Sometimes the B-Plots can be just as complex and convoluted as the A-Plots. <g> Little Girl Lost was like that. At the beginning, I knew that the A-Plot would be very slow developing and that it was a clever black-market baby ring. What I didn't know is that it would become so intertwined with the B-Plot. Being a different kind of next gen story, I wanted both plots to be woven around children, but I didn't know how much Rachel would take over. <g> I knew from the beginning that I wanted her first story to end with her adoption, and the birth of Lois and Clark's first biological child, but I let the rest develop naturally. Rachel did some things that surprised me, and became essential to the A-plot as well. The lovely destroy-the-bathroom scene is the prime example of Rachel dictating what she was going to do--I just couldn't really stop her! I also knew that that Lois and Clark would only keep her for so long--I was attempting to keep it realistic. I'd actually envisioned it as a short story, silly me, but it turned into a novel. The biggest surprise was when it turned nfic. <g> I'd only ever written one nfic vignette before, and that was because it just wouldn't let me be until I wrote it out. So when Lois and Clark started heading that direction, I couldn't stop them either, because it expressed what they were going through better.
Almost everything else was a surprise, and the times, dates, and locations at the front of the scenes was invaluable in keeping my timeline true. Theough, I bet Robin still has nightmares about me accidently going *backward* a month or two, so that we went to say... January after it was March!
Laura
