[Haruhi][Spoilers] The Insight of Haruhi Suzumiya

[sarsaparilla]

They're actually opposed to the extra space -- won't allow more than one newline between lines of text (or characters).  I'm not sure why they strip out what they do -- URLs I can understand, as that prevents spammers, but what's wrong with a line of dashes or stars?  Are they afraid people are going to post ASCII art, or something?

So far the most inconspicuous thing that I have found is a single, centered sdot as its own paragraph.

I should probably standardize my formatting as the number of fics is still small, and try to find some automated thing for switching between formats. At the point it's a mess and I'm doing the format conversion manually (using the search/replace function of the text editor) which is slow and prone to errors.

I have a lot of pull with the administrators of the site (Hi, Drac, Rez, Hal!), so it's not too much trouble to ask to get a free account set up for you as well

I'm humbled by the offer, but I don't want to cause extra trouble for others, and there really isn't enough material for setting up a separate site with what I have right now. Maybe after a while, with possibly this fic done and especially if I can talk myself into drawing that Ranma doujin which would indeed require some kind of a site. So, thanks, I will give it a serious consideration and come back to the issue at some later point.

[Brian]

Well, it may seem like trouble, but to us it's practically trivial, in all honesty. >_>;

A standardized formatting process is a good idea (I've lost probably more time than I've spent writing trying to update formats as my style etc. have evolved over the years).  But, I understand it can also seem to be a somewhat daunting undertaking.  My last remark on that, then, will be that it's substantially easier to figure out what you might want to do with your site (and formatting style!) before you have a lot of content, as I myself learned the hard way. >_<

[Arakawa]

My knowledge may be out of date (haven't done any ff.net updates for a while), but didn't ff.net allow the addition of horizontal lines using the internal editor? As far as I remember it requires you to use their editor to manually replace your separators with their special magic horizontal lines, but it's at least unlikely to be stripped out by their filters. (If they were to censor a feature of their own editor, that would completely defy all logic and reason.)

Maybe my knowledge is out of date.

[Brian]

You can use that tool or the tag <hr>, which makes the same line.

[Arakawa]

(Ah, I failed to notice that sars says she already uses <hr>.)

Okay, shaking e-hands with Brian and, feeling somewhat relieved, moving on to the important stuff, namely C&C for sarsaparilla. I've only got a small bit to add to what people have noted, and in any case you're probably drowning in all the commentary -- a good sign that everyone is engaged by your opening, in my opinion.

sometimes pressing a certain topic for two or three days in a row and then forgetting the whole thing for several days, so that I already started to suspect that she had lost all interest in the project until she picked up the books again.

Okay, so based on your clarification I can conclude that this needs to be revised in the other direction to make the meaning clear. 'The whole thing' seems to map to 'a certain topic' as opposed to Haruhi's tutoring project. Maybe (very tentatively) "sometimes pressing a certain topic for two or three days in a row, then suddenly forgetting the whole project for several days, so that I already started to suspect that she had lost all interest {in the undertaking / in my studies / nothing here} until she picked up the books again."

beyond the abilities of most students, myself including.

Given the amount of C&C above, someone should've already pointed out that this should be "myself included".

it would probably be something that she would do without even noticing it. It would be all in a day's work for her, considering all the other things that she had created inadvertently,

Hmm... repeated 'it'. First I'd say "noticing it" should be just "noticing".

or the literature club editorial column that according to Asahina-san contained the founding principles of time traveling technology.

"the literature club editorial column that, according to Asahina-san, contained the founding principles..." -- I'd probably offset the clause by commas.

she did on her own volition,

I'm more commonly used to seeing "of her own volition".

Not going to touch the Tsuruya-san dialogue, at this point proper Tsuruya lisp placement is incomprehensible to me on the level of quantum mechanics :-D ... EDIT: or should I say :-Đ

Those concepts only tried to artificially constrain her by hiding the issue inside an arbitrary box with a convenient label on it, while missing the most crucial aspects.

This remark by Kyon merits some thunderous applause, in my opinion.

Ooh... below I start to run out of steam in terms of suggesting obvious revisions as well. The issue is that the connector and comma placement style seems to me non-standard, but the deviations actually work to keep it extremely readable. Blindly correcting it to a more standard style would cause it to become far more stilted than it actually is, so my instinct is not to touch anything:

Haruhi stared me with the unflinching focus of a martial artist who had just issued a formal challenge to an opponent of questionable prowess. So, humankind as a whole was still falling short of Haruhi's extremely rigorous standards, but there wasn't much I could do about it. On the other hand, Haruhi certainly could but she hadn't tried anything as drastic as completely rewriting the world after that one fateful night, the details of which I couldn't possibly think about too closely in the current situation. Since then a bit over a year had already passed, and while there had been several unpleasant and some truly dangerous incidents along the way, it was my steadfast opinion that on the average the change was for the better. In the end I made only one statement that was undeniably true.

