Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Lois & Clark Fanfic FDK: On The Other Hand, 62 and 63/?

Said it before, will say it again. I might have ran screaming, seeing a 3Meg-file in the archive, but only because I would worry about reading it over the course of two month or so... Or it screwing up my RL because I can't put it down or what ever. Saying you will post a 1000-part story continuously with two parts a day every day will never scare me

/points at earlier FDK and nods.

Michael

PS: Yay to posting early, even it if does mean I now have to decide between Triangle and OTOH for in the morning *sigh* instead of Triangle in the morning and OTOH in the evening.

Carol, I didn't want you to feel bad over this, which is why I've been agonizing over that first post and rewriting it for over a week. That's also the reason why I wrote the second post, so you would know that I didn't think the characters were irredeemable--if we knew more of the good things about them. I'm going to answer this quickly and then head home so I can read the next two parts. Actually, that's exactly what I think. That's why I asked for specific scenes, probably ones you've had in your head that took place off-stage, but without reading them myself, I don't have the feelings for the characters that you want me to have. It would only take a few, with one scattered every 40 pages or so to keep that basically good person in my mind and convince me that they could change. Carol, I wouldn't have had a problem with that at all if we had had Lois think earlier about the baby instead of just about herself (i.e. this isn't the way I pictured my first child's birth, poor me). All you would have to do is slip in her fear for the baby--not just for herself--when she realizes he's going to be born early. Or have her question herself when she holds the baby for the first time: he's so tiny and helpless, and he needs her so much, and how is she going to do this without screwing it up? That focus is on her concern for the baby, not her concern for herself. That's what I was missing. She doesn't have to have the immediate bonding, but she has to have a feeling of concern about the baby instead of coming off as basically disinterested. The problem is that Clark is invulnerable and doesn't need much sleep compared to a human, so he should have pointed that out. When he accepted Lois's argument about his needing sleep for work without even disagreeing with her, his offer looked like it was motivated by reluctant courtesy instead of genuine concern. In effect, that made Clark an unreliable narrator. He thought he was making a genuine offer, but based on the other information at our disposal, we assume that he was fooling himself.

I took Clark's offer at face value. He didn't even have to be in there in the first place. However, Lois has become used to thinking the worst of him.


Elisabeth

Okay, this is getting perhaps a bit off topic, as it is about writing in general, but it's something I thought about on occasion and it just popped back into my mind.
The big issue here is whether you write how someone "real" would perceive his or her environment, or whether it is a full account of everything one needs to tell the reader to bring a certain point across. And for instance, the reasoning "I don't need sleep and stuff", that's not something I'd usually think about unless you first check whether or not you would be able and willing to help instead of just offering. It would perhaps make it even more calculating instead of selfless. An undercurrent of "feeling it just was right thing to do" now that's a different matter all together

I understand perfectly from where this need for the characters to express themselves comes from, given how the reader must be made to emote, but at the same time, too much insight just seems forced to me and unrealistic if I actually think about it instead of just go with the flow. After all, as I said before, IMHO people do not think this much when they react to a situation. It's different when lying around and staring at the ceiling, but while the action is happening, at least for me, there is not so much introspection going on as just going with what feels right. But then, I'm not a professional writer, so

Hope this makes sense.

/hands thread back.

Michael

Very true, Michael. I only brought it up because Lois did: She brought it up in a way that I think Clark should have responded to. Maybe it's because my husband and I have had many conversations like that. He'd point out how tired I was, so he should stay up with the baby. And I'd point out that he had to be at work at 5 am and be awake all day, while I'd at least have a chance to sleep whenever our colicky newborn did. The only difference here is that Clark is physically Superman...and Lois just had a baby 2 days earlier.

Sheila -

Yesterday morning wasn't going well for me anyway and your opinion matters to me or it wouldn't have bothered me at all. Okay, okay. Not as much .

That said, I will be adding something in a bit because of something you said. Not that I had intentionally skipped something but I jumped from October to January and thought 'hmmm... I should show some Christmas' [that's not it btw but that kind of thing - I'm sure you'll know when it is .]

I also saw Clark has still half asleep there. He wakes up when C is crying, he's probably still a bit bleary eyed, offers to help even though he's not sure what he can do, she agrees he probably can't do much she isn't already [and they haven't yet learned what/who works best with him] and he should get some sleep and that sounds pretty good to him.

And that's the way DH was too. He was working full time, 20 hours of internship and 10 hours of grad school a week at the time or oldest was born and was supposed to work that next day [internship - his regular job hadn't wanted to give him the whole day off the day we came home - well if she's not going home till tonight, can you work today? [he worked 3 12-14 hours shifts a week, W,F and either S or S, so M/T wasn't an issue, but Wed it was hard to get someone to cover for him, they weren't *just* being means]. He ended up taking the day off of his internship but we didn't know that. Of course, DH wasn't Kryptonian [darn it], but in the half-sleep state, I'd think that wouldn't occur to Clark...

Anyway - I'll go back and edit some of it to make some of that more clear, as well as some of Lois and some of that 'in between' stuff when I have a chance. What I'm thinking is that I'll post it back in on the boards and bold it or something then link to them in a future folder.

Thanks .

Look for posts here in a bit.
Carol

Sheila, thanks for quoting. Totally forgot about those lines. But Carol explained it quite well, too Perception is everything I guess

Michael