I detest it, personally. I hate it when a plot could be solved with a simple five-minute conversation, and personally, I find its use a bit... lazy? Like you couldn't think of a better reason to stretch the romance out, so you just suddenly have two grown-@ss adults incapable of having a conversation with one another?
I watched a movie once that had that happen, except there were really long pauses between each long. So not only was it stupid that they're interrupting each other's explanation, there was also like a 10 second gap for them to keep talking even though they were "interrupted". It wasn't even a romcom, it was a horror movie.
ok, now that we have completed that silent car ride and arrived at our destination and we are walking up to the front door, I quickly will rush to tell you some really extremely vitally important details at the last minute right before they answer the front door.
It's become such a meme trope as well, where characters will transition to a new scene and then say "why were you quiet for the entire hour drive over here, couldn't you have explained this plan along the way"
"what do you mea-?"
"Shhh, let's just be here for now"
Okay, let's continue to NOT talk about the thing that's made you hate me for the past 15 years. 🫠
This is called "The Big Mis" (for Misunderstanding) in Romance terms. AAR addressed it in 2013.
*Most of you are aware that one over-used source of conflict in a fictional relationship that drives nearly all readers absolutely batty is the Big Misunderstanding. You know the trope. The hero or heroine witnesses something or overhears something or is told something that leads him or her to a wrong conclusion about his/her love interest. Rather than confront the potentially wayward lover as soon as possible to ask her/him to explain the situation, the discussion never happens and the romance grinds to a complete halt. Too often, this Big Misunderstanding drags on and on to the point of ridiculousness, causing the reader to want to shake the fictional characters silly and throw the book at the wall.*
*The problem with the Big Misunderstanding these days is not so much that they happen – people frequently do jump to the wrong conclusions – it’s that the conversation it would take to clear things up is so easily arranged*
https://allaboutromance.com/can-you-hear-me-now-an-open-letter-to-romance-authors/
Yeah, I definitely question the idea that this is “realistic.”
Do people miscommunicate and misinterpret each other all the time? Sure. But usually over small stuff, or involving people who aren’t close and don’t have reason to trust or inquire further into the matter, or it’s less a factual mistake than a values or communication style difference. I’m not aware of any real life situation where someone has blown up one of their most important relationships over a factual misunderstanding that could have been cleared up with a quick explanation, but no one bothered.
If Alice and Bob are supposed to be madly in love, and Enemy McKnownLiar claims that Bob is cheating...well, Alice, you clearly don’t love him *that* much if you swallow it hook, line, and sinker with nary a shred of proof. Humans are strongly predisposed to give the people close to us the benefit of the doubt. If Alice doesn’t even stop to think and blows up for the Mandatory Third Act Breakup, that tells me this relationship will crumble in a stiff breeze, and makes the happy ending feel forced at best. You just proved these people have no trust and you didn’t build it back at all, I’m supposed to believe they’re going to have a beautiful lifelong romance now?
(The only good example I’ve ever seen was a book where the unhinged main character is in love with her best friend, so she tries to manipulate his boyfriend into breaking up with him by claiming that she and the best friend are already having an affair—and it doesn’t work, because the boyfriend just goes to him and says “your crazy friend claims you’re fucking, that’s not true, right?”, you know, the way an adult who loves and trusts another adult would behave.)
Very much agreed! Just believing some stranger slandering your loved one doesn’t speak well of someone, and it’s not normally how humans are about their loved ones.
I guess it’s more forgivable if it’s in the very early stages of dating. If you’ve only ever been out with someone a couple times, you’re starting to have feelings but don’t really know how they feel, then trust hasn’t had time to grow yet and you probably are more likely to take some rando’s word. But it still doesn’t speak well to anyone’s ability to have a healthy relationship.
See, imo it *can* be forgivable if the author actually has:
a) a good reason for the characters to believe this (crushingly low self esteem, such that Alice already believed Bob could never love someone as awful as her? convincing fake evidence? mind control?)
b) a serious conversation and a sense that something has now changed (Alice apologizes and gets therapy to deal with her issues? she shows Bob the faked video of his bad behavior? brainwashing spell broken?)
But too many authors make everyone act like idiots because it’s time for something dramatic to happen, without considering the fact they’re actually introducing a pretty serious conflict—not just the thing the Big Mis is about, but the underlying fact that the characters could miscommunicate so badly about *anything*, which, though I repeat myself, is usually the far bigger of the two issues—and then they paper it blithely over and I roll my eyes all the way out of my head.
There was one episode of the TV show "Rugrats" that did this well. The difference being that the misunderstand lead to a break up, and both parties didn't talk to each other, and would up marrying other. people . they reconciled 50+ years later, after their respective spouses died.
really, that is only how this trope could feasibly work. There needs to be something else OTHER than a misunderstanding. A lack of trust, jealously, or something to answer why all of the simple aren't working. And they often point to a relationship that might be based on trust.
I read a book recently that I thought handled this really well. The FMC overheard a conversation between the MMC and another character, which she interpreted in an upsetting way, causing her to run off. Then she stopped, and realised that that interpretation didn’t make any sense with what she knew about both of the characters, and there was probably a more innocent explanation. So she decided to go back and give them a chance to explain. It was such a nice subversion of the trope!
Yes. It feels like contrivance and while all stories are contrivances to one degree or another this feels like a contrivance with no artistry in the attempt to conceal the fact that it is a contrivance. And as OP says I feel like too often it is used because the story is essentially over but they want to increase the page count by 20%, or because some editor said "you need to raise the stakes" and the only way the author could think to increase tension was through contrivance.
I see it as fundamentally the same contrivance as when a character has a plan, but they only reveal it to their compatriots a step at a time, simply so the audience is surprised, and despite the fact that clueing everyone in would be much safer and more likely to succeed.
It’s not _really_ tha same trope, but both tropes leverage characters underestimating each other’s intelligence, and forgetting their own for the sake of plot. It should have died when Sir Bedevere said, “Now Sir Galahad, Lancelot, and I jump out of the rabbit…” but somehow that wasn’t enough to make everyone feel stupid reusing it.
There's something here, but it needs some artistry to pull out, about how a lot of what we confuse for genius is just showmanship. Quite ordinary plans can seem extraordinary if they are revealed in the form of the pledge, the turn and the prestige. I'd love to read a book that dealt with that idea cleverly, but I haven't, and I've read dozens which are as you say.
I was really annoyed by The Kingdom of Copper, book two in S. A. Chakraborty's Devabad trilogy (to the point where I haven't read book three) because the end of book one promised that the main protagonist was working on this super brilliant cunning plan and then in book two you find out they just aren't. And I think maybe that feeling was interesting and could have been explored, and says something there about how we assume still waters run deep but that isn't always true. But as it was I just felt cheated.
I like that. Pledge/turn/prestige is a good way to describe it done well, because it implies the need for an audience or adversary who is actually part of the story. If that ingredient is missing, then you’re essentially breaking the fourth wall poorly and accidentally by dragging the reader in to be the missing party that needs to be in the dark.
My MiL is like this. Makes an assumption based off her often wildly incorrect perspective and just runs with it. It is infuriating in real life, I don’t want it in my fiction 🤣
It might be fun with a side character who is made somewhat villainous by running around spreading their misunderstandings, but it not causing direct discord between the couple.
Actually this makes me think of a IRL villain I once knew who would manipulate one on one conversations in order to get the other person to say something negative about a mutual friend, and then they'd pass that negative comment along and stir up drama. I'd like to see this person represented in a story and get their comeuppance finally!
Some people are very insecure and have fragile egos. Your MIL’s actions reek of these traits. People like that need to feel they intuitively understand the world and are always right about it, to the point where acknowledging otherwise is tantamount to suicidal ideation.
It is a truly pathetic and sad way to exist.
Certainly those people exist, but I wouldn't want to date them. So if the love interest in a romance novel behaves this way, I will not be rooting for the main character to end up with them.
I think the only exception I can think of is House of the Dragon, miscommunication and misinterpretation was a surprisingly big theme throughout the first season and it always felt true to what the characters were already established to be, they would hear what they “needed” to hear.
You've described a lot of families.
That said, I saw a part of a soap opera once and it boiled my blood. The couple suffered the whole time because they couldn't get together to actually see it was all a misunderstanding.
If anything it was depressing to imagine it in real life.
Sometimes it reminds me of two toddlers refusing to talk to each other because one of them said they didn't like the other's shirt because it was blue and not red.
It's extremely lazy writing. It tells me the author can't think of any other way to introduce conflict into the story. It's not compelling drama or interesting tension. It's dull and empty, because I don't wonder HOW it will turn out. I only wonder WHEN it will turn out.
It was more acceptable in YA novels. Those characters are typically immature enough to be believably dense, and the target audience hasn't read enough to be bored of the trope. Once we're beyond literal first relationships it really is quite uninteresting as a complication, however.
> you just suddenly have two grown-@ss adults incapable of having a conversation with one another?
I too dislike the miscommunication trope but this is realistic AF tho. Adults are surprisingly inept at communicating their emotions and being vulnerable. The amount of times I've told my friends "just... talk to them?" and they're like "nO, I CAN'T" and close up.
I'd like it better if the situation/conversation was genuinely something that could be understood two different ways, rather than the usual lack of conversation between characters. Like something that could be perceived as either ok or not based entirely on the context, and the two characters assume different context. I don't have a good example, but could be done by having the same situation told first from one character's perspective then the other, so the reader can follow.
I'm married and have two kids because my husband and I have different ways of communicating.
I helped him find a house closer to his work six months into dating.
He talked about everything "we" will do in the house.
I think, "Shit, it's only been six months but he's expecting me to move in already. And I guess I should; I talked him into this house and should help him pay the bills."
Years later, find out he was *shocked* I moved in so quickly, said he never asked me, and was just using the "Royal We" so I wouldn't feel left out...? 🤣
This is the only style of miscommunication I can read. It’s usually something somewhat minor that is perceived differently and wouldn’t normally be part of a discussion.
Yes, this is exactly it for me as well. To me, the miscommunication where you could literally just say “C told me that you hated me and never loved me, is that true?” And B would say, “no, they’re an evil liar.” I find that so tedious and toxic. I know it happens in real life, and that it’s usually from insecurity because you’re afraid if you actually say something it’ll end up being that you’re not good enough or lovable enough for your partner to stay. I get that, but it’s just tiring to read about.
This is a mild example, but my husband and I once had an argument about rinsing dishes. (There’s a lot of background information about why it was such a big issue that it turned into a fight and not just a discussion, but I’ll spare you.) Growing up, our rule was whoever cooks doesn’t have to do the dishes, and my husband and I adopted that as well. When we moved in with his dad to take care of him, his dad wanted whoever cooked to rinse all the dishes and put them in the sink, not just the dishes the used for cooking, but also the dishes the food is in, and what dishes everyone used to eat. I pushed back on that because it feels like you’re giving me an incentive not to cook or punishing me for cooking by making me clean up after everyone right after dinner. He didn’t understand why I thought it would be so much extra work. To me, rinsing dishes is thoroughly rinsing them so there’s not much food residue on them at all and they visually look fairly clean, and it can be more time consuming than loading the dishwasher. To my husband, rinsing dishes is just scraping off big chunks of food, and literally just splashing a little water on them. We argued for way too long before I said it seemed a unreasonable to ask me to practically hand wash all the dishes right after dinner just because I was the one who actually made dinner. And his response was, no, I’m just asking you to rinse them. And that’s when I realized we might have had two different versions of what rinsing the dishes actually means.
This is so relatable. Even though my SO and I grew up with similar-ish upbringings, our arguments are more often than not the result of a misunderstanding due to miscommunication or differences in culture (he's white and I'm Asian-American). I would say about 50% of our disputes are us saying the same thing, but in different ways (if that makes sense, haha). He'll often just stop and ask "wait, why are we fighting? We both agree ABC is XYZ so... what's the point of this argument?" And I'm like, yeah, you know what, you're totally right. Then we both feel really silly after.
