----- Original Message -----
From: "Richard Lawson" <nouma@msn.com>
To: "Dave Menard" <menard5078@rogers.com>; "FFML Posting" <ffml@anifics.com>
Sent: Thursday, October 24, 2002 12:45 PM
Subject: [FFML] Re: [idea][ranma/View Askew][fusion] Kevin Smith Directs
Ranma 1/2

Well.  I happen to be a big fan of the Askewiverse (with the exception of
Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, which I found curiously unamusing).  So I
felt compelled to respond to this.  =)

Uh, wow! I can't believe the feedback I'm getting on this- I was just kind
of casting it to the winds... and from a BNA, too! Sweeto!

SCRIPT FORMAT WARNING: Yeah, I hate script format too, but
sometimes ya gotta go with it...

Well, I hate script format too, but for short comedic works it can be

quite

effective.  Especially when it's a tribute to a movie director.

    Yeah, and sometimes it's the only way to write physical comedy, too.

( She winds up and decks him, sending him spinning off
across the Nerima skyline)

Hmm.  This beginning, it's so... ordinary.  Don't get me wrong, it's not
badly-written, it's a nice way of showing what kind of relationship Mousse
and Shampoo have.  But it's so full of standard stuff, including the
obligatory suborbital flight, that I got tired reading it.

Fanfic beginnings are *so* important if you want to keep your audience.  I
think you need to include something non-standard right away - something
unique to the Askewiverse to draw in your audience right away.  As it is,

I

can see too many people deleting this fanfic after reading to the first
scene break because it's like a million other Ranma fanfics.

Start strong.  Draw them in.  Setup can come later.

I see your point- I generally try to follow the Ben Bova maxim- "Start with
a catastrophe, and then build to a climax." However, in this piece I was
conciously trying to parallel "Mallrats", thus I felt I needed to show the
"Ranmaverse" version of the first part of that flick. I really don't see how
I could trim those parts (this one and/or the Tendo dojo scene below)
without losing the catalyst for the story. Any suggestions would of course,
be welcome.

AKANE has grown into a woman who is no longer
merely cute; she's a raging heartbreaker.

Interesting.  I'd like to see someone draw Akane as a fully-grown "raging
heartbreaker".  In fact, I'd pay good money for it.  :)

Hmm. Let me see what I can do. Money is not needed- I like a challenge (Not
that making Akane attractive is a challenge, but that drawing a stunning
woman can be a challenge. For me, anyway. ^_^)

KASUMI is serving breakfast, SOUN has his head buried in
the newspaper, NABIKI is leafing through the Financial section,
GENMA, in panda form is wading into a plateful of bamboo
shoots as RANMA, slightly damp and in girl form, wolfs down her
third helping of bacon and eggs.

<shudder>  Standard Ranma Scene Intro #1.  I know this because I've used

it

myself.  =)  Strive to avoid these kind of things whenever possible - add
non-standard touches.  Maybe Ranma could be chatting on a cell phone while
she eats or Soun could be working out for a change, stuff like that.

Okay, now *that* I can do. I'll tweak it a bit and see what works.

As she enters the room, SOUN looks up from the paper and
acknowledges her with a meaningful nod and a raised eyebrow.
Swallowing hard, she nods back.)

At first I thought "she" was Ranma.  Use "As AKANE enters the room..."
instead.

<nods twice> will do!

We, however, can see that RANMA has slid downhill
into slackerdom since we saw him last. He's still in
excellent shape, but he's growing a scruffy goatee
and has replaced his chinese shirt with a flannel
shirt over a T-Shirt)

:D  :D  :D  :D

Ranma as Jay.  Oh my.  I actually shudder to think what Jay would do if he
was suddenly thrown into the Nyaanichuan.

Probably much the same as Happosai or Ataru Moroboshi would: Never leave the
house and grope themselves constantly. Then again, if what Rufus said about
Jay in "Dogma" is true, then he might take it as a free sex-change...

Oh, BTW, he's not Jay, he's Brodie. Jay would be Hiroshi.