If a paragraph like that cropped up in one of my own drafts, I'd be faced with the dilemma of keeping it as-is, or tearing it apart on a molecular level to fit my own conceptions of what a tightly written paragraph looks like.

I'm also not sure how recently you put up that claim on your ff.net profile that it generally takes you a while to put together a well-crafted sentence.

So, um, let's go through things this way. There's nothing wrong with the style you're using (apart from the stuff that previous C&Cers have caught), but if you feel the need to change some things...

So, humankind as a whole was still falling short of Haruhi's extremely rigorous standards, but there wasn't much I could do about it. Haruhi, on the other hand, certainly could; but ever since her attempt to rewrite the world that one fateful night, the details of which I couldn't possibly think about too closely in the current situation, a year had passed without any {???further attempts in that particular direction??? -- or something like that}. In spite of a series of unpleasant and truly dangerous incidents along the way, it was my steadfast opinion that, all in all, things had been changing for the better.

{paragraph break sets up return from reverie}

In the end, I settled for {one statement / the one statement -- not sure which nuance you want - the latter implies Kyon thinks the situation is a bit complicated but at least there's one thing about it which is obvious} that was undeniably true.

Actually, now that I've attempted to revise this paragraph, a definite question is raised about what you mean by "couldn't possibly think about too closely". No matter how much I try, I just can't figure out if it means that Kyon doesn't want to remember the details of that *ahem* embarrassingly personal incident, or if it means that he would have done well to pay attention to it given what is about to happen.

And only now (having used a semicolon in the above paragraph) do I notice that there actually isn't a single semicolon anywhere in your prologue. Nor anywhere in the first 7 chapters of Shadow (I didn't bother looking further) which suggests that you may not be aware of its uses. (Or, I don't know, you may be aware of it but have some aversion to using it yourself?)

Given that your style tends towards long sentences, learning to employ this under-appreciated item of punctuation might eventually simplify your life a great deal. Used properly, it can essentially add a new intermediate level of hierarchy and organization to a long sentence.

I'm not confident enough to give an entire lecture about the semicolon like Brian does with the ellipsis; however, you can probably find an article detailing the basic uses. The list of thing you can do with definitely do with it starts with using it as a 'milder' version of the period; this is useful if you want to tie two sentences a little closer together without using 'and'. It's also used in conjunction with a number of conjunctions such as 'however', 'thus', and similar; however, to get a detailed description you'll have to Google some grammar guide which is more authoritative than I am.

If you wish to go completely overboard, the semicolon can be abused in truly ridiculous ways, such as replacing the comma to produce a list of clauses which in turn contain lists of A, B, and C which does D; lists of letters starting at Q, or R, or even S; or perhaps, rather than a list, some other construction requiring a comma.

I have no opinion on how your specific writing style might change with the addition of semicolons, and I'm not going to develop one since it's obviously not my decision :-]

Okay, that's about all I feel ready to handle for this chapter. Realizing that the reason I find your style hard to revise is because it lacks a tool that's used by me all the time has given me something to digest.

You can of course feel free to ignore all of the above and consider me to be a patronizing twat or something. (English isn't even my first language, either!) In the meantime I will not hesitate to analyze your writing style, there's definitely things I could learn from it on my part...

As for novels 9-11:

I was rather disappointed as well. My theory is that the author published book 9 without thinking the plot all the way through, and essentially wrote himself into a corner, which then translated into the long hiatus and essentially a rather weak conclusion.

I don't know about that, but I did find the whole

Spoiler: ShowHide

Kuyou is able to remotely incapacitate and kidnap Haruhi, then crucify her on a heavy-handed symbolism courtesy of Fujiwara

thing to be kind of... squicky, I have to admit. I probably haven't seen enough Evangelion to be sufficiently desensitized to the sudden use of cross imagery?

Anyhow, good luck with the remainder of the prologue!

[Brian]

And only now (having used a semicolon in the above paragraph) do I notice that there actually isn't a single semicolon anywhere in your prologue. Nor anywhere in the first 7 chapters of Shadow (I didn't bother looking further) which suggests that you may not be aware of its uses. (Or, I don't know, you may be aware of it but have some aversion to using it yourself?)

To be honest, I find that most people who know English natively aren't really clear on how to handle a semi-colon correctly.  I've only started using them properly in the last 5 years, and most of the recent improvement in my use of them is thanks to Halbarad.

