December posting meme: Tropes

[sholio]

muccamukk said: H/C trope that you've had a couple goes at, but can't seem to get it to come off the way you want it to.

Once I started thinking about it, this turned out to be surprisingly difficult to answer. I think the problem is basically that, if I feel I didn't hit the mark on a fic, I don't generally think "I didn't nail that trope" but something more like "I should've had more emotion there" or "wow, the plot really went off the rails in the last few scenes." So I can't really answer the question because I just don't think of fics in those terms. I can talk about the fics that I think didn't work (of which there are quite a few) but they don't really categorize in that way.

However, I can definitely say that I have tropes I like reading but find difficult or off-putting to write, and the biggest category of those are ones involving characters having emotional breakdowns and ... well, turning into soppy puddles of tears, basically. Anything involving emotional over-sharing or characters being forced to confront FEELINGS. When I'm in the mood, I can read (or watch) epic quantities of tearful, "I thought you were dead!"-inspired confessions or characters having breakdown-laced recoveries from trauma, but oh my god do I ever shy away from writing it. I tend to write that kind of thing by delicately poking around the edges but not confronting the trope head-on, even though I actually DO enjoy reading it. Which does constitute a trope failure of sorts. (And this is making me want to write some sort of ridiculously soppy trauma-recovery fic. Hmmm.)

Comments

[muccamukk]

I could have written this post. Though I might have just said "presumed dead" because someday I'm going to write the 50k it will take to do it properly.

I've found kink memes are immensely freeing regarding unbearable sap. It's anon! I can write smarm if I wants to!

[sholio]

PRESUMED DEAD. god I love that trope. Now I want to write me some.

You know, I've *tried* writing fic anonymously in the past and it's just not fun for me. However, I have kicked around the idea more than once of creating a sock account for the really indulgent, smarmy stuff. Maybe someday I will actually do that.