RANMA: (Stunned) Hunh?!! WHAT?!?! You're DUMPING ME?!?!?!

Hmm.  I'm not a big fan of multiple punctuation marks, even for comedic
effect.  Just an observation, not a complaint, really.

I'm not, either. Anymore. I wrote this piece two years ago, and haven't been
able to do a thing with it since. ^_^;

Other than that, I'm going to sound like a broken record.  So far standard
Ranma fic - *very* standard - with barely a hint of Askewiverse stuff.

I'm

sure this is all setup for later stuff, but again, you have to think of

your

intended audience.  Will they have the patience to wade through the
oh-so-cliched beginning to get to "the good stuff"?  Consider adding more
Askewiverse stuff right away, or make the beginning a bit less standard -
heck, maybe ditch it altogether.  I'll come back to that idea later

(haven't

actually read the rest of the fic yet, I comment as I go along.)

(The scene shifts to the vacant lot down the street from the
Tendou Dojo. The camera pans up, and we see a long-haired,
white robed figure plummet down from the sky. MOUSSE
hits the ground head first, leaving a MOUSSE-shaped crater
in the turf. Prying himself out of the hole he glances around.
A small pup tent has been pitched, and a figure is camped
in front of a small fire, muttering to himself. MOUSSE dusts
himself off and approaches. The figure raises his head at his
approach.)

RANMA:(full of false cheer) Heya, duck-boy.

MOUSSE: Saotome? What are you doing here? You on some
kind of training trip?

(MOUSSE hunkers down beside RANMA.)

RANMA: Nope. You can be the first to congratulate me. I'm free of
the uncute tomboy for good. Great, na?

Heh.  No sooner do I mention the idea of skipping the setup, when you
present me with a great way to do exactly that.  How about cutting
everything that happens before this scene?  Just add a couple sentences of
exposition about what led to this unlikely meeting and you'll have no need
for the long and mostly-uncaptivating intro scene that proceed this.

See my comments above. In your considered opinion, would it *really* be
doable, given my stated intention of paralleling "Mallrats"? Not being
sarcastic, here- I'm honestly asking.

RANMA: (conspiratorially) Well the other night, me an' Akane
are... well, doin' IT... <snip>

Well, while I can't see Ranma as portrayed in the manga describing what
Akane's like in bed, I can see Kevin Smith directing Ranma to say that

kind

of stuff in a movie.  =)  I liked this bit - very well done, very

Jay-like.

It's, uh, Brodie, actually. <gulps>

HIROSHI: (Nods) Yep. every since he blew off the college

"Yep. Ever since..."

Youch! A typo! Will fix, thanks.

He's callin' himself the Blue Thunder of the Galleria now,

Hehehe.   Nice blending of the mythos there.  I can totally see that. =)

Thanks, I liked it.

AKANE: (sighing) Ranma, the only reason I might have any of those
things is because you left them at my house.

<chortle>

Can't take credit for that one- that's Smith's line, 100%.

When you asked me to do a striptease to the theme
from "Sailor Moon", once again, nothing more than
a malleting...

Hehehehe.  This also I'd pay good money to see.  =)

Wouldn't we all? ^_^

After a few minutes, a fuming AKANE storms out of
the cloud, dusting off her hands.

I really liked this Akane-Ranma scene.  Again, an excellent blending of

the

mythos.  I can totally see this as a scene in "Mallrats".  Well done.

MOUSSE: (easily) Get her back anytime you want, huh?

RANMA: Shut up.

:D  :D  :D

(DAISUKE is pummelled into insensibility as the six-year old
retrieves his toy, shooting his foe one last redeye as HIROSHI
groans, head in hands.)

Hmm.  This scene did less for me.  It's really not a Kevin Smith kinda
deal - he doesn't go in for slapstick like this.

Well, I hate to point that out, but he did, pretty much shot-for-shot, in
"Mallrats." Not that I disagree that the scene was awkwardly written,
though. It was one of the main bugaboos that kept me stalled on this fic.

