Simple miscommunications between two good agents which lead to tragic consequences is one of the staples of good fiction, and I'm starting to believe that the power of miscommunication is as integral to the human condition as the fear of death.

Miscommunication abounds in the Internet, for no other reason than the nature of the medium.

*rubs his hands together*

I think there is something there. When the reader knows the benevolent intentions of both agents, his/her heart aches at the tension created by the miscommunication.

I'm surprised that this device isn't used more because that way you don't need a monolithic evil to fight against, only an all too communication foible which extrapolates with dire consequences.

I don't think a miscommuncation can play well to support an entire novel, like a single quest can, but I do believe that it cultivates tension.

The real trick, then, would of course be to make it work for drama as well... which is a bit harder.

The Usual Suspects had a miscommunication where all of the agents were dead, except for the bad guy.

I think the deal with Drama is that competent people really have to commit to the compelling deeds based on a miscommunication, showcasing the fragility of communcation in general and of our human condition and reliance upon each other to communicate effectively. There have to be real consequences. Othello has to be ready to kill Desdemona.

I'm still running this around my brain, and I'll tell you what I think of.

If you don't, you run the risk of having a variation on the dreaded "idiot plot" (where there would be no story if the idiot would just use a little common sense, etc).

All too often, or so it seems to me, romantic comedies (or just plain romances) are based on this variation. It can be very frustrating to watch two people running around hurting each other under such a miscommunication when all they have to do is just talk to each other. Drives me crazy.

So make sure that whatever is sustaining the miscommunication is strong enough to keep people from just talking and straightening things out.

That's why I'm thinking about the Internet as an effective means of miscommunication. One party can legitimately not have access. One party can legitimately have poor written communication skills, confusing irony with the truth, or saying the truth in a manner which is not taken seriously.

There has to be a way to make this work and not have it be hokey- a structual problem which makes pertinent and effective communication just beyond grasp.

In old fantasy tales, it's easy. George R.R. Martin can have Arya ten miles away from from all of the other Starks, but it's just flat impossible to communicate over that distance without a pigeon or smoke signals.

If people don't communicate because they can't communicate, then that lacks the human element of people not communicating because they have some motive for keeping a secret. Like a single mother that never admits to her daughter that she made serious mistakes in choosing a mate, because she fears lest her daughter follow her example rather than learn from it. And so the daughter is pushed to make the exact same mistake by a mother who cannot admit to her daughter the true reasons that she "just knows" a certain man is a bad prospect.

When our most intimate feelings are involved, it can be treacherous indeed to express the truth. I try to err on the other side, which means that I constantly offend. This doesn't bother me much, I don't mind a little pain, after all. But most humans learn early and well to keep secret those feelings that are deepest and most true.

Shasta

You even have a moral-- though it happens to be the same moral you have in SFTD: trust the people you love, and don't hide things from them, or it's going to 1) Put an oppressive amount of guilt in every moment of your life, isolating you from the whole of society, or 2) bite you in the ass when the secret comes out.

I have my own reasons for thinking that one is the more important moral.

In Sabine's case, we have a conscious decision to obscure the truth. The situation could have been avoided if she had been upfront with Athos. *thinks* to give the story more punch, they could have had an prior instance, maybe in Sabine's childhood, where Sabine had told someone she loved a secret and it resulted in hurt, causing her not to want to repeat the mistake.

I haven't read the original, but I wouldn't be surprised if that is the case, and Disney truncated the prior story. If I thought of it in ten seconds, I'm sure Dumas thought of it.
_______

Once again, you have a personal breakdown which leads to a miscommunication. I'm trying to think of a situation where you have a structural breakdown.

The moral:

business does not constitute a society, just as territory does not make a nation, and size does not make granduer. So I'm looking for a story where two people's reliance on economic or business relations leads to a miscommunication. Yet, I have to make it deeply personal, yadda yadda.

