Heirs chatter
It's been clear to me for a while now - say the last year or so - that Heirs to the House of El isn't gonna be like Little Secrets. LS redefined a lot of things - loyalty, secrecy, even the meaning of family. Heirs is going several layers deeper than that. I always knew this was going to be a darker story, that we were gonna take one character right to the edge of the abyss, and drag several of them to within inches of their deaths. That's why we did that Authors' Note, wherein we warned everyone that nothing's what it seems and no one is safe. That's why the prologue opened with Ella Lane's death, because that one event is still echoing back and forth among the characters, and it's a harbinger of what is to come.
That's why the attack on Lana Lang occurred so much earlier than the rest of the action scenes: it was a warning shot. Because if my Lana, ever gracious Midwestern girl, kind-hearted and forgiving, who might manipulate you but only for your own good, can get carved up by one of Luthor's henchmen, and then in defense of her daughter turn around and damn near decapitate the woman with that lovely chef's knife we showed way back when Kala first ran away ... if Lana's a killer now, then hopefully everyone has their seatbelts on, because it's only going to get wilder from here.
Another member of the cast decided to enlighten me about the past while I was struggling to flesh out a scene last night. I did a little more research than we did for LS, and I was rather shocked by some of the things I learned. All of them have hidden depths, and Clark isn't the only one who has another identity or two lying around. Does that ever happen to you, fellow writers? Do your characters manage to shock you with revelations about themselves that you didn't know, but when you look at how you've written them, it seems you've been unconsciously accounting for those revelations all along?
Last chapter was heavy on the action, and so is this one. There's violence coming, and it's not over the top, but it was a little hard to write. My Luthor plays for keeps, and he doesn't care about collateral damage. Only against a villain like him, who has no limits, who will sacrifice anyone and anything to achieve his goals, can we plumb the depths of our heroes. Clark may be the only one wearing a cape, but I think we're demonstrating that heroism comes in quite a few other flavors, several of which are represented in this family.
And they are a family, no matter what.
That's why the attack on Lana Lang occurred so much earlier than the rest of the action scenes: it was a warning shot. Because if my Lana, ever gracious Midwestern girl, kind-hearted and forgiving, who might manipulate you but only for your own good, can get carved up by one of Luthor's henchmen, and then in defense of her daughter turn around and damn near decapitate the woman with that lovely chef's knife we showed way back when Kala first ran away ... if Lana's a killer now, then hopefully everyone has their seatbelts on, because it's only going to get wilder from here.
Another member of the cast decided to enlighten me about the past while I was struggling to flesh out a scene last night. I did a little more research than we did for LS, and I was rather shocked by some of the things I learned. All of them have hidden depths, and Clark isn't the only one who has another identity or two lying around. Does that ever happen to you, fellow writers? Do your characters manage to shock you with revelations about themselves that you didn't know, but when you look at how you've written them, it seems you've been unconsciously accounting for those revelations all along?
Last chapter was heavy on the action, and so is this one. There's violence coming, and it's not over the top, but it was a little hard to write. My Luthor plays for keeps, and he doesn't care about collateral damage. Only against a villain like him, who has no limits, who will sacrifice anyone and anything to achieve his goals, can we plumb the depths of our heroes. Clark may be the only one wearing a cape, but I think we're demonstrating that heroism comes in quite a few other flavors, several of which are represented in this family.
And they are a family, no matter what.