I'm not confident enough to give an entire lecture about the semicolon like Brian does with the ellipsis; however, you can probably find an article detailing the basic uses. The list of thing you can do with definitely do with it starts with using it as a 'milder' version of the period; this is useful if you want to tie two sentences a little closer together without using 'and'. It's also used in conjunction with a number of conjunctions such as 'however', 'thus', and similar; however, to get a detailed description you'll have to Google some grammar guide which is more authoritative than I am.

Heh; my confidence isn't in my words, but in repeating someone else's; for the proper use of ellipses, I consult the Chicago Manual of Style.  From what I recall of semi-colon use, you're spot-on here, so I can't imagine why you wouldn't be more confident about them.  Having nothing to add, I just want to remark that as far as I know this is accurate; (and a useful list of the more common correct usages above, and some of the less common correct usages below -- so:) well done!

If you wish to go completely overboard, the semicolon can be abused in truly ridiculous ways, such as replacing the comma to produce a list of clauses which in turn contain lists of A, B, and C which does D; lists of letters starting at Q, or R, or even S; or perhaps, rather than a list, some other construction requiring a comma.

[...]

I probably haven't seen enough Evangelion to be sufficiently desensitized to the sudden use of cross imagery?

...I feel incredibly jaded now, that I found the symbolism annoyingly over-the-top -- I actually broke from reading to roll my eyes at it. >_>;

[sarsaparilla]

what you mean by "couldn't possibly think about too closely". No matter how much I try, I just can't figure out if it means that Kyon doesn't want to remember the details of that *ahem* embarrassingly personal incident, or if it means that he would have done well to pay attention to it given what is about to happen.

The latest novels make it quite clear that Kyon has been having what he himself calls 'dangerous' thoughts, and thinking about a particular, intimate detail of the almost-end-of-the-world incident while sitting face-to-face with the person in question certainly qualifies (there's a rather similar short scene in book 11, I think). He's too reluctant to even think about the possible consequences of entertaining such thoughts in Haruhi's presence, so he just blocks them. I suspect that even more than being afraid of Haruhi's reaction should she notice something, Kyon is wary of what he himself might do in the situation.

And only now (having used a semicolon in the above paragraph) do I notice that there actually isn't a single semicolon anywhere in your prologue. Nor anywhere in the first 7 chapters of Shadow (I didn't bother looking further) which suggests that you may not be aware of its uses. (Or, I don't know, you may be aware of it but have some aversion to using it yourself?)

You won't find any semicolons in my fics because I've been consciously avoiding them. Semicolon and the Finnish language don't mix, so students are taught to avoid it completely. About the only place where it might be found is some translated technical document.

...which means that I must learn something new and unfamiliar. After some reading I think that I've grasped the basic idea; proper application might be harder. But yes, I can see how it could help in cases where it's not possible to express a single, integral idea in just one sentence. Thanks for drawing my attention to this!

English isn't even my first language, either!

If it's not too impolite to ask, would it be French, then? I must say that compared to us Finns you've got the better deal when it comes to languages. Every Finn must learn Finnish and Swedish, two languages that are utterly useless outside the Nordic countries, and then the actually useful languages on top of that. French is my fifth language and I'm just not tenacious enough to raise my skill in it to the same level with the rest of them. C'est dommage. -_-

And, thanks again for the feedback. It looks like I've got the next couple of evenings booked up with getting everything processed!

[sarsaparilla]

The first half-chapter has been revised, attachment updated, and the issues that I had with it addressed to the extent that I pushed it to FFN in its current form. If any glaring mistakes remain, I'll update accordingly.

Beyond fixing stuff that was broken, I added one completely new scene after the last class which accomplishes several things. It postpones Kyon's arrival to the club room as needed, allows Haruhi to make a more positive contribution in this first half (combined with some adjustment to her lines elsewhere her attitude feels much better now), shows that Haruhi's unorthodox tutoring method is not just an informed ability, and provides a somewhat interesting window into her way of thinking. Oh, and in my humble opinion it contains some of the funniest lines in the half-chapter as well. ^_^

In retrospect, the worst problem with the split first half was that Haruhi was completely passive. This was supposed to be compensated by her actions during the second half, but now that the revised version has the additional scene, the remaining problems look minor in comparison.

[Arakawa]

The new disclaimer is interesting and touches on a number of issues with the broader Haruhi fanfic community I've heard complaints about here and elsewhere (namely, basing things solely on the anime continuity which has barely any character development compared to the novels).

Sorry about the HTML tags in the quotes below, I diff'ed the two versions and C&Ced through the stuff that'd changed.

<p><i>Shousho</i> &mdash; the official start of the hot season according to the solar calendar &mdash; was still ahead,

To avoid having Kyon sound like a dictionary, I'd say something like "Shousho -- the official start of the hot season, if you go by the solar calendar -- was still ahead,". Which is still a bit dry... I'm trying to rack my brains to figure out how this can be made even more casual.

