Miki Psuedo Route [Updated 6/21/13]

[SuperfluousU]

Thanks for all, the input so far.

Forgot to mention this before, feel free to PM me the grammatical and spelling errors. With only one proofreader at the moment, it's easy for them to slip through. Also, if you'd be interested in proofreading, you could let me know through PM as well.

[BlackWaltzTheThird]

Hmm. Well, I guess Miki's right. Shizune pretty clearly wants the D. But, being a Miki Route, that's not where this is headed. I was a little surprised that Hisao knew Miki's name, and very surprised that he knew Rika's. He (obviously) never met the latter, and the former only by virtue of being in the same class. In fact, he is only shown talking to her in Hanako's route. If you do indeed decide to do some flashbacks, I trust those discrepancies will be addressed. Though, a little snippet of a line alluding to previous encounters would be nice.

Miki's characterisation was pretty standard. Knockabout, prone to punches/insults of affection, new to Yamaku... though her usage of the word, "disingenuous", left me questioning whether she'd suddenly been replaced with someone else. I like the way she became slightly flustered when alluding to track shed shenanigans, and moreso when said shenenigans were occuring. Speaking of which, it's quite surprising that someone would sneak in there while there were people at the track. There was no one in there when Hisao and Miki arrived, so they would have known the chance of interruption was high.

Also, regarding Hisao and Shizune's notepad conversation, I will say that I object to the formatting. There has to be a better way of communicating the same idea without using colour-coded text and triple-equals line breaks. Perhaps italics, or parentheses, would be better. I will make it a point to say not to colour code your text. It's cheating, much like writing the name of the speaker before each line, as if this was a script. Give enough indication as to who is speaking in the prose and by how they speak, and trust your readers to do the rest.

That's all for now. I'm interested in seeing how this continues. I'd very much like to see the curse lifted. Good luck.

[Mirage_GSM]

Ah yes, the track shed...
I was a bit surprised that in your story it seems to be in full view of people at the track. I imagined it being a bit away or maybe behind the bleachers.
I don't object to Miki blushing, though. We don't have much official characterization of her, so you're free to develop the character in the direction you want. Her interaction with Kenji was a good start already and making her a bit shy about stuff like what's happening in the shed is also an interesting idea.

[SuperfluousU]

Hmm. Well, I guess Miki's right. Shizune pretty clearly wants the D. But, being a Miki Route, that's not where this is headed.

Too true, that was thrown in just to give Miki something to tease Hisao about.

I was a little surprised that Hisao knew Miki's name, and very surprised that he knew Rika's. He (obviously) never met the latter, and the former only by virtue of being in the same class. In fact, he is only shown talking to her in Hanako's route. If you do indeed decide to do some flashbacks, I trust those discrepancies will be addressed. Though, a little snippet of a line alluding to previous encounters would be nice.

Maybe I should use the unconscious opportunity to do a "flashback episode" and address some things.

Miki's characterisation was pretty standard. Knockabout, prone to punches/insults of affection, new to Yamaku... though her usage of the word, "disingenuous", left me questioning whether she'd suddenly been replaced with someone else.

This is going to be covered later on, so no worries there.

Speaking of which, it's quite surprising that someone would sneak in there while there were people at the track. There was no one in there when Hisao and Miki arrived, so they would have known the chance of interruption was high.

Well, if you use Emi's route as a reference, they only went in there once, and that was for shenanigans. So it's not too odd to assume that they wouldn't be uninterrupted. Also, that's what the whistle is kind of for, the old sock on the dorm room door, routine.

Ah yes, the track shed...
I was a bit surprised that in your story it seems to be in full view of people at the track. I imagined it being a bit away or maybe behind the bleachers.

Full view, yes, but not close. Maybe I'll draw a map to give a better idea. Could come in handy later on as well. Also, I don't think people would have a hard time sneaking in there with people at the track, especially at night. Using my high school as a reference, the track and field would be lit up like daylight, but go 10 feet outside of the track, and it was dark as hell. I figure when Hisao is looking around from the bleachers, he's more referencing that it's over that way, not that he can clearly see it at the moment.

Also, regarding Hisao and Shizune's notepad conversation, I will say that I object to the formatting. There has to be a better way of communicating the same idea without using colour-coded text and triple-equals line breaks. Perhaps italics, or parentheses, would be better. I will make it a point to say not to colour code your text. It's cheating, much like writing the name of the speaker before each line, as if this was a script. Give enough indication as to who is speaking in the prose and by how they speak, and trust your readers to do the rest.

Yeah, that was totally cheating. I tried several different styles offline, and it just never really clicked. My wife, the aforementioned sole proofreader, knew what I meant, but thought it would help to separate them more distinctly.

[Kantaan]

Figured I'd finally make an account and stop lurking to post something. Been hoping someone would take another shot at this. Hope you manage to break the curse !

[Draganada]

I only wish thee good luck. Fight hard and prevail!

[Guestimate]

You know what's worse than people posting only a picture instead of writing a post themselves?
People quoting that picture^^°

Heh, we'll, I wanted to show my support, but didn't really have much else to say. I'll try and keep such things to a minimum.

[SemisoftCheese]

I had my doubts about another Miki route, but it seems like you're doing just swelly. It's not my favorite Meadows-flavoured Miki, but I'm willing to wait (cough cough cough).

Very nice work so far.

[Sperance]

This is looking pretty interesting I'm going to keep an eye ont his

[YourFavAnon]

I had my doubts about another Miki route, but it seems like you're doing just swelly. It's not my favorite Meadows-flavoured Miki, but I'm willing to wait (cough cough cough).

Very nice work so far.

Do yourself a favor: don't talk about Meadow's Miki route in this thread for another different approach.. This is literally the reason that Garver quit writing his a while back.

[DaGarver]

I had my doubts about another Miki route, but it seems like you're doing just swelly. It's not my favorite Meadows-flavoured Miki, but I'm willing to wait (cough cough cough).

Let the guy have his time in the sun. It's bad enough living in another writer's shadow just because you came along afterward, trust me.

As for the route itself, this is a good start. My main suggestion is that it feels a bit too much like script format in some places. I would work on making the prose more abundant/descriptive. People don't just talk; they do things while they talk: body language, hand gestures, even tone of voice can all be tools at conveying meaning.

Also, general advice: PLAN. This is a big project, don't jump into it headfirst without a lot of outlining. Know where you are going, what sequence of events need to happen to get you to where you want to go, and document EVERYTHING. I would also recommend finding yourself a good proofreader or two if you don't have one already, they are an absolute godsend on large projects like this. You have something good here, so don't let it waste away.

[Machoman]

Subbed

[xero]

I really hope you break the curse. Miki routes are my favorite out of everyone yet no can complete one. You're doing pretty good now so I'm really hopeful on this one.

[MegaMoto]

I've never seen a Miki fanfic get completed I hope this works out !

[SuperfluousU]

Well I was hoping to do this next part in one large chunk, but it's turning out a whole lot larger than I had thought, so I'll be splitting it up into 2 posts, possibly 3 if it keeps building the way it is. This is a prologue to Act 2, building a bit of history on what was glossed over in the first post. So yes, this is a flashback episode. Enjoy!