Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Fanfic Related Well, it's about villains, and it goes on and on forever...

This is really vague and really wordy, but if I stop and try to condense it, or just try to make it seem clearer, I’ll never get to work today.

So... jumping in.

I’d love to know your thoughts, however half-formed or rambly (such as the above). The only sure answer is ‘as each story dictates,’ I know that. But for those of you who have written Lois and Clark vs. a Villain how have you done it? And why did you do it that way?

Once I hid the villain until the very end for the ‘surprise.’ The upside was that it was a fun challenge, and meant to add suspense for the reader-- as they and L&C figured it out together.

The downside was that once discovered, the villain fell immediately into the cliché of the Talking Killer. He talked for pages to explain himself, which I didn’t like. But I wanted to get his motivations, which had stayed as hidden as he was, out in the open, and I couldn’t think how else to do so.

There’s presenting who Lois and Clark are up against from the beginning-- letting the readers in on it right away. One nice advantage is you can fully develop your villain, use him/her more often, no worries you’ll show your hand. And the readers can watch our heroes, step by step, as they move towards the truth.

A potential disadvantage is that Lois and Clark have to discover the villain without appearing to be too slow, or, worse, too stupid to realize what the readers already know. They have to be smart, but not smart enough to uncover the truth before you want them to, so they won’t blow the last half of your story to bits.

The middle way—hidden initially, revealed gradually, discovered by L&C eventually-- is a nice, shiny option. (And looking shinier by the minute...)

For those of you who have tried this, even just once, what worked for you? What didn’t? What did you like about your villain and his/her reveal? What didn’t you? What were the challenges? How many more questions can I toss in this paragraph? What’s your favorite color? Mine’s yellow? And what about readers? What are your ideas as you read along and unravel the plot against the good guys?

I want to know.

And thank you very much for indulging this long, winding... whatever it is!

CC

Well, Since I use Tempus most often, I tend to reveal him early and rather loudly. Its in his character...

And so, I try and weave a C-plot into the A and B plots that will surprise and/or intrigue the reader to continue reading.

I've also been accused of causing headaches that way, so there is a downside.

James, who's favorite colors are Royal Purple and Hunter Green.

As a reader I like the "Wait till the last minute to reveal the villain" type stories. Sure I fuss at the author at the time to tell us who it is, but I have so much fun trying to guess. I love speculating with other readers about who it could be. I usually don't mind the pages of him explaining himself because by that point you have me so curious that I have to have some answers.

A mid-story reveal works for me as well. That way I have a bit of time spent in suspense over who it is, but then later I can enjoy in knowing what is going on. Knowing a villain is up to something and Lois and Clark are about to walk into it is almost as suspenseful.

The knowing ahead of time... hmm. Sadly I have to say, I'm usually only paying attention to b-plot at that point since the a-plot is pretty much known and I don't have to fight for it. Knowing ahead of time who it is makes me anticipate the kinds of things they might do based on the series. Unless it is a totally new villain you have made up. So I naturally move to any romantic aspect going on. These were the stories that I skimmed the first time though the archive. (I just hit ctrl+f and look for kiss LOL) I've since gone back and read a great deal of them but yeah... you get the picture. I'm impatient and if I think I know how it ends I just skip to the steamy parts.

And blue. I like blue.

For me - since I try to plot out the villain's actions in my head before writing them down, I tend to reveal the villain to the reader and let the villain's actions speak for him.

Unless the villain is like Tempus (knowingly embracing evil for the sake of excitement and chaos - and even in his head he's doing good - the safe, boring world of the future cannot be good for the long-term survival of humanity - most villains will see themselves as having good (possibly noble) reasons for doing what they're doing. They're just misunderstood. (Villains love Nietzche.) And since the good guy doesn't explain himself...

I've tried it several different ways CC and I like them all for different reasons (kind of like you outlined above). It's fun to string the reader along to the very end... but then you do have to find away to "explain" why the villain was doing what they were doing and what their motivations are.

I've also let the readers know from the very beginning who a villain is, and that's also fun... but since they don't have to figure out WHO the bad guy is... I usually try to make them figure out what the bad guy is up to and how they are going to accomplish it.

But yes, the middle of the road one is a very nice choice. You get to string them along for at least a little while that way... <g>

It's also fun to have several different villains - or at least the "appearance" that there are more than one. Then you can have false positives <g> Ooooh, and fun too to try making a normally good character look like they are possibly a bad guy. <g>

Okay, I've babbled quite long enough now and I'm not sure I've even really been helpful or made any sense at all - so I'll stop. <g>

-- DJ

P.S. - Favorite colors -- depends. For just a straight out answer, purple. But if you are talking about clothing or how I decorate my house well then that's a totally different answer. <g>

Who needs villians? I think they just interrupt the sex...errrr

Okay, villians always seem coolest to me when I get them at the end, but of course they've been doing stuff all along to cause problems. It did seem like every episode of LNC the villian was shown to us right at the beginning and Lois and Clark would foil all his subplots throughout the show or fall right into his trap with a last minute save. That always seemed kind of lame to me.

