My thanks to my inestimable BR Corrina (Female Hawk) for reading and re-reading this story and providing many helpful suggestions for improvement.

Perhaps I should have waited until December to post it, to make the end of the story seasonal; but frankly, I didn't want to hold onto it for over half a year. At least the start of the story takes place more-or-less at this time of year.

The idea for this story came to me when I read Wendy Richard's "A Valentine\'s Rendezvous" . In it, a secret admirer (Clark) gives Lois ten roses. When I read that, my first thought was, "Of course! How brilliant! He would give her the eleventh rose as Clark and the final one as Superman, or vice versa, thereby revealing his secret to her." Well, my supposition for why there were ten roses turned out to be wrong, but I thought it would be a terrific idea for a story I'd like to write. I didn't want to go with the flowers, though, lest my story become too much like Wendy's. After a bit of thought, I came up with the story as I have posted it. I hope you enjoyed it. As always, all feedback welcomed.

Joy,
Lynn

Well, this was *not* showing up when I made that other one, LOL!

Just to make sure all the bases are covered, here's the scoop from that redundant thread (feel free to delete it, dear mods! )...


Very cute story, left me with a lovely WAFFy glow all over. I love out-of-season Christmas stories, and this was quite satisfying! Thanks!

Very sweet, Lynn - and original.

What a lovely, cute little bit of WAFFYness to end my day with.

LabRat

PS - what on earth makes you think you can't write dialogue?

I'm with Labby, Lynn. Lois's reaction to the first puzzle piece (What am I, five?) was spot-on. Well done.

-Happy

Ah! What a cute idea! That was very sweet, and it felt very Clark. Great!

Adorable, but I would love to see the epilogue that has her reaction. Laura

That's a delightful story, Lynn. What a perfect way for him to reveal his secret to her. They should have made him do that in the show!! Ah well.

I, too, loved the characterisation of both Clark and Lois in this fic. Maybe I should have said that I loved the characterisation of both Clark, Lois and Superman? I can just see his sheepish face as he comes to her as Superman, and I can hear the nervousness in his superman voice, which then changes into Clark's voice.

This puzzle piece fic is a piece of loveliness, Lynn!

Ann

That was priceless! I liked the subtle encouragement Clark gave Lois with the puzzle pieces, and it was so very fitting to have Superman deliver the final piece. This was totally WAFFy, completely romantic, original, unique, and deserving of a Kerth nom! It was just wonderful. Thanks for sharing this with us.

@Lynn: I smell a Kerth for Best Rev. Good on ya, Lynn!

Short and sweet. I'm always in admiration of writers who can get their point across in a short story. You do it so well, Lynn.

awwww.... love the story... very sweet. perfect reveal.

Wow! I am absolutely stunned by both the volume and the degree of positive feedback. Thank you!!! I had thought that this was one of my better pieces thus far, but I hadn't expected such an overwhelming response to it.

BrenRen, Sorry about the feedback thread mixup. Normally I create the FDK thread within a minute or two of posting my story; but my son needed my attention between dropping the story and creating the thread.

LabRat, Thanks for your vote of confidence. But you should have seen the dialogue before Corrina had made her suggestions... Not to mention that writing one or two lines of fairly straightforward dialogue is a completely different ball of wax than writing longer, emotionally nuanced, natural sounding conversation. I will say that I think my dialogue writing has improved since the first story I posted a few months ago ("The Birthday Surprise"), so I hope that with more practice, I'll get to the point where I am eventually satisfied with the dialogue I write. And in the meantime, I also plan to read some of the writing books Terry recommended in another thread.

HappyGirl, Thanks! I must admit that that, along with the final line of the story, were the two bits of speech that I was really pleased with.

Deja Vu, I find Clark a lot easier to write than any of the other characters. Except for his superpowers, of course, he is easy for me to relate to.

Laura, Thank you. I like the the story as is, but if you wish to write and post an epilogue yourself, feel to do so.

