Author's Notes and Omake
(Note: When I originally posted this to the FFML, I started a
flame war. I won't change the things I wrote here, but there is a
clarification at the end that may soothe hurt feelings.)
20 chapters. 810 kb. 140,000 words. I have it on good authority
that new authors who publish novels are usually never allowed to
exceed 100,000 words. For comparison's sake, (size alone, I'm not
trying to compare quality by any means) Neil Stephenson's 'Snow
Crash' is about 910 k long and weighs in at a little over 160,000
words.
newRanma was never supposed to be longer than 3 chapters, let
alone novel-length. Of course the first 'chapter' I had planned
started with Ranma's injury and surgery and ended with the 'Nurse
Academy' dream sequence.
Well, first I'd like to thank everyone who read newRanma, and
everyone who emailed me comments. I'd like to thank everybody on
the FFIRC who encouraged me to post it.
I'd also like to apologize to everyone, friends and new readers
alike, who asked to preread or edit. For reasons I'll explain in a
bit, I told them 'no'.
------------------------------
Omake 1
------------------------------
It certainly wasn't Kunou's first kiss, but as the
trembling pigtailed-girl pressed her lips to his cheek, he found
it was the one he treasured most.
"Oh, pigtailed-girl," Kunou whispered as high-powered
martial arts played out on the screen in front of the pair.
"Kunou-sempai," she said, tightening her embrace. Man,
faking this concussion was the best idea I've had in weeks, Ranma
thought to herself. This way I get to be with Kunou-sempai all I
want, and I can pass it off later as a hallucination!
Kunou wondered if he was shaking as badly as the pigtailed
girl as he gently wrapped his arm around her shoulders.
He turned, moving his face closer to hers. Her vacant
smile gave him no reason for concern, so he leaned in and pushed
his lips to hers.
She clumsily returned the kiss with trembling lips.
Yes! He kissed me! Ranma had a hard time keeping from
crowing out in victory.
With his arms around her back, Kunou leaned her back and
began to let his lips roam up and down her neck. He took her
increased shaking as a sign of her arousal.
"Kunou-sempai," she whispered, struggling to move out from
under him. Anxiously, he stood, acutely aware of his own desire
for her.
Weakly, the girl stood. She moaned in desire.
"Pigtailed-girl," Kunou said, wondering if something
wrong. "Are you okay?"
She cried out in lust and fell against him. Kunou blinked
in surprise.
"Pigtailed-girl?"
Take me, Kunou-sempai, Ranma thought. She just couldn't
say it out loud, but the feelings were there nonetheless. Take me
now.
Her blouse was only about half-way buttoned, revealing a
generous amount of cleavage above the top of her school dress.
Likewise, her short skirt had flared out as she fell and settled
up around her waist, displaying her white cotton panties for him
to gaze upon in wonder.
Her body was so close to him! She was flaunting herself so
daringly. He kneeled in front of her, his hand reaching out almost
of its own accord to gently brush her exposed thigh.
"Oh here," she snapped out in irritation when Kunou didn't
touch her. She hooked her thumbs in the waistband of her panties
and dragged them down over her hips. "You get the idea, right?"
Kunou's bokken was held high.
"Oh, pigtailed-girl," the kendoist cried, tears of joy
running down his face. "I'm so happy!"
------------------------------
Where did newRanma come from, you ask?
newRanma, like my Pink Lemonade stories, is pure, unadulterated
fanservice. A lot of people have written me and told me that they
thought I was trying to write 'realism'. I can see that,
especially since some chapters of newRanma were so dark. I never
intended newRanma to be that realistic. I started out playing
pretty fast and loose with neurosurgery and ended the story
playing fast and loose with the results of the changes the surgery
induced in Ranma's love life.
Consider in the nature of fan art. That's what I was trying to do.
I started with a series of images... girl-Ranma in a Furinkan High
uniform making out with Kunou, Akane holding the vial with a
'piece of Ranma's mind' in it, Nabiki, Ranma, and Kunou proudly
leading the students of Furinkan High on a walkout, Ranma in the
'Nurse Academy' uniform, Ryouga, stabbed and bleeding to death,
but about to kill Mousse with a stone in his hand, etc... etc...
etc...
I wanted to work these all into a story with a great deal of humor
and sex, and newRanma was what came out of it. What realism there
was just... happened.
------------------------------
Omake 2
------------------------------
"RYOUGA!!" Ranma screamed, bolting upright on the cot
where she had been sleeping.
Akane jerked awake. She had dozed off next to the martial
artist.
Nodoka was already leaning over her child, who was visibly
shaking. "Ranma, are you okay? Ranma-chan?"
"Oh god," Ranma whimpered, coming awake. "Oh god. Ryouga's
dead. And... And..." The memories of what she had just dreamt
assailed her.
"No, Ranma. He's alive," Akane assured her. "The ravener
queen hurt him, but didn't kill him."
"What?"
Ranma looked up in horror. Akane had long, powerful wings
growing out of her back. A chance glimpse back at her mother
revealed that the woman's fangs were protruding slightly.
