I know this is late, a product of a polled site. Still, I felt
motivated to respond regardless, and to several posts in one. This is very
long (just a warning).
Part 1 -- Richard D. Lawson, Jack Ji:
Note: I've re-quoted Richard D. Lawson's post and Jack Ji's response
to try to make myself clearer. Their originals did *not* look like this,
although nothing has been omitted or shifted.
In <Pine.SUN.3.91.960623194326.7450A-100000@garcia.efn.org> Jack Ji <jackji@efn.org> writes:
In <31CDF1FB.63CC@sprynet.com> "Richard D. Lawson" <sterman@sprynet.com> writes:
Yeah, but I'm trying to avoid getting my characters too
powerful, or become heroes or solve all the original
character's problems and people are saying my story sucks.
Jack,
I'm among those who was a powerfully strong negative reaction to your
stories.
Likewise, or at least negative enough to put it aside, which is
something I seldom do once I begin to read something.
Not necessarily because the story is poorly written (in fact,
it's got better prose than a lot of other stuff that comes out).
Not flawless by any means, but agreed, certainly readable.
How to say this. We are not interested in how Jack suddenly acquires
the martial arts prowess to challenge Ranma et. al. Why should we? Why
should we care about Jack?
Exactly. There is (IMHO of course) nothing memorable or unique about
him, no background, no indication as to his motivation. I wonder if authors
sometimes forget that the reader begins with no knowledge of characters they
take for granted and therefore has to be given a reason to care. I'm sorry,
but I simply could find none in this; the only thing that kept me reading at
all at first were the jumps to Mara(/Marllar/Marller), the dream sequence and
an indication that Cologne might be doing something interesting. I found
Jack's initial defeat of Akane absurd and infuriating simply because, knowing
nothing about him before hand and therefore only being able to sympathise with
Akane's POV, my indifference became active dislike from that point on.
Well, he's the main character. Just how much have you read of it?
For my part, up to:
`
We finished the rest of our breakfast, put our slightly wet gi's,
some towels and sparring equipment in three pack backs and headed
out the door. I then remember we forgot Shampoo-neko. I went back
and got her.
"Almost forgot Shammy!" I said to my nanny. "Don't forget
to pick us up around 6 tonight! Don't worry, we'll take showers after!"
I waved and ran out the door to join Mike and Hanny.
'
As you can see, a reasonable way into it and with no more idea of Jack
than I had at the beginning and with a good deal less warmth towards him than
when it started. This is the crux of the problem. It's not really your
story, it's not even Jack as such, it's the fact that we learn *nothing* about
him that can help us identify with and understand him.
Another IMO *major* problem is your tendency to tremendously over-
describe events, the above being a prime example. There was no need to tell
us that Jack had forgotten Shampoo, since he told his nanny the same. Perhaps
the paragraph should have read something such as:
`
We finished our breakfast, put our slightly wet gi's, some towels and
sparring equipment in three pack backs and headed out the door. Suddenly I
turned and hurried back inside.
"Almost forgot Shammy!" I said to my nanny. "Don't forget
to pick us up around 6 tonight! Don't worry, we'll take showers after!"
I waved and ran out to join Mike and Hanny.
'
Grrrr! Still not perfect - I hate fiddling with others' work!
We could care even less about Jack making love to Shampoo. In fact,
that offends me a little. It's fine as a private fantasy - heck, I've
always had a thing for Nabiki myself - but to publicly display the
fantasy turns people off *in a hurry*. We like the Shampoo that's madly
in love with Ranma and will do anything to get him. We could care less
about the Shampoo that suddenly falls for Jack.
Again, agreed wholeheartedly, particularly since IMO it would run
counter to *everything* that makes Shampoo what she is. Ignoring everything
else, I simply could not *believe* the scenario (as written) as being
possible.
It was part of the plot, not a private fantasy. Well, not entirely. ^_-
And I didn't release it publically, only to people who requested it. If
you read the story, either she marries Jack or she gets banned, stripped
of her honor and disowned from Cologne and her village.
My problem (and it seems, others' also) is two-fold, that there is
nothing in Jack as portrayed that would attract her to him, not the tiniest
flicker, and that Shampoo simply wouldn't abandon her quest for Ranma without
*very* compelling reason.
Part of it is the pure egotism involved. What makes Jack so special
that Shampoo would want him? What makes Jack so special that he gets to
move in with the Tendo family? What makes Jack so special that he gets
to become a powerful martial artist overnight?
M'hmm; I would go further. What makes Jack *anything*? There is
simply *nothing* to which I can fasten to define him in any save for extremely
generic terms. IMO, Jack (the authorial Jack) needs to give us a means to
reach the inserted Jack and even more, a reason to care about him (and his
friends), before anything and everything else. Remember, we don't know them,
we've never met them and won't give a pineapple about them if the author
doesn't convince us they're worth it.
