Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Fanfic Related Life and Death in the Other Lane - Author's Notes

The familiar characters of this story are not my own but are the property of corporate entities (DC Comics, December 3rd Productions, ABC, etc.) other than myself. This work is a labor of love and is presented with no expectation of remuneration.

This is not at all a WAFFy story, at least not in the way most FoLCs think when they say “WAFFy.” There is romance and some kissing and a few declarations of deep affection. H.G. Wells plays a big part in getting our story started. There is redemption and justice and the bad guys don’t get away with being bad guys and doing bad things. And there’s a cameo from the Dark Knight, along with a certain feline friend of his, who both appear in their civilian identities.

But that’s not all that happens.

To get you in the mood, let me quote Clark from Tank Wilson’s story “Lois Lane: Assassin” (http://www.lcficmbs.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=011472).


I warn you, this is a very Alternate Universe story with familiar characters in some not-so-familiar shapes, and no one – I repeat, no one – is safe. I make no promises to put the toys back in the box where they belong, much less keep them from being badly bent, and the ending will probably upset some people. In fact, if you’re sensitive to less-than-ideal-and-fluffy-happy endings, you might want to prepare yourself and bring tissues. Lots of tissues.

Because this story is bloody and violent. It presents organized criminal life taken to an extreme and portrayed without filters. There’s gunplay and murder and deception and endangered children and multiple deaths and someone behaving completely out-of-character. There are reasons for this OOC behavior, however, and they are spelled out in rather brutal detail, hopefully while staying just inside the PG-13 line.

Not that I want any of you to skip the story, of course! I just want everyone to be prepared for what happens next.

Did I mention that it’s an Alternate Universe tale? Good.

I also want you to know that there are non-English phrases and sentences scattered through the story. All of the French and German speech presented here was generated by Google Translate. I do not speak either of those languages, so if I’ve made an error in translation, the Google guys contributed to it. I will provide translations in the feedback posts of the chapters in which these phrases appear, assuming the context does not make meanings clear. And two of the “bad” characters use a few racial slurs, ones which will not, I hope, offend the readers.

Also, there is one character who, for humorous purposes, lapses into a south Louisiana Cajun dialect at one point. I spent more than a decade in Louisiana as a younger man and I heard many people speak in this manner. No insult or derogation is intended by this episode, and in fact the story which is told using this speech pattern would not make sense in plain English. It also wouldn’t be the least bit funny, which I hope the gentle readers think it is. Without being condescending or rude, of course.

I have no betas for this tale, which I know is most unusual, but I’m not sure I could get any mean enough to stay through the whole process. I have, however, read and re-read each chapter and yelled at myself a lot, so I believe it is ready to see the light of day. I have also made liberal use of “Revision: A Creative Approach to Writing and Rewriting Fiction” by David Michael Kaplan, © 1997 and published by Story Press, along with “Self-editing for Fiction Writers” by Renni Browne and Dave King, © 1993 and published by Quill/HarperResource. I strongly suggest that any authors among the L&C readers who wish to improve their editing skills obtain one or both of these volumes, or others equally as guaranteed to make you think, “Hmm. Been doing that wrong, too.” They’ve brought that thought to my mind more than a few times.

This tale isn’t a direct response to the Evil Lois/Evil Clark challenge of September 2013 (http://www.lcficmbs.com/ubb/ubbthreads.php/topics/136724/October_Evil_Lois_or_Clark_Cha#Post136724), or to any other challenge. Nor was it directly inspired by Tank’s aforementioned short tale. And I didn’t write it because I hate Lois specifically or women in general. I simply wanted to put her in an impossible situation and see how she reacted. And boy, did she react.

The genesis of this narrative came to my fevered brain in early 2006, and I’ve been kind of poking at it ever since then, hoping it wouldn’t jump up and bite me. But the story has finally come together and is ready to be presented. I look forward to some very interesting feedback.

Here is the spoiler I promised my readers in a previous feedback exchange.


Now – if you dare – presented for your approval, from an alternate Lois & Clark universe not far from the Twilight Zone – this tale:

Life and Death in the Other Lane.