Donald Lee Granberry <noharness@mac.com> wrote:

      Typhoon Akane did, as do all such storms, eventually
tire and go away, leaving heaps of wreckage and raging
torrents of water behind her. The streets, much like a
martial artist's life, were fraught with unforeseeable perils.

Maybe a quick specific example or two here of perilous situations that
they saw/ran into?

RANMA: Look, let me go back and *face* the peril!

RANKO: Nope. It's too perilous.

RANMA: Can't I have a *little* peril?

RANKO: Nope. Gotta find a cure.

RANMA: Bet you're a lesbian.

RANKO: No I'm not. I'm a guy.

BTW, I'm surprised that there've been no Typhoon Akane/Tendo Akane
jokes. Particularly since you've got two Ranmas to do them. :)

     "Don't worry about your dad, Ranma," Nabiki said. "I
already know where he is. Somebody found him and hauled him
off to the zoo. The radio said he's in the veterinary clinic
there and they expect him to recover."

      "How do you know it's Pop?" Ranma asked.

      "How many pandas would be wondering around in Tokyo
during a typhoon?"

Of course, this might be just *one* of him....

     "We're stuck," Ranma and Ranko chorused.

     "Which one of you is the real Ranma?" Nabiki asked.

     "As far as we can tell ..." Ranma said.

     "We both are," Ranko said.

     "We both remember all the same things," Ranma said.

     "But my memories feel different," Ranko added.

      Nabiki put a hand to her forehead and said, "Oh, my."

     "Everybody here okay?" Ranma asked.

Something that was particularly noticeable in this scene, and seems to
be true throughout the chapter: you're putting an explicit tag on nearly
every line, and it gives the dialog kind of a monotonous rhythm. In a
lot of cases, I don't think you need tags at all; especially if
character A gets adressed a question in one line, we can assume that the
next line is spoken by character A. Other times for variety you can
include an action by the speaking character instead of a dialog tag.
Bits of body language, direct reaction from a POV character, etc. will
not only give the narration more variety, but will give us more of a
handle on what's happening in the scene other than the talking.

Just my two yen on this. If you decide it reads better to you this way,
then disregard.

     "Lot's of added bracing, huh?" Ranma asked.

"Lots of

     "Something like that," Nabiki said. "Dad and Akane are
out helping the neighbors, but I think you two had better go
find places to lay down. You look terrible."

to lie down.
(lay would either be past tense, or doing it to something else. If
Shampoo says she's going to lay down, Mousse will be a happy guy. :))
 

    "I knew you would be practical," Nabiki said. "That's
something your male half hasn't learned how to do yet."

    "Hey! I can be practical!" Ranma exclaimed.

RANMA: Akane even said so. 'Ranma, you're practically a nincompoop.'

    "Good!" Nabiki said with a victorious smirk. "That means
you'll be a good boy and go get some rest, right?"

Heh.

I wonder if you could do something else with the scenes where the Tendos
learn about Ranma's split? The problem is that we, the readers, already
know what some of the characters are learning, so they don't really work
just as "information discovery" type scenes. Maybe you could use the
reactions of the others as a source of humor, or to reveal something
about their characterizations (or about the Ranmas') that we can expect
to influence their behavior in future scenes. Otherwise, you might want
to cut part or all of these revelations, as they're not really showing
us anything we don't know already.

    "So, how are you feeling, Saotome?" Nabiki asked as she
walked into the kitchen. "Any permanent harm done?"

    "Other than this deal with my curse? Nothin' that I know
about," Ranma answered. "Tofu said me and Ranko would be back
to normal in a week or so.

Presumably he means the injuries would heal, right? Not that they would
be one person again. Ranma might well make this kind of misstatement,
but Nabsy ought to call him on it.

     "No, she and your mom are taking turns out in the dojo,"
Nabiki said, "better pitch a couple for Dad and Akane

said. "Better
(because you'd need a sentence break there even without the 'said' tag)

    Ranma Saotome had pitched tents a countless number of
times during his young life, but by the time he had finished
digging out the combined camping gear of the Tendo and
Saotome clans he was tired. They had two older tents that
would sleep four, then four smaller tents intended for one or
two people. Ranma pitched them all, deciding that if they
were not needed immediately, someone would need a place to
sleep by the next nighfall. He was still trying to tighten
the last rope on one of the smaller tents when Soun and Akane
came stumping through the front gate, both of them covered in
sweat, scratches and dirt. Soun's face looked especially

sweat, scratches, and

haggard, but was clearly relieved to find Ranma at home.

Suggest: but he was
(presumably it was Soun as a whole who was relieved, not just his face;
if it was just the face, you also wouldn't want a comma before the
'but')

     Ranma decided that he was too tired to be angry with her.
"I'm gonna go get a bath!" he said in a disgusted voice. "You
comin' Oji-san?"

comin', Oji-san?"

      "They had a news chopper flying around town. It looked
to me like flooding cut all the roads leading into Nerima.
Two of the main bridges have been completely washed away. The
only way in right now is by boat. Even the railroad is
underwater."

Not that any of that would stop someone like Ranma....

      "Of course, Akane," Soun said. "Nabiki, have one of the
ladies get batteries for you television tomorrow if

for your television

      "Well, the wind wasn't to bad when we first started out

wasn't too bad

      "Ya got that right, Oji-san," Ranma exclaimed. Ranko
was now sobbing into Akane's shoulder. Ranma glanced at the
two of them then rolled his eyes. No one noticed this gesture
but Nabiki.

      "Perhaps we should turn in," Soun said as he got up and
made his way toward the largest tent. "Tomorrow promises to
be a long day."

      "Come on, Ranko," Akane said. "You can share my tent."

I can see some good possibilities for character conflict ahead in this.
Akane wants to make Ranko into her girlfriend, but at the same time
she's gotta be at least a little worried that the person she's sleeping
with is (in mind, at least) a boy; and Ranma's probably going to be
quite jealous of his other self over all this.

    "Lemme put it this way, Nabiki, I wouldn't wanna hafta
stay in my cursed form for more than a couple of months,"
Ranma said sounding grim. "It starts ta work on your reflexes
after a while."

     "By that I gather you don't mean it slows you down,"
Nabiki observed dryly. "You're much faster when you're a
girl."

Um... since when? Male Ranma is quick enough to run rings around Ryoga,
who's no slouch when it comes to speed. If female Ranma has a speed
advantage, I can't see how it would be enough to be obvious to a
non-combatant like Nabiki. Certainly it wasn't enough to help Ranma in
his first fight against Mousse; Tofu had to give him the "Tokyo Grandpa"
point before he could win that one. That of course was before the
Chestnut Fist training, but we know that this training also boosted male
Ranma's speed level by quite a bit.

Not a big deal for such an offhand comment, but it did strike me as odd.

Onto the next part....


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

             .---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 -----'