"Ranma," the nameless girl whispered. "It's time to fight.
The evil is still waiting."
"Ah, dammit!"
------------------------------
Why newRanma instead of new chapters of 'The Clan'?
That's a little tricky to explain, but I'll start by saying
this... The Clan was getting painful to write.
I started The Clan as a big fan of vampire stuff. The idea behind
the story was to make Nodoka and the Tendou girls into vampires
and relate how they dealt with the world and Ranma. Akane was
really supposed to be the main character, but after a certain
story change (the introduction of the raveners as bad guys), it
switched back to Ranma. I was having a great deal of fun with it
right at first, but after a little bit, I had a pre-reader list a
mile long, tons of suggested editing changes for each chapter, and
a lot of really negative commentary. I had a handful of prereaders
and readers who were really interested in helping me make The Clan
be the story I wanted it to be. Each of you knows who you are.
Most of the rest of the commentary I got was in the nature of
trying to convince me to change the story... or telling me that I
was ruining the story... or complaining one way or the other that
the story wasn't going the way a certain reader wanted it to go.
I should have just ignored those comments and done what I wanted
to with the story. Instead, I made the mistake of thinking that
all of my readers were rational, mature people who cared about
reading what I wrote. After all, I'm writing for fun and not for
profit. The story should be by me for me, right?
After a while, I lost track of that. I started making suggested
changes that I shouldn't have. I lost a lot of what I originally
wanted the story to be. The delay between the chapters kept
getting longer and longer, and I had less and less enthusiasm for
putting them out.
The Clan, holding at Chapter 24, is scripted all the way through
to the next-to-last chapter, Chapter 27. I just got sick and tired
of writing on a story I wasn't having fun with any more. Instead,
I started putting more and more time into other, simpler and
sillier projects... Like the Pink Lemonade stories.
People bitched at me for those because I spent all my time having
Ranma and Akane humping like weasels and played Shampoo and Ukyou
for as much humor as I could. Still, they were fun to write for me
when the only thing at all I was getting out of The Clan was angry
grumblings.
While trying to get some inspiration to flesh out the rest of 'The
Clan', I happened to show the original draft of newRanma (which
you can read if you like. It's on the newRanma page on my web
site) to a few people on FFIRC. Dave Roeder was one. I think
Vincent Seifert saw it as well. At any rate, everyone I showed it
to encouraged me to flesh it out and post it.
I did so, converting the single chapter I had into five smaller
chapters. Before posting, however, I made an important decision--
one that has served me ever since. I refused any kind of pre-
reader input on newRanma, and have discarded any kind of plot
advice submitted after I posted a chapter.
It was a painful choice to make and I feel like it's alienated
some people over the last year that I used to be a lot closer to.
It means that the quality of the chapters was not quite as high in
terms of grammar and spelling. My process went like so: I scripted
a chapter, fleshed it in with dialogue and descriptive prose,
proofed it for errors, and then spell checked. Once done, that was
it. The story was in the can.
What this did for me was keep newRanma *fun* to write. Unlike The
Clan, I never had to struggle to write a chapter of newRanma.
There were months at a time that I was too tired from work or too
sick to write, but even when things got really bad, I still
*wanted* to write. On September 11th of last year when the world
seemed like it was going to end, I wrote a couple chapters of
newRanma in just a few days to keep the grief and sorrow at bay.
When two of my wife's relatives and my aunt died in the space of
just a few weeks in the last couple months, I continued through
with chapters 18, 19 and 20, albeit at a snail's pace, because
they were a welcome relief from all the stress.
Now that it's done, I find myself asking... what am I going to do
for fun now?
The Clan has not been abandoned. I've invested way too much
emotional energy, time, sweat and tears into the story to let it
die. After a year of inactivity, I don't think that I can go back
and pick up right where I left off. I'm going to have to tear it
down and rewrite it from the ground up. Some chapters, especially
towards the beginning, won't see many changes. A lot of what was
near the end will be completely discarded.
When I do make those changes, I will be using the same publishing
model I used with newRanma. I'm not going to accept any kind of
story input. Even if it makes The Clan a worse story, it will
still be *my* story, and I will have had fun writing it.
I very much hope that all of you who were prereading before won't
be mad at me for cutting you out of the process like that. With
newRanma, I've found that I just have more fun when I'm playing a
solo.
------------------------------
Omake 3
------------------------------
"When did Charlotte get so dirty?" Azusa demanded. She
dumped another handful of warm liquid soap on Ryouga's back and
started to scrub roughly. "Mommy will get you all clean."
"Agghgh! Let me go, you crazy woman!" Ryouga screamed as
he struggled to get free. Years of ice-skating had given the
petite girl legs of steel, however. She had her ankles locked
around Ryouga's waist, and he just couldn't manage to break free.
"Doesn't Charlotte like bathing? The water's all nice and
warm, just as you like, sweetie!"
