On the thread about perceived misuse of Cologne, David Johnston wrote:
My personal fanfiction pet peeves for Ranma
I hope Mr. Johnston won't mind me adding in a few as well.
Having Nabiki actually blackmailing people, or insisting on
payment from her own family for advice and other trivial assistances.
Akane's hammer. I've only seen it once in all the Ranma stuff
I have, so why do I have to see it in so much fanfiction? It just
isn't that funny written down anyway. There's a reason why anvil
gags are more common in visual than written humour.
Yes, let's please get rid of the mallets. I've gone so far as to make
jokes not about mallets themselves, but about the pervasive presence of
mallets in ranma fictions. Akane does occasionally pick up an object to
hit Ranma with, but she really doesn't need to. Her fists are hard
enough to break bricks and cinder blocks. Akane is very strong! She
doesn't need weapons to knock Ranma around.
Maybe we could also get rid of "Ranma no baka!" and other repetitive
Japanese phrases used in these fics. These characters are speaking
Japanese all the time (except the amazons). Either translate all of it,
or write all of it in Japanese. It's jarring to go back and forth,
especially if the Japanese phrases are cliches also.
I'd make one exception to my complaint here: the terms of reference
(oneechan, ojisama, etc.) express something that can't be translated
well into English, so their use makes good sense to me.
As a side note, maybe Ukyo's okonomiyakis could cease to be "piping
hot." I think I've read that phrase a few times too many as well.
A lot of very good fictions have used these cliches; by no means do I
want to be read as saying that if you do these things, your fic sucks.
This is certainly not true; some FFML writers I read regularly do these
things. However, as a writing teacher, I'm always on the attack against
cliches, believing as I do that the role of writers is to produce the
cliches of the future rather than reuse the cliches of the past. If we
seek new ways to express the ideas these cliches have so long expressed,
all of our writing will be more exciting to produce and to read.
Best wishes to all,
DRM
"Great Chefs" Ch. 1-13 will be posted soon soon SOON! Just waiting for a
few more prereader comments. Make plans to read this sumbitch...
--
My signature file, attending all mails:
Neither titles nor eloquence do we require, he said, nor an insidious
tongue
nor familiarity with saffron myths on painted scrolls, but patience to
disengage difficulties until matters disclose their essence without
opposition, because the most subtle understanding outweighs mountains.
-- from Evan S. Connell, _The Alchymist's Journal_