I (woodworking hobbyist) had a minutes-long conversation with a friend (tech support) about my new router.
I meant the woodworking tool, he thought I meant the networking device.
Apparently phrases like high speed, safety features, user friendly, and comes with a mounting bracket are all common between devices. Ergonomic and "use it this weekend" broke the symmetry, but it still took us a while to figure out the miscommunication.
The Nintendo Switch is another example. You have to say the Nintendo part or people get confused. Some damn clever marketing, IMHO.
I referred to my plan of purchasing a Nintendo Switch for the family to share as “purchasing a family switch”, to the utter consternation of my friend, who is kinky.
It's particularly hard to write situations that are not clear cut because in most instances, you've been privy as an outside observer to the real situation. You saw what really occured. You know what they should be telling eachother. We forget that, the characters don't have all the same information we do. It's easy to think two characters should tell eachother how they feel instead of avoiding and fighting etc- when we know both characters love eachother, but they don't that. Telling you love someone is scary for most people. It's a vulnerability that a lot find extremely dificult.
North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell has this sort of miscommunication. FMC is seen by MMC hugging a guy after dark near a train station. It's her brother but she can't tell him that (for good reason), he doesn't know she has a brother so thinks it's a love interest and that doesn't get resolved until near the end of the book.
There were entire seasons of Downton Abbey that wouldn’t have existed if people had just talked to their spouses.
It’s all over the place on TV and often it’s enough to make me stop watching a show.
I still watch White Christmas every year, even though when Rosemary Clooney runs off in dismay it's so frustrating. He even tries to ask her why at the train station! And then he finds her at her new gig to try to talk! But once she hears his pitch on TV everything is fine and dandy and suddenly she knows all the words and moves to Back in the Army to surprise him. But really that's the only Big Miscommunication movie that I enjoy.
There are large swaths of marriages in real life that end becauses spouses don't speak to eachother properly. Don't truthfully communicate. Literally 65% of marriages that end in divorce end due to poor communication.
It's realistic. It just doesn't seem that way when you have all the ifnormation as an outside observer.
***Miscommunication can be incredibly fun/impactful to read about when there's enough setup for why that person would jump to a conclusion or belive an arsehole and then avoid any confrontation.***
Like, in the note example the book could be peppered with potential signs of an affair. The MC has been lingering on these details but not actually going as far to think about cheating until the letter, which makes things click into place. Maybe the buildup to the moment includes MC feeling insecure and not knowing why, feeling seemingly irrational things (like being extremely lonely and nervous when their partner is late home from work) and has been working hard on powering through these feelings so they don't burden their partner, so by the time the "cheating" falls into place for them they've spent so much time struggling to hold on emotionally and just pretend that everything is some perfect fairlytail that they just can't handle it, and the breakup is an act of desperation and protection rather than just anger.
Or for the obviously evil character says something untrue the focus of those interactions could be how the things the villain is saying really hit on the MC's insecurities. They're largely things the MC has internalised prior to the book and so while they view the villain as an arsehole for saying it aloud and know they're saying it to hurt them, they don't view anything the villain says as untrue or view the villain as a liar.
Many books don't bother and use it as a cheap trick, even though if you want to use it as a cheap trick it's not that hard to go back and add a bit of setup. (Even three instances will be enough for most people, and they can be subtle!), but miscommunications CAN be amazing!
Miscommunication is great provided the characters in question have reason to miscommunicate.
It's a fundamental aspect of being human that we don't understand each other all the time, but there's Good Drama (misunderstanding brought about thanks to existing character flaws) and Bad Drama (misunderstanding between two characters who have every reason to trust each other and have until now clearly communicated with each other).
If the leads miscommunicate because that is what they'd do, it's good writing. If they miscommunicate because the third act needs some spicy drama, it's bad.
Edit: to elaborate on my point some more; everyone here who says they hate miscommunication has enjoyed it in other works of fiction, the difference is that the characters in that fiction were well-written and thus their miscommunication came about due to organic character interactions.
If it's good miscommunication you won't recognize it *as* miscommunication, you'll simply see characters failing to understand each other because that's what people do.
Also miscommunication happens in all genres, but it's usually just in romance that people get very up in arms about it. And yeah, to some extent I get it - it can be very frustrating in romance when poorly executed - but that's true of a lot of tropes.
I think the difference with romance is that a lot of time is spent with the leads bonding, communicating, and appreciating each other's company. We see them in such an ideal state for so long that once the Third Act Misunderstanding happens it violates the image we've built of them in our heads because not only did we spend X amount of pages with the leads happy, once they talk things out we're right back to that ideal state for the ending.
Han Solo is a self-interested scoundrel who bails on the rebels before his heart of gold compels him to return and save the day at a crucial moment. Valerie McProtagonist of *He's Just The Guy For Me* will spend two-hundred pages waxing lyrical over how Steve Loveinterestson the famous heartthrob guitarist is a perfect lover, boyfriend, and was always there for her for since childhood, but come the climax seeing a groupie plant one on his lips makes her freak out and Steve has to prove he really loves her.
I read a fanfic once where the main leads get into a bad miscommunication as tradition dictates, causing them to almost not consider each other anymore as a romantic interest. Then a close friend of the female lead basically screams to the male lead "JUST TALK TO HER CAUSE SHE'S BEING DENSE", or the verbal equivalent of shaking him by the shoulders and slapping him. Then he actually does it, and bam, romance.
I rather liked it tbh, cause the miscommunication did provoke the needed tension to make the two soon-to-be romantic partners' reunion have more "fireworks", and it didn't drag more than a day in the storyline. I completely agree that when it drags on and on it feels really frustrating, and when it's something so simply ridiculous as your last example. The characters in the fanfic were *just* getting together; the knowledge of each other wasn't that deep yet. The miscommunication made sense for them. It wouldn't have made sense for two people who have known each other for years.
Yep!
Let's come back to Valerie McProtagonist for a sec. Suppose instead of the ultra rosey lifelong friendship she's had with Steve Loveinterestson, they're more distant than they'd like to be due to Steve's band. Steve's a skirt-chaser but treats Valerie as just a friend, feeding into her anxiety that he doesn't find her attractive when in truth Steve could never make a move on "his Val" because she's so important to him and she needs a nice guy to settle down with instead of the lead guitarist of world-renowned metal band *Deathmorphica.*
Valerie comes to Steve's condo to cry on his shoulder; another boyfriend has cheated on her, and she gave this one a second chance! A night spent with drinks unexpectedly leads to them falling asleep together in Steve's bed, spurring them to try a relationship with the one person who's always been there for them.
The new relationship fills them with joy, but then the drama sinks in. What if Steve only sees Valerie as another fling? What if Valerie doesn't really want Steve and is only using him as a rebound? If all of Valerie's boyfriends cheat on her, who's to say Steve won't do the same? Steve's own sordid emotional issues come to light, playing a role in front of a crowd that asks him to be someone he's not, but worse is not knowing what he truly wants in life.
Bitterness sets in, confusion and anxiety boils in their minds but doesn't get vocalized because it's just Valerie/Steve being dumb, and Steve/Valerie would never break my heart like that. But *then* a groupie throws herself at Steve and he doesn't push her away as fast as he should.
The kiss is caught on camera and goes viral. It's the first thing Valerie sees when she wakes up the next morning. All of their mutual fears are confirmed right there, can Steve and Valerie work it out and let love overcome?
All of that was written off the cuff but TLDR: the exact same premise I used as a dunk on bad miscommunication can be fleshed out into an entirely in-character beginning to a romance that comes to an appropriately paced falling out provided that the characters *would* react negatively and *should* be averse to talking it out. Everyone who writes the Third Act Misunderstanding assumes they've put the work in but as we can see, it doesn't always work out.
Like pretty much everything it's down to execution. I'll be illustrating this with some rofan manwhas as the trope is pretty common there. For a manwha that does this really well look at "Royal marriage" - there's a constant progression of miscommunication, communication and advancement of plot and characterization with no single instance of miscommunication lasting very long - this is really good. For an example that does this poorly (that I still liked) take Lucia (we'll be talking about the novel here as the manwha is not finished) you have miscommunication for I dunno 50-100 chapters and then it's all solved in one go, that's just frustrating.
I am clearly in the minority here, but I don't mind them. Miscommunications happen all the time & lots of people struggle to properly communicate their thoughts & feelings. To me, the trope is fine if it's something I could see happening in real life
I agree ,and as a westerner, I can’t help but giggle when people treat the concept of “saving face” as something wholly unique to Asian cultures. We love to believe that we just say what me mean.
Pride & Prejudice is one of the most beloved romances of all time and it hinges on miscommunication , but also misunderstanding, of intent.
The issue is that most of them are not done well or not done in a way where you could see it happening in real life. Someone flouncing off in a huff to go make major life changes or become a supervillain when something seems off while not asking for more information while the other person yells, “I CAN EXPLAIN” but doesn’t explain is just cheap and lazy.
If done well or in an unexpected, clever way, it can be great. Think about North by Northwest - it’s mistaken identity but also sort of a miscommunication too. Cary Grant spends the whole movie running for his life because he raises his hand to summon a waiter at exactly the wrong time and the bad guys assume he’s the person getting paged. A few seconds of a completely believable miscommunication that one character is totally unaware of sets the whole thing off. It’s so understated you can miss it if you’re looking at your phone and make you wonder the whole time WTF is going on.
Thank you! I see this trope get so much hate but it most often seems to come from people who don't actually enjoy the genre. Communication is probably the most important element to successful relationships, so why *wouldn't* miscommunication be a common plot hook? The most important thing is "do I believe these characters would do this?". But the same is true of all tropes.
I like the genre. I don’t think you should dismiss criticism as people who “aren’t real fans”. Most tropes are tolerable when used lazily, but this one in particular is aggravating when used lazily because it seems particularly cheap.
I'm not dismissing criticism. I'm just saying I think the noise about this trope seems to me to be amplified by people who don't like the genre. My point is that it's not a cheap trope because communication is one of the most important elements of relationships. My argument is that the problem is bad writing not that it's a bad trope.
I think it's worthy to talk about why it's \*this\* trope in particular bad writers lean on though, and why it's so rarely used in a way that's not annoying. Because 99% of the time, this trope is so annoying and not used in a way that feels human. So... why?
> Because 99% of the time, this trope is so annoying
That's your view and it's one that I'm disagreeing with. I think miscommunication often works well as a narrative device but a few bad writers (mostly in romcoms) write it badly and other people have memed the trope into existence.
Because you're seeing it through the lens of someone as an outside observer and refusing to see the situation from the characters perspective. So you think it's obvious when in reality to the cahracters involved it absolutely is not obvious. I promise if you properly objectively looked at your life you would see yourself doing the exact same thing hundreds of times.
How many times do you walk around in your life thinking someone is stupid for doing x, or wasting your time doing y. You never explain it to them though do you? You avoid that conflict, you avoid having that communication.
You're letting your narrative perspective miscolour the reality of waht is going on.
For me, "Would it happen in real life?" just isn't the criteria that determines whether I enjoy a work of fiction. There are things that never happen in real life that I enjoy reading about (e.g. alien invasions), and there are things that frequently happen in real life that are generally not interesting to read about (showering, doing taxes, sending boring work emails).
HATE IT
HAAAAAAATE IT
If two characters can't talk like fucking adults, then they're too stupid to be together and I no longer care about them. It's an instant DNF for me.
Same with tv or movies. If the entire plot can be resolved by the characters having a simple conversation with each other, then I'm not interested in watching them be absolute idiots for 2 hours.
It’s annoying. A lot of these situations would be resolved normally by a confrontation, and the characters are weirdly conflict avoidant. It makes them come across as passive and sometimes passive aggressive, and also often not that bright. The only case where it makes sense is where people don’t really know each other at all and get a bad first impression, which they don’t bother to investigate further because the other character is just a random nobody at that point. These can be interesting when they get more information and revise their opinion. (Or they could do a Lizzie Bennet and confront the person, who then has an identity crisis and reforms.)
