Since I've C&Ced the other Green Lantern Akane fics, I'll do this one too.
"Paper Tiger" <paper_tiger1010@hotmail.com> wrote:
Ranma's eyes drifted from the remote Akane to a young girl crying at the
foot of a tree. Ranma was running late for class, so he hopped over to
investigate.
Huh? I don't see how that follows. Wouldn't being late make him *not* want to
investigate?
"My pet Canary is in the tree, and I can't get her down," the girl replied
between sobs.
Punctuation: "My pet, Canary, is
You may want to reword this so that the punctuation doesn't spoil the joke.
Maybe something like "It's my pet! Canary is in the tree, and...."
Be consistent with your paragraph formatting. Skip a line between paragraphs, or
indent, or both, but whatever you do do it the same way throughout.
Ranma leapt gracefully to the rescue. Gracefully, that is, until he heard
the girl ask Akane:
"Is he really gonna save my kitty?"
Heh.
Ranma lifted his head to realize that he was swiftly approaching a large,
brown cat. He desperately tried to turn around in midair, but succeeded
only in slamming his head against the bottom of a tree branch. He hung
there for a moment before gravity kicked in, pulling him to land harshly on
his back.
You're using an awful lot of "He did this, she did that" sentences. Try to use a
little more variety. Use something other than one of the characters as the main
subject of a sentence when you can.
"Why is your cat named 'Canary'?" Akane inquired, paying no care to Ranma's
'paying no mind to' or 'paying no heed to'
Ranma looked up to see Akane yet again in her green and black Senshi
costume. Imprinted on her chest was a green and white lantern, and a jade
glow was emanating from a ring on her left hand. She wore a headband, but
nothing over her face. Ranma shook his head. Did Akane actually think that
no one would recognize her?
"Aren't you the lady that was just here?" the girl asked bewildered.
Um... for this joke to work, Akane needs to say something to indicate she's
*trying* to convince the girl that she's a different person. Otherwise the
girl's reaction would be more like "Why did your clothes just change?"
At this, Ranma burst out laughing. Akane tensed her shoulders and focused
at the task at hand. She swallowed hard and a green aura enveloped her.
With all of her concentration, she imagined herself flying. "Imagine" would
be an accurate choice of words, as she did not in fact leave the ground.
Still covered in her green aura, Akane started the climb the tree,
descending with a furious cat in her arms and swear words on the tip of her
tongue. She wiped the droplets of blood off her face and sighed. Ranma
bounced after her, cheerful to make distance away from the cat.
'Cheerful' doesn't work in this context. Suggest 'happy' or 'glad'.
Ranma gritted his teeth. He did NOT want to be late. Considering what his
father had him do in the name of 'training', bucket duty was nothing. But
with Principal Kuno in charge of the school, Ranma was not ready to give the
wanna-be Hawaiian any reason to extract discipline. He wanted to keep his
pigtail.
Actually, the punishment for being late is having to scrub out the toilets.
A sudden thought hit Ranma. What if Principal Kuno was not really
mad, but instead pretended to be a Hawaii-obsessed maniac. The number of
people tardy to class had greatly decreased since the Principal showed up
with his razor. Ranma had heard in class the philosophy "it is better to be
feared than loved," and who else was more feared in the school than
Principal Kuno. Could there be method to his madness? Could it all be a
charade?
This is an awfully long aside for something that doesn't seem to have much to do
with the story.
Kuno, the idiot, turned his head as if by reflex, giving Ranma the opening
to boot him across the yard with the 'Secret of Attacking from Behind like a
Hunting Canine." Kuno's extremely dense skull could take a dozen such kicks
Be consistent with your quote marks.
before loosing consciousness, but Ranma succeeded in stalling Kuno long
losing. Loosing means to become less tight.
enough to get to class on time.
Ranma quickly looked over his shoulder to see if Akane was okay. She was
fine, though she intensely staring at her ring.
fine, though intently staring
or
fine, though she was intently staring
Samuel R. Fletcher was still a little jet-lagged as he walked around
Nerima. He thought that he made through customs quite easily, considering
he was a ... Wanted Criminal!
