Hey, James!
Long time no hear, man! I'm surprised to see that you got this chapter out
so fast, but I am a man of my word and I shall do my best to supply some C&C
for you. From what I recall, this will not be easy, so don't be surprised if
I am forced to resort to nitpicks. ^_^
First of all: I know you already mentoned it, but the formatting on this
hurts. I tried to read it live on the list, but it made my vision blur. You
have got to fix that or you may lose readers before they even have a chance
to see how good an authour you are. My suggestion is to ditch whatever
program you're using now and switch over to good old Notepad. It's not
fancy, but if you turn off the word wrap and make sure the window is the
right size, you will always know when your sentence is running past the
right length and needs a new line because the horizontal scroll bar will
tell you. I usually set my Notepad window to about 72 characters wide, just
to be safe. The FAQ says that you can go up to 74 characters, but I prefer
to err on the side of caution.
Oh, I have no idea why, but my Notepad devours all my tabbed indents. I have
no idea why. So my way is hardly perfect, either: it's just the way that I
happen to use. There are some formatting programs that you could download if
you wanted to - I've never used any so I can't really make any suggestions
there. I'm so used to coding HTML in Notepad that I just instinctively use
it for most of
my writing and then spell check (when I remember) in Word. Whatever you do
is fine, but I can promise you that if you fix the formatting you will have
much happier readers.
Providing a link to where the story can be read is a nice thought, too: I
really appreciated it.
Anyway, on to the fic! As always, any comments are totally IMHO. Take or
leave whatever you want: I won't mind. ^_^
(skipping the theme song, if that's okay with you. I'm not too familiar with
the tune, so there's really nothing there for me to comment on.)
=============
PROLOGUE
=============
"400,000 to 1, Captain."
Soldier: "Those are the odds, and you're betting AGAINST the Harlem
Globetrotters?"
Captain: (crying) "I thought the Generals were due!"
^_^
His voice noticeably trembled as he spoke.
Okay, here's my first nitpick. This sentence is referring to the person
speaking above, right? So then this should not be a new paragraph. Also, you
may want to replace the generic 'his' with something more specific, like
'the young man's voice' or the 'the old veteran's voice' or the 'the nerdy
scientist's voice' or something. Right now I have no idea who this is, what
he looks like, or why I care. You should always try to provide some kind of
detail when someone first enters a scene so that your readers can form a
mental picture of what's going on. It doesn't need to be a lot, but at least
let us know roughly who we're looking at.
<quick snip!>
"We do not fair well against those odds," he continued, reaching up to rub
the
back of his short, pudgy neck. It was a nervous reflex, a habit formed
years
before the man he spoke to was even born.
I think you could cut the "nervous reflex" sentence. It takes us out of this
character's head and removes us from the scene. Removing us from the scene
a little is a good thing if it's done at the right time (like when
recapping, for example) but I'm not sure it's what you're going for here.
His thick, old skin was coated in sweat. It left his stocky fingers
feeling
oily and gross.
"stocky" fingers? That's a new one for me. Usually "stocky" is used in
reference to someone's torso. It might be correct, but to me it sounds
almost like saying the guy's fingers are "tall". Maybe "stubby" fingers? Or
you could drop the "thick" from the description of his skin and move it over
here to his fingers instead. That would work too.
The compulsion to wipe his hand clean on his lab coat was
powerful but he fought it, maintaining steady eye contact with the man
seated at
the table in front of him. The reply he received was of the verity he
expected.
"Verity" is just another fancy way of saying "truthiness". ^_^
I think you were looking for "variety", here.
Wooo! Nitpicking! ^_^
Captain Desmond Cooper stood slowly from his seat. His brow tightened in
aggravation, but a thick mop of black hair hid the expression from view.
He
lay his palms on the table top and leaned forward, shifting the burden of
his
weight from his lower body to his upper body. The violent trembling in his
legs necessitated the extra aid in standing, but unlike the man whom he
This is very good description, but it is making me think of Jabba the Hut. I
don't think Captain Cooper is supposed to be grossly overweight, is he? It's
just that with the mention of the "burden of his weight" and "the violent
trembling in his legs" and such, you're making it sound like he is not in
the best of shape. You may want to re-word this to make him sound more
"filled with rage" and less "filled with delicious pie".