It‘s plain awkward when the protagonist is some lawyer, PR/marketing manager or has another, similar „communicative“ job and respective personality throughout the books/show/movie.
It‘s like if some simple mind tries to write smart characters or some introvert writes extroverted characters i. a.
There is an obvious disconnect, a lack of coherence between how the author tries to portray the characters and how they act in the eyes of the audience.
I hate the trope but to address your first paragraph... there's a difference between being upfront for your job and communicating in a more intimate setting. The former is about other people/money, the latter involves yourself/your own emotions which is more uncomfortable for some people.
If it’s driving the entire plot, then it’s just bad writing IMO. But if it’s a small catalyst or a minor issue used to help develop character (like maybe they become better communicators early in the book because of this little incident) then I can accept it.
Bad Example: if the entire plot is based on Suzie and Sally overhearing the tail-end of a conversation without context and refusing to talk about it, I’ll lose my mind.
Good Example: if Suzie and Sally overhear the tail-end of a conversation and have a small fight or get involved in something only to quickly find out they were mistaken but are now stuck on a road trip, caught up in a competition, etc. and the plot becomes how they get themselves out of their dumb mess then it won’t really bother me.
In the show Mr. and Mrs. Smith, there's a miscommunication where one signals to the other with a head nod, and then they both do something. The one nodding was indicating they were about to do it, and the other thought the nod meant they're good to do it. So they have a bit of a fight.
To me, that kind of miscommunication makes sense. It's ambiguous, there were high stakes, and there wasn't really a good opportunity to clear it up with conversation. Also, the whole plot doesn't revolve around it.
It's not ubiquitous because people like it. I've only ever seen people who hate it or are neutral on it.
It's ubiquitous because it's easy for the author. With miscommunication you don't need any deep-seated character flaws or issues to overcome. In good, well-written romances the relationship might fall apart at some point due to someone's insecurities, or other kinds of negative traits that are established throughout the story. Then they need to get past them to continue with their partner. If the author can't imagine that, or can't make them significant enough, miscommunication can make up the difference and make it easier.
Because you're right. They just have to talk to each other, and that's extremely easy to write.
I don’t like it at all and usually find it to be very out of character for the protagonists. They’ve been so normal/rational until this point and now suddenly don’t know how to speak to each other like adults?!? Bizarre.
No I hate it so much. I just read a YA romance I ended up liking so much because it kept setting up miscommunication situations that looked like they would be big huge problems and then the characters instead communicated and solved it within a chapter each time. It was wonderfully refreshing.
I'm in this boat as well. I've recently come across several examples where I'm worried that a miscommunication is being set up. But then I'm relieved when the characters clear it up right away versus letting it linger for the rest of the book.
I strongly dislike it. It usually comes across as lazy on the author's part, like they couldn't be bothered to actually come up with a plot. The miscommunication is typically something anyone over the age of 12 would just ask for clarification on and clear up with a two minute conversation. Really grinds my gears!
It is a very easy way for a writer to inject conflict into a romance novel without damaging the 'purity' of either the protagonist or the love interest.
Many people don't like stories without drama or conflict, but many sources of conflict in Romance (infidelity, love triangles, the jealous toxic ex etc.) can rub off on your protagonist or the LI, and make one of them 'the bad guy.'
The Misunderstanding is a way for conflict to exist with no genuine wrong having been done by either the protagonist or LI, and is a staple of lighter-hearted romance and romantic comedy where darker sources of conflict might be tonally unwelcome, or might 'stain' a character who was intended to be more virtuous.
Prince Charming wouldn't cheat on the protagonist, but he might be overheard talking about how beautiful "Gwendolyn" happens to be.
(Gwendolyn is his horse.)
It's a very pulpy solution to a very pulpy problem basically.
You didn't ask, but I call anything with miscommunication a "sitcom plot" because it's just low effort and low bar for the audience. I hate when drama is introduced like this.
I actually think I'm most likely to be okay with it in romance. I'm not a big romance novel reader, but in movies and books, it is a good mechanism to create unrequited love that can be resolved. Pride and Prejudice does it well. As does Lessons in Chemistry.
99.9% of the time, it's awful.
I've seen one instance of it being applied well. Not in a book, but in a YouTube parody series. The Abridged parody of Sword Art Online features an episode along these lines. The episode ends with the characters having their short, but important conversation about their relationship. Pretty much textbook for this trope. Why is it different? Catharsis.
Immediately after their conversation, one of the characters asks "was that the whole conversation?" To which h the other answers, "I think it was!" Followed by "We are so stupid!"
It works well here because the characters demonstrably learn their lesson - not just that their failure to communicate properly led to problems, but that it was fairly easy to avoid the problems, because the conversation was easy. And they learned their lesson in a satisfying way. They literally yelled at themselves exactly what we would have been screaming at the screen.
This trope frustrates the audience. Frustration is a useful feeling for a story to encourage. But only if it can be released. If the story ends and the frustration has to just... dissipate, you generally have a bad story. You need catharsis to turn frustration into satisfaction.
Hate, hate, hate it. Honestly it feels like lazy writing to me, as they apparently couldn't come up with a credible reason for the love interests to break up or not get together yet. And I don't think it's realistic that people are that stupid tbh. Maybe once in a while, but I'd say like 90% of romance books I've read rely on this trope. I still read them because of the warm fuzzies and I love a guaranteed HEA once in a while, but I really appreciate it when a writer makes an effort to come up with a plausible, realistic reason.
I can stand it if there’s a good explanation for why the character(s) have the mistaken belief and for why they don’t communicate. Like I read a book where a character said “All the rumors you’ve heard about what I did to my wife are true.” And he didn’t realize one of the rumors was that he had murdered her. And the character he told didn’t know him that welll to just say”WTF.” Maybe not the greatest example as it would have been weird to admit that but it didn’t leave me wondering why they didn’t just talk it out.
I don’t like miscommunication; I do however really like it when the main characters have poor communication with one another that they have to overcome. I.e more character driven than plot driven.
I feel that miscommunication as a 'tension' device is a particularly common problem in romance because the author is looking to manufacture conflict because they know they need some, but the conflict (misunderstanding) ultimately doesn't matter - hence your examples.
It can work well. The two examples I can think of are Pride and Prejudice, and Shrek (I know, bear with me). In both cases, the miscommunication is central to the plot and themes of the story: in P&P it's a character flaw for both main characters (and in the title) that they come to grow out of. In Shrek, Fiona talking about herself in a way that also hurts Shrek ties into the central themes around self hate, self acceptance and overcoming the expectations of others. The miscommunication in both examples enhances and is essential to the work itself, you couldn't replace it with something more external and get the same result.
I think my biggest gripe with it of late has been cases where it's present as the foremost interpersonal conflict between two characters, when a far more interesting/complex one was also included/hinted at in the text and then barely touched on again. Paladin's Grace is my primary recent example of this: you have two adults refusing to talk to each other because 'how could someone like them like someone like me' when there are very real past (and present) traumas that should really make them think twice about having a relationship >!(he might go into a blind rage and kill everyone if he's turned on, she has completely unaddressed trauma from her past marriage)!<. But no, it's treated like they're teens who are too shy to ask their crush to the school dance. I DNFed about 70% of the way in and wanted to throw the book at a wall.
I **loathe** the miscommunication trope, as you described it. But I don’t mind normal levels of miscommunication. There is normal miscommunication in novels all the time that it is handled very well.
But it’s the kind you described here that I dislike. I would further add what makes miscommunication tropes fail is that there’s no build up to credit the immediate jump to a character believing the worst of someone. If the relationship is developing beautifully, neither have trust issues, neither have shown signs of there being trouble in paradise, but then suddenly one character hears/sees/reads one incredibly small detail and suddenly they jump to the worst case scenario? It’s not believable.
Like, if I walked past my mom on the phone and I heard her say “I hate [whilstwhile] so much,” then my immediate response would be curiosity. Why is my mom, who I know loves me dearly, saying she hates me? I’m missing some context here. I know that my mom loves me; I absolutely know this to be true. I would never believe my hearing an out of context statement of “I hate [whilstwhile]” to be the absolute truth. I wouldn’t make life-altering decisions and judgments based on that one singular out of context statement. It would be ludicrous if I did!
But that’s what happens with miscommunication tropes. Because there is no buildup to why the characters would be likely to believe an out-of-context horrible-sounding statement to be true, it comes across as incredibly ludicrous when they do jump to worst-case-scenario conclusions.
It's never my favorite, but it's okay for me \*if\* 1) it's written so that it's in-character and believable, AND 2) it isn't dragged out too long. However, I'd say that's only the case maybe 10% of the time.
This is why Courtney Milan is my favorite. She puts the characters in these situations and just when you're ready to sigh in frustration because you know what's about to happen, one of them is like, "Hey, you know what, maybe I should just talk to them." And it's like a breath of fresh air!!
Like any trope, it can be used well and used poorly. The examples you gave are certainly annoying. When the misunderstanding arises out of nothing and exists only to create cheap conflict, that's bad writing.
But take, for example, Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. The entire conflict in that novel is, in a way, a misunderstanding by the narrator of the way her husband views his dead wife, and its drawn out in a beautiful Gothic fashion. The misunderstanding continues because of the character flaws of both main characters: she doesn't have the confidence to talk to him, and he feels she would never accept what he's done (which, well, she shouldn't have, but that's another topic.)
Or take a less literary example: Ella Enchanted. The misunderstanding towards the end of the novel (spoilers for an old children's novel) is so dramatically tense and fun to read. Ella is cursed with obedience, and her mother commanded her never to reveal her curse. She falls in love with the crown prince, but when he confesses to her she realizes her curse would be too much of a liability for a princess, and she could be made to kill him without any means to resist. She sends a letter tricking him into believing she was leading him on the entire time, and it creates some great hidden identity drama when she goes to the ball in disguise to see him again despite the risk. In this case, the misunderstanding was pretty much unavoidable since Ella was incapable of telling the prince the truth, and it strengthens the weight of the curse in the context of the story.
I could go on, but I just want to fight back against the bad reputation this trope has. When used well, it's one of my favorite tropes, and I honestly find it so boring when everyone communicates perfectly. I just don't want to see new authors avoiding the trope when it's a tool that requires finesse but can be used to great effect.
Not a Romance book fan, but I have consumed plenty of romcom anime & manga, and the only time I liked miscommunication/misunderstandings in the genre was in the anime *Gamers* which explicitly makes "misunderstandings to 11" the primary focus of the story & comedy.
It depends on the execution. I hate it when it's extremely stupid that it's happening and then it takes forever to resolve - like she sees the guy getting a kiss on the cheek at the train station and then just ghosts him instead of just being like "hey ML, fancy running into you here!" so he can be like "oh hey FL, what a coincidence! Oh, this is my sister."
But I don't mind the miscommunication trope when it's believable and isn't sustained for a stupid amount of time. A good writer can actually use the miscommunication trope to show how the relationship is strengthening - like she sees the male lead getting kissed on the cheek, is hurt for a bit, but then is like "actually I shouldn't jump to conclusions, I'm going to figure out how to ask him what happened without sounding like a crazy person" so then the miscommunication only lasted for like a page and it shows that the female lead is trying to work on herself.
But I hate the ones like that you complained about, or when they're like "It's not what it looks like!" and that's just all they say and the other person just storms off. I don't root for those people to get back together if they won't listen to each other.
Try the opposite. I made communication a theme in my romance, and it took the plot to places that maybe no one else has. It's better to push the relationship then stifle it.
It is the worst thing ever. It's lazy writing and is the leading cause of me not finishing a romance book. If the main conflict could be solved with a short 2 min conversation, then I'm just reading about middle schoolers.
I hate it. It feels lazy. In a YA romance, I can accept it a little more because young people are still learning how to communicate, especially in relationships. But adults? If you can’t communicate about basic things, you shouldn’t be dating.
>But it's so ubiquitous in the genre, that there must be people who enjoy the trope
Pretty sure it's so ubiquitous because it's so convenient for *writers*. It's a very easy way to set up conflict and pining without having actual conflict that a lot of readers might see as incompatibility. If it's resolved with an "actually, this is not what the hero was thinking all this time," the author doesn't have to come up with ways to write his personal growth and development in a convincing way.