Sometimes she would press a certain topic for two or three days in a row and then forget the whole thing for just as long;

Thumbs up; in context, that makes the answer to my question about that paragraph extremely clear.

last class of the day that happened to be physics.

Maybe ", which happened to be physics."? There's something to be said for revising other parts of the sentence to work well with "that", but I don't think there's any need to go through contortions.

"Kyon? The next exam will have a problem or two from these last two pages, so make sure that you've got them covered."

Seems a bit too calm and bureaucratic for Haruhi... well, actually no. If they've been doing this for a while, she might not feel the need to end every order she gives with an exclamation mark.

This might also be part of her overall mood, that she's giving this line thoughtfully (with a tone as though she was reminding herself of something) rather than being brash and assertive as per usual. Indicating something like that might enhance the flow of things -- there's a lot of ways to deliver the line to explain why it isn't the standard "order + ! + optional threat of penalty" you'd generally expect from Haruhi.

Haruhi stared me as if I had just expressed a desire to join an underwater trombone band.

Doctor!Haruhi: "How would that even work... wait, but if you made appropriate adjustments to the instruments... well, and the players... OH. MY. GOD. BEST IDEA EVER. We have to go try this right now!!"

Here, let me show.

Should be "let me show you".

See, all these question are the same.

question -> questions, of course.

&hellip;and we get two legs and one arm from acceleration, you only have to add the height and mass to complete it. There's your formula."

Yep, definitely goes a long way towards explaining how Haruhi could derive basic time plane theory without even noticing :-D

but if you have something in your mind then spit it out.

Standard expression is "something on your mind", but... enhh... it's about 50-50 whether you need to fix it. If I'd seen this exact sentence in a Tanigawa novel, I'd take it in stride and suspect it was just some weird Japanese-ism on the part of Kyon.

Koizumi walked through the door and picked up a pack of cards.

Wait, I thought Koizumi was... oh (looks at full version - it's just as weird there), I get it, he was just standing in the doorway before, then he's finally walking into the room. That suggests that you should still take a crack at revising this.

*tries and fails to picture Koizumi standing in a doorway for an extended period of time - would he just stand there or lean against the doorframe, and how??... visual imagination is evidently still frotzed out from attempting to imagine live-action versions of Mikuru belonging to various ethnicities*

told that I shouldn't do anything.

Seems to have slipped through the C&Cers' nets before, either "told me not to do anything" or "told me that I shouldn't do anything"...

Maybe I should have chosen the <i>hanafuda</i> card set instead?

Again, might need to be re-edited. "Perhaps I should have gone with the hanafuda cards instead?" / "Perhaps I should have gone with the hanafuda deck instead?" / "Maybe I should have chosen the hanafuda cards instead?"/ variations thereon seem to me less stilted.

drinking tea after the school hours.

Hmm... "after school hours", or even just "after school" is more customary.

too late to back off now as I was here already, wasn't it?

On second reading I sort of tripped over this part. I was sort of expecting "as I was here already, wasn't I?"

Alternately "too late to back off now, wasn't it, seeing as I was here already?"

Oh boy, I didn't need Haruhi to task me with pointless errands any more because after a full year of training I managed do it all by myself!

Should be "to do it all by myself", and, additionally...

Hmm... trying to be certain of your intent here... is what you were trying to get "because, after a full year of training, I managed to do it (invent pointless errands) all by myself!".

Whatever revision might be made here is only 66% necessary, so you can ignore the fact that I had an issue with this. It strikes me as a neat bit of potential humour, if it could be clarified: Haruhi has trained Kyon well enough to do pointless errands that he now does them (humour in the fact that the adjective pointless unintentionally carries forward to 'them') all on his own initiative.

It sort of echoes the bit in the recent novels where Haruhi and Kyon simultaneously come up with the same stupid idea of catching 101 hamsters - Kyon sarcastically and Haruhi in all seriousness. Then Kyon has a moment where he thinks "oh god, Haruhi has successfully brainwashed me into following her thought processes".

Sorry if getting an entire new round of possible revisions for your already-revised chapter frustrates you. Some of this is stuff I missed, some of this is the fact that a couple of your revisions had a somewhat patched, awkward quality. None of it is particularly damaging to an overall impression of the story -- that it's very detailed, and going interesting places.

Oh, and in answer to your question, my first language is Russian, though I don't identify very well with the modern incarnation of that culture. (It explains, for instance, how I get to know so many intolerant people, making me *head against wall* somewhat tone-deaf to the more nuanced Western approach to such things.)