Captain Cooper: "Oi! You are disrespecting mah authori-TAH!"
Doctor Everett McDermott adjusted his glasses, a long, frail sigh escaping
his
smoke-scared windpipe.
Sp: "scared" == "scarred"
The Spelling Patrol: standing on guard... for thee. ^_^
<snip!>
I must say, you are doing a fantastic job of showing us how utterly nasty
and generally unlikeable this gang is. Of course, the fact that they are so
obviously zombie-bait that they may as well be wearing red shirts and signs
that say "Lunch" around their necks may have something to do with their
behaviour. I can imagine that kind of thing would make me cranky, too. ;)
"Christ," Kelly Preston huffed in disgust, turning her head away from the
Kelly Preston? Wasn't she that girl in "Top Gun" ?
<snip-snip!>
Kelly sighed, finally unable to abide the silence any longer. She looked
around
the room, her gaze moving quickly from person to person, eyes sunken in her
small, pale face. Her once attractive features had succumb to the
cruelness
"succumb" == "succumbed"
of
fatigue, and the passing of time had proven to be none too kind when
coupled
with lack of sleep and provisions.
"This bickering is childish," Kelly said, finally turning her eyes on
Cooper.
"It's getting us absolutely nowhere."
This line sounds a little flat to me. Maybe you need to shuffle it around a
little. Or at least add an exclamation point. Kelly sounds more bored than
outraged.
Maybe:
"This childish bickering is getting us absolutely nowhere!" Kelly snapped,
fixing her hateful gaze on Cooper.
Or:
"I'm sick of your childish bickering!" Kelly spat, glaring at Cooper. "It's
pointless, and it isn't getting us anywhere!"
Or something along those lines. What do you think?
"I don't plan on letting your boss here endanger my men," Cooper said,
jabbing a
finger in McDermott's direction. "Do you understand me?"
His eyes lingering on Kelly in a way that made her uncomfortable. She
shifted
You need to change the "lingering" to "lingered". Also, you might want to
switch the "his" to "Cooper's", just to help with the flow a little. You
don't usually want to start a paragraph with a generic term like "he" or
"she".
Of course, I can tell you this, because I know that I do it nigh-constantly.
^_^
<snip!>
"Exactly." Cooper stood up and walked over to a wall map of Tokyo. He
stared at
it for a longtime, then turned suddenly and gestured toward the
scientists.
"longtime" == "long time". Words like to breathe, so they need their
personal space.
"We weren't sent here to help you three yo-yos teach these to be good
little
boys and girls. You were just lucky that we found you, that's all."
"these" what? I think you lost a word in there. Probably got snagged by the
censors, with the way these soldiers are talking. They're dropping more
f-bombs that Dennis Leary after two shots of Irish whiskey. Which, I must
admit, is totally in keeping with the Romero films that they are based on.
If Kasumi starts talking like that, though, I may have to leave. ^_^
"I might as well fill you in so you can make yourselves useful," Cooper
said.
"A small group of survivors have been reported in one of the sub-districts
of
this city.
Gee, I wonder which one? (whistles innocently)
You know, if I had a city full of the walking dead and I wanted them cleaned
up in a hurry, I would just drop off Sho Fukamachi. Pitting a city full of
zombies against the Guyver would be like swatting flies with a bazooka, but
even more entertaining! Plus, I could contact GENOM and have them rebuild
after the fight for dirt cheap. I've been told that "Quincy" fellow has some
interesting ideas when it comes to city planning. ^_^
Johnson pocketed a handful of freshly loaded clips and said, "And they do
it
without guns. Bastard's go out weaponless, far as we can tell."
No apostrophe here. "Bastard's" == "Bastards". It's a plural, not a
possessive.
Agh, it's the Grammar Patrol! Don't mess with them, man - they're like the
AD Police of the writing world. And I mean the old school, "we blew up your
house because we thought there might be a boomer inside" AD Police, not the
wussy "can I please borrow a mech so the boomer doesn't kill me as quickly"
AD Police.
<snip-snip!>
There were fact sheets for five or six individuals, all of them sporting
rather
badly taken photographs. None of them seemed familiar to her initially,
but
the
last file in the folder halted her.
