I think there can be two different types of ways of dealing with this (or probably more) that are equally effective.
1. You don't tell the reader the villain, and keep them in tension about who it is.
2. You know who the villain is, even what he's up to, and you can build tension about 'when' it's going to happen. For example, if you know that Tempus is going to kill Lois today, then you can flash back to Lois and Clark's day and get the reader to jump everytime someone bumps into Lois or everytime Clark takes off to perform a rescue.
When I started writing Lois and Clark stories, I always told the villain at the beginning because that was the way the show was set up.
That's changed over the years. But for me it really does depend on what story I'm trying to tell.
However, unlike Sue, I don't plot it out more when I don't tell who the villain is. Often if the reader isn't told who the villain is, it's because I don't know yet
.
As for the reveal... That's a hard one. Having the villain confess everything to Lois just before killing her is sort of... I don't know. Predictable maybe. But I've certainly used it enough
. And the reason I use it is because it's effective.
ML
