Snowflake Challenge Day 11

[autodach]

Challenge #11

In your own space, Talk about your favorite trope, cliché, kink, motif, or theme. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.


My favourite trope is all kinds of misunderstanding, miscommunication and wrong assumptions.
I have the misunderstandings tag on ao3 permanently open in a tab.

The appeal is, it lets you milk all the drama of a conflict but comes with a built-in solution (only need to clear up the misunderstanding).
You can have the heartbreak of a character death; or the fury of catching your partner cheating… and still get a happy ending. I’m a sucker for those.

Also great potential for humorous stories, just crank up the stupidity of the misunderstanding, have the characters almost communicate, just barely missing each other…

Comments

[makamu]

I like miscommunication, too, but had never thought about the trope's range before! Thanks for pointing it out!

[shipperslist]

I agree with everything you say. It has such potential for both heart-wrenching angst and batshit crazy crack.

[cornerofmadness]

very cool. I love that you have the tag always open. Thanks for sharing!

[peaked]

I love miscommunication/misunderstandings, too! A character's experiences will impact how they interpret and communicate, and seeing people talk and think the other person understands where they're coming from when that person doesn't at all is such a great conflict imo. (People just knowing what the other is thinking or why they're saying something inarticulately makes for a boring story.)

[svgurl]

Misunderstandings is a great trope! I really enjoy it too and it is awesome that you always have it open on a tab. I haven't considered it before, but there is a lot of variety of tone that it could be applied to. I like when it is applied to angst or humor but like you, I'm a sucker for the happy ending.

[silveradept]

Misunderstandings can be fun, although I'll admit that I sometimes have a lot of shouting involving "this problem could have been solved if only you knuckleheads would communicate!" with some implementations of the trope. It does make for some pretty hilarious comedies, though, when everything gets cranked up to farce.

[autodach]

Haha yes, there is certainly an art to writing believable miscommunication. You want to create a situation that makes perfect sense to every character individually, while actually no one is on the same page. Not the easiest task.