Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Fanfic Related Writers: Let's talk revelations

I am working on the second part of "Speechless In Seattle," and it got me thinking about revelations, and the challenge in writing a unique one -- not just avoiding being too similiar to the show, but your previous stories, as well.

And it got me wondering if other writers prefer to write pre-revelation stories, when it's easy to concentrate on Lois and Clark and their relationship, whether romantic or otherwise -- and she never finds out -- or post-revelation stories that include the big moment where Lois finds out just how much her partner has been hiding from her.

Admittedly, I see benefits to both, but I think I prefer writing pre-revelation, because I like developing Lois and Clark's relationship and having Lois CHOOSE Clark by coming to terms with her relationship with Superman, however she may do that. I also like to write Clark balancing the elation of finally getting the girl and the internal struggle of continuing to lie to her every day -- and deciding (or not) how to tell her.

What about others?

I like revelation stories, personally. The revelation itself is pretty much the most monumental event I can think of. It's not just a leap of faith on Clark's part -- telling Lois "here, here's everything you would ever need to destroy me and everyone I care about, should you decide to do so," -- it's also a conscious decision on his part to share a burden that will last a lifetime. Once Lois knows, the bell can't be unrung. In a sense, they're stuck linked to each other, even if only because of the secret, for the rest of their lives. From that point on, Lois is going to feel a moral responsibility to protect Superman and particularly, the Kents, while her perceived closeness to Superman is always going to make her a target. That's why in "Single Petal of a Rose," I had Clark ask Lois whom she would burden with that kind of responsibility.

I never have any urge to leave the show's revelation alone (unless the story I'm writing takes place well after it, like "The Longest Road" and the revelation isn't terribly relevant to the story). I HATED the revelation. I thought it was well acted and the dialogue was good and in character, but Clark's proposing to Lois--asking her to make a lifetime commitment to him without that key information--was, in my opinion, unethical. Yeah, he wanted to know that she loved him, not Superman, but she'd already proved that to be the case by that point, as far as I'm concerned. Of course, all the nonsense of not telling her "because the time was never right" or "he was always getting interrupted" while their relationship was practically imploding was also too much to bear.

I agree that thinking up new revelations is hard. But even worse in my opinion, is figuring out how to write the follow up.

Normally, Lois gets mad.

Oh, the angst.

Oh, the yelling.

Oh, the drama.

Will she ever forgive him.

Yada yada yada.

Sometimes it's almost like 'oh, just get over it already so that I can get on with writing this story.'

Someday, I'm going to write a story where Lois is like... "Really? Huh. That's interesting. So, Clark, were are we eating supper tonight?"

ML

And the one I want to write up someday is, "Really? Cool! Let's go flying!"

I imagine that that has been done before, but nowhere near as often as the "Why didn't you tell me before now?" reaction. I tend to focus on novel methods of revelations; the number of possible reactions from Lois seems relatively limited to me, but there are endless possibilities for methods and circumstances of revelations.

Joy,
Lynn

For me the timing of the revelation is everything. There are three key points where the revelation can take place and Lois's reaction has to fit within context.

S1: For me, Lois doesn't have much reason to be particularly upset in any S1 revelation. Clark hasn't been lying to her for that long and the trust had to develop. This leaves a lot of area to play with but I think a big – negative Lois reaction here is inappropriate. I can easliy see a very calm reaction right up until the end of S1. (In fact, I just wrote one. )

Early S2: This can go either way. She can be upset at Clark for not being more open earlier and for not warning her about Lex, but it still hasn't been that long yet.

S2 – Post TOGOM: This is the crossover point. Now Clark has been lying for two years including putting her through hell when he pretended to be dead. I can't think of a way to realistically do a post TOGOM revelation without Lois being angry.

So, that means for me, if you are off-canon, you can have Lois as calm as the situation dictates. However, if you are staying on or near canon, then TOGOM is the cut point. Before that she could be calm, although I have a hard time accepting a too calm reaction even in early S2. In my mind, a calm Lois reaction after TOGOM is inconsistent with what came before.

Just my thoughts.
Bob

This is why I cheated in my first revelation--I intentionally wrote Foreshadowing so that a very early Lois meets a very late Clark/Superman without either one of them realizing that's what's happening. Lois gets to see what life with the Whole Person of Clark can be like *before* she has to deal with the Clark=Superman issue. And, as Bob said, a very early Lois has no reason to be angry at Clark because she has no reasonable expectation that he *should* have told her. For the young Lois in Foreshadowing, the revelation is not so much that CK=S, but rather that Lois can have a very happy married life and still be Lois.

If you had asked me before last year, I would have said that I'd only written one story that was about Revelation. But then my sweetie son wanted to put my stories in a book for the family to have and when he organized them, I was surprised to find that about half of what I had written contained Revelation as a key point. The other half were about L&C married with children. I haven't really written that much, but the Revelation stories were just about the right length for the book. As I was rereading the text, I saw that each revelation was in a different season and context. And I don't think Lois got mad in any of them, for very good reasons.

As a result of another recent question, I've been re-watching L&C from the beginning. I'm into S3 now, and what fun it has been!

Jude