(EDITED FOR CLARITY) As for my French, it is barely adequate for me to walk into a restaurant in Montreal and make an order, without the waiter switching to English on me. This is in fact slightly more challenging than walking into a restaurant in, say, Paris, because from my experience Parisians prefer to struggle to communicate with you in French, over struggling to communicate in English, whereas people in Montreal all know English anyways, and prefer to just do whatever it takes not to waste their time with you. Whereas if you force Parisians into speaking English, they more often than not go into full-on Tourist Hate Mode. Particularly if you're there in tourist season.

[sarsaparilla]

Seems a bit too calm and bureaucratic for Haruhi... well, actually no. If they've been doing this for a while, she might not feel the need to end every order she gives with an exclamation mark.

This might also be part of her overall mood, that she's giving this line thoughtfully (with a tone as though she was reminding herself of something) rather than being brash and assertive as per usual.

This is the intended interpretation. I think that it was Brian who pointed it out during the initial round of discussing the summary, that Haruhi's tutoring is something that just works. I agreed, and decided to make it the kind of interaction that both of them actually, if not overtly, enjoy without feeling an urge to turn it into an arm wrestling match, and that then leads to other things.

Yep, definitely goes a long way towards explaining how Haruhi could derive basic time plane theory without even noticing :-D

There isn't any support for it in the canon, but whenever I try to map Haruhi's thought patterns I imagine that she has some form of abstract - visual synesthesia, which would certainly manifest itself in rather peculiar ways.

In fact, Haruhi's explanation of the potential energy formula actually makes sense, at least for a very particular definition of the word 'sense'. ^_^

Hmm... trying to be certain of your intent here... is what you were trying to get "because, after a full year of training, I managed to do it (invent pointless errands) all by myself!".

Yes, that is the intended message, and I adjusted the sentence to make it more clear.

Of course, Kyon is just being tsundere with this plan of his :p

Sorry if getting an entire new round of possible revisions for your already-revised chapter frustrates you.

Absolutely not. As I have mentioned elsewhere, writing in English feels like drawing while blindfolded to me. I can believe that I'm doing fine but I'm not able to verify it myself, so I'm infinitely grateful for all feedback, and hopefully also learning, bit by bit.

Oh, and in answer to your question, my first language is Russian, though I don't identify very well with the modern incarnation of that culture.

I like the soft and flowing quality of spoken Russian but I can't speak it myself beyond a couple of everyday phrases.

[Muphrid]

Not sure how I missed this one:

"Don't tell me that you are again planning to sign us up as a team for the tournament?"

This reads a bit strange.  It kind of all runs together.  Maybe a dash or a colon after "me" and something like

"Don't tell me--you're planning to sign us up for the baseball tournament again?"

The big thing to me is the placement of "again"; it's not wrong where it is, but it reads better (to me) at the end of the sentence.


Otherwise, I thought Haruhi's unique perspective on physics was very clever.  I can't make heads or tails of how she puts things together, but that's probably best, as Kyon clearly has no idea either, so we can share in his bewilderment.

[Brian]

<p><i>Shousho</i> &mdash; the official start of the hot season according to the solar calendar &mdash; was still ahead,

To avoid having Kyon sound like a dictionary, I'd say something like "Shousho -- the official start of the hot season, if you go by the solar calendar -- was still ahead,". Which is still a bit dry... I'm trying to rack my brains to figure out how this can be made even more casual.

Actually, these are always tricky to do well.  I think it's pretty good as it is, and your suggestion (Arakawa) is a bit smoother.  At the same time, sometimes Kyon is pretty dry in tone (which allows him to snark better; that goes hand-in-hand with his deadpan).

Oh, and in answer to your question, my first language is Russian, though I don't identify very well with the modern incarnation of that culture. (It explains, for instance, how I get to know so many intolerant people, making me *head against wall* somewhat tone-deaf to the more nuanced Western approach to such things.)

(EDITED FOR CLARITY) As for my French, it is barely adequate for me to walk into a restaurant in Montreal and make an order, without the waiter switching to English on me. This is in fact slightly more challenging than walking into a restaurant in, say, Paris, because from my experience Parisians prefer to struggle to communicate with you in French, over struggling to communicate in English, whereas people in Montreal all know English anyways, and prefer to just do whatever it takes not to waste their time with you. Whereas if you force Parisians into speaking English, they more often than not go into full-on Tourist Hate Mode. Particularly if you're there in tourist season.

I only know one human language with any degree of competence, so that's pretty impressive to me.