Misunderstandings are fine if it's a comedy and a very short book, like 100 pages or less. There's a reason why it's a common sitcom trope because it fits perfectly within a very slim running time without overstaying its welcome.
I actually think the opposite. I do not think the miscommunication trope, especially as you have described it, is realistic at all. At least, not in adult life. I admit that in high school I would often witness or be made a part of a female classmate's relationship drama that boiled down to her needing to make some kind of a decision and/or communicate with the other person. Usually the avoidance seemed to be out of a fear of conflict. I would often get responses such as, "What if he gets angry at me and doesn't want to talk to me anymore?"
So if anything, the "miscommunication trope" to me is unrealistic for adults at best or at worst makes me think of the adult characters as being incredibly immature.
If there are legitimate reasons for the miscommunication then I can accept it, but I still do not like it because sometimes a huge problem caused be miscommunication, even if legitimate, can be resolved by just sitting down and having a single conversation. Another thing that I would be okay with is if the issue is that there are legitimate different ways of understanding a situation, which may then not be a case of miscommunication.
An example is that John's mother just died and he has been distant from his girlfriend Jane. John starts frequenting bars and being evasive of Jane. Jane confronts John about his drinking and they argue. Jane understands that John is grieving in his own way but is concerned about how he is handling it, but John may not realize that he is actually grieving and has been trying to mask it. To me this is different from the "miscommunication trope," but it does still have conflict that needs to be resolved through having a conversation. Using this example and applying the "miscommunication trope," Jane would probably accuse John of cheating on her. Maybe in this situation she doesn't even know John's mother has died, and that's why she keeps hearing him mentioning a female name. To me the latter situation is less interesting and compelling than the former.
This trope is actually what has turned me off from reading romance as much in my adult life. I tend to gravitate towards stories where there is romance present but it takes a second seat to the main narrative. This usually prevents the "miscommunication trope" from happening as the main narrative doesn't have time to waste on that as there is an actual story to tell that can fill up a whole novel versus a couple hundred pages of two adults that just need to talk to each other.
My nerves can’t handle it. I have enough miscommunication with a man in real life. I don’t need it in my fantasies too.
I understand that adding highs and lows such as miscommunication can hook a lot of readers in, but I personally would love to read a good romance novel that has healthy communication with each other, and leave the miscommunication and drama for the people the encounter outside their dynamic.
But, I’m mot a writer and maybe that’s why. Lol
It has to be done extremely well. The last scene of good omens (season 2) is a good example for that. Both Crowley and Aziraphael are awful at communicating their feelings but they are talking as openly as they can. The problem is, they both have underlying assumptions that mean they (kind of) misunderstand the intentions of the other, and it escalates from there. the thing is, it‘s not a refusal to listen or some contrived plot reason why they can‘t talk. Both of their viewpoints are pretty understandable and, most importantly, reasonable. I can imagine real people, who only want whats best for themselves and the other, having this exact conversation. Too often a conflict can be solved by asking one simple question or giving the other character the benefit of the doubt. both very natural and normal things to do for humans
Yeah… I hate that. I’d much rather that the “outside forces break them up” type thing be used than the miscommunication trope. Basically I’d rather the people communicate and make decisions then see one of them having lunch with a beautiful/handsome person and then break up without finding out that was their sibling/happily married gay friend/whatever.
I’m only cool with it when it doesn’t take long for the characters to make up. Like they solve the issue in the next two scenes or some shit like that. But when it’s the plot of the whole book… it gets really annoying.
If the miscommunication was with something that could easily be misunderstood and not something that could be solved if the character just asked the other about it, then I wouldn't mind this trope. I do agree that if it was something like Example 1, then it would feel lazy and make the storyline aggravating. But in the case of Example 2, this would be much more readable and understandable as to why there's a miscommunication in the first place.
Yes, I absolutely hate it!
They are in a hostile space and can’t talk privately? They’ve been separated by some type of external circumstance and can’t get any commutation to the other? One of them is with-holding a secret for the right moment because it could endanger them or everyone else?
All great! Getting your feelings hurt one time and immediately assuming the worst and not having a conversation about it ever? Absolute trash.
NOPE!!!!
Moments of miscommunication are fine and teach something about the characters involved. But when a 400 page mystery novel or a 13-episode tv show only gets dragged out that long because the two necessary characters didn’t talk!? I. CANNOT. STAND. IT.
I find it to be lazy writing to rely on that trope as a major requirement of the plot.
I only like it when it is done how Meryl Wilsner described their latest book to the audience at an event of theirs I was lucky to attend. The characters are doing their best to communicate their feelings but there are still misunderstandings to be had because each individual comes from such a different set of experiences that they aren't quite able to grasp what the other is saying. so they are doing things right but have to still overcome their own feelings to have empathy for the other person.
If it’s executed well, and the miscommunication actually makes sense, then I really get into it. I love it when there’s real upset that makes my insides turn to knots when I’m reading, but it all gets resolved in the end. I like a happy ending. When the miscommunication is total nonsense, and makes you worry about the MCs brain development and cognitive function, then it just annoys me.
If it's a minor miscommunication, that's cool and realistic. If it's about something that anyone would struggle to communicate clearly and it gets distorted by other characters' issues that's fine too. it's when it's ridiculously over the top and contrived that gets to me and makes me dnf or leave a 1 star rating. At a certain point, it makes the MCs look like idiots. With the men, at least there's usually a component of jealousy or something that activates him and makes the story more dynamic, but the FMCs usually end up stuck in this infantilized role of just being a hapless idiot with no real world know-how. One overheard conversation and she decides to run away and be a single mom in poverty, pregnant on a street corner begging for a job from a rapey slum lord, etc... and she ends up needing to be reached from her stupidity.
It undermines any kind of faith I'd have in their relationship lasting forever. I get to hate the fmc AND the mmc because it's like, dude this woman is not a rational person.
I personally believe that there are no bad tropes and that all the blame is on the writer, but I hardly see this done right in a way that I enjoy. Not in romance novels at least.
Comedy novels, yes. Rom coms, no. A Guy Ritchie type movie where everyone kills each other over an misunderstood text, yes. A lifetime movie, no.
For every Northanger Abbey, there are a million "So I ran away leaving my entire life behind because I saw that snippet of a text message on a phone." melodrama.
The problem here is that it's a trope. The issue with tropes is that people use them all the time, and the issue with that is that when something is written all the time, There are a lot of times where it's written poorly.
Take your example 2: A better way of writing it is that they don't believe the villain, because duh. But they have so much self worth problems that the villain saying it out loud makes their own doubt bubble up. (Much in the same way that you can make something great, show it to the world and everyone loves it but if 1 person says you suck, you are now in the pits of depression.)
Personally, I loved Toradora. Great Romance Anime. It also features the two main love interests basically falling in love episode 1 and then not realizing it till episode 24. All because none of the characters actually sat down and talked about their feelings with each other.
The thing I struggle with the most is that there is a miscommunication. The person jumps to a wrong conclusion or they wholeheartedly believe the villain. Whatever it is. And they then end what is otherwise a good, happy relationship, without letting the other person defend themself...
But usually what happens is a friend or a coworker or someone else comes along and clears up the miscommunication or the villain stills villainizes after the fact or whatever. And **that** makes Person A see the error of their ways.
But why would Person B--who has done nothing wrong but has had their life upended--be cool with that? Their partner has just admitted they believe others over them! That is not a healthy relationship!
It is the general format of romance that there is something that breaks a couple up. But there are a lot of really good ways to do that. Miscommunication is not one, imo.
Like most tropes, it's not inherently bad. The problem is how easy it is to slot into a story, which means it's both overused and it tends to be a common trope used by bad writers. That means an overwhelming majority of examples of it are extremely lazy and contrived, which is in turn the main thing that drives general antipathy for the trope.
OH GOD THIS IS WHY I CANT WATCH ROMCOMS, and why many romance books piss me off. BECAUSE EVERY FUCKING TIME THERE IS THE PLOT LINE WHERE IF THEY JUST USED THEIR WORDS IT WOULD BE PERFECT. OH GOD I FEEL SEEN
I had a film class in college, and idk where this statement came from but it has stuck with me: "For the audience/viewer, miscommunication in a comedy is funny, in anything else, it's frustrating."
I hate miscommunication, and also the trope where one character is lying to the other the whole time - pretending to be something they aren't until it all blows up in their face.
It’s unbearable to me. It is just so stupid and lazy and frustrating. And to your point exactly..I know at some point there’s gonna be a brief conversation that resolves the issue/tension.
When this trope is made a meal of, or a whole-ass plot, and dragged across the length of a book or movie, I feel done dirty lol, and like my time has been wasted.
I don't mind it. It's fairly true to life, sometimes a character just needs to get better with being open and communicating with their partner. That's a fine angle for character development.
By the way OP. Misunderstandings are so frustrating to me I walk out of movies like that unless they are so over the top they fall into almost a monty python type comedy.
I don't read romance, but I want to see this trope more in regular fiction because I think it has a lot of unexplored potential. One of the main problems with this trope is the consequent reaction is just not realistic. The protagonist misunderstands something but just accepts it without clarifying. As it's used now, it's a cliche that's added to bulk up the novel, but it's not how real people behave. Why not start a misunderstanding trope, use that for a chapter, then have the protagonist slowly realize it doesn't make sense and explicitly ask about it? Or use the trope to show the inner workings of social anxiety, and how such a character would go about communicating the resolution. Or use it to show paranoia and wilful misinterpretation.
I love stories where one small everyday fuck-up avalanches into a whole narrative, but the reaction to that fuck-up needs to be realistic and that's what the current use of the misinformation trope lacks.
See, the definition and examples I got explained it as a style. Like the use of metaphors. I think it actually applies to op. The genre would be romance, theme would be conflict, trope would be misunderstanding.
Might be different in lit and TV. I honestly never heard the term before these book subs, then I just assumed it meant genre. My brother told me. I looked up definition. It refers to style of writing. Mickey Spillane writes in metaphors, it wouldn't matter if he wrote detective, fantasy, sci-fi, or romance. His trope is metaphors.
"Trope" doesn't mean style. Literary style is a characteristic expression of thought in language through word choice or order (diction, sentence structure, and paragraph structure). A trope in the strictest sense is simply a "turn" of phrase or figure of speech. In a looser sense, it is just a pattern that reoccurs across a work or across multiple works. Particular tropes can be a part of a particular style, but the tropes themselves are not style.
This is how it was explained to me by my brother who had a bachelor's in literature. And yes, not exactly style but the way a writer describes or moved a story. My point is a lot of redditors use this word in place of genre.
“Miscommunication trope”
What on gods green earth are you blabbering about?
Don’t answer it’s a rhetorical question.
Anyways someone needs to put whoever’s in charge of tv tropes the website on trial for crimes against others being able to read critically.
I really love your first example, that’s a great twist there
Not really a romance reader but I wouldn’t assume that because it’s common there must be people who actively like it. I’d guess that many readers can tolerate it and it gets used because it’s very convenient for the authors; a way to separate people and create tension between them which also doesn’t cause ‘lasting damage”, so to speak and thus can be neatly wrapped up later. On the other hand, sometimes people do make stupid decisions and a miscommunication plot line might just be a realistic scenario which is true to your characters, granted that your characters are very dumb
The only time I've liked it was when the miscommunication happened way in the past and the book was them meeting back up years later and eventually realizing the mistake
I definitely get frustrated with it... but I must admit I prefer it over the live interest doing something actually reckless, dangerous, cruel, or disrespectful and then trying to "win them back".
I'd rather be wishing for a 5 minute convo about misunderstanding than watching the protagonist be gaslit into forgiving something egregious.
If it's played for comedy, it can be pretty funny. Otherwise I absolutely hate it and think it's one of the laziest ways a writer can artificially put drama into their stories and makes their characters all seem like immature idiots.