"He does like bathing, Anna-oneesan," Yoiko assured her
from the other side of the bathtub where she was lathering her own
body with a wash cloth and a bar of soap. "You just have to
convince him to stay put some more."
"Let Mommy wash your front now," Azusa commanded. "Oh my!
What did little Azusa-chan find?" she asked in wonder as her hands
began to work in front of Ryouga.
"YAAAHHH!" Blood began to flow from Ryouga's nostrils as
the skater's hands worked more and more rapidly under water.
Yoiko giggled. Her Oniichan was so funny!
"What is it? What... Oh, my! Azusa thinks that she will
call you Jean-martine!" Azusa said to her new discovery.
------------------------------
Why the hell didn't Ranma end up with
Nabiki/Ukyou/Kodachi/Ryouga/Kunou?
Again, this was a fanservice story. Think about it. Ranma got to
be touchy-feely with just about every character in one way or
another. It was also a good chance for me to experiment with all
the things I've wanted to write, like the Ranma/Ryouga lemon
scene, but never had the balls to do before.
The Ranma/Nabiki and Ranma/Kunou arcs were planned from the very
beginning with the knowledge that Ranma would end the story more
or less with Akane. I know that I've horribly disappointed all the
Ranma/Nabiki fans, but I'd like to thank you for reading anyway.
I will tell you that I had at least one death threat... I won't
name names... *cough* *cough* if Nabiki broke Taiyoko's heart.
After receiving said threat, I was sorely tempted to match
Ranma/Nabiki and Taiyoko/Akane just to see what wrath I would
incur, but that would have munged up what I wanted to write in the
first place, which was no good.
Hamlet (and every other Kodachi fan), I know I disappointed you
leaving Kodachi an unreasonable, loony bitch at the end. I'm
sorry, but I also had the last scene with Kodachi planned from
almost the very beginning of the story. newRanma was never
intended to be a 'fix- all' story. Yes, it has closure, but it's
also got a 'dirty' end, leaving a lot of shit lying around for the
characters to clean up. This was always my intent. There's your
realism if you're still looking for it because that's the way real
life works.
Why did I make an otherwise interesting story so full of
meaningless sex?
Short Answer: I'm a pervert. You should avoid me. ^o^
Long Answer: From the very, very beginning, newRanma has been a
story about sex, which I consider to be a very natural, normal,
healthy thing. The only scenes without at least some sexual
tension were those involving the gore of Ranma's surgery or the
introduction of Ryouga's litter sister, Yoiko.
It's only natural that a story about sex should have many, many
descriptions of sexual behavior. It's only fitting, at least in my
opinion, that a story about sex should climax with an explicit sex
act.
A lot of people have complained that I didn't write the story so
that you could read it without skipping the lemony sweet chapters.
To all of you I say 'Nyaa!' Go find a story without all the lemony
goodness of newRanma. Yeah, yeah, I know minors aren't supposed to
read that kind of stuff. I'd be willing to bet that each and every
person under 18 who happened across the explicit scenes in
newRanma had seen similar scenes before... and had probably seen
worse in real life. In deference to those who do care if they get
caught reading something like that, however, I will label the
chapters as 'lemon' on my web page where they weren't previously.
Why did I include so many original characters, and then why did I
do so little with them.
Taiyoko and Makuna were the only two original characters I really
planned to do anything with. Yoiko, Soap, Ayanobu, Tea, Cola,
Soda, the geologists, and all the others are just scenery. Yoiko
and Soap got a few extra lines, but they were mostly used as foils
or running gags.
Makuna was Ranma's 'healthy' example of homosexuality, which I
intended to include from the very start of the story. Taiyoko was
Ranma's 'normal' friend with whom he could compare his distinctly
abnormal life. She started out being an idol signer that Ranma had
known when he was a little and then met again after his surgery.
Her stuttering was a remnant of that. She was supposed to be able
to sing just fine, but have trouble speaking. Then she turned into
a transfer student to Furinkan High. Then, as more and more of the
story started locking into place, she became one of Makuna's
patients, and therefore a lesbian... and eventually Nabiki's
lover.
I cut an entire chapter about Soap because I lost interest in her.
It was replaced with the chapter about Ranma and Kasumi going to
church. For those of you paying attention, that chapter is my one
and only self-insertion... No, not the perverted priest. The goofy
guy at the end who talks to Ranma while sweeping the walk.
Yoiko, on the other hand, grew entirely out of a need for a punch
line to the 'His sense of direction is out in the waiting room'
joke Tofuu tells when Ryouga's in the hospital. She grew a little
out of that and once I gave her a poor memory for names, she
became a running gag... one I couldn't resist revisiting in the
last chapter.
I didn't do any more with any of these characters... or even Akane
for that matter... because this is a story about RANMA! --hence
the title. It's about the way he interacts with all the other
characters and not about the way they interact with him. But I
digress...
------------------------------
Omake 4
------------------------------
A petite girl stepped up in front of the audience. She had
long, light-colored hair with two pink streaks. She was also
standing next to an impossibly huge pig done up in ceremonial
Sumo-garb.