Of course, then you have to have a reason that this sort of simple error would be allowed to propagate a significant error...for instance, there is a demolitions team that has rigged a critical bridge to explode, and are waiting for the command to blow it. The fellow in charge, realizing that there are still units on the other side of the river, yells out, "Don't blow the bridge now!" The fellow with the detonator, because they are under fire, misses the first word, thus hearing, "Blow the bridge now!"

quote:

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Yes, but Shakespeare is still considered one of the greatest writers of all time, even today.

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but i guess that's what most writers do: give tired plotlines the rebirth they need and a new audience to appreciate them. although most of the time, alas, the writer never gets their version of the market because it's "been done."

ah! metaphor idea! Plots are like phoenixes, both can be born anew and leave a writer burned. {sigh}

TTFN & lol

TTFN & lol

It's a variation on the "I could do better than that!" cry that has motivated hundreds of writers.

You don't have to love everything about a work to want to redo it. If you loved everything about it, why bother redoing?

Yes, the "I could do better than that!" cry is perfectly legitimate as a motivation...when you aren't talking about a work that you almost certainly can't better (and I mean that "almost", since it is possible that you could do better).

And what is the matter with non-fiction? True stories are inherently more interesting than fictions. Just because a thing actually happened, that doesn't mean that it isn't an interesting story. The only problem with non-fiction is that 'tis so deucedly hard to get it right.

I can't bear it anymore! No more!

People are entitled to their own reactions to things, but let's not get carried away.

For the sake of everyone's sensibilities, I declare the discussion of Antigone closed.

Let's find something else to talk about here.

i don't understand what's wrong about trading constructive (though the potential lack of that adjective may in fact be why you closed the discussion) reactions (though maybe they should have their own thread) to literary works, especially those on pieces dubbed "classics". please explain.

TTFN & thanks

What I have a problem with is when the reasoning gives way to emotion that looks like it's going to get out of control.

Such things can lead to unpleasantness at best and flame wars and other such offenses at worst.

If we can't agree to disagree here, then things can get ugly, and I will step in to steer the discussion away from all of that.

As I said, well-thought-out, reasoned discussion is great. If someone wants to list, item-by-item, what doesn't work in a published piece, and then list, item-by-item, what that person considers to be solutions to what doesn't work, then fine.

Blanket statements are more troublesome, and just saying you despise something doesn't add much in the way of light to any discussion. In fact, without support for such a statement, all it really generates is heat.

TTFN & lol

However, in movies, I have also seen them in such classics as Dark Star, the man with the one read shoe, the man who knew too little, and milk money. I think that some of Hichcocks movies stemmed from type of theme also - Rear Window, The Lady Vanishes. -- even Diabolique can fall under that, since after all, by the end you realize that everyone misunderstood what was going on.

Also, having people misunderstand each other is very common. Just look at a married couple who actually talk (as opposed to those who pretty much know each other well enough that they don't) and you will see miscommunications left and right.

I'm imploring all writers to please avoid this like the plague. I've seen it done recently in an otherwise outstanding movie, and also in a fantasy book I recently finished reading that was one of many things contributing to the books horibleness.

It goes like this:

"I don't know what you're talking about," the butler pleaded. "I've never saw Mr. Timm on his last day alive and I never seen him wear a red bow tie."

The detective spun around, rasing his eyebrow skeptically. "What did you say?"

"Mr. Timm never wore a red bow tie."

The detective smiled. "I never told you that Vick Timm was wearing a red bow tie at the time he was murdered."

"I---I---I have no idea what you're talking about," the butler stammered.

"The only way you could know that Timm was wearing a red bow tie at the time of his death is if you are in fact the murderer. I'm placing you under arrest you the murder of Vick Timm. You have the right..."

Now, this is a really bad example but I think you get my point. Was this even original or clever the firs ttime it was done??? Why do writers still use this? Please let's band together and stop it here and now!!!!

It's even worse when you can see it a mile away. The book I was speaking of was told solely from the protagonist POV and she kept thinking about the information she was holding back from her companion. Worst yet, you knew from the start that her companion was one of the bad guys, so you knew this information would come into play.

WHY????? WHY???? STOP THE LAMENESS!!!!!

JOHN!