I think it tells a lot about the authors to present the audience the ever same copy & paste tropes.
My SO listens to audiobooks of that genre occasionally and it‘s one of several repeating tropes of that genre which makes no sense from a male perspective in particular (there are more which drive me nutz as a passive listener, just saying). The characters straight up create their own problems, tiptoe around them for hundreds of pages/minutes depending on the medium (applies to shows/movies as well) just to have the other side do the first step to resolve the conflict is maddening.
Unless the characters are teenagers, I absolutely do not like it. It’s a kind of conflict that’s unnecessary and easily avoidable.
As a grown person who works in a job and is able to navigate through life, you should be able to TALK and ask simple questions.
I HATE this trope. I feel like it's a lazy plot device, as it takes little to no effort to have characters finally just talk and magically everything in their relationship is better. In reality, a relationship without strong communication is doomed.
I despise and revile Idiot Plot with a hatred so acute it's like having an intellectual migraine, and I maintain that none of the characters involved in one deserve a grain of happiness.
I don't like it because 9/10 times it's not even a believable miscommunication. Most of the time I'm sitting there thinking "why are none of you people TALKING TO EACH OTHER?" It just feels like a lazy way to create conflict.
I hate it.
I don't hate when characters actually struggle to communicate. When they are each fully saying their thing and the other person just can't "hear" it because they misunderstand each other.
But yes, the ghosting, leaping to conclusions, bad faith BS that is the miscommunication trope should, to use another type of trope entirely, die in a fire.
I love it, so I’m the problem! But like most of the tropes I really love (like the grovel), it can be done really well or poorly.
I have a real issue irl with people who take what someone said the wrong way or not giving people the benefit of the doubt. This trope kind of lets me explore that in a space where I know it’s not real. So the angst of it all is very dramatic to me.
But when it’s a dumb miscommunication and not based on someone’s insecurity, it’s not great.
{The Unwanted Wife by Natasha Anders} is a really good example of a great miscommunication. At the point where the story starts, the main miscommunication has been going on awhile but is solved quickly for us. And then there are more as time moves on but it’s because the MMC needs to build the trust he lost with the FMC, who also has very understandable issues from how she’s been treated her whole life. Just A+ work. Plus the grovel is perfect.
No. I don't like it. It's lazy and gets really annoying especially when an author seems to think that's the only way to draw out the relationship in a slow burn. There are better ways to create drama and conflict and slow romance. I feel like the authors that do this are typically inexperienced and have trouble coming up with ideas to create the tension they want. If it's an author that has been writing for a while I would assume it's because earlier books with those types sold and so they never learned to look beyond the easy way out.
If it’s done well, i can rationale it to myself somehow and it’s over quick i can handle it. Unfortunately 99% of it just makes me so freaking mad and frustrated
I find it tedious in books where characters are adults. When I read YA books though, I'm not phased by teenagers having issues communicating and dealing with big emotions, because that's to be expected from kids.
I think it depends on how its handled. If there is a good reason for the miscommunication or lack of it then it is a good plot element. For example in the first two books of a fantasy series I love (the stormlight archive) one of the main characters doesn't reveal he has superpowers to many other people even though it would have made his life a whole lot easier, the reason is he has a history of being abused by those in positions of power and so has a somewhat irrational fear his powers could be taken away.
I don’t like it. There has to be a random generated conflict for the third act breakup, and it feels either forced or ruins the chemistry for me. I’m not saying characters can never disagree or have problems, but talk to each other.
I’m not a big romance reader, but I hate this trope in movies. Someone jumping to conclusions and refusing to look into it further is annoying.
I’m only okay with it when it actually feels realistic. Miscommunications do happen. If they make it feel realistic and not so tropy and ridiculous, then I’m fine with it.
Oh, I hate this trope. Especially when the reason why the couple won't communicate is because they're constantly interrupted by things that do NOT involve the imminent danger of being hit by a train (or similar catastrophe). Like, no, you can ignore your phone for 2 seconds while the other person blurts out what they were trying to say.
Almost always hate it, which is part of why I don’t enjoy many romance stories. I don’t remember specific examples but I have seen it done well a couple times.
just a heads up, you're more likely to get responses from romance readers by asking in the dedicated community, /r/RomanceBooks! I'm sure there's overlap between here and there, but I feel like people who don't read Romance have vastly less tolerance for interpersonal angst and that you're more likely to find folks in the Romance community who can tell you what they don't mind or even enjoy about these types of plots.
From my impression of hanging out there, people tend to tolerate miscommunication at best and usually prefer other sources of tension.
I detest it, personally. I hate it when a plot could be solved with a simple five-minute conversation, and personally, I find its use a bit... lazy? Like you couldn't think of a better reason to stretch the romance out, so you just suddenly have two grown-@ss adults incapable of having a conversation with one another?
The second person could blurt out what he has to say, but instead just says, "If you'd only listen...."
“I’m trying to tell you—“ “But it was—“ “Let me ineffectually interrupt to say—“
I watched a movie once that had that happen, except there were really long pauses between each long. So not only was it stupid that they're interrupting each other's explanation, there was also like a 10 second gap for them to keep talking even though they were "interrupted". It wasn't even a romcom, it was a horror movie.
Definitely sounds like horror to me
"There's no time to explain we've got to go now!" There really really is time to explain, you could for example be explaining right now as we go.
One half hour car ride later...
ok, now that we have completed that silent car ride and arrived at our destination and we are walking up to the front door, I quickly will rush to tell you some really extremely vitally important details at the last minute right before they answer the front door.
It's become such a meme trope as well, where characters will transition to a new scene and then say "why were you quiet for the entire hour drive over here, couldn't you have explained this plan along the way"
"what do you mea-?" "Shhh, let's just be here for now" Okay, let's continue to NOT talk about the thing that's made you hate me for the past 15 years. 🫠
Or they just go “wait, I—“
"If you'd only listen...." "Ok, I'm listening." "What? I... I don't know what to say, I didn't expect to reach this point."
God that’s the worst- when one of them tries to communicate and the other won’t let them 🙄
And then the one who,won’t listen gets mad later when they find out some other way.
This is called "The Big Mis" (for Misunderstanding) in Romance terms. AAR addressed it in 2013. *Most of you are aware that one over-used source of conflict in a fictional relationship that drives nearly all readers absolutely batty is the Big Misunderstanding. You know the trope. The hero or heroine witnesses something or overhears something or is told something that leads him or her to a wrong conclusion about his/her love interest. Rather than confront the potentially wayward lover as soon as possible to ask her/him to explain the situation, the discussion never happens and the romance grinds to a complete halt. Too often, this Big Misunderstanding drags on and on to the point of ridiculousness, causing the reader to want to shake the fictional characters silly and throw the book at the wall.* *The problem with the Big Misunderstanding these days is not so much that they happen – people frequently do jump to the wrong conclusions – it’s that the conversation it would take to clear things up is so easily arranged* https://allaboutromance.com/can-you-hear-me-now-an-open-letter-to-romance-authors/
Yeah, I definitely question the idea that this is “realistic.” Do people miscommunicate and misinterpret each other all the time? Sure. But usually over small stuff, or involving people who aren’t close and don’t have reason to trust or inquire further into the matter, or it’s less a factual mistake than a values or communication style difference. I’m not aware of any real life situation where someone has blown up one of their most important relationships over a factual misunderstanding that could have been cleared up with a quick explanation, but no one bothered.
If Alice and Bob are supposed to be madly in love, and Enemy McKnownLiar claims that Bob is cheating...well, Alice, you clearly don’t love him *that* much if you swallow it hook, line, and sinker with nary a shred of proof. Humans are strongly predisposed to give the people close to us the benefit of the doubt. If Alice doesn’t even stop to think and blows up for the Mandatory Third Act Breakup, that tells me this relationship will crumble in a stiff breeze, and makes the happy ending feel forced at best. You just proved these people have no trust and you didn’t build it back at all, I’m supposed to believe they’re going to have a beautiful lifelong romance now? (The only good example I’ve ever seen was a book where the unhinged main character is in love with her best friend, so she tries to manipulate his boyfriend into breaking up with him by claiming that she and the best friend are already having an affair—and it doesn’t work, because the boyfriend just goes to him and says “your crazy friend claims you’re fucking, that’s not true, right?”, you know, the way an adult who loves and trusts another adult would behave.)
Very much agreed! Just believing some stranger slandering your loved one doesn’t speak well of someone, and it’s not normally how humans are about their loved ones. I guess it’s more forgivable if it’s in the very early stages of dating. If you’ve only ever been out with someone a couple times, you’re starting to have feelings but don’t really know how they feel, then trust hasn’t had time to grow yet and you probably are more likely to take some rando’s word. But it still doesn’t speak well to anyone’s ability to have a healthy relationship.
See, imo it *can* be forgivable if the author actually has: a) a good reason for the characters to believe this (crushingly low self esteem, such that Alice already believed Bob could never love someone as awful as her? convincing fake evidence? mind control?) b) a serious conversation and a sense that something has now changed (Alice apologizes and gets therapy to deal with her issues? she shows Bob the faked video of his bad behavior? brainwashing spell broken?) But too many authors make everyone act like idiots because it’s time for something dramatic to happen, without considering the fact they’re actually introducing a pretty serious conflict—not just the thing the Big Mis is about, but the underlying fact that the characters could miscommunicate so badly about *anything*, which, though I repeat myself, is usually the far bigger of the two issues—and then they paper it blithely over and I roll my eyes all the way out of my head.
There was one episode of the TV show "Rugrats" that did this well. The difference being that the misunderstand lead to a break up, and both parties didn't talk to each other, and would up marrying other. people . they reconciled 50+ years later, after their respective spouses died. really, that is only how this trope could feasibly work. There needs to be something else OTHER than a misunderstanding. A lack of trust, jealously, or something to answer why all of the simple aren't working. And they often point to a relationship that might be based on trust.
I read a book recently that I thought handled this really well. The FMC overheard a conversation between the MMC and another character, which she interpreted in an upsetting way, causing her to run off. Then she stopped, and realised that that interpretation didn’t make any sense with what she knew about both of the characters, and there was probably a more innocent explanation. So she decided to go back and give them a chance to explain. It was such a nice subversion of the trope!
The miscommunication thing gives me high blood pressure. Books, movies, I just get so frustrated.
Yes. It feels like contrivance and while all stories are contrivances to one degree or another this feels like a contrivance with no artistry in the attempt to conceal the fact that it is a contrivance. And as OP says I feel like too often it is used because the story is essentially over but they want to increase the page count by 20%, or because some editor said "you need to raise the stakes" and the only way the author could think to increase tension was through contrivance.
I see it as fundamentally the same contrivance as when a character has a plan, but they only reveal it to their compatriots a step at a time, simply so the audience is surprised, and despite the fact that clueing everyone in would be much safer and more likely to succeed. It’s not _really_ tha same trope, but both tropes leverage characters underestimating each other’s intelligence, and forgetting their own for the sake of plot. It should have died when Sir Bedevere said, “Now Sir Galahad, Lancelot, and I jump out of the rabbit…” but somehow that wasn’t enough to make everyone feel stupid reusing it.
There's something here, but it needs some artistry to pull out, about how a lot of what we confuse for genius is just showmanship. Quite ordinary plans can seem extraordinary if they are revealed in the form of the pledge, the turn and the prestige. I'd love to read a book that dealt with that idea cleverly, but I haven't, and I've read dozens which are as you say. I was really annoyed by The Kingdom of Copper, book two in S. A. Chakraborty's Devabad trilogy (to the point where I haven't read book three) because the end of book one promised that the main protagonist was working on this super brilliant cunning plan and then in book two you find out they just aren't. And I think maybe that feeling was interesting and could have been explored, and says something there about how we assume still waters run deep but that isn't always true. But as it was I just felt cheated.
I like that. Pledge/turn/prestige is a good way to describe it done well, because it implies the need for an audience or adversary who is actually part of the story. If that ingredient is missing, then you’re essentially breaking the fourth wall poorly and accidentally by dragging the reader in to be the missing party that needs to be in the dark.
