Carol, I didn't respond to this story at first because I didn't like Clark being so crazy about Lana that he wouldn't feel
anything when his soulmate showed up. But you write well enough that you caught my interest with the first two parts, so I kept reading.
However, you've written the equivalent of a 600-page novel so far, and I dislike the main characters more now than I did at the beginning. You can take everything Ultrawoman and Terry have said on the boards, and that's the way I feel about this Clark, too. Unfortunately, I don't like Lois, either. In all those pages, she's done two decent things, which is only one more than Clark has. Neither of them has shown a trace of empathy for how the other feels in the situation they've found themselves. I'm staggered by how relentlessly self-centered both of them are. I know everyone on the boards excused Lois for that because she was "hormonal and pregnant," but that doesn't excuse her not thinking about her baby after he was born or her handling him with all the love and wonder and amazement that she would give an uninteresting little dog that she was pet-sitting. If you want readers to believe otherwise, you have to show it. At this point, her only thoughts are of herself.
By the time you spend 600+ pages convincing your readers that a character is completely one way, they'll not only believe it, but you also won't be able to convince them that he (or she)
can be different. Without signs
all the way through of a different core personality, of remorse for his behavior even if he can't sustain it for more than a few hours, of an ability to empathize with someone else and put someone else's desires ahead of his own when he doesn't get anything out of it, your readers won't believe it's possible for this Clark to change without giving him a personality transplant. After all, he's 19 years old. If he hasn't internalized his parents' beliefs enough by now to make him habitually alert to what other people need and eager to help them, he won't ever do so. With enough motivation (which I assume is coming up), he may eventually change his behavior, but it will always be an unnatural thing imposed from the outside, not like the cheerful, willing, I'll-help-even-if-it-wrecks-my-life assistance offered by the Superman in L&C.
I'm not writing to upset you, but to try to convince you not to rush this to the archive by year's end. Please
take the time to go back through and feed in all the moments that are necessary to make your readers believe that the change you want these characters to make is
possible for them.