Beyond fixing stuff that was broken, I added one completely new scene after the last class which accomplishes several things. It postpones Kyon's arrival to the club room as needed, allows Haruhi to make a more positive contribution in this first half (combined with some adjustment to her lines elsewhere her attitude feels much better now), shows that Haruhi's unorthodox tutoring method is not just an informed ability, and provides a somewhat interesting window into her way of thinking. Oh, and in my humble opinion it contains some of the funniest lines in the half-chapter as well. ^_^

In retrospect, the worst problem with the split first half was that Haruhi was completely passive. This was supposed to be compensated by her actions during the second half, but now that the revised version has the additional scene, the remaining problems look minor in comparison.

Hm.  I didn't get a sense of passiveness as much as pensiveness.  She was restrained, but showed effort in keeping herself there.  Well, I interpet things very differently from most, so don't put too much weight into my perspective. >_>

Anyway, re-reading (and just going through it casually, instead of trying to pick apart the small details.

Hum.  Strangely, the impression I get from that first bit about Haruhi and the opposition is:

Haruhi: "No one makes trouble in my stories but me!"
Yuki: "...."
Haruhi: "With some special exceptions."

Which is somewhat comical.  Heh.  My mind goes strange places, sometimes.

Koizumi stopped talking, and I watched other students around the perimeter of the field for a while before concentrating on the game again. It looked like the match was wrapping up, and unless the visiting team could make an unexpected comeback, the home team would take an easy win after the next half-inning. I wasn't particularly interested in a game with an obvious outcome, so I stood up and headed back to the main building. Koizumi was in no hurry and decided to stay through the end of the match, so as I walked away he just reminded that we'd be seeing each other after school hours again.

Last sentence appears to be missing a 'me': 'he just reminded me that we'd...'

Alternately, reminded can be replaced with 'remarked', and the sentence is fine.

Haruhi, on the other hand, certainly could; but she hadn't attempted anything as drastic as completely rewriting the world after that one fateful night, the details of which I couldn't possibly think about too closely in this situation without risking a radical change in the overall atmosphere.

That semi-colon is immediately trailed by an interjection.  (I do this frequently when I write -- it's grammatically incorrect, so I do it stylistically; one of the benefits of understanding the rules is knowing when you can break them >_>;;.)  I don't think it works exceptionally well in this instance, however.  In fact, those two sentences have opposing themes, so I don't think they should be connected; semi-colons attach phrases and sentences that are similar, or basicaly restate and clarify the same or similar points; while I could see how this might be applicable here, it would probably work better with a third (somewhat more neutral) sentence in the same theme to connect them.

My suggestion would be to drop the 'but', though then it feels a little stilted.

Alternately, in this case, you could turn that semi-colon into a full-stop, which would also work.  It's two separate sentences, one noting that Haruhi is capable of a thing, and the next immediately countering that she hasn't shown any sign of following through on that capability.  I think an em-dash instead of a semi-colon could work there, also.  Either attached to the ending of the first sentence: ("...certainly could--  But she hadn't...")  This suggests Kyon abruptly cutting that line of thought off and switching to counter his initial suggestion (which feels like what you were going for).  Or centered to suggest that the first thread is complete (even without end punctuation): ("...certainly could -- But she hadn't...")

Elsewise, em-dashes....  Erm.  I'm actually going to dig out the Chicago Manual of Style again and brush up on those -- I'll try to have a more concise explanation of their use, in keeping with my ellipses guide.  Maybe ignore this suggestion until I can give you something more solid on that. ^_^;;;

Eventually, the bell rang to announce the end of the last class of the day that happened to be physics.

There should be a pause before 'that' (or 'which', if you take that substitution).

"You're supposed to remember the principle, not the formulas. Here, let me show."

This should be show 'you', or 'demonstrate' instead of 'show'.

Um....  Haruhi's explanation of physics confused me.  Admittedly, I have no idea what those formulae are, so I have a hard time trying to figure out anything of what she's getting at; I just chucked that into my mental, "Haruhi does MAGIC without realizing it!" file.

I was probably just thinking about it too hard.

"Oh right, Kyon? I've got some errands to run so there won't be an official meeting today. Tell the others that they can leave whenever they want."

As an exclamation, 'Oh' should typically be trailed by a comma (unless it's part of a phrase, like 'Oh boy', or 'Oh my' (but even in those instances, the comma can be added; it's more of a preference issue)).  This may make a somewhat akward construction where you have a lot of commas, so....  "Oh, right, Kyon?" does work, but so does "Oh, right--  Kyon?" (though, this may be a stylistic option you don't care for; it's kind of iffy, I suppose).

I notice that the entire conversation in the club room has almost no speech indicators.  I ... think this is something I've bugged Muphrid about before (or possibly, actually, someone else on the FFML) -- it's a valid stylistic option; I'm just noting it.  There are a few places where the speaker must be infered through context because it is unclear otherwise, however.  One thing I really must suggest is not having the speaker's actions and dialog in separate paragraphs -- putting them together makes it much clearer who is speaking.  Also, if we're looking at the baka-tsukai translation specifically, it's probably important to note that their translation is servicable, but not the best example of proper English.  How much effort we want to spend on adhering to that style vs. the one in the official translations....