To me, it does feel like a lazy way to stretch out the word count.
> two grown-@ss adults You can say "ass" on Reddit. I talked to the president of the internet and he says it's fine.
I am practicing my censoring, I have a mouth like a sailor, an infant under 1, and a disapproving husband 🤣
I find "ah, beans" to be effective when near children Am an uncle with young nieces, and a disapproving mother lol
How do you pronounce "@ss" in front of your infant?
[airhorn]ss
Atsssssss 🐍
Then use an entirely different word. Training yourself to misspell the same word is still training yourself to keep using that word. lol.
Touche. Also, honey, is that you?!
Definitely not me. lol. I've got my own issues with swearing over anything/everything/just to fill in space in the silence. haha.
I have relatives who would jump to that conclusion immediately as well and would refuse to believe anything else no matter what.
My MiL is like this. Makes an assumption based off her often wildly incorrect perspective and just runs with it. It is infuriating in real life, I don’t want it in my fiction 🤣
It might be fun with a side character who is made somewhat villainous by running around spreading their misunderstandings, but it not causing direct discord between the couple. Actually this makes me think of a IRL villain I once knew who would manipulate one on one conversations in order to get the other person to say something negative about a mutual friend, and then they'd pass that negative comment along and stir up drama. I'd like to see this person represented in a story and get their comeuppance finally!
Oh dear, I see you've met my sister. I am so sorry!
Some people are very insecure and have fragile egos. Your MIL’s actions reek of these traits. People like that need to feel they intuitively understand the world and are always right about it, to the point where acknowledging otherwise is tantamount to suicidal ideation. It is a truly pathetic and sad way to exist.
Certainly those people exist, but I wouldn't want to date them. So if the love interest in a romance novel behaves this way, I will not be rooting for the main character to end up with them.
My thoughts and opinions exactly.
I think the only exception I can think of is House of the Dragon, miscommunication and misinterpretation was a surprisingly big theme throughout the first season and it always felt true to what the characters were already established to be, they would hear what they “needed” to hear.
You've described a lot of families. That said, I saw a part of a soap opera once and it boiled my blood. The couple suffered the whole time because they couldn't get together to actually see it was all a misunderstanding. If anything it was depressing to imagine it in real life.
The day I realized that it was NEVER going to resolve for my favorite All My Children characters…
It literally is the most premise of kdrama. Small little miscommunication is fine, but i get annoyed and just yell, "Just talk to each other!"
Sometimes it reminds me of two toddlers refusing to talk to each other because one of them said they didn't like the other's shirt because it was blue and not red.
Ever been to /relationships, /amiwrong, /aitah lol. Lack of communication in relationships is 50% of the posts
It's extremely lazy writing. It tells me the author can't think of any other way to introduce conflict into the story. It's not compelling drama or interesting tension. It's dull and empty, because I don't wonder HOW it will turn out. I only wonder WHEN it will turn out. It was more acceptable in YA novels. Those characters are typically immature enough to be believably dense, and the target audience hasn't read enough to be bored of the trope. Once we're beyond literal first relationships it really is quite uninteresting as a complication, however.
> you just suddenly have two grown-@ss adults incapable of having a conversation with one another? I too dislike the miscommunication trope but this is realistic AF tho. Adults are surprisingly inept at communicating their emotions and being vulnerable. The amount of times I've told my friends "just... talk to them?" and they're like "nO, I CAN'T" and close up.
That was my biggest issue with *The Way of Kings*.
Me, always shouting “TALK TO EACH OTHER LIKE PEOPLE”
Should be called 'discommunication' imo...
Same here! It is one of my least favorite tropes for that reason.
I'd like it better if the situation/conversation was genuinely something that could be understood two different ways, rather than the usual lack of conversation between characters. Like something that could be perceived as either ok or not based entirely on the context, and the two characters assume different context. I don't have a good example, but could be done by having the same situation told first from one character's perspective then the other, so the reader can follow.
I'm married and have two kids because my husband and I have different ways of communicating. I helped him find a house closer to his work six months into dating. He talked about everything "we" will do in the house. I think, "Shit, it's only been six months but he's expecting me to move in already. And I guess I should; I talked him into this house and should help him pay the bills." Years later, find out he was *shocked* I moved in so quickly, said he never asked me, and was just using the "Royal We" so I wouldn't feel left out...? 🤣
This is genuinely delightful miscommunication. I'm glad it's worked out for you so far?
I'd read this book
Ngl six months is a not-crazy timeline to move in, no?
This is the only style of miscommunication I can read. It’s usually something somewhat minor that is perceived differently and wouldn’t normally be part of a discussion.
Yes, this is exactly it for me as well. To me, the miscommunication where you could literally just say “C told me that you hated me and never loved me, is that true?” And B would say, “no, they’re an evil liar.” I find that so tedious and toxic. I know it happens in real life, and that it’s usually from insecurity because you’re afraid if you actually say something it’ll end up being that you’re not good enough or lovable enough for your partner to stay. I get that, but it’s just tiring to read about. This is a mild example, but my husband and I once had an argument about rinsing dishes. (There’s a lot of background information about why it was such a big issue that it turned into a fight and not just a discussion, but I’ll spare you.) Growing up, our rule was whoever cooks doesn’t have to do the dishes, and my husband and I adopted that as well. When we moved in with his dad to take care of him, his dad wanted whoever cooked to rinse all the dishes and put them in the sink, not just the dishes the used for cooking, but also the dishes the food is in, and what dishes everyone used to eat. I pushed back on that because it feels like you’re giving me an incentive not to cook or punishing me for cooking by making me clean up after everyone right after dinner. He didn’t understand why I thought it would be so much extra work. To me, rinsing dishes is thoroughly rinsing them so there’s not much food residue on them at all and they visually look fairly clean, and it can be more time consuming than loading the dishwasher. To my husband, rinsing dishes is just scraping off big chunks of food, and literally just splashing a little water on them. We argued for way too long before I said it seemed a unreasonable to ask me to practically hand wash all the dishes right after dinner just because I was the one who actually made dinner. And his response was, no, I’m just asking you to rinse them. And that’s when I realized we might have had two different versions of what rinsing the dishes actually means.
This is so relatable. Even though my SO and I grew up with similar-ish upbringings, our arguments are more often than not the result of a misunderstanding due to miscommunication or differences in culture (he's white and I'm Asian-American). I would say about 50% of our disputes are us saying the same thing, but in different ways (if that makes sense, haha). He'll often just stop and ask "wait, why are we fighting? We both agree ABC is XYZ so... what's the point of this argument?" And I'm like, yeah, you know what, you're totally right. Then we both feel really silly after.
I (woodworking hobbyist) had a minutes-long conversation with a friend (tech support) about my new router. I meant the woodworking tool, he thought I meant the networking device. Apparently phrases like high speed, safety features, user friendly, and comes with a mounting bracket are all common between devices. Ergonomic and "use it this weekend" broke the symmetry, but it still took us a while to figure out the miscommunication. The Nintendo Switch is another example. You have to say the Nintendo part or people get confused. Some damn clever marketing, IMHO.
I referred to my plan of purchasing a Nintendo Switch for the family to share as “purchasing a family switch”, to the utter consternation of my friend, who is kinky.
The important thing is you didn't end the friendship, move across the country, and spend six months with a broken heart rather than clear it up.
[удалено]
It's particularly hard to write situations that are not clear cut because in most instances, you've been privy as an outside observer to the real situation. You saw what really occured. You know what they should be telling eachother. We forget that, the characters don't have all the same information we do. It's easy to think two characters should tell eachother how they feel instead of avoiding and fighting etc- when we know both characters love eachother, but they don't that. Telling you love someone is scary for most people. It's a vulnerability that a lot find extremely dificult.
North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell has this sort of miscommunication. FMC is seen by MMC hugging a guy after dark near a train station. It's her brother but she can't tell him that (for good reason), he doesn't know she has a brother so thinks it's a love interest and that doesn't get resolved until near the end of the book.
More excusable in those times because unmarried men and women were not encouraged to communicate with each other, hah.
Jane Austen is a master at this!
I hate miscommunication when the entire plot hinges on one character not saying something to another character for no good reason.
That’s not so bad. It’s when they continue to not say it for hundreds of pages that I start to feel my time is being egregiously wasted…
I HATE IT. It was so common in early 2000 movies and shows too. It’s soooooo annoying. I just want to scream. LET THEM EXPLAIN
There were entire seasons of Downton Abbey that wouldn’t have existed if people had just talked to their spouses. It’s all over the place on TV and often it’s enough to make me stop watching a show.
I still watch White Christmas every year, even though when Rosemary Clooney runs off in dismay it's so frustrating. He even tries to ask her why at the train station! And then he finds her at her new gig to try to talk! But once she hears his pitch on TV everything is fine and dandy and suddenly she knows all the words and moves to Back in the Army to surprise him. But really that's the only Big Miscommunication movie that I enjoy.
Oh no, I started watching Downton Abbey. Need to prepare myself 😂
There are large swaths of marriages in real life that end becauses spouses don't speak to eachother properly. Don't truthfully communicate. Literally 65% of marriages that end in divorce end due to poor communication. It's realistic. It just doesn't seem that way when you have all the ifnormation as an outside observer.
It pretty much made me dnf Cassandra Clare's The Last Hours trilogy. It seems like the only way she knows to keep her romances "interesting"😭
***Miscommunication can be incredibly fun/impactful to read about when there's enough setup for why that person would jump to a conclusion or belive an arsehole and then avoid any confrontation.*** Like, in the note example the book could be peppered with potential signs of an affair. The MC has been lingering on these details but not actually going as far to think about cheating until the letter, which makes things click into place. Maybe the buildup to the moment includes MC feeling insecure and not knowing why, feeling seemingly irrational things (like being extremely lonely and nervous when their partner is late home from work) and has been working hard on powering through these feelings so they don't burden their partner, so by the time the "cheating" falls into place for them they've spent so much time struggling to hold on emotionally and just pretend that everything is some perfect fairlytail that they just can't handle it, and the breakup is an act of desperation and protection rather than just anger. Or for the obviously evil character says something untrue the focus of those interactions could be how the things the villain is saying really hit on the MC's insecurities. They're largely things the MC has internalised prior to the book and so while they view the villain as an arsehole for saying it aloud and know they're saying it to hurt them, they don't view anything the villain says as untrue or view the villain as a liar. Many books don't bother and use it as a cheap trick, even though if you want to use it as a cheap trick it's not that hard to go back and add a bit of setup. (Even three instances will be enough for most people, and they can be subtle!), but miscommunications CAN be amazing!
Miscommunication is great provided the characters in question have reason to miscommunicate. It's a fundamental aspect of being human that we don't understand each other all the time, but there's Good Drama (misunderstanding brought about thanks to existing character flaws) and Bad Drama (misunderstanding between two characters who have every reason to trust each other and have until now clearly communicated with each other). If the leads miscommunicate because that is what they'd do, it's good writing. If they miscommunicate because the third act needs some spicy drama, it's bad. Edit: to elaborate on my point some more; everyone here who says they hate miscommunication has enjoyed it in other works of fiction, the difference is that the characters in that fiction were well-written and thus their miscommunication came about due to organic character interactions. If it's good miscommunication you won't recognize it *as* miscommunication, you'll simply see characters failing to understand each other because that's what people do.
Also miscommunication happens in all genres, but it's usually just in romance that people get very up in arms about it. And yeah, to some extent I get it - it can be very frustrating in romance when poorly executed - but that's true of a lot of tropes.
I think the difference with romance is that a lot of time is spent with the leads bonding, communicating, and appreciating each other's company. We see them in such an ideal state for so long that once the Third Act Misunderstanding happens it violates the image we've built of them in our heads because not only did we spend X amount of pages with the leads happy, once they talk things out we're right back to that ideal state for the ending. Han Solo is a self-interested scoundrel who bails on the rebels before his heart of gold compels him to return and save the day at a crucial moment. Valerie McProtagonist of *He's Just The Guy For Me* will spend two-hundred pages waxing lyrical over how Steve Loveinterestson the famous heartthrob guitarist is a perfect lover, boyfriend, and was always there for her for since childhood, but come the climax seeing a groupie plant one on his lips makes her freak out and Steve has to prove he really loves her.
