Hi,
My comments##
IMO== In My Opinion
LOL == Laughing Out Loud
<BG> == Big Grin
IMO there's nothing wrong with using *this is a
thought*
I've used it myself. (There are limits to what can be
done
in ASCII) IMO you used the * * in an appropriate
manner.
Date:
22 Jan 2000 06:22:42 -0000
From:
"Akane Miata" <akane_miata@tendodojo.com> |
Block address
To:
ffml@fanfic.com
Subject:
[FFML] [Ranma] Crucifix- part 1
*sigh* Sorry if the format is terrible, but I have no
choice as to how
my fic is wrapped (I just moved houses, and a new
internet service, so
temporarily, the only e-mail I have is an in-browser
thing, which gives
you no options like that.)If it's really that bad,
then maybe I'll just
post it at RAAC, and you can read it there, ok?
Sorry... Anyway, for
the last time, this is NOT a crossover between
Ranma-Freddie. I just
stole that
song ^^ Anyways, just check it out, ok?
##The lines are a bit too long. HOWEVER
if the reader saves the page as HTML and
reopens the page OFF-line it's easy to read.
OR the reader can cut and paste into
Corel Word Perfect. (It would probably
work in MS Word Or Word Pad)
I don't know what browser you
are using. However I think you
might be able to fix this problem by
setting your first line to the correct length
and using it as a template to manually set all
of the line lengths. ^_^
Crucifix
A Ranma 1/2 Fanfic
by Akane Miata
Part 1
Akane shivered lightly from the cold, as she
got ready for bed. She
stretched out her sore muscles, which were complaining
painfully on how
much she'd overused them training earlier. She looked
over at the clock
that sat on her desk: 11:13 *Good thing it's not a
school night...*
She thought to herself, while getting out her new
pajamas.
##Pretty good so far. However you're overusing "she
got, she stretched,
she looked, she thought." Re-write these sections to
avoid this.
Yesterday after school, she and Nabiki had
gone shopping for new
clothes. It was already nearing summer, and Akane was
sick and tired
of her old ratty and warm
pj's.
##Hmmm, unusual, IMO, joining "old ratty and warm."
I'd try "ratty old but warm" or something similar.
Picking out an exceptionally adorable set
of a tank top that was colored a soft pink with a
black piglet in the
middle, with a matching pair of black satin girl's
boxers with a pink
piglet on the hem. She slipped said outfit on
quickly, even though
tonight was cooler than most.
##Nice description. However a large chunk of
description
like this slows the flow of the story. IMO this
should be broken
up and integrated into the story rather than dropped
in one chunk.
OR just shorten it a bit.
##Don't use "said outfit". Perhaps :: "She slipped
quickly into the outfit."
Walking over to the full-length mirror,
she smiled slightly at the reflection. *Ain't
half-bad..*
##IMO sounds more like Ranma than Akane.
Perhaps:: "Not bad. Not matter what Ra . . .what
some people say." More grammatical. And Akane
seems to care about her appearance in terms of what
Ranma might think. ^_^
Turning back
towards her bed, she was about to slide in under the
covers when a
thought crossed her mind.
*I'm home alone... not that I'm scared or
anything, but maybe I'll
lock
my door anyway..* Dad and Uncle Saotome had gone out
to a bar again,
saying they had 'planning' to do. *There will be pain
if I find out
that their 'planning' had to do with me getting wed to
Ranma...* Akane
thought, a slight bitterness adorning her soft face.
##Nice bit with the "home alone" and locking the door.
Internal dialogue is a little clumsy. Perhaps::
Dad and Uncle Saotome had gone out. "Guy talk" they
_said_.
Guy's talking seemed to require a lot of sake. *There
will be _pain_
if I find out their _talking_ has something to do with
Ranma and me.*
The biggest problems are 1) first sentence is too
long. break it up.
2)"wed" seems a bit formal. I'd change that.
(My examples are for illustration ONLY. There are many
ways to do this.)
She reached her
hand down, and gently pushed the button on the
doorknob, causing it to
lock, and make a light 'click' sound as it did.
Feeling much more
secure, she walked over to her window to make sure it
too was locked.
##Hmmm, I'd suspect she'd lock the front door. Judging
from
the Anime at least. Ranma has a key to the back door.
And
I assume the rest of the family also have door keys.
IMO if
you don't want her to go downstairs & do this she
should at least
mention (internal dialogue) that the main doors are
locked already.