"Hello," she announced. "My name is Akari Unryuu. On
behalf of the minor characters of Ranma 1/2, I would like to
register a complaint against Jones-san for not including more of
us in 'newRanma'. It's completely unfair that he included new,
original characters in the story while ignoring the rest of us."
"Akari-san," a beautiful ninja said from the front row of
the audience called out. "I'm not sure we should be complaining
about this. It's not really that big a deal, after all."
"Who are you to talk, Konatsu? He made you the star of the
'Nerima Boys Club'! The last time I got time in one of his
stories, I got turned into the Ravener Queen. That's not what I
call quality screen time."
Hiroshi, Daisuke, Yuka, and Sayuri all shrugged. They were
just happy that all four of them had survived newRanma.
------------------------------
So what's next?
Well, I've got a few things planned, all or none of which may come
to fruition in time. There's the last chapter of 'Ranma's
Apartment' to consider, in which Soun has a heart attack and Ranma
is reunited with the rest of the Nerima crew. There's also a non-
Ranma 'Pink Lemonade' story I want to write about Nokoru and Suoh
from CLAMP. Just imagine all the lemony potential in that one!
Speaking of lemony potential, I've been experimenting with a plot
for a PWP (oxymoron, I know) Sailor Moon lemon tentatively
entitled 'Sailor Domination'. I'll let your imaginations fill in
the rest of that one...
The big project in my future is the planned rewrite of The Clan.
We'll just have to see how it goes.
------------------------------
Omake 5
------------------------------
After some hot, wet yuri nookie behind Furinkan High,
Ranma and Akane returned to the Tendou Dojo, only to find that all
of the girls, Ukyou, Kodachi, Shampoo, Nabiki, Taiyoko, Hinako,
Azusa, Mio, Futaba, Misaki, Tsunami, Pixy Misa, Excel, Makoto
Kino, Minako Aino, Victoria Cellas, Keyne Aqua, Ifurita, B-ko,
Lime, Cherry, Bloodberry, Nuku Nuku, and Belldandy, were waiting
there for them.
"Ranma," Soun demanded. "You must make up your mind. Which
girl will you marry? Remember, if you choose right, you inherit
the dojo."
"Choose me, Ranma!" All the girls shouted.
"I choose..." Ranma ripped off her Chinese clothes to
reveal that she was wearing a complete latex body suit underneath.
"ALL OF THEM!!!"
She pulled out a super-soaker filled with 'Spring of
drowned Sex Slave' water and began hosing the assembled throng
down.
"Oh, Ranma-sama!" all the girls cried. "Make us yours!"
"Gladly, my sweets," Ranma replied as they all began to
strip out of their clothes or costumes and started to make out in
one huge lesbian orgy scene.
"And now that we're naked," Akane suggested as she was
being licked, fondled, rubbed, and sucked, "let's give all our
panties to--"
*BOOT*
Jones punted the shriveled pervert away from his computer
and examined the damage to the end of newRanma. He sighed and
began to delete lines of text as rapidly as he could.
"I knew there was a reason I didn't write Happosai into
the story," the author said sadly. "Man, he left panties
everywhere. Ewww... some of these are still sticky..."
------------------------------
Thank you all for reading. Please send e-mail... or fanart *hint*
*hint* if you like my story.
Until next time....
C. (I finished newRanma? What an amazing thing...)
Addendum:
Like I said earlier, when I posted this to the FFML, I started a
minor flame war about C&C and the proper way to ask for and reply
to it. Those who emailed me fell into one of two camps.
The first kind of response I received was along the lines of: "You
go! I'm sorry you won't take plot direction any more, but I
understand. If that's what you have to do to get your stories out
the door, then so be it."
The second was more like: "How rude could you be? Why should I
spend time C&C'ing your story if you're going to ignore me? It's
insensitive of you to even ask for C&C if you're going to discard
it. You're just a jerk who wants gratification from people reading
his stories."
Needless to say, I think I hurt some feelings. I received a lot of
angry mail from other authors I really like and respected, so let
me clarify the things I said above.
No, I am not uninterested in C&C. This, the final version of
newRanma, benefited greatly from C&C I received in the form of
continuity checking, proofing, cultural details, and other kinds
of C&C.
By that same token, however, I feel like many of my readers who
offer C&C feel insulted or hurt if I don't make the changes they
recommend.
In the case of newRanma, I had many people write me and suggest
that I change the story so that events could happen a certain way,
or tell me that I was not writing in an entertaining or believable
direction. If I were to make these changes, I feel like the story
would no longer have been what I wanted it to be, so I didn't use
those suggestions.
You should never feel hurt or insulted because I didn't use a
piece of C&C or even because I didn't reply to your comment. I
read everything that comes to me, and even if it doesn't help me,
it still makes me think more sharply about my story... which
ultimately makes it a better story.
That said, I'm never going to please everyone. I'm not going to
try, because that's an impossible task.
Thanks to everyone who sent in C&C for newRanma, wether I used it
or not!