You could just go the circumstance route and have the villian fall into the same problems as LNC simply as a matter of happenstance and they only duke it out because they're in close proximity. Joss did this well during all his shows a couple few times. (Jayne Cobb is SO hot!)

Anyway, I hate villians, they always interrupt the good st....

I've done it both ways - with an early reveal and with a last minute reveal of the villain. Personally, I like the last minute reveal better. I like to guess along with L/C (or whomever I happen to be reading). When the reader is just as much in the dark as the hero/heroes I find that to be more satisfying. But that means I actually have to fully plot out a story beforehand - usually I'm operating off a very loose outline instead of a well-defined series of events. I do know who the bad guy is when I start out, but I try to put a few red herrings in as well.

I agree with you on how teeth-grindingly irritating it is to have to exposit everything when the villain is revealed. I avoided that once by having Inspector Henderson show up and explain the rest. Or you could have them writing up the article and clean up the loose ends that way.

My favorite color? Green - every shade of it. Except for puce.

Well, I'm not fond of villains, but I think I tend to introduce them (as characters, if not explicitly as bad guys) fairly early on and then show more and more of their motivations & actions along the way. (As Dandello says, they usually don't think of themselves as evil) I try to make them subtle enough that L&C are justified in having trouble defeating them. Actually, I guess my favorite strategy for suspense is to make the whole situation seem hopeless, whether they foil the villain or not. The villains are kind of a sub-plot, and once I get rid of them I can go on to the *real* climax of the story.

PJ

Villains? I have villains? Where?

Oh... hmm. Maybe I do have a couple.

Like you said, it depends on the story. There are times when it's really obvious who the villain has to be. Then I tend to focus the investigation (for the readers and L&C) on finding out exactly what this guy is up to (this time).

Other times, I've done it the other way around. It's obvious that something is happening, but I try to keep people guessing about who's doing it.

Another option is to have a pool of available villains. Like with murder mysteries. You know someone did something, but you don't know who. You go around and meet all the suspects, and sure enough, it was one of them. Or someone we met along the way.

Or you can reveal both. Tell the story in a kind of mirror imaged way. Show the bad guy. What he's up to. Why he's doing it. Show L&C trying to unravel it. It's a challenge to them. How will they solve the problem? How will they figure things out, and what can they do about it?

Or there's the thing where we get glimpses of a mysterious shadowy figure. Learn about the villain and his motivation, while keeping the details of his identity secret.

It depends on the story. And the villain. And I can't tell you what I tend to do or what works out best for me because of the few stories I have that actually contain a villain, the majority are episode related. So the readers already know who's doing what and why, and it's a matter of seeing how things play out under different circumstances.

Oh, one other option: The villain develops during the story. We get to watch him take up villainy, and we learn why. The evil plot has to wait (unless there's something already in motion that he takes advantage of, twisting it to his own purposes), but it does give the reader a different perspective and understanding.

How's that for a ramble? Not my best, but does it make you feel better about yours?

Also... yellow? Really? I'd never have guessed. I don't think I've met a yellow before. Or maybe I have but I didn't know. Interesting. I'm blue, myself. Unless you want something fancy, in which case I'm black and gold. But only if the two go together.

And now I really have to go. Oops. Didn't mean to let it get this late. Hope something in here somehow kind of sort of manages to help.

A great trick is the red herring reveal. Your villain is

1: someone using a pseudonym while their actions are plotted

AND

2: That person is also someone close enough to the heroes that they know them and their backgrounds but would never consider them as the villain until the final reveal - when all the little hints and comments come together.

This has been done in a couple Bond films and Suzanne Chazin uses it in Flashover. I won't spoil it for anyone, but the villain has be be one of the best I've read in years.

(This also works as part of a 'Ten Little Indians' plot - if the prime suspect is dead, who is the villain?)

I have tried all three types I guess and I think it pretty much depends on the type of villain you chose, which way works best (or which way works at all)

I had the last minute revelation, because I kept leading on my readers, making them think it was Tempus when it was someone totally different after all. For the sake of surprise ( and to my own amusement this was pretty good )

I used Lex Luthor. I think with this guy it was a mute point to leave him covered, unless you use a later Lex-should-be-dead-but-isn't version of him. I think revealing the villain at once gives you the opportunity to concentrate on Lois and Clark getting out of his trap.

And in my latest story the villain is revealed in the middle of it all. Though somehow I've seemed to make a mistake, because people seem to think that the villain is still someone else.

Personally, I like it, when the villain's motivation is clear. I love to solve a mystery, but sometimes it's good if you know more than the characters. If you know the villain is up to something, you can keep biting your nails what will happen to LnC

You know someone had to say it, even if you tried to avoid it... but it really does depend on the needs of the story.

I imagine I've done it all different ways in the few paltry fics that I've written.

If your villian is going to have a 'voice' in the story, then you need to reveal them fairly quickly so you can explore scenes with the villian as they plot their evil and build apprehension for what is in store for our intrepid duo.

