Copy-Pasted Disclaimer: I reserve the right to be totally wrong, and to
misquote facts and to make errors in judgment. I also C&C as I read, so what I
said at one point can easily be retracted on the next, depending on how the
story progresses. I don't claim to be the authority on fanfiction writing...
Hell, I see C&Cing as a learning experience. Agree? Disagree? Corrections on my
corrections? I'll thank you for it. Ignore all my comments in applying to your
fic? You have the right to do so. Take it with a grain of salt, use what you
can use and ignore the rest. ^_^

And my next victim is... the infamous author of the fic, 'Genin'.

On 7/15/05, Zac Wendler <flashfyre5@msn.com> wrote:

                               Faded Glory
                              by Flashfyre5
                 Chapter 1: Better Late Than Never

On regards to your chapter's title... My sentiments exactly.

walking at an easy pace down one of Tokyo's streets without an umbrella is
rather surprising, even for a ward like Nerima,

Er... regarding the ward thing... I'm not going there. Yeah.

 which has somewhat of a

reputation for oddness.
       The sight of the full-grown and rather overweight panda bear walking
upright next to her was quite a bit more unusual.  

You shifted tenses from the first paragraph (present tense) to this one (past
tense)

The white duck that

squatted on the giant raccoon's head, 

(shrugs) And then there's the discussion about panda bears being bears, not
raccoons. Your jurisdiction.

       "Pop?" the redhead said, looking over.
       'Yes?' the sign read.
       "Thanks," she replied.  The panda nodded, and the duck riding atop it

had

to scramble to stay put.
       'Don't mention it.'

Interesting.
 

       "Finally," he said, trying not to cry.  It was largely an effort in
futility, even he understood, because the Tendo patriarch was liable to cry
if one of his daughters were to spill a glass of milk at the supper table.

Suggest: Even he understood that it was largely an effort in futility, given
that he was liable to cry just because one of his daughters spilled a glass of
milk at the supper table.

[Soapbox: Hello, Sentient Narrative Prose. We meet again. Please, _please_
spread your little gems of wisdom with extreme prejudice. I can't wait to hear
you spout off author bias instead of letting me, the reader, judge things for
myself. Even though it's halfway an insult for you to imply that I can't think
for myself, your extra effort in describing Soun to be so wimpy that Shinji
Ikari can kick his ass is well appreciated.]

Truth be told, I'm not as particular about the hackneyed Ranma intro as some
people in the FFML are. I dunno, maybe I haven't read enough Ranma fanfics.

(pauses briefly, bursts into uncontrollable laughter)

(ahem) In any case, I'll humor you. Let's see what you have in store for me,
fic.

"Finally, my friend, you come to deliver me from this Hell!"  Soun nodded to
himself.  It was time.

Hmmm. Now there's a fascinating twist to the formula.

       "Nabiki!" he cried, charging up the stairs to the second level.

Soun: (goes SSJ Level 2)

       "Family meeting, downstairs," he said, bursting.  

...into flame? So he really is going SSJ Level 2?

Soun: Oh, and remember to bring a bucket of water. Or perhaps a wet blanket.
Thanks.

After a moment's thought,

he added, "Do you know where Akane is?"
       "Dojou, same as always," Nabiki signed, her annoyance clear.

'signed'? So Nabiki makes use of Genma's patented wooden signs now?

Suggest: "Dojou, same as always." Nabiki sighed,

Or: "Dojou, same as always," Nabiki sighed,
 

       "Are you going to be here for the rest of the day?" he asked.  Last

year,

when Akane had left for college, the eldest Tendo had found herself with a
great deal of time on her hands, and nobody to look after.  Though it had
been somewhat untraditional, Kasumi had gone out of her way to court the
family doctor, Ono Tofu.  He had proposed to her several months ago, to her
delight.  Engagement rings, she had told her father, just looked odd on a
man's finger.