Again... C.
(Note: When I originally posted this to the FFML, I started a
flame war. I won't change the things I wrote here, but there is a
clarification at the end that may soothe hurt feelings.)
20 chapters. 810 kb. 140,000 words. I have it on good authority
that new authors who publish novels are usually never allowed to
exceed 100,000 words. For comparison's sake, (size alone, I'm not
trying to compare quality by any means) Neil Stephenson's 'Snow
Crash' is about 910 k long and weighs in at a little over 160,000
words.
newRanma was never supposed to be longer than 3 chapters, let
alone novel-length. Of course the first 'chapter' I had planned
started with Ranma's injury and surgery and ended with the 'Nurse
Academy' dream sequence.
Well, first I'd like to thank everyone who read newRanma, and
everyone who emailed me comments. I'd like to thank everybody on
the FFIRC who encouraged me to post it.
I'd also like to apologize to everyone, friends and new readers
alike, who asked to preread or edit. For reasons I'll explain in a
bit, I told them 'no'.
------------------------------
Omake 1
------------------------------
It certainly wasn't Kunou's first kiss, but as the
trembling pigtailed-girl pressed her lips to his cheek, he found
it was the one he treasured most.
"Oh, pigtailed-girl," Kunou whispered as high-powered
martial arts played out on the screen in front of the pair.
"Kunou-sempai," she said, tightening her embrace. Man,
faking this concussion was the best idea I've had in weeks, Ranma
thought to herself. This way I get to be with Kunou-sempai all I
want, and I can pass it off later as a hallucination!
Kunou wondered if he was shaking as badly as the pigtailed
girl as he gently wrapped his arm around her shoulders.
He turned, moving his face closer to hers. Her vacant
smile gave him no reason for concern, so he leaned in and pushed
his lips to hers.
She clumsily returned the kiss with trembling lips.
Yes! He kissed me! Ranma had a hard time keeping from
crowing out in victory.
With his arms around her back, Kunou leaned her back and
began to let his lips roam up and down her neck. He took her
increased shaking as a sign of her arousal.
"Kunou-sempai," she whispered, struggling to move out from
under him. Anxiously, he stood, acutely aware of his own desire
for her.
Weakly, the girl stood. She moaned in desire.
"Pigtailed-girl," Kunou said, wondering if something
wrong. "Are you okay?"
She cried out in lust and fell against him. Kunou blinked
in surprise.
"Pigtailed-girl?"
Take me, Kunou-sempai, Ranma thought. She just couldn't
say it out loud, but the feelings were there nonetheless. Take me
now.
Her blouse was only about half-way buttoned, revealing a
generous amount of cleavage above the top of her school dress.
Likewise, her short skirt had flared out as she fell and settled
up around her waist, displaying her white cotton panties for him
to gaze upon in wonder.
Her body was so close to him! She was flaunting herself so
daringly. He kneeled in front of her, his hand reaching out almost
of its own accord to gently brush her exposed thigh.
"Oh here," she snapped out in irritation when Kunou didn't
touch her. She hooked her thumbs in the waistband of her panties
and dragged them down over her hips. "You get the idea, right?"
Kunou's bokken was held high.
"Oh, pigtailed-girl," the kendoist cried, tears of joy
running down his face. "I'm so happy!"
------------------------------
Where did newRanma come from, you ask?
newRanma, like my Pink Lemonade stories, is pure, unadulterated
fanservice. A lot of people have written me and told me that they
thought I was trying to write 'realism'. I can see that,
especially since some chapters of newRanma were so dark. I never
intended newRanma to be that realistic. I started out playing
pretty fast and loose with neurosurgery and ended the story
playing fast and loose with the results of the changes the surgery
induced in Ranma's love life.
Consider in the nature of fan art. That's what I was trying to do.
I started with a series of images... girl-Ranma in a Furinkan High
uniform making out with Kunou, Akane holding the vial with a
'piece of Ranma's mind' in it, Nabiki, Ranma, and Kunou proudly
leading the students of Furinkan High on a walkout, Ranma in the
'Nurse Academy' uniform, Ryouga, stabbed and bleeding to death,
but about to kill Mousse with a stone in his hand, etc... etc...
etc...
I wanted to work these all into a story with a great deal of humor
and sex, and newRanma was what came out of it. What realism there
was just... happened.
------------------------------
Omake 2
------------------------------
"RYOUGA!!" Ranma screamed, bolting upright on the cot
where she had been sleeping.
Akane jerked awake. She had dozed off next to the martial
artist.
Nodoka was already leaning over her child, who was visibly
shaking. "Ranma, are you okay? Ranma-chan?"
"Oh god," Ranma whimpered, coming awake. "Oh god. Ryouga's
dead. And... And..." The memories of what she had just dreamt
assailed her.
"No, Ranma. He's alive," Akane assured her. "The ravener
queen hurt him, but didn't kill him."
"What?"
Ranma looked up in horror. Akane had long, powerful wings
growing out of her back. A chance glimpse back at her mother
revealed that the woman's fangs were protruding slightly.