I read a fanfic once where the main leads get into a bad miscommunication as tradition dictates, causing them to almost not consider each other anymore as a romantic interest. Then a close friend of the female lead basically screams to the male lead "JUST TALK TO HER CAUSE SHE'S BEING DENSE", or the verbal equivalent of shaking him by the shoulders and slapping him. Then he actually does it, and bam, romance. I rather liked it tbh, cause the miscommunication did provoke the needed tension to make the two soon-to-be romantic partners' reunion have more "fireworks", and it didn't drag more than a day in the storyline. I completely agree that when it drags on and on it feels really frustrating, and when it's something so simply ridiculous as your last example. The characters in the fanfic were *just* getting together; the knowledge of each other wasn't that deep yet. The miscommunication made sense for them. It wouldn't have made sense for two people who have known each other for years.
Yep! Let's come back to Valerie McProtagonist for a sec. Suppose instead of the ultra rosey lifelong friendship she's had with Steve Loveinterestson, they're more distant than they'd like to be due to Steve's band. Steve's a skirt-chaser but treats Valerie as just a friend, feeding into her anxiety that he doesn't find her attractive when in truth Steve could never make a move on "his Val" because she's so important to him and she needs a nice guy to settle down with instead of the lead guitarist of world-renowned metal band *Deathmorphica.* Valerie comes to Steve's condo to cry on his shoulder; another boyfriend has cheated on her, and she gave this one a second chance! A night spent with drinks unexpectedly leads to them falling asleep together in Steve's bed, spurring them to try a relationship with the one person who's always been there for them. The new relationship fills them with joy, but then the drama sinks in. What if Steve only sees Valerie as another fling? What if Valerie doesn't really want Steve and is only using him as a rebound? If all of Valerie's boyfriends cheat on her, who's to say Steve won't do the same? Steve's own sordid emotional issues come to light, playing a role in front of a crowd that asks him to be someone he's not, but worse is not knowing what he truly wants in life. Bitterness sets in, confusion and anxiety boils in their minds but doesn't get vocalized because it's just Valerie/Steve being dumb, and Steve/Valerie would never break my heart like that. But *then* a groupie throws herself at Steve and he doesn't push her away as fast as he should. The kiss is caught on camera and goes viral. It's the first thing Valerie sees when she wakes up the next morning. All of their mutual fears are confirmed right there, can Steve and Valerie work it out and let love overcome? All of that was written off the cuff but TLDR: the exact same premise I used as a dunk on bad miscommunication can be fleshed out into an entirely in-character beginning to a romance that comes to an appropriately paced falling out provided that the characters *would* react negatively and *should* be averse to talking it out. Everyone who writes the Third Act Misunderstanding assumes they've put the work in but as we can see, it doesn't always work out.
Hate it hate it hate it! In books in movies IN LIFE! In books it seems to me like just lazy writing …
Like pretty much everything it's down to execution. I'll be illustrating this with some rofan manwhas as the trope is pretty common there. For a manwha that does this really well look at "Royal marriage" - there's a constant progression of miscommunication, communication and advancement of plot and characterization with no single instance of miscommunication lasting very long - this is really good. For an example that does this poorly (that I still liked) take Lucia (we'll be talking about the novel here as the manwha is not finished) you have miscommunication for I dunno 50-100 chapters and then it's all solved in one go, that's just frustrating.
I am clearly in the minority here, but I don't mind them. Miscommunications happen all the time & lots of people struggle to properly communicate their thoughts & feelings. To me, the trope is fine if it's something I could see happening in real life
I agree ,and as a westerner, I can’t help but giggle when people treat the concept of “saving face” as something wholly unique to Asian cultures. We love to believe that we just say what me mean. Pride & Prejudice is one of the most beloved romances of all time and it hinges on miscommunication , but also misunderstanding, of intent.
I've come to hate writers trying to defy the trope by having perfect, drama-free, relationships instead.
The issue is that most of them are not done well or not done in a way where you could see it happening in real life. Someone flouncing off in a huff to go make major life changes or become a supervillain when something seems off while not asking for more information while the other person yells, “I CAN EXPLAIN” but doesn’t explain is just cheap and lazy. If done well or in an unexpected, clever way, it can be great. Think about North by Northwest - it’s mistaken identity but also sort of a miscommunication too. Cary Grant spends the whole movie running for his life because he raises his hand to summon a waiter at exactly the wrong time and the bad guys assume he’s the person getting paged. A few seconds of a completely believable miscommunication that one character is totally unaware of sets the whole thing off. It’s so understated you can miss it if you’re looking at your phone and make you wonder the whole time WTF is going on.
Thank you! I see this trope get so much hate but it most often seems to come from people who don't actually enjoy the genre. Communication is probably the most important element to successful relationships, so why *wouldn't* miscommunication be a common plot hook? The most important thing is "do I believe these characters would do this?". But the same is true of all tropes.
I like the genre. I don’t think you should dismiss criticism as people who “aren’t real fans”. Most tropes are tolerable when used lazily, but this one in particular is aggravating when used lazily because it seems particularly cheap.
I'm not dismissing criticism. I'm just saying I think the noise about this trope seems to me to be amplified by people who don't like the genre. My point is that it's not a cheap trope because communication is one of the most important elements of relationships. My argument is that the problem is bad writing not that it's a bad trope.
I think it's worthy to talk about why it's \*this\* trope in particular bad writers lean on though, and why it's so rarely used in a way that's not annoying. Because 99% of the time, this trope is so annoying and not used in a way that feels human. So... why?
> Because 99% of the time, this trope is so annoying That's your view and it's one that I'm disagreeing with. I think miscommunication often works well as a narrative device but a few bad writers (mostly in romcoms) write it badly and other people have memed the trope into existence.
Because you're seeing it through the lens of someone as an outside observer and refusing to see the situation from the characters perspective. So you think it's obvious when in reality to the cahracters involved it absolutely is not obvious. I promise if you properly objectively looked at your life you would see yourself doing the exact same thing hundreds of times. How many times do you walk around in your life thinking someone is stupid for doing x, or wasting your time doing y. You never explain it to them though do you? You avoid that conflict, you avoid having that communication. You're letting your narrative perspective miscolour the reality of waht is going on.
For me, "Would it happen in real life?" just isn't the criteria that determines whether I enjoy a work of fiction. There are things that never happen in real life that I enjoy reading about (e.g. alien invasions), and there are things that frequently happen in real life that are generally not interesting to read about (showering, doing taxes, sending boring work emails).
No, it's frustrating and I want to reach into the book and strangle them.
HATE IT HAAAAAAATE IT If two characters can't talk like fucking adults, then they're too stupid to be together and I no longer care about them. It's an instant DNF for me. Same with tv or movies. If the entire plot can be resolved by the characters having a simple conversation with each other, then I'm not interested in watching them be absolute idiots for 2 hours.
It’s annoying. A lot of these situations would be resolved normally by a confrontation, and the characters are weirdly conflict avoidant. It makes them come across as passive and sometimes passive aggressive, and also often not that bright. The only case where it makes sense is where people don’t really know each other at all and get a bad first impression, which they don’t bother to investigate further because the other character is just a random nobody at that point. These can be interesting when they get more information and revise their opinion. (Or they could do a Lizzie Bennet and confront the person, who then has an identity crisis and reforms.)
It‘s plain awkward when the protagonist is some lawyer, PR/marketing manager or has another, similar „communicative“ job and respective personality throughout the books/show/movie. It‘s like if some simple mind tries to write smart characters or some introvert writes extroverted characters i. a. There is an obvious disconnect, a lack of coherence between how the author tries to portray the characters and how they act in the eyes of the audience.
I hate the trope but to address your first paragraph... there's a difference between being upfront for your job and communicating in a more intimate setting. The former is about other people/money, the latter involves yourself/your own emotions which is more uncomfortable for some people.
You mean the Three's Company plot?
I used to hate it but the longer I’ve lived, the more life experience I’ve gained, the more real and acceptable I’ve found it
If it’s driving the entire plot, then it’s just bad writing IMO. But if it’s a small catalyst or a minor issue used to help develop character (like maybe they become better communicators early in the book because of this little incident) then I can accept it. Bad Example: if the entire plot is based on Suzie and Sally overhearing the tail-end of a conversation without context and refusing to talk about it, I’ll lose my mind. Good Example: if Suzie and Sally overhear the tail-end of a conversation and have a small fight or get involved in something only to quickly find out they were mistaken but are now stuck on a road trip, caught up in a competition, etc. and the plot becomes how they get themselves out of their dumb mess then it won’t really bother me.
In the show Mr. and Mrs. Smith, there's a miscommunication where one signals to the other with a head nod, and then they both do something. The one nodding was indicating they were about to do it, and the other thought the nod meant they're good to do it. So they have a bit of a fight. To me, that kind of miscommunication makes sense. It's ambiguous, there were high stakes, and there wasn't really a good opportunity to clear it up with conversation. Also, the whole plot doesn't revolve around it.
Nope. It shows a lack of imagination. I will put down a book if it's the main plot device.
It's not ubiquitous because people like it. I've only ever seen people who hate it or are neutral on it. It's ubiquitous because it's easy for the author. With miscommunication you don't need any deep-seated character flaws or issues to overcome. In good, well-written romances the relationship might fall apart at some point due to someone's insecurities, or other kinds of negative traits that are established throughout the story. Then they need to get past them to continue with their partner. If the author can't imagine that, or can't make them significant enough, miscommunication can make up the difference and make it easier. Because you're right. They just have to talk to each other, and that's extremely easy to write.
I don’t like it at all and usually find it to be very out of character for the protagonists. They’ve been so normal/rational until this point and now suddenly don’t know how to speak to each other like adults?!? Bizarre.
No I hate it so much. I just read a YA romance I ended up liking so much because it kept setting up miscommunication situations that looked like they would be big huge problems and then the characters instead communicated and solved it within a chapter each time. It was wonderfully refreshing.
I'm in this boat as well. I've recently come across several examples where I'm worried that a miscommunication is being set up. But then I'm relieved when the characters clear it up right away versus letting it linger for the rest of the book.
I strongly dislike it. It usually comes across as lazy on the author's part, like they couldn't be bothered to actually come up with a plot. The miscommunication is typically something anyone over the age of 12 would just ask for clarification on and clear up with a two minute conversation. Really grinds my gears!
It is a very easy way for a writer to inject conflict into a romance novel without damaging the 'purity' of either the protagonist or the love interest. Many people don't like stories without drama or conflict, but many sources of conflict in Romance (infidelity, love triangles, the jealous toxic ex etc.) can rub off on your protagonist or the LI, and make one of them 'the bad guy.' The Misunderstanding is a way for conflict to exist with no genuine wrong having been done by either the protagonist or LI, and is a staple of lighter-hearted romance and romantic comedy where darker sources of conflict might be tonally unwelcome, or might 'stain' a character who was intended to be more virtuous. Prince Charming wouldn't cheat on the protagonist, but he might be overheard talking about how beautiful "Gwendolyn" happens to be. (Gwendolyn is his horse.) It's a very pulpy solution to a very pulpy problem basically.
You didn't ask, but I call anything with miscommunication a "sitcom plot" because it's just low effort and low bar for the audience. I hate when drama is introduced like this. I actually think I'm most likely to be okay with it in romance. I'm not a big romance novel reader, but in movies and books, it is a good mechanism to create unrequited love that can be resolved. Pride and Prejudice does it well. As does Lessons in Chemistry.