That's a lot of exposition in a hurry. It probably saved you ten pages worth of
back story, even. Still, though it's economical, it's also a bit more 'tell'
instead of 'show'. IMO, there's a better way to handle this plot point...
definitely better than taking the easy way out and spelling things out to the
reader a la synopsis. Suggest: not putting in the exposition and simply show
the ring. Let the reader figure out that she's the one who proposed to Tofu as
the story progresses instead of telling them straight out that she did whatever
she did to get the engagement to whomever.

       "Until dinner," she replied.  "Tofu-chan's asked me out tonight. 

Isn't

that sweet of him?"  Soun looked dumbly at his daughter for a moment.

See? More evidence that you don't need to tell everything early on the previous
paragraph. Readers can easily glean from the above conversation that it was
Tofu who gave Kasumi the ring; no need for the long and involved exposition in
the previous paragraph. Granted, they can't glean from it the fact that Kasumi
courted Tofu, but you still have other avenues to 'show, not tell' this fact.

To be crude, a fic has to be a lot like a stripper... it has to slowly shed its
'clothing' instead of outright stripping everything off for all to see.
'Readers' have to get their "money's worth", y'know (a debatable argument since
fanfiction is a free, 'voluntary' commodity, but work with me here). I believe
what you need here is to milk the moment without making things drag... to show,
not tell (I myself had not mastered this so-called writing 'technique', but
this is the ideal that's usually strived in good fanfiction... or so I've
heard). 

       "He's your fianc�," Soun deadpanned.

Suggest: getting rid of the '�' in ' fianc�' and replacing it with a plain text
'e' so that your fic will be more, oh I dunno, 'universally accepted in all
formats'.

Oh, and it's interesting how 'thrilled' Soun is of the engagement/his
daughter's behavior toward the engagement.

       "Family meeting, eh?" a wizened voice crowed from just behind the
black-haired martial artist.  Soun froze instantly, horror evident on his
face.  "I guess I should attend, even though I'm not technically a Tendo."

Ah. And a significant plot point rears its perverted head.

       "Oh, you don't have to worry yourself, Master," Soun said soothingly

as

Happosai passed him.

Suggest: Happosai went past him. (flows better, IMO)

       "So does everyone else, Nabs.  Never stopped me before," Happosai

returned

with a cackle.  Nabiki's teeth fairly ground at the lecher's nickname.  

Suggest: at the nickname the lecher gave her. (just to be clear)

my Silky Darlings unliberated?"

Er... MS Word thinks 'unliberated' isn't a word. Can you prove otherwise? If
not, suggest 'imprisoned'.

       "We were just about to start," Soun said, taking his place at the head

of

the table.  Happosai gathered himself to leap towards Akane, but Kasumi was
watching him intensely, and the ancient man simply couldn't find it in him
to take to Akane's bosom under her scrutiny, so he simply hopped onto the
table and sat down.

Yet another evidence that Kasumi's God. The improfic ULTRA's plot point is
canon.

CORK: (nods sagely) 

(No, I'm not saying Happi's behavior towards Kasumi is unbelievable or
un-canonical. Just wanted to put up the digressive comments and vague fanon
references. Move along, nothing to see here...)

       "This," he said, emotion beginning to overwhelm him, "is from a very

old

friend of mine.  We endured the horrors of Hell itself together when we were
young."
       "I'm right here, you know," Happosai glared.

Heh. Though I figure Happosai shouldn't be too affected by Soun's accusation.
Hell, he'd even be proud of it.

       "Right.  Well," Soun glanced around the tears that had been about to

stream

down his face gone.  

Again, Soun's wimpiness is up a notch. Unless it has a great relevance to the
fic (and not just author bias against Soun), I suggest toning it down. Your fic
is flowing smoothly enough as is without the seeming character bashing the
Narrative Prose is giving Soun.

       "Ooh, China," Nabiki admired.  "Bet he's rich."

Y'know, I always wondered why Takahashi didn't characterize Nabiki like this
from the very start. Whether she wanted to 'surprise' the reader as the plot
unfolded, changed her mind on how to characterize Nabiki as time passed by, or
something else entirely I'll never know.