"Ranma," the nameless girl whispered. "It's time to fight.
The evil is still waiting."
"Ah, dammit!"
------------------------------
Why newRanma instead of new chapters of 'The Clan'?
That's a little tricky to explain, but I'll start by saying
this... The Clan was getting painful to write.
I started The Clan as a big fan of vampire stuff. The idea behind
the story was to make Nodoka and the Tendou girls into vampires
and relate how they dealt with the world and Ranma. Akane was
really supposed to be the main character, but after a certain
story change (the introduction of the raveners as bad guys), it
switched back to Ranma. I was having a great deal of fun with it
right at first, but after a little bit, I had a pre-reader list a
mile long, tons of suggested editing changes for each chapter, and
a lot of really negative commentary. I had a handful of prereaders
and readers who were really interested in helping me make The Clan
be the story I wanted it to be. Each of you knows who you are.
Most of the rest of the commentary I got was in the nature of
trying to convince me to change the story... or telling me that I
was ruining the story... or complaining one way or the other that
the story wasn't going the way a certain reader wanted it to go.
I should have just ignored those comments and done what I wanted
to with the story. Instead, I made the mistake of thinking that
all of my readers were rational, mature people who cared about
reading what I wrote. After all, I'm writing for fun and not for
profit. The story should be by me for me, right?
After a while, I lost track of that. I started making suggested
changes that I shouldn't have. I lost a lot of what I originally
wanted the story to be. The delay between the chapters kept
getting longer and longer, and I had less and less enthusiasm for
putting them out.
The Clan, holding at Chapter 24, is scripted all the way through
to the next-to-last chapter, Chapter 27. I just got sick and tired
of writing on a story I wasn't having fun with any more. Instead,
I started putting more and more time into other, simpler and
sillier projects... Like the Pink Lemonade stories.
People bitched at me for those because I spent all my time having
Ranma and Akane humping like weasels and played Shampoo and Ukyou
for as much humor as I could. Still, they were fun to write for me
when the only thing at all I was getting out of The Clan was angry
grumblings.
While trying to get some inspiration to flesh out the rest of 'The
Clan', I happened to show the original draft of newRanma (which
you can read if you like. It's on the newRanma page on my web
site) to a few people on FFIRC. Dave Roeder was one. I think
Vincent Seifert saw it as well. At any rate, everyone I showed it
to encouraged me to flesh it out and post it.
I did so, converting the single chapter I had into five smaller
chapters. Before posting, however, I made an important decision--
one that has served me ever since. I refused any kind of pre-
reader input on newRanma, and have discarded any kind of plot
advice submitted after I posted a chapter.
It was a painful choice to make and I feel like it's alienated
some people over the last year that I used to be a lot closer to.
It means that the quality of the chapters was not quite as high in
terms of grammar and spelling. My process went like so: I scripted
a chapter, fleshed it in with dialogue and descriptive prose,
proofed it for errors, and then spell checked. Once done, that was
it. The story was in the can.
What this did for me was keep newRanma *fun* to write. Unlike The
Clan, I never had to struggle to write a chapter of newRanma.
There were months at a time that I was too tired from work or too
sick to write, but even when things got really bad, I still
*wanted* to write. On September 11th of last year when the world
seemed like it was going to end, I wrote a couple chapters of
newRanma in just a few days to keep the grief and sorrow at bay.
When two of my wife's relatives and my aunt died in the space of
just a few weeks in the last couple months, I continued through
with chapters 18, 19 and 20, albeit at a snail's pace, because
they were a welcome relief from all the stress.
Now that it's done, I find myself asking... what am I going to do
for fun now?
The Clan has not been abandoned. I've invested way too much
emotional energy, time, sweat and tears into the story to let it
die. After a year of inactivity, I don't think that I can go back
and pick up right where I left off. I'm going to have to tear it
down and rewrite it from the ground up. Some chapters, especially
towards the beginning, won't see many changes. A lot of what was
near the end will be completely discarded.
When I do make those changes, I will be using the same publishing
model I used with newRanma. I'm not going to accept any kind of
story input. Even if it makes The Clan a worse story, it will
still be *my* story, and I will have had fun writing it.
I very much hope that all of you who were prereading before won't
be mad at me for cutting you out of the process like that. With
newRanma, I've found that I just have more fun when I'm playing a
solo.
------------------------------
Omake 3
------------------------------
"When did Charlotte get so dirty?" Azusa demanded. She
dumped another handful of warm liquid soap on Ryouga's back and
started to scrub roughly. "Mommy will get you all clean."
"Agghgh! Let me go, you crazy woman!" Ryouga screamed as
he struggled to get free. Years of ice-skating had given the
petite girl legs of steel, however. She had her ankles locked
around Ryouga's waist, and he just couldn't manage to break free.
"Doesn't Charlotte like bathing? The water's all nice and
warm, just as you like, sweetie!"
