On Sunday, January 13, 2002, at 10:08  PM, Gary Kleppe wrote:

You need a space after the dash: Tokyo-- TouDai. Look for this
elsewhere.

Ummm...this would definitely be nonstandard. In standard manuscript 
format, there's never any situation where you want unequal spacing 
around a dash. Either put a single space on both sides, or no 
spaces--either one is correct; your choice. But it would be good to 
remain consistent within a fic.

TEACHER: Okay, class. Today we're going to start on Fibbonacci whips,
Fermat bondage, and... oh, wait. There are no such things. Well, back to
the chains, then!

Bwahahahaha

A related issue I had with the story is that it's working overtime to
convince us that Ranma and Himeko are a couple -- something that doesn't
really take a lot of convincing, as it's pretty much the expected
outcome of this sort of new character fic. It's to the point where it
seems dead obvious to me how it's going to turn out, and that doesn't
make me interested in reading more. Rather than trying to push them
together, your story should be trying to throw obstacles in their way.
Instead of convincing us that they're fated to be together, convince us
that they could never, ever be together with such insurmountable
obstacles in their way, and then show us a convincing ending in which
they do end up together. I should add that internal obstacles (character
flaws and such) tend to be more interesting than external ones (meddling
other characters and the like) because they're much harder to dismiss
and can lead to character growth and development as they're overcome.

I must agree. One of the best ways to hook the reader is to fool them 
into believing that you're not going to let a certain outcome be 
reached, and then finally get there in the end. (Example: Destiny's 
Child. I was fooled.) That way your reader will be rooting for success, 
rather than rooting around for a different fic to read instead.

Peter


             .---Anime/Manga Fanfiction Mailing List----.
             | Administrators - ffml-admins@anifics.com |
             | Unsubscribing - ffml-request@anifics.com |
             |     Put 'unsubscribe' in the subject     |
             `---- http://ffml.anifics.com/faq.txt -----'