Ann, Wow! I don't think I've ever seen that comment made in feedback for any fiction, either mine or anyone else's. I am honoured!

And speaking of honoured, Terry and Sayo - you two have given me an incredible honour. Considering the caliber of the Kerth nominees from previous years, I am humbled that you consider my story to be worthy of inclusion in that select group. Thank you!

Iolanthe, I have to chuckle at your comment...I admire authors who can write longer works and make them coherent and interesting enough to hold the reader's attention. Short stories come easily to me; but I am intimidated by the thought of trying to write a longer one. My longest story was only about the size of a single part of some other authors' stories. I guess different things come more easily to different people.

FlowerPot, thank you for your feedback. I'm glad you liked it.

Joy,
Lynn

Awwwww . . . waffy. I love revelation stories.

And it's a well-crafted story.

This was a very clever story - definitely something Clark would/could have done

It was extremely well written and I enjoyed every minute of it

Would also like to see an epilogue with Lois' reaction.

Hi CookiesMom and DW,

I'm glad you both enjoyed the story. Thank you for leaving feedback.

I really don't think I should write an epilogue for this story, simply because I don't think anyone would like it. I had wanted to keep both Lois and Clark true to character, but I wanted the story to be light and WAFFy. The epilogue, were I to write one, would be much more serious.

I know Clark meant well by Operation Puzzle Piece, and he thought he was doing a very good deed by Lois; but I think he misjudged the situation very badly. I really don't think Lois' reaction would be a positive one. She would soon realize that:

a) Her partner not only did have a bigger scoop than her governor's misappropriation story, he WAS the scoop.

and

b) She had once again failed to see what was right under her nose. Considering how long and how closely she had worked with Clark, and considering that she knew Superman better than anyone else in Metropolis (Clark aside, of course), she would probably have considered herself galactically stupid for not having realized his dual identity before. She probably would have considered this an even bigger failure on her part than the Lex fiasco.

I also think that, at least initially, she would see the Sherlock Holmes puzzle theme as mocking her. (I think she would get over this, at least, fairly quickly.)

Therefore, I think Clark's actions in this story would have left Lois with even less self-confidence in her investigative abilities than she had had at the start of the story.

Joy,
Lynn

I don't remember it being that bad at all Lynn!! You wrote a lovely story - as can be seen from all the positive FDK

Lynn,

I also love your story and would really like to see an epilogue. I don't think Lois necessarily has to have such a negative reaction with the circumstances in your story. In the series, she was so much more upset when Clark proposed before he told her, and of course, she had already figured it out; she really thought he was going to come clean with her when he goofed up and proposed first. But even then she is the one who reached out first to him the very next day, but of course he was busy feeling hurt and stuck on the fact that she hadn't accepted his proposal.

I sure would love it if you do take a crack at it, but either way, this is a great story.

Thank you for sharing it!

Hi Evelyn,

Thank you for your comments and your analysis. :-)

Unfortunately, "my" Lois hadn't figured it out yet -- she was still mentally referring to Clark as Superman when he was in the suit, and was still clearly thinking of him in a very different way than she would Clark. (She'd seen Clark be sheepish numerous times, before, for example.) Plus, the whole puzzle thing was to try to re-build her self-esteem as an investigative reporter; but at the same time Clark gives her the last piece of it, he is, in essence, telling her that she needed to be handed the key to his secret identity -- that he thought she wouldn't figure it out otherwise. (At least, I think that's what Lois would believe, whether or not it was true.) She couldn't help but react badly to that.

At least, that's how I see it; so an epilogue by me would ruin the feel of the story. But if you wish, or anyone else who thinks her reaction would be more positive wishes, to write an epilogue, be my guest!

Just finished reading and was about to comment on what made the story great when I realized it followed the thread of conversation here. I liked how it ended without delving too far into reactions. An epilogue would change it into a far different story.


Elisabeth

Hi Elisabeth,

Thank you for the feedback.

Thank you. It's nice to know that I'm not alone in my opinion any more.

Joy,
Lynn