"He does like bathing, Anna-oneesan," Yoiko assured her
from the other side of the bathtub where she was lathering her own
body with a wash cloth and a bar of soap. "You just have to
convince him to stay put some more."
"Let Mommy wash your front now," Azusa commanded. "Oh my!
What did little Azusa-chan find?" she asked in wonder as her hands
began to work in front of Ryouga.
"YAAAHHH!" Blood began to flow from Ryouga's nostrils as
the skater's hands worked more and more rapidly under water.
Yoiko giggled. Her Oniichan was so funny!
"What is it? What... Oh, my! Azusa thinks that she will
call you Jean-martine!" Azusa said to her new discovery.
------------------------------
Why the hell didn't Ranma end up with
Nabiki/Ukyou/Kodachi/Ryouga/Kunou?
Again, this was a fanservice story. Think about it. Ranma got to
be touchy-feely with just about every character in one way or
another. It was also a good chance for me to experiment with all
the things I've wanted to write, like the Ranma/Ryouga lemon
scene, but never had the balls to do before.
The Ranma/Nabiki and Ranma/Kunou arcs were planned from the very
beginning with the knowledge that Ranma would end the story more
or less with Akane. I know that I've horribly disappointed all the
Ranma/Nabiki fans, but I'd like to thank you for reading anyway.
I will tell you that I had at least one death threat... I won't
name names... *cough* *cough* if Nabiki broke Taiyoko's heart.
After receiving said threat, I was sorely tempted to match
Ranma/Nabiki and Taiyoko/Akane just to see what wrath I would
incur, but that would have munged up what I wanted to write in the
first place, which was no good.
Hamlet (and every other Kodachi fan), I know I disappointed you
leaving Kodachi an unreasonable, loony bitch at the end. I'm
sorry, but I also had the last scene with Kodachi planned from
almost the very beginning of the story. newRanma was never
intended to be a 'fix- all' story. Yes, it has closure, but it's
also got a 'dirty' end, leaving a lot of shit lying around for the
characters to clean up. This was always my intent. There's your
realism if you're still looking for it because that's the way real
life works.
Why did I make an otherwise interesting story so full of
meaningless sex?
Short Answer: I'm a pervert. You should avoid me. ^o^
Long Answer: From the very, very beginning, newRanma has been a
story about sex, which I consider to be a very natural, normal,
healthy thing. The only scenes without at least some sexual
tension were those involving the gore of Ranma's surgery or the
introduction of Ryouga's litter sister, Yoiko.
It's only natural that a story about sex should have many, many
descriptions of sexual behavior. It's only fitting, at least in my
opinion, that a story about sex should climax with an explicit sex
act.
A lot of people have complained that I didn't write the story so
that you could read it without skipping the lemony sweet chapters.
To all of you I say 'Nyaa!' Go find a story without all the lemony
goodness of newRanma. Yeah, yeah, I know minors aren't supposed to
read that kind of stuff. I'd be willing to bet that each and every
person under 18 who happened across the explicit scenes in
newRanma had seen similar scenes before... and had probably seen
worse in real life. In deference to those who do care if they get
caught reading something like that, however, I will label the
chapters as 'lemon' on my web page where they weren't previously.
Why did I include so many original characters, and then why did I
do so little with them.
Taiyoko and Makuna were the only two original characters I really
planned to do anything with. Yoiko, Soap, Ayanobu, Tea, Cola,
Soda, the geologists, and all the others are just scenery. Yoiko
and Soap got a few extra lines, but they were mostly used as foils
or running gags.
Makuna was Ranma's 'healthy' example of homosexuality, which I
intended to include from the very start of the story. Taiyoko was
Ranma's 'normal' friend with whom he could compare his distinctly
abnormal life. She started out being an idol signer that Ranma had
known when he was a little and then met again after his surgery.
Her stuttering was a remnant of that. She was supposed to be able
to sing just fine, but have trouble speaking. Then she turned into
a transfer student to Furinkan High. Then, as more and more of the
story started locking into place, she became one of Makuna's
patients, and therefore a lesbian... and eventually Nabiki's
lover.
I cut an entire chapter about Soap because I lost interest in her.
It was replaced with the chapter about Ranma and Kasumi going to
church. For those of you paying attention, that chapter is my one
and only self-insertion... No, not the perverted priest. The goofy
guy at the end who talks to Ranma while sweeping the walk.
Yoiko, on the other hand, grew entirely out of a need for a punch
line to the 'His sense of direction is out in the waiting room'
joke Tofuu tells when Ryouga's in the hospital. She grew a little
out of that and once I gave her a poor memory for names, she
became a running gag... one I couldn't resist revisiting in the
last chapter.
I didn't do any more with any of these characters... or even Akane
for that matter... because this is a story about RANMA! --hence
the title. It's about the way he interacts with all the other
characters and not about the way they interact with him. But I
digress...
------------------------------
Omake 4
------------------------------
A petite girl stepped up in front of the audience. She had
long, light-colored hair with two pink streaks. She was also
standing next to an impossibly huge pig done up in ceremonial
Sumo-garb.