Only six? Okay, I'm assuming Ranma and Akane (natch), and Ranma's girl form
probably got another file all to herself, so that's three right there. So
who else is left alive? Maybe Ryouga, Mousse, Kuno?
Yeah, Kuno may sound like an odd choice, but think about it - the Blue
Thunder can cleave stone and chop through trees with a bokken. Plus, he was
working on a sword kata that looked a lot like the Kachuu Tenshin Amaguriken
way back in the second episode. Tatewaki against the foul legions of the
undead? Obvious pawns of the villainous Saotome? He'd plow through them like
a wood chipper.
On second thought, he's probably not in the crew. I'd imagine that he and
Kodachi are doing JUST FINE, up in that mansion of theirs. That place was
the most zombie-proof fortress in the whole district. Heck, they wouldn't
even have noticed that there were any zombies until Mr. Green Turtle stopped
eating all of them.
Wait - was Ukyo there in your old fic? That would make at least one of my
choices wrong. I can't remember who was alive and who wasn't any more. Darn!
This is going to be complicated...
<snip!>
"I don't," Cooper said, pausing. "I expect him to tell us how he does it.
How
his friends do it."
Oh, yeah, because these guys are always so eager to reveal all of their
secret techniques to each other. Let alone a bunch of total strangers. I'm
guessing Cooper will not be happy with an answer that starts with "leave
home with your dad when you're five and travel the country on a training
mission..."
"Tokyo is under martial law." Cooper smiled slightly. The malice hidden
beneath his suddenly cheery expression was unmistakable. "If he won't
cooperate, I'll have him executed."
Uh-huh. Sure. This is the face of me believing that will happen. Ranma's
going to turn this guy into pulp if he tries to pull that crap on Akane. And
that'll be only if he can get there before Ryouga does.
<snip!>
I must say, this "Cooper" fellow is very unpleasant, indeed. He also might
want to check with the "Evil Overlord" list and see what it says about
randomly executing his loyal troops. Bad for morale, that is. See if any of
*them* come running to help the next time a zombie is choking on his
innards.
<snip!>
"That's 4," Cooper growled.
No, that's FOUR. It's always best not to mix numbers with letters. Since you
were using letters above, I can only assume that you want to be using them
throughout his entire countdown.
Man, am I getting picky. I must be running out of things to comment on. ^_^
<one last snip!>
Brendan's head was eviscerated, soaking the forest green jacket in radiant
crimson.
Okay, one last nitpick, for the road. You can't eviscerate someone's head.
"Eviscerate" means to disembowel somebody. Usually with a sharp instrument,
but sometimes with a spoon, because it will hurt more. In order for poor
Brendan to be eviscerated, he would need to be shot much lower than the
head. Plus, I'm not sure one bullet could completely remove any of his
organs, unless it is a VERY large calibre. Or possibly a hollow-point.
Basically, you need another word. "Shattered" works, as would "splattered"
or "smashed open". I'm sure you can think of some other ones that are even
better.
Anyway, that's about everything I could find. Hopefully I didn't come across
too harsh: I really do like this fic, and I think it's going somewhere very
interesting if I recall the old story right. Since this was just the
prologue, not much happened in it other than setting the mood. You certainly
did pull that off with your usual panache, and so I tried to focus more on
the technical side of the writing this time. There were a couple of spelling
errors, and one or two grammar mistakes, but those are all easily corrected.
Your only real issue here was the formatting, and hopefully we can get that
fixed before the next chapter.
This was a really good start, James, and it's great to see you writing
again. I'm already looking forward to the first chapter so we can get to see
what happened to Ranma and the Tendo family. It sounds like they didn't all
make it, seeing as Cooper only has proof that there are six people from the
old Nerima Wrecking Crew still around and kicking. I can tell that you're
going to make me wait to see exactly which six made it, too - I'm sure that
at least some of my guesses were totally off. I'm still going to hold out
hope for the Kunos to be completely unaware that anything is wrong, though -
that would be so cool, even as just a sidestory. Heck, if I get the time, I
might be tempted to write it myself. ^_^
Anyway, I better go get back to work on my own fic. Keep writing, man! I'll
check in with you again later!
-Morgan
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