*I wonder how Nabiki is doing?* A slight smirk
appeared on Akane's
face, replacing the anger. Nabiki had left on a
cruise with Kuno
earlier, and wouldn't be back until the day after
tomorrow. That was
one of the reasons they had gone shopping in the first
place: to buy
Nabiki some new bathing suits to 'impress Kuno-baby'
as Nabiki casually
put it. *What the heck does she see in him?*
##Ummm, just a little confusing about who is doing
what.
Flipping the latch that locked her window, she
pulled the curtains
closed and turned back to her bed. *I guess I'm not
that tired
yet...maybe I'll read..* Akane blinked as she saw a
book sitting on
her
desk, that didn't belong to her. On closer inspection,
she noted it was
a medical book. *Oh shoot! I never returned this to
Dr. Tofu...*
Kasumi had asked her to take it back to his clinic for
her, but she'd
never had time.
Now, Kasumi and Tofu were out on their first
official date. How this
had gotten arranged without Dr.Tofu passing out was
beyond her... Akane
felt a pang of jealousy at the thought of them
together. Mostly she
had
gotten over it, but, well..first love dies hard. But
still, now she
had
more important things to think about... A smile made
its way to her
face. The last time she'd shown any remnants of her
old feelings about
Dr.Tofu in front of Ranma... she'd seen the look he
had on his face,
the
one he'd thought no one saw.. Akane felt a strange
sort of happiness at
seeing it... The feelings of jealousy she had right
now were nothing
compared to what she felt when Ranma hung on to his
other fiances..or
rather, they hung on him. No, what she felt right now
was
hollow...more
of an echo of the emotion she had had for the doctor.
##Pretty good. I'd condense this a little. Also, why
is
Akane jealous now? She's home alone and Ranma is
nowhere in sight. (Where is he anyway? You've
accounted for
everyone but him.) ^_^ You only need to tighten up
this
section a little. IMO it's too long and slow. Perhaps
combine
it with the preceeding sections to account for
everyone. Don't spend
a lot of time on this. At this point it doesn't seem
that crucial to the story.
As for the jealousy you only need to change the tense.
IMO Akane
is not jealous NOW. She's thinking about feelings she
has had in the past.
What she felt
for
Ranma, however, was- *Not that I like that jerk, of
course.* She shook
her head, angry at the general direction her thoughts
had been headed.
She closed her eyes, and ran a frustrated hand through
her hair, which
still smelled strongly of sakura from when she'd taken
a bath, earlier.
She and Ranma had some -serious- talking to do. *Not
tonight, though*
she thought, glancing at the clock again. Ranma had
gone out to a late
Jackie Chan movie with Hiroshi and Daisuke, and
wouldn't be back for
another hour, or so.
##OK, that takes care of Ranma.
So far it's a pretty good story. A little slow. IMO
you need to edit OUT
some of the extraneous detail Get to this point much
faster.
So, all-in-all, that left Akane as the only
occupant of the Tendo
house, for the moment.
##Don't need this. ^_^ You've already eliminated
everyone
AND the next sentence reiterates this.
*Great...I'm the only person in this whole house
that didn't have something to do tonight..not only
that, but it's
Saturday night!!* Not that she hadn't gotten an
offer... She'd gotten
two, in fact. Her first offer had been from Sayuri
and Yuka. Her
friends had wanted to go to a dance club, but Akane
really hadn't felt
up to it. Also, she was very aware that she and Ranma
would be the
main
topic of the conversation through a good portion of
the night, so that
option was out.
##Don't use "offer" twice in a row. Also, why would
Ranma be topic
of conversation? Need to make this clear.
The second one had come from a most unlikely
source. When Shampoo
and Ukyou came bouncing over, looking to see if Ranma
wanted to do
something, he had turned them down, and ran out of the
house to take
'Rosh and Dai' up on their invitation, before either
fianc� had time to
react.
## "run" not "ran"
Although they would have been quick to follow,
rain always did have
uncanny timing in Nerima, as it started to pour down
in thick sheets.
Even though that usually wouldn't have slowed them
down too much, Ukyou
tripped over Shampoo-turned-cat, and while Ukyou fell,
she managed to
both squish Shampoo and scrape her knee. Kasumi took
them both in, and
fixed them up. After they were cozily sipping tea,
and looking quite
glum, they'd asked her if she wanted to hang out for a
while. Although
Akane had been tempted, she'd turned them down, too,
since she knew
they'd end up fighting, and fighting two pissed off
Ranma suitors
wasn't her idea of a good time...
##Cute. I'd re-do this to smooth it out a little. All
in all it's pretty good as
it stands.
And so, here she was, Saturday night, already
ready for bed, at only
11:35. Akane sighed, not really wanting to go to sleep
so early.