       "Wow, you'd think that that would've worked," Nabiki noted dryly.
       "Yeah.  He must have some kind of immunity to dynamite," Akane agreed.
       "I'll just have to call Mr. Mita and cancel our order, then," Kasumi

said

sadly, and her sisters nodded in agreement.
       "You think C4'd work better?" Nabiki wondered aloud.

Heh. An author that makes use of the canon humor aspect of Ranma 1/2. Very
good.

       "Hey!" Happosai sputtered, his rage redirected  "I'm right here!"

Extra space in between 'redirected' and '"I'm right here!"' Also, you're
missing a period after 'redirected'.

Fortunately for the continuation of the Tendo line, 

Suggest: replacing 'continuation of the Tendo line' to 'the Tendo daughters'.

       He was not, however, ready to see a duck.  With humongus 

humongous

glasses balanced,

though listing slowly to the left, on its beak.
       "Quack," the duck greeted him.  Soun looked down.  

Heh.

The duck was perched

atop the head of an overweight panda bear.  

So tell me... how _exactly_ does one tell that a panda bear's overweight? ?_? I
mean, I hope I don't have bias against panda bears, but it's easier to tell if
a panda's scrawny than, say, overweight. 

       "Sweet-o!" Happosai shouted, launching himself towards Ranma's bosom. 

As

he flew, Happosai found himself impressed; the girl was already sliding into
a defensive stance most commonly seen in judo.  

Also, Happosai had other thoughts in his mind while suspended in midair...
like, for instance, whether or not he turned off the iron after using it on his
silken darlings.

Happosai was snatched out of

the air just inches away from Ranma's chest, and the redhead spun once and
drove him facefirst 

face-first

       "It's tough to catch Happosai.  Do you do Kempo?" Akane asked, walking

into

the house.  Ranma cautiously followed her into the dining room, the panda
training behind.

training --> trailing

...Unless Genma was doing squat thrusts while Ranma cautiously followed Akane
into the dining room.

       "You poor dear, you're soaking wet.  I'll draw up the furo for you in

a

minute," she fussed, then walked away.

Suggest: adding 'and' in between 'fussed,' and 'then'.

small, simple shrine sat.  Akane bowed to it when she entered, so Ranma
followed suit before continuing to gawk at the beautifully-appointed room.

Er... beautifully-appointed is a dubious descriptor to the room. I mean, I have
no problems with 'beautifully' or 'appointed', but when you put them together
to describe the room... grammatical bedlam erupts. I mean, what's so beautiful
about appointing the room? Suggest: getting rid of 'beautifully' because it
only describes 'appointed', _not_ 'appointed room'.

       "Nothing," Ranma shook her head, and offered a roguish half-grin. 

"And

this place aint 

ain't

It may seem like a silly revision, but even informal words follow basic
grammatical structure. 

       "Fine," Akane grinned, slipping into a kempo stance, her arms

outstretched

and ready.  "You ready?"  Ranma nodded, shifting her legs just a bit wider.
Akane noted the change in weight, recognizing the stance as one that her
father'd 

Suggest: father had (simply because I don't think 'father'd' is a commonly used
contraction for 'father had')

       "Nah," Ranma shook her head, standing.  "The Ghoul made me practice

that

until I could control my heel to the millimeter."
       "Who?" Akane asked, mildly confused.  Ranma's eyes clouded over
immediately, and the already-small girl seemed to shrink.

I do hope that there are other plot points than 'leveled-up' Ranma in this AU.
Or, if this _is_ the plot point, I hope the mindless action is followed by
actual storytelling, relatable/universal conflict, and human interest.

       "Nobody.  Forget I said anything," Ranma said, walking towards the

door of

the doujo with a kind of urgency that Akane had never seen her move with.

W-ell, given that they've only _met_ a few moments ago...
 

       The pigtail, greasy with the filth from life on the road, came undone

with

a little work.  The next step, however, would be more difficult.  Ranma
stared at the little, green bottle of shampoo, nestled next to her borrowed
towel. 

Just a head's up... your story is dragging in these parts... mostly because you
have a blow-by-blow description of how Ranma's bathing. Suggest: getting
straight to the point, putting more 'human interest' in the story and delving
into the mind of Ranma more. What was he thinking about during these times? Or
rather, what is he avoiding to think about? It's better to focus on those
things rather than focusing on trivialities. If you're going for 'subtlety',
you overdid it 'coz whatever you're to convey here just went over my head.

