened hooks attached flashed past,
under Akane's feet. Tucking into a ball and tumbling in a
blur of motion as she came back down, she was able to land
on her feet with the chains caught in her hands. Instantly,
she yanked Mousse toward her and bounced back two steps to
keep tension on the chains. She then spun in place and used
his momentum to pull Mousse right off his feet and into the
air as she cracked the chains like a whip. Or that's the way
it would have gone if Mousse hadn't slammed into the
concrete wall behind her. She dropped the chains and jumped
to where Mousse was embedded in the wall, and took up a
stance to snap a punch into the back of his head if he began
to move. "Mousse, you idiot! Do I sound like Ranma, to you?"

I hope that works better. heh. You know until I rewrote
this, I never really thought much about the physics of this
little confrontation. Yup. If I ever meet anyone this
strong, I'll have to remember to be very very careful not to
piss them off... ever.

    "Yes! I'm Akane. I'm wearing a red shirt and black
pants. You must have thought I was Ranma. Why did you attack
me, Mousse?" 

Aw, he could've done that even if she HADN'T been dressed like Ranma.

Heh.  No doubt.  I did that because a friend was _really_
taken by the idea of Akane wearing Ranma's clothes because
she missed him so much.

    Somehow, P-chan managed to look sheepish and
appologetic. 

apologetic

    The two Tendo sisters stood together, and watched
P-chan as he frantically ran around and around in the pen.
They both smiled broadly at his antics. Kasumi with her
usual, calm smile. Akane's smile transformed her face into a
thing of beauty, as always, unless... that is, unless a
person looked closely and noticed she was showing a few more
teeth than usual. 

So did Ranma tell her about P-chan? I thought he wasn't going to. And
isn't Akane gonna feel guilty when poor Akari comes around,
broken-hearted over her Ryoga having disappeared on her?

I'm assuming Akane finally figured it out on her own, but
had to act like she hadn't for a while in order to maintain
their masquerade. In other words, she had to sleep with P-
chan a time or two _knowing_ he was actually Ryouga. A
powerful motivation to do whatever it takes to be able to
end the whole charade, eh?  

Oh yeah, and also for a bit of revenge on Ryouga. Wait until
the next part when Akane points out to her sister (in
P'chan's hearing), "Oh no. P-chan isn't a baby pig at all!
He's a full grown boar of a very rare breed called a
Byankhala Pygmy, and he's an absolutely perfect example of
the breed, too... almost as if he was some kind of throwback
or something. Anyway, P-chan is a boar among boars!"

Overall, pretty good... some very good plot complications. I like the
Ukyo/Yakuza angle, and the eggs still affecting Shamps and GeNMa.

Some of the scenes were too talky/explanatory, and too long. I would
definitely shorten the argument between Shamps and Cologne, and maybe
the Akane/Nabby discussion as well.

*sigh* I think I'm a naturally gabby writer when I write
dialog. I'll see what I can do, but there's a heck of a lot
of exposition to get across, somehow. And a lot of setup for
future events. I make no promises. If it helps, think of it
as trying to avoid a deux e machina in order to wind it all
up at the end.  Did I spell that right?

Let's try to have the next one out more quickly, all right? :-)

Well, er, yeah. I sure hope so. Maybe I won't have to throw
out so much this time now that I have a better handle on
where this is going to go.  Thanks again for the help.

Best,

Bob Barnes 
rbarnes@moscow.com 
Moscow, Idaho 

"Absent some moment of clarity that none of us can imagine
coming along, we'll enter the millennium at warp speed with
our culture continuing to crumble just as our mainframes go
kablooey trying to figure out what day it is."

-- Robert X. Cringely