We've all experienced those times in our stories where the characters seem to take off in a direction that we hadn't originally intended. And in that aspect we might feel that we've lost our 'godhood' and the characters are exhibiting their own 'freewill'.
But you have to keep in mind that these characters are reacting according to personality parameters that we have set up previously. My version of Lois, or my version of Clark will run off on some tangent because it fits into the character that I have established.
For example, Yvonne's Clark had done some things in her stories that I could never make 'my' Clark do because that's not how I see the character. It doesn't invalidate her version of Clark, nor mine. It merely points out that as 'god' of the story, the characters are constrained by our perception of who the character is and what they would do.
So, even though it often appears as if the characters will take off on their own once the story is going, they will stay within those personality traits which define who they are to you. If they stray outside those borders, then you have failed in your story. You do control the action of the story, but you can't force the characters to act outside the parameters of who you think they are just to 'make some plot point'. That's where you run into trouble.
Tank (who feels that, like all writing, fics are an organic thing; the best ones evolve as they are written)