And it really wasn't that
funny, either.  Way too standard.

Eh. Some like the slapstick, others don't. I thought it was funny with Kevin
Smith and Jason Mewes trying to cosh Sven Ole Thorsen, but I'll admit I lost
something in the transcription.

NABIKI: No, of course not. That would invalidate my experiment.
The only person who knew about it was Mr. Bizarre Stimuli here.

Hehehehe.

NABIKI: Dream on, Saotome. Besides, your deadbeat father's still
mooching off daddy, and between him and Ryoga,

Capitalize "Daddy"

Easily fixed.

RANMA: (muffled by chains) Jackie... Chan?

<piku piku>  That it?

Well... I think you have the characterizations down... these *are* Ranma
characters as Kevin Smith would do them.  =)

The problem is that you're not creating enough Kevin Smith-type humor.

Too

much "standard" Ranma stuff.  I would suggest that you add some more
uniquely Askewverse-type stuff.  The description of Ranma and Akane in bed
and the fight between Ranma and Akane in the mall were both spot-on

perfect;

I'd like to see a lot more of that kind of stuff.  So far the subplot
involving the game show is very uninteresting.  Perhaps that needs a

little

more spicing up.

Well, like the movie I'm aping, it was sort-of supposed to build to the
climax at the game show. Perhaps some other sort of Amazonian marriage
contest...

As for the by-play, most of that is Smith's, just tweaked to fit into the
Ranmaverse. I'll see where I can squeeze some more in- maybe throwaway lines
from some of his other movies could be shoehorned in. Suggestions?

I wish I could offer more specific suggestions.  One thing Kevin Smith is
good at was taking "standard" situations and making them interesting with
sarcastic humor and / or a non-standard resolution - like the way they
killed the demon in the bar in Dogma, or the way the alarm was triggered

in

Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.

Yeah. I wish I had a quarter of his talent (and/or money and/or fannish
streetcred). I had a scene planned with Ranma using the "Explosive
Flatulence Shiatsu Point" on Cologne (in lieu of the eponymous "stink-palm"
Brody uses in Mallrats), ending with Cologne flying off like a
bottle-rocket...

On a tangenitally-related point, my *original* idea for a Ranma/Kevin Smith
fusion was to do it with Chasing Amy, with Ranma in the Joey-Lauren Adams
role. Then I realized I'd simply be copying your premise from Thy Outward
Part", only without the happy ending. Dropped *that* idea quick...

I think you must have missed the preface I posted just before this
post(gaah! Awkward phrasing- I've been up all night) I had a number of Ranma
ideas that I'd been stalled on for a year or more, and was casting them out
on the waters to see if anyone either wanted them or wanted to see them
finished. So far this one seems to have garned the most positive response,
but everyone just wants to see me finish it! I must admit I wasn't really
prepared for that...

Or just do this Clerks-style, with nothing more than a series of really
Kevin Smith-esque conversations.  You did very well with those; I'd say

keep

that up and minimize the game show plot and standard Ranma stuff.

I *love* writing dialogue, sometimes too much. I have to be careful to avoid
turning scenes in my stories into chatfests. That's really what's stalling
me on my Young Justice/Ranma crossover- I keep wanting the characters to sit
down and have a big ol' bull-session, but I gotta resolve the action, too...
Aaargh! This is kinda why I've stepped away from fanfic lately and have been
practicing my drawing skills- the results are a lot more immediate, and I
don't feel as bad if I have to chuck an 11x17 piece of paper than, say, 9-10
kb of text if it turns out badly.

Truly, though, I greatly enjoyed the characters you made and look forward

to

you completing this.

-Richard

Well, thank you *very* much, and I hope that I *can* finish it someday. I'll
try to implement some of your suggestions, and maybe that'll stir the muse
into motion once more. Thanks for your input!

Dave Menard
Hack-At-Large
Art-Slave-In-Training
New Website!
http://members.rogers.com/spghome/index.html


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