"Wanted criminal" is a description, not a name. Don't capitalize it.
BTW, if he was really a wanted criminal, they wouldn't have let him *out* of the
*US,* unless he's using a fake identity, in which case the Japanese don't know
that he's a wanted criminal.
Samuel played with the title in his mind
before his conscience kicked in. He really wasn't wanted. He was a
super-villain. Yeah, no one actually called him that, but he had faced
several superheroes. He had a daring struggle with the Green Arrow, and Sam
had succeeded in making the cocky archer very late for lunch. Sam was proud
to say that the Flash captured him in 2.3 seconds, considering the Flash
took out the entire Royal Flush gang in 2 seconds flat.
Use the past perfect tense for events that took place before the current moment
in narration. For example:
He'd had a daring struggle with the Green Arrow, and Sam had succeeded in making
the cocky archer very late for lunch. Sam was proud to say that the Flash had
captured him in 2.3 seconds, considering the Flash had taken out the entire
Royal Flush gang in 2 seconds flat.
"What is going on?" she thought to herself.
"Not much, kiddo," a course female voice replied.
coarse
Akane looked up to see her teacher scowling at the edge of Akane's desk.
"Sorry to break you away from your jewelry, Miss Tendo, but could you tell
us which revolutionary figure founded the country known as the United States
of America."
Yes, of course; the only history anyone would bother learning is that of white
well-to-do American males. [rolls eyes]
Akane fumbled with her notes, trying to ignore her moist brow.
"Ring," she thought.
"Yeah, toots?" it telepathically responded.
"Any idea who founded America?"
"No sweat."
Why would the ring possibly be programmed with this information? From the point
of view of the Guardians of the Universe such a thing has gotta be useless
trivia.
IMO, this joke would work better if you (1) picked a Japanese example rather
than an obviously Americanized one, and (2) have the ring give a more believable
wrong answer. Maybe the teacher asks who the earliest known emperor was, and the
ring gives Akane the name of the first emperor of OA.
"As I was said," the ring spoke aloud while Akane was walking home, "we need
"As I said,"
or
"As I was saying,"
Akane and the Ring were communicating verbally, as no one was around.
Ranma could be seen further down the road, running for his life.
Considering Mousse was chasing him under the accusation of "unfairly
ignoring Shampoo", Akane guessed that Ranma ate at Ukyo's last night. She
returned her attention to the ring.
That makes no sense for Mousse. Why wouldn't Ranma ignoring Shampoo make him a
happy guy? Ranma eats at the Tendos' most every night, and it's not like Mousse
ever cared about that.
Akane shut her eyes hard. She began to feel the brick in her hand. With a
strain, she envisioned picking up the brick. She opened her eyes to see the
brick half suspended before her eyes.
before them. (already talking about her eyes.)
"It's floating! It's-"
She noticed a hand holding the brick up from the side. Akane turned to see
Ranma holding it up with a sheepish grin on his face. Her fists clenched
and her eyes narrowed in on her target.
Heh.
"THUMP."
Akane kneeled in front of the collapsed Ranma and the brick fragments.
"Don't worry, it's best if we did start with a fourth of a brick."
Heh.
best if we do start (tense error)
Akane was standing on her hands. Around her were floating many of the
weight sets, the dumbbells, and fitting the pattern, Ranma. She was feeling
the power surge through her when she heard a distressing sound. All of the
objects she was levitating fell to the ground, and grasping from the yell,
'Grasping from the yell?' I don't even know what you meant to say here.
"I heard people screaming."
"That was just me as the 25 lb. weight fell below my waist," Ranma grunted
Suggest: as the twenty-five pound weight fell
(Numerals and abbreviations don't scan well in prose, especially when the
abbreviation doesn't match the way the word's pronounced.)
"Probably Happosi on his daily panty raid," Ranma said after regaining the
Happosai
A flash of emerald light flared from Akane. When it faded, Akane stood
there in her Senshi skirt, boots and gloves, but with the Green Lantern
leotard around her torso. She opened the dojo door and began to float
downtown. Ranma observed that he could have jumped downtown faster than she
was moving right then, but he knew that she deserved her one moment of fame.