Sitting down at her desk, she pulled out her dairy,
hoping that writing
down her thoughts would help. After staring at the
blank page for a
good 15 minutes, she slammed it shut and threw it to
her desk in
frustration. *Argh!! I didn't *DO* anything today!!
Nothing to write
about!!* She had written about her feelings on Ranma
and Dr.Tofu enough
times, and nothing else seemed interesting enough to
write about. She
placed her chin gingerly into her open palm, with her
elbow on the
desk.
Although the small movement caused her muscles to
protest slightly,
they
calmed down, and the light pain subsided.
##Why "pain"?
Looking towards the clock
again, she absently noted the time. 11:53. A slight
shiver ran
through her,
causing her to turn towards her bed. The warm-looking
covers were
seeming
awfully inviting to the chill in the air.
Reaching over to turn on her desk lamp, she
winced for second as the
room was brightened slightly.
##There's an awful lot of pain for little or no
reason. ^_^
I'd think of some different adjectives. An easy fix.
At least explain the muscle pain.
Once that was done, Akane hopped off her
chair and ran over to her door. She flipped the
overhead light's
switch
off, and the room's harsh brightness was replaced with
a warm glow,
emanating from her little lamp. Checking one more
time to make sure
her
door was locked, she slipped under her covers, and
grabbed her book.
She looked over once more to her small clock.
The dainty face showed
11:57. Another shiver ran through her body, stronger
than the last
one.
She raised an eyebrow as she noticed the room seemed
to be getting
strangely cooler. *Just my imagination...* Ignoring
it, she tried to
lose herself in the book. She succeed for about a
minute or two. That
was when she heard it...
*What was that?* It had sounded like a faint
scratching sound... Not
being able to help herself, she looked back to her
clock. It was
exactly midnight. *Lovely* She thought bitterly.
*I'm freaking
myself
out...* Forcing herself to look back to her book, she
tried to read
some
more, but the words were falling on blind eyes.
*There it was again!!* She thought, hearing
the scratching noise once
more. *Akane, you dork. It's just a raccoon or
something!*
##Ummm, there are actually racoon dogs in Japan. Part
of the canine
family, unrelated to racoons but they look a LOT like
them. This little tid-bit
aside I think that since Nermia is very much in the
city it would be more
likely to be a squirrel or a bird or mouse.
The
rational part of her mind screamed.
*Then why is it coming from inside the house?*
She heard the scared
part of her softly whisper...
*Shut up!!* Akane tried to distract herself
by once more turning
to her novel. Only reading a sentence or two, she
looked back to her
clock. 12:00. "This has got to be the longest
frickin' minute ever.."
##Cute line. It doesn't seem like something Akane
would think,
even to herself. Play with it a little and see what
else you can come up
with.
She growled under her breath. Akane nearly jumped out
of her skin when
she heard the sound again. *What the HELL is that??*
She thought,
trying to deny that she was shaking with fear. *Okay
girl...chill
out!!
It's just a RAT or something!!*
##Ummm, I really don't like the *Okay girl . . ." etc.
It's a little
too "trendy" for my taste.
As the scratching noise continued, she heard
the small part of her
mind
whisper, *Why does that sound like metal, then, Akane?
Hmm?*
##A little too chatty for internal dialogue.
Especially for drama.
I'd show this through action rather than internal
dialogue. IMO better
to cut this section a little shorter.
Taking in a shuddering breath, she slowly got
out of bed. *Okay, I
guess I'll just find out MYSELF what it is... Maybe
it's just
Ranma..or,
at worst some burglar. I can handle a burglar.*
Although she had a
sinking feeling that whatever was making the noise
wasn't either of
those two, she got up and walked over to her bokken.
Picking it up,
she slowly made her way over to her door. She started
wondering how
she
was gonna work up the courage to unlock and open the
door, when the
noise nearly made her squeak in fright, as it picked
up volume.
##Better. Still needs to be smoothed out a bit. But
not bad as it is.
*It's coming closer...*
Then, as suddenly as it came, it stopped. It
was as though a deathly
silence had settled over the entire dojo. Terrified,
but still curious
as to what the sound was, she tip-toed over to her
door. Akane stood
there, frozen in fear. *Wha-? I...I locked this,
didn't I?* She
looked down to her door, which, to her horror, was
quite unlocked.
Reaching a shaking hand down, she quickly locked the
door. Backing
away, Akane decided that it would be best if she just
stayed in her
room
until Ranma came back. She looked back over to her
clock. She tried
to calm her rapid breathing when she'd seen what time
it was: 12:00...