"Hello," she announced. "My name is Akari Unryuu. On
behalf of the minor characters of Ranma 1/2, I would like to
register a complaint against Jones-san for not including more of
us in 'newRanma'. It's completely unfair that he included new,
original characters in the story while ignoring the rest of us."
"Akari-san," a beautiful ninja said from the front row of
the audience called out. "I'm not sure we should be complaining
about this. It's not really that big a deal, after all."
"Who are you to talk, Konatsu? He made you the star of the
'Nerima Boys Club'! The last time I got time in one of his
stories, I got turned into the Ravener Queen. That's not what I
call quality screen time."
Hiroshi, Daisuke, Yuka, and Sayuri all shrugged. They were
just happy that all four of them had survived newRanma.
------------------------------
So what's next?
Well, I've got a few things planned, all or none of which may come
to fruition in time. There's the last chapter of 'Ranma's
Apartment' to consider, in which Soun has a heart attack and Ranma
is reunited with the rest of the Nerima crew. There's also a non-
Ranma 'Pink Lemonade' story I want to write about Nokoru and Suoh
from CLAMP. Just imagine all the lemony potential in that one!
Speaking of lemony potential, I've been experimenting with a plot
for a PWP (oxymoron, I know) Sailor Moon lemon tentatively
entitled 'Sailor Domination'. I'll let your imaginations fill in
the rest of that one...
The big project in my future is the planned rewrite of The Clan.
We'll just have to see how it goes.
------------------------------
Omake 5
------------------------------
After some hot, wet yuri nookie behind Furinkan High,
Ranma and Akane returned to the Tendou Dojo, only to find that all
of the girls, Ukyou, Kodachi, Shampoo, Nabiki, Taiyoko, Hinako,
Azusa, Mio, Futaba, Misaki, Tsunami, Pixy Misa, Excel, Makoto
Kino, Minako Aino, Victoria Cellas, Keyne Aqua, Ifurita, B-ko,
Lime, Cherry, Bloodberry, Nuku Nuku, and Belldandy, were waiting
there for them.
"Ranma," Soun demanded. "You must make up your mind. Which
girl will you marry? Remember, if you choose right, you inherit
the dojo."
"Choose me, Ranma!" All the girls shouted.
"I choose..." Ranma ripped off her Chinese clothes to
reveal that she was wearing a complete latex body suit underneath.
"ALL OF THEM!!!"
She pulled out a super-soaker filled with 'Spring of
drowned Sex Slave' water and began hosing the assembled throng
down.
"Oh, Ranma-sama!" all the girls cried. "Make us yours!"
"Gladly, my sweets," Ranma replied as they all began to
strip out of their clothes or costumes and started to make out in
one huge lesbian orgy scene.
"And now that we're naked," Akane suggested as she was
being licked, fondled, rubbed, and sucked, "let's give all our
panties to--"
*BOOT*
Jones punted the shriveled pervert away from his computer
and examined the damage to the end of newRanma. He sighed and
began to delete lines of text as rapidly as he could.
"I knew there was a reason I didn't write Happosai into
the story," the author said sadly. "Man, he left panties
everywhere. Ewww... some of these are still sticky..."
------------------------------
Thank you all for reading. Please send e-mail... or fanart *hint*
*hint* if you like my story.
Until next time....
C. (I finished newRanma? What an amazing thing...)
Addendum:
Like I said earlier, when I posted this to the FFML, I started a
minor flame war about C&C and the proper way to ask for and reply
to it. Those who emailed me fell into one of two camps.
The first kind of response I received was along the lines of: "You
go! I'm sorry you won't take plot direction any more, but I
understand. If that's what you have to do to get your stories out
the door, then so be it."
The second was more like: "How rude could you be? Why should I
spend time C&C'ing your story if you're going to ignore me? It's
insensitive of you to even ask for C&C if you're going to discard
it. You're just a jerk who wants gratification from people reading
his stories."
Needless to say, I think I hurt some feelings. I received a lot of
angry mail from other authors I really like and respected, so let
me clarify the things I said above.
No, I am not uninterested in C&C. This, the final version of
newRanma, benefited greatly from C&C I received in the form of
continuity checking, proofing, cultural details, and other kinds
of C&C.
By that same token, however, I feel like many of my readers who
offer C&C feel insulted or hurt if I don't make the changes they
recommend.
In the case of newRanma, I had many people write me and suggest
that I change the story so that events could happen a certain way,
or tell me that I was not writing in an entertaining or believable
direction. If I were to make these changes, I feel like the story
would no longer have been what I wanted it to be, so I didn't use
those suggestions.
You should never feel hurt or insulted because I didn't use a
piece of C&C or even because I didn't reply to your comment. I
read everything that comes to me, and even if it doesn't help me,
it still makes me think more sharply about my story... which
ultimately makes it a better story.
That said, I'm never going to please everyone. I'm not going to
try, because that's an impossible task.
Thanks to everyone who sent in C&C for newRanma, wether I used it
or not!
Again... C.