Well, if you read the story, you'd find the answers for yourself.
With this I have to disagree. I've not found them thus far and I've
read a good deal (not certain of the part number as I concatenated the lot
before beginning), besides, I don't believe Richard means in purely
physical/emotional/spiritual terms (although I can't grasp these either), but
rather in the same fashion as the question above. I.E. why should we give a
fig about him and his reasons? An author has to make it possible for the
reader to understand a character, even if the two have less than nothing in
common. IMO abandoning the story won't make a difference; the story isn't the
real problem, or if so, certainly not the whole problem.
I think that is the problem I - and some other people - have against
fanfics that star the authors. The pure hubris involved in writing such
a story is repulsive.
Generally agreed, although of all those I've seen, curiously Twister
IMO seemed to manage it best. Just why, I'm not quite certain. I believe it
was that, regardless of his/her overwhelming power, one never had the
impression of an overt ego behind it, also it *very* rarely saved him from
trouble. Bert Van Vliet IMHO could be a little overbearing, arrogant and
egotistical at times and seemed to be very much the centre of attention, but I
still found BG-Zone a very fine read. The Crys Saga however simply annoyed
the blazes out of me, even though I read the entire thing (I will usually
force myself to finish something once well started) -- I found the style very
disconcerting and the Ranma cast poorly characterised, although even Crys
irritated me a good deal less than the `Jack-in-the-story' (sorry, couldn't
resist :) ) is doing.
I'm not saying you're a bad person for thinking such things.
Again, exactly. I would not even suggest Jack stops writing OMPG, CH
or whatever he finally calls it. I would however suggest that he try to
imagine knowing *nothing* about his characters and re-read it from the
beginning with that in mind, then try to think about what others need to
understand about them and portray them more sympathetically in that light.
Heck, I'll
publicly admit to fantasizing about finding myself in Nerima and
becoming deeply involved with the main characters. It's interesting to
me. I don't write about it, though, because I know it's not interesting
to anyone else.
Hmm, that depends. As I said, I had *no* problem at all with TP and
few with BGZ. UF annoyed me at times, but only because nearly everyone seemed
to be at the point of a psychosis of some kind. :) Curiously (again) _Legions
Quest_ didn't bother me in the same way, even though he certainly had
problems.
Well, Brett Handy's Oh My God interested me so I wrote a story myself.
I completely forgot this one (BTW, where's the rest! :) ). Brett took
the time to have us understand him; the occasional introspection and self-
examination went a long way towards that. Yet even that isn't necessary.
There are a million subtle techniques by which you can reach the reader with a
character without overloading the story with his/her inner thoughts. I'm
loath to advise you because I loathe preaching to others about what they
should or shouldn't do. After all, it is only my opinion and certainly not
definitive.
Nor am I discouraging you from writing. The best writing flows from
your fantasy. If you're not sure how a character would react in a
certain situation, ask yourself, "How would I react?" and go from there.
But also be certain that, should the character be yourself or someone
you know, we can understand the reasons for that reaction (something that some
authors seldom overlook with an entirely created character whilst, IMO,
managing to do so with startling regularity when dealing with characters
familiar to them).
Well, you are discouraging me and so is just about everyone else in this
ML. I've thought about ending it like "The rest of our trip to Japan was
fun. We went home without any other really bad problems."
Hmm, this begins to sound a little like self pity. You have to earn
the respect of a reader, it's usually not given lightly. Gods! I've
seriously considered abandoning _Dark Chronicles_ and I've had not a single
negative reaction.
I do ask myself
"How woudl I react and I go from there only to have people say that
so-and-so is out of character.
With this, I'm really not certain how to help. As I've said, I don't
consider the story itself (so far as I've read it) the crux of the problem so
much as our not knowing your characters. As for the Ranma & AMG cast being
out of character, I can only suggest comparing their reactions to your devised
scenarios with their canonical reactions with scenarios that could be
compatible and deciding for yourself what seems right. If you still feel
unable to get a grasp of the characters then you might as well give up.
[...]
<sigh> I've pontificated long enough. This is nothing personal against
you, Jack. I would very much encourage you to keep writing. My only
advice is, keep yourself out of the story. :)
Wait, this doesn't make sense. You want me to finish the story but not
put myself in it? What, you want me to kill off Jack?!
I'm not certain exactly what he meant here. For my part, I don't
think there's any need to do away with him. You could try giving us some
understanding of him, perhaps also making him third-person as other Otaku seem
to prefer. I'd be *very* careful about abandoning it if you intend to write
more fanfic. You'll probably never be happy if you do and that will show IMO.
[...]
Actually, to be truthful, I may read UF just because some people whose
opinion I respect say it's worthwhile. I'll give it a shot, but I'm
honestly not anticipating that I'll like it.
Many probably won't agree, but for pure Otaku, I prefer TP (all three
parts).
[...]
Richard
Craig (continued in part 2)