Suggest: her one moment of glory. (Which I think is more what you mean.)
At the Nerima bank was washed in a sea of confusion. First of all, the
Sentence doesn't make sense as written; take out 'at' and it'll be fine.
Also, "washed in a sea of confusion" is rather cliched. Descriptive metaphors
are all well and good, but come up with one that's more original and gives us
more of a real picture of the scene.
whole lobby had been flooded with opaque bubbles, during which a
brown-haired Caucasian had slipped in. He stood there with a bandoleer
filled of bottles of children's bubble. He flipped frantically through a
Japanese/English phrase book, spewing out cryptic commands to the clerks.
Again, too many "he did this" sentences.
"You(singular) borrow money sacks put in," he said in a heavy accent.
"Invest money to I(feminine) shortly," he stammered while threateningly
waving a bubble wand.
I thought this language bit was funny...
Akane deemed it best to tend to the guards before facing this seemingly
unstable foe. She crouched over the curled up guards and gasped.
curled-up
"Oh no, I'm to late. The guards have been seriously-"
I'm too late.
"Actually," one of the guards spoke up," we're not all that bad off. We're
quite alive, and my pulse is quite normal."
"What was it then, some paralysis solution? Did the bubbles rob you of your
eyesight?"
"No, not really," the guarded admitted scratching his while still lying
horizontal. "He kind of got soap in our eyes."
"Just ordinary soap?" Akane asked in disbelief.
"Yep, we'll be fine in a half-hour or so, maybe twenty minutes. Have you
ever had soap in your eyes, though? Sure does sting. Am I right, boys?"
This part, on the other hand, didn't work for me. Security guards are going to
collapse from soap in the eyes when even they know that there's nothing else
wrong with them? Yaright. If these guards were used to dealing with
supervillains, I could see them getting to the point where they cower in fear
from any robber wearing a costume. But you've already established that there's
not much super-crime activity in Japan.
"Do you understand me," Akane asked him as a trial.
"Do you understand me?" Akane (punctuation)
As soon as he turned his head, a green bonbori bounced off it. She was a
Green Lantern after all. Akane saw him turn and raise the bubble wand near
his lips. A single blow sent dozens of bubbles zooming towards Akane's
unmasked face. The words of caution from the not-so-dying guard echoed in
her mind as she racked her brain for a way out. Pushing her concentration
she wracked her brain
"I'm melting, Melting!" he cried among the pungent lemon scent. "All of my
"I'm melting. Melting!" (punctuation)
The buffoon collapsed on the floor and the crowd circled around to see if
he really was melting. The were disappointed when he wasn't. Akane stepped
out of the bank and gazed over her shoulder to the bank. The guards were
inquisitively poking and prodding the Pinesol soaked villain.
Pinesol-soaked
Ranma was walking along the edge of the fence, trying to find something to
do. He had lost Mousse, who had mistaken some guy in a police car for
Ranma. The stupid Chinese boy had followed the arrested stranger all the
Suggest: in a police car for him. (Already talking about Ranma)
way downtown, and was probably still on his tail.
Ranma sighed and looked up. The day was still pretty young, and he was out
of ideas. The only options that came to him were to cruise the streets in
Ideas for what?
He turned to see Kuno standing in his way with a devious grin on his face.
Ranma reminded himself to wipe that grin off of that face. Kuno's spoke up,
"Reminded" is the wrong word; it implies that Ranma had decided this earlier.
Also, the wording here is rather repetitive.
Ranma's eyes went wide. Kuno had drawn from no where a five-foot glowing
nowhere (one word)
Try to write things in the order in which they are observed. Being given Ranma's
reaction *before* we see what caused it makes it seem like we're being told
rather than shown the story.
yellow Katana blade. A real, bladed katana.
FYI, Kuno has used a bladed sword before; the "Love Knot" story (end of vol. 34,
IIRC) and the wedding in vol. 38.
Overall comments: You're obviously making a strong effort to put lots of comedy
in the story, which is good. Some parts of it, though, worked better than
others, at least for me. *shrug* As the saying goes, comedy is tough.
Gary