Roja Cyd <roja_cyd@yahoo.ca> wrote:

      Note: I hope I am beginning to get the hang of the intricate art of posting. :) I've gotten remarks that this story is not nearly as descriptive as it could be, so I am planning io increase that, but so far, the writing style's come out somewhat terse. Feel free to comment.

I'm only going to offer overall comments on these posts, as the lack of
wrapping makes it a pain to quote line by line.

Spelling and grammar are very clean; I didn't notice any errors on a
reasonably attentive read, which for fanfic is pretty unusual. :)  I did
notice one formatting problem, the use of "smart quotes." The quote
marks that are different left than right are platform-specific; you
should use the plain ASCII ones because they're the same on all systems,

I agree with what Colleen has (and apparently others have) said, that
this story would benefit from more descriptive detail, both for the
story world and for the characters' thoughts and feelings. For better or
worse, you've picked a very difficult genre to write. In an "Altername
setting" story, you need to give us a feel for (1) the setting, (2) the
characters (since they're generally not going to be the same as the
manga ones), and (3) the particular story in which you're going to
involve them.

The biggest problem I had with this (and it may not really be a problem
for your story -- more about this below) had to do with the king. (I'm
reluctant to even call him "Genma," as his similarities to the manga
character by that name seem cosmetic at most.) Every few paragraphs,
your story seems to make a point of telling and/or showing us how evil
he is. I, for one, get the message already. :)  Instead of hammering
this point into the ground, it might be more worth your story's time to
show us something about:

1) How he's evil. Are there particular people or things he hates, and
will go out of his way to destroy or hurt? Are there evil things he
*won't* do for some reason other than simple pracicality? 

2) Why he's evil. Does he have some secret fear or weakness or other
hidden motivation that might come into play later?

3) How he gets away with being evil. Okay, so he's evidently tough
enough to do away with people who defy him openly. But he can't keep an
eye on everybody at once, and no amount of toughness would keep the bulk
of his military and citizenry from defecting to Soun-land. (Unless he's
powerful enough to stomp that entire country's military flat -- and in
that case why hasn't he?) Is there a privileged merchant class that
benefits from his rule? Is there some enemy, real or imagined, that the
populace is kept in fear of?

Personally (and your readers' mileages will surely vary on this point),
I have a pretty strong dislike for villains who are just "evil" without
any known motivations or even specifics. The main problem I have is that
this leads to a situation where all the hero needs to do is get rid of
the villain, and then everything's fine. Real life, IMO. is never that
simple, and I'd rather feel that a story is showing me hard truths than
trying to lull me to sleep with simplistic answers.

OTOH, there *are* a lot of interesting stories you could tell where this
wouldn't be a problem because something other than offing the king is
the primary focus of the story. Since I don't really know where you're
going with your story, take these comments for whatever they're worth.
Good luck with your story.

And now, the quip of the day:

�Come here, Akane,� Ranma said. She hesitated. Ranma stood up, and went to her. He placed his hands on her shoulders and stared down at her. Then he leaned down and brushed a soft kiss across her lips.

He made a soft sound. �I wondered what it would be like to be touched by a female for a change.� 

AKANE: Well....

** POW! **

RANMA: [rubbing a bruised jaw] Thanks. Pretty much what I expected....


Gary Kleppe
http://www.akane.org/gary/comics.html

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