       "Stop it," she growled, shutting off the stream.  A shuddering breath
later, Ranma had regained control of herself.  "I had to do it," she told
herself, as she had a hundred times in the last month.  

Finally... we get to the 'point' of it all.

her torso reminded her of what she'd escaped, despite the price.  Ranma had
no doubt that she would've died, had she stayed.  

Methinks you don't need the comma after 'died'.

       The door slid open, and Ranma glanced up.  Standing naked, aside from

a

tiny washcloth that covered her most important bits was Akane, her eyes as
big as dinner plates.

...Well, yeah. They usually are.

       "In the furo this time," Akane replied.
       "I do wish Master Happosai would keep his friends away from the

house,"

Ah. So _that's_ a common occurrence in your version of the Ranmaverse.

Kasumi sighed, distress almost, but not quite, finding its way onto her
face.  Akane nodded, then hefted the stone lantern up again. 

You're overusing the word 'then'. There are several substitutes for 'then;
('afterwards' and 'subsequently' come in mind), but to avoid redundancy you
have to minimize these word's use. 
 

       Nabiki leaned back in the faux black leather computer chair that she'd
treated herself to upon her departure to college.  Though the leather wasn't
real, it was a good enough fake that one couldn't tell the difference by
sight or touch, and that was certainly a powerful argument, as it spoke
directly to Nabiki's pocketbook.  She loved the chair.  It was a small,
physical comfort, something that she'd largely denied herself during her
high school years.  However, she wasn't relaxing in it.

Your prose has a tendency to drag during these parts where characters keep on
focusing on digressions and trivialities that don't really add all that much to
the story. For the sake of argument, you might be employing some sort of subtle
symbolic meaning by focusing on what I see as trivialities, but I believe what
you're trying to pull here would go over most of the reader's heads (the same
way the Visionaries cartoons went over its target audience's/little boy's
heads). Or maybe you're filling in the extra space in the fic. (shrugs) I
dunno. I have no idea how this adds to the story, and _that's_ exactly the
problem. And yet again, no human interest. Your writing and inclusion of these
parts is ultimately an exercise in futility, IMO.

It had fallen out of her father's gi when he'd rushed to the

door, and Nabiki had scooped it up as soon as nobody was looking towards
where her father had been.  

Suggest: door, and Nabiki had scooped it up when nobody was looking. (get rid
of the rest)

       Arrayed on the far side of the dining table were three men arranged,

it

seemed, in order of hair length. 

Heh.

       "He came up with our last plan to kill the Master," Soun said.
       "He's fine by me," Nabiki nodded, as if there had never been any

doubt.

LOL.

       "You bastard!" Ranma roared as he flew, then splashed into the pond.  

Suggest: replacing 'flew, then' with 'flew before' (i.e. get rid of the comma
and change 'then' with 'before') 

polite ta throw people into ponds!" she shouted at her father's receding
form.  When the man splooshed 

'splooshed' isn't a word. Hell, I doubt that it's even a valid onomatopoeia. 

into the koi pond, Ranma plopped down into her

spot again.

(sigh) Here we go again.

       "Hello.  I understand that my name is difficult in Japanese.  You may

call

me Mousse," the long-haired man bowed.  None of the Tendos were paying him
much attention, however, as Genma took that moment to pour hot water on
himself, thus returning to human form.

Actually, that's usually the reaction he gets... from fandom.

       "What do you mean?" Kasimu 

Kasimu  --> Kasumi

Be extra careful with the spelling of the Japanese names, because by default
spellcheckers mark all the Japanese names as wrong and the only way to catch
Japanese name misspellings is by virtue of proofread.

       "She was breaking him, like a horse," Nabiki breathed in realization.
Mousse nodded.

I'm not sure... Isn't the term supposed to be 'breaking him in'?

       "Ranma is a widower," Mousse conceded.  "Xian Pu died recently, and it

was

through her passing that we were able to flee with him from the village."