*The thing is just broken...* She thought,
angry at herself for
getting worked up over silly things... Walking over to
her clock, she
bent down to get a closer look. She faltered in her
step when she
noticed the second hand still moving, but the minute
hand stayed in
place. Yanking the cord out of the wall, she expected
the clock to
stop. That's what happens when an electrical device
is no longer
supplied with power: It stops. *Ok..then why the hell
is the thing
still moving??* Her mind screamed. Shaking her head,
trying to rid it
of scary thoughts, she decided it was being powered by
batteries, or
something.
##Don't try to explain. IMO it's better to keep it
mysterious.
Example::
She looked back over to her clock.
12:00...
*Twelve----* A shudder ran through her.
*The thing is just broken . . .broken.* Angry
at herself for
getting worked up over silly things she stomped over
to her desk. She faltered when she noticed the second
hand still moving.
Suddenly afraid, and angry for being afraid she yanked
the cord out of the wall
expecting the clock to stop.
That's what happens when you pull the plug.
It stops.
*Why doesn't it stop?*
##In this case, replace some of the dialogue with
action.
Also notice the formatting. Short descriptive
sentences on
separate lines. IMO this can produce the effect of
jerky thoughts/emotions
caused by fear, anger, etc.
In this case the reader watches Akane's reactions.
First she thinks
the clock is broken. Or try's to convince herself it
must be broken.
THEN the reader sees her get mad at herself for being
spooked. Takes
the anger out on clock. Then reader sees clock acting
VERY strange.
End with "Why doesn't it stop?"
Leave explanations up to readers imagination. IMO it's
too early to be
explaining things.(even bad or wrong explanations.)
Tease the reader. Give little bits and pieces.
(You have to experiment with the limitations of
ASCII.) For instance, instead of CAPS you can use
_caps_ to indicate
a word or phrase you might normally put in italics.
Leaving her clock, she turned back towards her
door. "I'm only
scaring
myself," she said out loud, wanting to hear more than
the ticking of
the
clock, which alone didn't seem to penetrate the
silence.
##Stop with "ticking of the clock." IMO "which alone .
. ." is
not needed.
Akane felt
herself paling at the sight of the door.
##Why "paling at the sight of the door"?
This doesn't feel right.
A song suddenly came into her
mind...(1..2) Her grip on the bokken was starting to
turn her knuckles
white...(Somethin's coming for you...) Her hand,
almost violently
shaking, (3..4) reached out to her unlocked door,
(Better lock the
door..) and quickly locked it..(5..6) Running over to
jewelry box, she
desperately dug through it, looking for something she
wasn't even sure
she still had..(Get your Crucifix...) The song, still
running through
her head, was a song her mother had taught her long
ago...(7..8) Why
she'd done it, Akane had never known. (Gonna stay up
late..) But
Akane
had a feeling that she was about to find out, as she
pulled out a small
chain necklace from within the jewelry box, given to
her by her mother,
before her death...(9..10) Akane saw through the lies
that had been
told
to her, long ago.. She knew that her mother hadn't
died from a
sickness...(Never sleep again..) Slowly, almost as
though she was
accepting her fate, Akane reached behind her neck, and
locked the
clasp,
then she released the necklace from her hold, and let
the small silver
crucifix dangle from her neck. That done, she turned
back to her
unlocked door...
*********
I have the next part written, but in a sense this is
still a teaser,
just a bit more intense. I think I'm gonna go and try
sending Crucifix
to RAAC now..the teaser is already up at tass, but I
haven't gotten
around to sending them the entire first chapter.
Anyways, tell me what
you think, whether public or private! Thanks!
Akane Miata
##Overall C+. A little too wordy or chatty in spots
for a
dramatic or dark story. I'm not too sure about the
song.
IMO I'd look for a Japanese song that fit (don't worry
about
rhyming with Crucifix.) FYI only about 1% of Japanese
are
Christian (mostly in the West where they had enclaves.
)
They seem to look at Christianity the same way
Westerners look
at Voodoo and the occult. ^_^ This may or may not help
you with
the story. If you have to use this song, IMO, it would
help if you could
somehow bring it up earlier in the story. As it is
you're dropping and unfamiliar song
that sounds very western along with a Christian icon
into a Japanese setting. I don't
have any problem with your doing so. Just give a
little more build up.
A very nice beginning. Sinister and creepy. (more-so
with some work)
I look forward to the rest. Keep writing.
(Writing is a VERY lonely occupation. Try not to get
discouraged. The more
you write the better you'll get. And no matter what
you do you will NEVER please
every body.)
Good luck.
=====
"When I get a little money, I buy books;
And, if any is left, I buy food and clothes."-Erasmus
"A man is a small thing, and the night is large
and full of wonders." -Lord Dunsany
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