If your villian is one of the well-know stable of Lois and Clark villians, like a Lex, or Tempus, then it's more likely that they'll need to appear earlier in the story.

If the pov of the story is strictly from Lois and Clark's perspective then it's usually better to keep the villian hidden and allow the reader to discover him/her as Lois and Clark do.

One of my favorite methods is the 'misdirection'. In this you introduce your villian as one of the characters in the story without labeling them as the villian. This person acts and interacts with Lois and Clark in some 'normal' or 'innocent' way and isn't revealed until some deep secret from their past in discovered which gives them away and provides their motivation.

Coincidentally, with this type of villian its possible to still show them doing their villiany, but they remain annonymus through the use of the 'shadowy figure' or a focus on a part of them or their actions which doesn't give away their identity. Something like... "The dim light was only able to illuminate the bright metal box. It reflected just enough light to be able to see that it fit neatly in the palm of a gloved hand and its only features were a small antennae and a single red button. A button, when pushed, had the power to severly change the life of a certain nosey reporter... or end it."

Another variation of the misdirection is to introduce the villian as the villian but as the story progresses you find that the villian isn't exactly who you were led to believe. I used something like that in one of my 'Future' stories. We have a garden variety bad guy who is not a nice person and does a lot of nasty things, but we everntually find out that he is actually an exiled criminal from Krypton's long ago past.

There are a lot of ways to go with villians, but you really need to know how you want your villian to interact with Lois and Clark before you can pick a method of presenting them.

TanK (who thinks he rambled on a lot more than CC originally wanted)

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

And keeping the villain talking gives time for Supes to save the day. Yay!

OK, CC, I think I'm going to ramble a bit, but hopefully I will also give you some useful nuggets.

Firstly, Woody!!! OMG you're so close to moving up in the world! 996 posts. Wow.

*snort* Tank, you crack me up. 'Paltry fics' my heinie. You're a great writer.

CC, I've read a lot of the fanfic in the archives. You've gotten some great feedback from great writers. I can't write, but I can read. I agree that how you do the villian depends upon the story. One of the most effective villians done recently is Wendy's 24 Hours . Brutal, that one, and lots of misdirection and red herrings. But that's Wendy, and a long fic, and she could revel mid-way and still throw LnC through the wringer. I agree with Tank - it depends upon the story you're writing. Personally, I don't like when the villian is revealed right away. It's been done, and done well, too (hi, ML! ), but I like it better when I have to work at figuring things out. I really like it when I'm working with LnC to figure things out. I'm not as bad as Jojo, though! I do read the entire fic.

OTOH, I've read some sterling fics that don't reveal who the villian is, but do show the villian working to "get" Lois or Clark or both, such as Tank described.

Paul's also correct. I mean, that if a fic is episode related, we already know who, what, where, why, and when. The great fun is in seeing the twists Folcs apply to each episode, or the little oddities that get magnified into fics. I suppose that won't help you? I know it's a shorthand, but it can be useful.

Caveat here. I DO suspend belief when I'm reading. I spend most of my life figuring things out, and when I read I want to be entertained. So if a fic is well written (meaning good dialogue, believable plot(s), interesting situations), I would focus on the words, the flow of ideas and the turns of phrase, and I'm willing to NOT figure things out if it would spoil my story to do so. Which is probably what happened with 24 hours . I just got caught up in the story. I did the same with Paul's The Cape of Good Hope. Tempus snuck right in and said 'Boo' and I never saw him coming!

Hm. OK, CC, I'd better stop for the night. Yeesh, where does the time go?

Oh, yeah. Blue. In any shade.

mmouse

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

I love these replies. I'll come back and say something smarter later, but for now, do know I appreciate all of your thoughts. And I think I've got a plan that I can be happy with. Or atleast find interesting enough to push on!

Thank you!

No. Really. Thanks.


CC

I really don't like villains much at all, so I don't have much to say on this topic... except that I, too, have enjoyed this thread!

But I just have to say that my favorite color is blue. I've always completely loved that color. Blue flowers, blue birds, blue butterflies, blue fish and everything else that's naturally blue just gives me such a kick! I even love to look at those baboons that have blue and red noses (and big red butts, I think - but I want to look at their noses, not their butts).

The color(s) of Superman's suit was actually one of the reasons why I became a Superman fan, though I have to say in my defence that it was not the most important reason!

Here's picture of my favorite blue flower - it's called 'blåsippa' in Swedish and Hepatica Nobilis in Latin, and I have no idea what it's called in English:



Okay, I've got to give you one more picture. To me, it's so delicious that it's almost flower-porn, can you tell?

blåsippa

And sorry about stealing your thread, CC, but I do tend to get carried away sometimes....

Ann

Should be liverleaf or liverwort, according to my dictionary. Nice flower, Ann.

Thanks, Barbara!

I know this flower has been used to cure liver ailments, so that seems probable!

Ann

It's Leberblümchen in German, which has also the liver in it. Besides the latin name is basically the same.