~dun-Dun-DUUN~

-  -  -  Author's Notes  -  -  -

       Hey, all.  It's been quite some time since I've written anything, but

I

think it's been worth the wait.  I've been hammering at this thing for a
while (mostly in the concepting 

Suggest: concepting --> conceptualization

       Also, I want to sincerely thank everybody that was so supportive to me

in

my last fic, "Genin."  Though I've decided to leave the Naruto fanfiction
community, your support is and has been greatly appreciated.  I write these
things for you guys, you know!  Anyway, drop me a line or a review or
something, if you please.  I'll respond to each that I can (e-mail addy is a
requisite; I'm not wading through FFN's archaic e-mail protection protocols
to root out your identity.)

Right. Gotcha.

       Thanks again!
               -Flash (Flashfyre5@msn.com)

Mood Music: "Searching For Light," ReMix by Shariq Ansari.  Get it at
vgmix.com.

Hmmm. You make your fic sound like a Livejournal entry. ;)

Okay, now on to the general comments.

Most of the errors found in this fic were... (scans the C&C) simple,
the-spell-checker-missed-a-word-or-two errors. Actually, you're among the few
authors I've C&Ced to have made so few an error in their fics. A proofread or
three is all it takes for this to be virtually error-free. So... wow. Congrats.
Though, really, you should proofread because I may have missed an error here
and there. 

As for the content... it's okay. It was fairly amusing. It's indeed
interesting, with loads of potential for remarkable conflict, human interest,
and drama. The only real criticisms I can point out in this fic are the facts
that the concept of the first chapter itself is lying on the threshold of
cliche (Ye olde "Here's Ranma" episode that probably most, if not all, of the
FFML is familiar with) and it had two or three scenes that absolutely dragged
because of unnecessary focus over trivial things. On the former topic, though
I've noted that I personally don't mind this sort of format, I'm sure lots of
readers are sick and tired of seeing variation after variation of the infamous
'Here's Ranma' episode (or the first appearance of Ranma in the manga's first
ever issue). Perhaps you can start in the middle of things, subtly recapping
what had happened before? Aside from that, I guess your variation was okay. You
can opt not to change it, though at this point in Ranma fandom, your fic
concept of introducing Ranma by the 'traditional' means is flawed by design.

On the topic concerning the 'dragging' your prose suffers from... Really, the
reader could care less whether or not the leather on Nabiki's seat is real or
how Ranma goes about cleaning herself (perhaps some fanservice fans would like
to know more about Ranma cleaning herself, but that's not the point of the
scene, is it?). These scenes were mostly boring and extraneous (because they
added no insight to the characters minds even when the characters were talking
to themselves), and deleting them won't really detract much from the fic in any
way. A subtle visual clue is one thing, but you're writing in _prose_ story,
not a screenplay. Visual clues and images are lost to the reader who just wants
to _read_ and experience a story.

Oh, and do show, not tell. No need to expound on that, for I've already told
and not shown you what I meant. To show not tell what I mean by 'show not
tell', try looking for fics from the more 'experienced' writers of the FFML.

Aside from that... it's an interesting concept. Several parts gave me a chuckle
or seven. I'd love to read more of this in the future... I particularly want to
find out more about Shampoo's 'heel' change from being a 'baby-face'. How
different is this Shampoo from the well-known Shampoo? Kodachi-different? Why
is that? And what other antics will ensue in this series? Will this fic become
a comedy, a drama, a little of both or something else entirely? Will people
take more notice of Mousse in the second chapter? :P Stay tuned.

In any case, bottom line, this fic has potential. If you want to keep your fic
as is (since, basically, it's quite sound in regards to content and grammar),
good. If you found my comments helpful in some level, even better.  The best
advice I could give you that you needn't take with a grain of salt is to keep
on writing. Make use of whatever corrections suits your fancy and ignore the
rest... It's your fic. I also apologize for any spelling and grammar mistake my
C&C has made. It'd be ironic for a correction to need a correction, but we're
all only human, after all.

Keep on writing,
Abdiel


		
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