On Sun, Jan 16, 2000 at 08:53:33PM -0600, Don Granberry wrote:
I think that in this draft the author has a pretty good basis
upon which to build a first rate, sex farce. It falls down in four
areas.
I'll give a little advice to you. If you want to provide useful c&c to
an author, beyond simple spelling and grammar checks, you must understand
what the author is trying to accomplish. It seemed obvious to me that
the author was going for a sadfic/tradgedy more than a farce.
First, it appears to beat up on the Akane character just to beat up on
Akane character. A little more balance in this regard will, believe it
or not, appeal to the tastes of a broader audience.
Well, there is some merit to this... I'll go into it at greater length
later.
Second, Akane taking steriods. This is bad form. It put a bad taste in
my mouth that I never got rid of throughout the remainder of the piece.
There are a whole host of ailments out there useful for the purposes of
rendering the Akane character infertile. It would help your timing some
and add meat to the story if the reader knows a bit earlier about
Akane's infertility and that she is concealing said problem. This works
in favor of improving verisimilitude. It is not essential for a farce of
this type, but it would help.
The thing here is to keep Akane's character in mind. Taking into account
manga story arcs like Super Soba and Battle Dougi, I can certainly see
her taking steroids under certain circumstances. I really can't see her
taking them under the circumstances existing in this fic, though.
A more in character approach, IMHO, would be to have some unscrupulous
sports team coach pressure Akane into taking steroids to improve her
performance. This is more believable in terms of Akane's established
characterisation, and it also casts her in a less negative light.
Fourth, and probably the worst weakness, is having the kids reject Akane
simply because Konatsu ran off at the mouth. This one falls flatter than
an all batter okinomiyaki and no ketchup for miles. Having a conflict
with a prudish neighbor, or having to deal with Happosai constantly
trying to teach the kids to peep, would offer you far more useful
grounds for comedic interaction between the characters. I would add,
that you could make better use of a number of the secondary cast, such
as Nabiki, Kuno, Kodachi and Shampoo or even, kami forbid, Kasumi.
Here's the problem. You assume that the story is supposed to be a
comedy, when it almost certainly wasn't intended to be. Suggestions to
improve its comedic value are therefore not terribly useful.
Essentially then, drugs are not funny unless you handle the subject the
way Cheech Marin and Ray Chong did. People who do drugs are dumbasses,
Indeed. Look at all of the problems her drug use causes for herself
and the people around her.
Rejection of a generally sympathetic character by children in her family
won't work as humor for a broad section of your audience. If you are
I suspect it's supposed to be tragic, not comical.
going to do this, you must find a way to make the character deserve said
rejection,
Well, I suspect the kid just doesn't like being lied to.
then find a way to make the rejection comical.
Again, why? The story doesn't seem to be primarily a comedy.
Beating up on a single character only works when that character is
designed to be the butt over every joke. This happens all the time on
television. It has been happening since there was television and
frankly, it bores me. In this case, matters are worse because the Akane
character is generally used as the penultimate goal and love interest of
other characters.
'Penultimate' means 'last but one', by the way. You don't seem to be using
it in that way.
For the most part, the abuse Akane takes from the other characters is nothing
more than the natural consequences of her poor decisions. You may have heard
of 'karma'. Well, there's nothing mysterious about the concept. If you lie
to people, they will come to distrust you. If you cause suffering to other
people and their loved ones (ie. Tofu and Kasumi), they will come to resent
you. This is exactly what happens to Akane here.
If you do not like the Akane charcter, and many do
not, I understand, but beating up on her just to beat up on her does not
make the grade for comedy.
Repeat comment about this not appearing to be intended to be a comedy.
Finally, you *do* have a first rate comedy in the making here, Adrian,
but I don't think you are going to polish it out in three hours and 3800
words. I think you are looking at something between ten and twenty-five
thousand words along with some skull sweat. Still, the piece does have a
lot of potential.
And, as I said before, if you're going to provide useful commentary on a
fic, you must have some understanding about where the author appears to
be taking it. Granted, if the vast majority of readers mistake the purpose
of a fic, it should be an indication to the author that he is doing something
wrong. If you're the only one who mistakes it, though, then you need to
work on your reading comprehension skills.
I'd say that this fic has its problems even considering that it's meant to
be a tradgedy -- most notably, Akane's OOC behaviour when it comes to taking
the steroids -- but that can easily be remedied.