Anyway, as an example:

"Well ... I'm already preparing tea. Maybe we could stay at least until it's ready?"

That sounded like a good idea. It would be a real pity to let it go to waste, especially since it was made by Asahina-san.

Koizumi walked through the door and picked up a pack of cards.

"In that case, how about playing some quick game while we wait? As there are four of us here today, we could try bridge this time."

"Um ... what is that?"

Seeing Asahina-san's confused expression, Koizumi chuckled.

"I was just joking, please ignore me. I am afraid that it would take too long to go through the rules, anyway."

This is your original.  Generally, as a rule of thumb, you don't want to have thoughts/actions from multiple characters in a single paragraph, outside of action sequences (this is a subtle trick that alters the feel of the pacing -- putting multiple characters in a paragraph helps capture some of the frantic intensity of such scenes, I've found).  So, I would suggest revising it to something like this:

"Well ... I'm already preparing tea. Maybe we could stay at least until it's ready?"

That sounded like a good idea. It would be a real pity to let it go to waste, especially since it was made by Asahina-san.

Koizumi walked through the door and picked up a pack of cards.  "In that case, how about playing some quick game while we wait? As there are four of us here today, we could try bridge this time."

"Um ... what is that?"

Seeing Asahina-san's confused expression, Koizumi chuckled.  "I was just joking, please ignore me. I am afraid that it would take too long to go through the rules, anyway."

Kyon's narration and thoughts/implied dialog are one line.  Koizumi's action is tied to his dialog.  Mikuru's dialog is on its own, but she was the last genuine speaker, so it's clear enough through context.  The final line contains both Mikuru and Koizumi, but it feels like it's more Koizumi's sentence than Mikuru's, and he's the next speaker, so those also can be tied together -- it also helps clarify the original line.

I don't often use this technique, outside of my experimental stylistic stuff (Our Inevitable Fate is an example), but well handled, this is a very good tool. :)

After I had finished my tea I placed the cup back on the table, and when Asahina-san asked whether I wanted some more I declined.

I can't quite put my finger on why, but 'whether' scans awkwardly here; I'd replace it with 'if'.  I think it's because I expect 'whether' to be reflexively followed by an 'or not' at some point, which could just be me.

Tsuruya giggled on the other side of the line as I looked up at the small camera almost completely concealed in a recess above the gate. I could hear steps from the other side of the wall and a middle-aged female servant appeared on the other side of the gate. She opened the gate for me and led me through the front yard to the entrance hall where Tsuruya was waiting, still in her school uniform.

Repetition on 'gate'; I suggest 'entrance' as one possible alternative, though I imagine you could find others.

How does Kyon see her through the gate before it's opened?  (If I recall correctly from the anime, they're fairly imposing and not easy to see through.)  I think this may just be a word-ordering issue.

However, I still had to walk all the way back to North High carrying my new trophy, and although the load wasn't terribly heavy I was already tired and sweating profusely by the time I finally reached the club room and could put down the pot and its contents. Oh boy, I didn't need Haruhi to task me with pointless errands any more because after a full year of training I managed do it all by myself! I poured some water in the pot and left the club room the second and final time for the day.

Having completed the task that had unwittingly convinced myself to undertake, I went home for dinner. Nothing worth mentioning happened that evening, at least as far as I was aware of, and I went to bed in a cautiously optimistic mood. On the whole, it hadn't been too bad a day, and if there wasn't anything significantly worse looming in the horizon then this might turn out to be a perfectly fine summer after all. One can always hope, right?

I would end the first paragraph here after the exclamation point for impact, and break out the 'watering the plant' line into a separate paragraph or the begining of the next.  It makes a nice contrast, I think.

I think it felt pretty deliberate versus unwitting. >_>

One thing I realized that I don't get (the one thing I don't like about commenting for you is how often I must advertise that I'm not terribly bright >_<): What happened 'one year ago' that the flower compliments?  All I can think of is one year after Haruhi told Kyon about the baseball story he presents her with the flower, but I can only grope for that conclusion based on a PM you sent me; I'm just missing all of the clues in the story itself to try and puzzle that one out.  I'm also under the impression that the timing's off for that, so guess two is ... something to do with Tanabata, but the flower doesn't really seem to tie into that, either.

Oh, well. :)

Having had a chance to read it and not try to pick it over with a fine-tooth comb has given me a better impression of the story as a whole (I should have followed my earlier pass with a second one, but like they say, "Hindsight is 50/50."  (That's an intentional malaprop, by-the-by. >.>))

So ... I enjoyed it; the character interactions feel right, and your style is becoming pretty well established. :)

This is the intended interpretation. I think that it was Brian who pointed it out during the initial round of discussing the summary, that Haruhi's tutoring is something that just works. I agreed, and decided to make it the kind of interaction that both of them actually, if not overtly, enjoy without feeling an urge to turn it into an arm wrestling match, and that then leads to other things.

I think it came up when we were discussing what Haruhi had tried that worked and what didn't, yeah.  That sounds familiar.  I can't even remember what the 'not very good' example was anymore. >_>

There isn't any support for it in the canon, but whenever I try to map Haruhi's thought patterns I imagine that she has some form of abstract - visual synesthesia, which would certainly manifest itself in rather peculiar ways.

In fact, Haruhi's explanation of the potential energy formula actually makes sense, at least for a very particular definition of the word 'sense'. ^_^

That's a billion times more awesome than my synethesia.  o_O  Admittedly, I only have sound -> geometry; it sounds like....

Hum, now that you mention it, I can imagine this -- Haruhi certainly says something in Melancholy that could connect her with at least a mild form of ordinal-linguistic-personification -- the rest could quite neatly follow.  Very interesting.

Absolutely not. As I have mentioned elsewhere, writing in English feels like drawing while blindfolded to me. I can believe that I'm doing fine but I'm not able to verify it myself, so I'm infinitely grateful for all feedback, and hopefully also learning, bit by bit.

Well, it won't take you very long to surpass me at this rate. ;)

[Muphrid]

I notice that the entire conversation in the club room has almost no speech indicators.  I ... think this is something I've bugged Muphrid about before (or possibly, actually, someone else on the FFML) -- it's a valid stylistic option; I'm just noting it.  There are a few places where the speaker must be infered through context because it is unclear otherwise, however.  One thing I really must suggest is not having the speaker's actions and dialog in separate paragraphs -- putting them together makes it much clearer who is speaking.  Also, if we're looking at the baka-tsukai translation specifically, it's probably important to note that their translation is servicable, but not the best example of proper English.  How much effort we want to spend on adhering to that style vs. the one in the official translations....

This is something that surprised me when I started buying the Brown translations--that they shared the same aversion of dialogue tags in favor of dialogue being entirely on a separate line, so you don't even know who's speaking until the next paragraph.  It made me think that perhaps the original Japanese versions were the same way and, for that matter, that they must be unusual in this respect compared to other Japanese literature.  After all, why do something so peculiar-looking in English if it's common Japanese convention and not meant to stick out?

But, maybe Brown and company were influenced by the fan translations, just like how the "Super size me!" line snuck into the dub.  At any rate, to be as close an imitation to Kyon's narrative style as possible, one could argue that that weird separation between dialogue and action should be observed.  It's weird enough to read, though.  Just the idea seems, to me, a bit painful to consider writing.

[Brian]

Yeah, I really despise the Mikuru/Fujiwara discussion in novel 11.  That doesn't feel at all 'stylistic' and totally feels 'badly written'. >_<

I think I read it ... eight or nine times, tracking dialog on a sheet of paper, and even then, much of it does not become clearer (then again ... maybe I just can't hack it?).  There's something of an issue there of 'keeping in with the original style' and 'writing something readable.'  I like the original style, or at least much of it, but that's one element I think needs to be seriously reigned in -- and I have to criticize Tanigawa for handling it (IMO) poorly. :\

Edit: I think in retrospect I had a long discussion with Slacker about it, and All the Small Things.  That was a long time ago, so if there was a more recent one, it was probably Cobb, and I lack the motivation to pull that discussion back up again. =_=

[Arakawa]

Haruhi, on the other hand, certainly could; but she hadn't attempted anything as drastic as completely rewriting the world after that one fateful night, the details of which I couldn't possibly think about too closely in this situation without risking a radical change in the overall atmosphere.

That semi-colon is immediately trailed by an interjection.  (I do this frequently when I write -- it's grammatically incorrect, so I do it stylistically; one of the benefits of understanding the rules is knowing when you can break them >_>;;.)  I don't think it works exceptionally well in this instance, however.  In fact, those two sentences have opposing themes, so I don't think they should be connected; semi-colons attach phrases and sentences that are similar, or basicaly restate and clarify the same or similar points; while I could see how this might be applicable here, it would probably work better with a third (somewhat more neutral) sentence in the same theme to connect them.

My suggestion would be to drop the 'but', though then it feels a little stilted.

*Facepalm* that was actually my correction of sars' earlier version.

You were asking about why I don't consider myself an authoritative source on semicolons..