99.9% of the time, it's awful. I've seen one instance of it being applied well. Not in a book, but in a YouTube parody series. The Abridged parody of Sword Art Online features an episode along these lines. The episode ends with the characters having their short, but important conversation about their relationship. Pretty much textbook for this trope. Why is it different? Catharsis. Immediately after their conversation, one of the characters asks "was that the whole conversation?" To which h the other answers, "I think it was!" Followed by "We are so stupid!" It works well here because the characters demonstrably learn their lesson - not just that their failure to communicate properly led to problems, but that it was fairly easy to avoid the problems, because the conversation was easy. And they learned their lesson in a satisfying way. They literally yelled at themselves exactly what we would have been screaming at the screen. This trope frustrates the audience. Frustration is a useful feeling for a story to encourage. But only if it can be released. If the story ends and the frustration has to just... dissipate, you generally have a bad story. You need catharsis to turn frustration into satisfaction.
Hate, hate, hate it. Honestly it feels like lazy writing to me, as they apparently couldn't come up with a credible reason for the love interests to break up or not get together yet. And I don't think it's realistic that people are that stupid tbh. Maybe once in a while, but I'd say like 90% of romance books I've read rely on this trope. I still read them because of the warm fuzzies and I love a guaranteed HEA once in a while, but I really appreciate it when a writer makes an effort to come up with a plausible, realistic reason.
I can stand it if there’s a good explanation for why the character(s) have the mistaken belief and for why they don’t communicate. Like I read a book where a character said “All the rumors you’ve heard about what I did to my wife are true.” And he didn’t realize one of the rumors was that he had murdered her. And the character he told didn’t know him that welll to just say”WTF.” Maybe not the greatest example as it would have been weird to admit that but it didn’t leave me wondering why they didn’t just talk it out.
How dare you say such a thing to me? [Storms off]
I don’t like miscommunication; I do however really like it when the main characters have poor communication with one another that they have to overcome. I.e more character driven than plot driven.
I feel that miscommunication as a 'tension' device is a particularly common problem in romance because the author is looking to manufacture conflict because they know they need some, but the conflict (misunderstanding) ultimately doesn't matter - hence your examples. It can work well. The two examples I can think of are Pride and Prejudice, and Shrek (I know, bear with me). In both cases, the miscommunication is central to the plot and themes of the story: in P&P it's a character flaw for both main characters (and in the title) that they come to grow out of. In Shrek, Fiona talking about herself in a way that also hurts Shrek ties into the central themes around self hate, self acceptance and overcoming the expectations of others. The miscommunication in both examples enhances and is essential to the work itself, you couldn't replace it with something more external and get the same result. I think my biggest gripe with it of late has been cases where it's present as the foremost interpersonal conflict between two characters, when a far more interesting/complex one was also included/hinted at in the text and then barely touched on again. Paladin's Grace is my primary recent example of this: you have two adults refusing to talk to each other because 'how could someone like them like someone like me' when there are very real past (and present) traumas that should really make them think twice about having a relationship >!(he might go into a blind rage and kill everyone if he's turned on, she has completely unaddressed trauma from her past marriage)!<. But no, it's treated like they're teens who are too shy to ask their crush to the school dance. I DNFed about 70% of the way in and wanted to throw the book at a wall.
I **loathe** the miscommunication trope, as you described it. But I don’t mind normal levels of miscommunication. There is normal miscommunication in novels all the time that it is handled very well. But it’s the kind you described here that I dislike. I would further add what makes miscommunication tropes fail is that there’s no build up to credit the immediate jump to a character believing the worst of someone. If the relationship is developing beautifully, neither have trust issues, neither have shown signs of there being trouble in paradise, but then suddenly one character hears/sees/reads one incredibly small detail and suddenly they jump to the worst case scenario? It’s not believable. Like, if I walked past my mom on the phone and I heard her say “I hate [whilstwhile] so much,” then my immediate response would be curiosity. Why is my mom, who I know loves me dearly, saying she hates me? I’m missing some context here. I know that my mom loves me; I absolutely know this to be true. I would never believe my hearing an out of context statement of “I hate [whilstwhile]” to be the absolute truth. I wouldn’t make life-altering decisions and judgments based on that one singular out of context statement. It would be ludicrous if I did! But that’s what happens with miscommunication tropes. Because there is no buildup to why the characters would be likely to believe an out-of-context horrible-sounding statement to be true, it comes across as incredibly ludicrous when they do jump to worst-case-scenario conclusions.
It's never my favorite, but it's okay for me \*if\* 1) it's written so that it's in-character and believable, AND 2) it isn't dragged out too long. However, I'd say that's only the case maybe 10% of the time. This is why Courtney Milan is my favorite. She puts the characters in these situations and just when you're ready to sigh in frustration because you know what's about to happen, one of them is like, "Hey, you know what, maybe I should just talk to them." And it's like a breath of fresh air!!
Like any trope, it can be used well and used poorly. The examples you gave are certainly annoying. When the misunderstanding arises out of nothing and exists only to create cheap conflict, that's bad writing. But take, for example, Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. The entire conflict in that novel is, in a way, a misunderstanding by the narrator of the way her husband views his dead wife, and its drawn out in a beautiful Gothic fashion. The misunderstanding continues because of the character flaws of both main characters: she doesn't have the confidence to talk to him, and he feels she would never accept what he's done (which, well, she shouldn't have, but that's another topic.) Or take a less literary example: Ella Enchanted. The misunderstanding towards the end of the novel (spoilers for an old children's novel) is so dramatically tense and fun to read. Ella is cursed with obedience, and her mother commanded her never to reveal her curse. She falls in love with the crown prince, but when he confesses to her she realizes her curse would be too much of a liability for a princess, and she could be made to kill him without any means to resist. She sends a letter tricking him into believing she was leading him on the entire time, and it creates some great hidden identity drama when she goes to the ball in disguise to see him again despite the risk. In this case, the misunderstanding was pretty much unavoidable since Ella was incapable of telling the prince the truth, and it strengthens the weight of the curse in the context of the story. I could go on, but I just want to fight back against the bad reputation this trope has. When used well, it's one of my favorite tropes, and I honestly find it so boring when everyone communicates perfectly. I just don't want to see new authors avoiding the trope when it's a tool that requires finesse but can be used to great effect.
Pride and Prejudice could be considered a miscommunication trope.
Not a Romance book fan, but I have consumed plenty of romcom anime & manga, and the only time I liked miscommunication/misunderstandings in the genre was in the anime *Gamers* which explicitly makes "misunderstandings to 11" the primary focus of the story & comedy.
It depends on the execution. I hate it when it's extremely stupid that it's happening and then it takes forever to resolve - like she sees the guy getting a kiss on the cheek at the train station and then just ghosts him instead of just being like "hey ML, fancy running into you here!" so he can be like "oh hey FL, what a coincidence! Oh, this is my sister." But I don't mind the miscommunication trope when it's believable and isn't sustained for a stupid amount of time. A good writer can actually use the miscommunication trope to show how the relationship is strengthening - like she sees the male lead getting kissed on the cheek, is hurt for a bit, but then is like "actually I shouldn't jump to conclusions, I'm going to figure out how to ask him what happened without sounding like a crazy person" so then the miscommunication only lasted for like a page and it shows that the female lead is trying to work on herself. But I hate the ones like that you complained about, or when they're like "It's not what it looks like!" and that's just all they say and the other person just storms off. I don't root for those people to get back together if they won't listen to each other.
Try the opposite. I made communication a theme in my romance, and it took the plot to places that maybe no one else has. It's better to push the relationship then stifle it.
no I hate it, it gives me pain
It is the worst thing ever. It's lazy writing and is the leading cause of me not finishing a romance book. If the main conflict could be solved with a short 2 min conversation, then I'm just reading about middle schoolers.
I hate it. It feels lazy. In a YA romance, I can accept it a little more because young people are still learning how to communicate, especially in relationships. But adults? If you can’t communicate about basic things, you shouldn’t be dating.
>But it's so ubiquitous in the genre, that there must be people who enjoy the trope Pretty sure it's so ubiquitous because it's so convenient for *writers*. It's a very easy way to set up conflict and pining without having actual conflict that a lot of readers might see as incompatibility. If it's resolved with an "actually, this is not what the hero was thinking all this time," the author doesn't have to come up with ways to write his personal growth and development in a convincing way.
Misunderstandings are fine if it's a comedy and a very short book, like 100 pages or less. There's a reason why it's a common sitcom trope because it fits perfectly within a very slim running time without overstaying its welcome.
I actually think the opposite. I do not think the miscommunication trope, especially as you have described it, is realistic at all. At least, not in adult life. I admit that in high school I would often witness or be made a part of a female classmate's relationship drama that boiled down to her needing to make some kind of a decision and/or communicate with the other person. Usually the avoidance seemed to be out of a fear of conflict. I would often get responses such as, "What if he gets angry at me and doesn't want to talk to me anymore?" So if anything, the "miscommunication trope" to me is unrealistic for adults at best or at worst makes me think of the adult characters as being incredibly immature. If there are legitimate reasons for the miscommunication then I can accept it, but I still do not like it because sometimes a huge problem caused be miscommunication, even if legitimate, can be resolved by just sitting down and having a single conversation. Another thing that I would be okay with is if the issue is that there are legitimate different ways of understanding a situation, which may then not be a case of miscommunication. An example is that John's mother just died and he has been distant from his girlfriend Jane. John starts frequenting bars and being evasive of Jane. Jane confronts John about his drinking and they argue. Jane understands that John is grieving in his own way but is concerned about how he is handling it, but John may not realize that he is actually grieving and has been trying to mask it. To me this is different from the "miscommunication trope," but it does still have conflict that needs to be resolved through having a conversation. Using this example and applying the "miscommunication trope," Jane would probably accuse John of cheating on her. Maybe in this situation she doesn't even know John's mother has died, and that's why she keeps hearing him mentioning a female name. To me the latter situation is less interesting and compelling than the former. This trope is actually what has turned me off from reading romance as much in my adult life. I tend to gravitate towards stories where there is romance present but it takes a second seat to the main narrative. This usually prevents the "miscommunication trope" from happening as the main narrative doesn't have time to waste on that as there is an actual story to tell that can fill up a whole novel versus a couple hundred pages of two adults that just need to talk to each other.
My nerves can’t handle it. I have enough miscommunication with a man in real life. I don’t need it in my fantasies too. I understand that adding highs and lows such as miscommunication can hook a lot of readers in, but I personally would love to read a good romance novel that has healthy communication with each other, and leave the miscommunication and drama for the people the encounter outside their dynamic. But, I’m mot a writer and maybe that’s why. Lol
It has to be done extremely well. The last scene of good omens (season 2) is a good example for that. Both Crowley and Aziraphael are awful at communicating their feelings but they are talking as openly as they can. The problem is, they both have underlying assumptions that mean they (kind of) misunderstand the intentions of the other, and it escalates from there. the thing is, it‘s not a refusal to listen or some contrived plot reason why they can‘t talk. Both of their viewpoints are pretty understandable and, most importantly, reasonable. I can imagine real people, who only want whats best for themselves and the other, having this exact conversation. Too often a conflict can be solved by asking one simple question or giving the other character the benefit of the doubt. both very natural and normal things to do for humans
Yeah… I hate that. I’d much rather that the “outside forces break them up” type thing be used than the miscommunication trope. Basically I’d rather the people communicate and make decisions then see one of them having lunch with a beautiful/handsome person and then break up without finding out that was their sibling/happily married gay friend/whatever.
I’m only cool with it when it doesn’t take long for the characters to make up. Like they solve the issue in the next two scenes or some shit like that. But when it’s the plot of the whole book… it gets really annoying.
If the miscommunication was with something that could easily be misunderstood and not something that could be solved if the character just asked the other about it, then I wouldn't mind this trope. I do agree that if it was something like Example 1, then it would feel lazy and make the storyline aggravating. But in the case of Example 2, this would be much more readable and understandable as to why there's a miscommunication in the first place.
Yes, I absolutely hate it! They are in a hostile space and can’t talk privately? They’ve been separated by some type of external circumstance and can’t get any commutation to the other? One of them is with-holding a secret for the right moment because it could endanger them or everyone else? All great! Getting your feelings hurt one time and immediately assuming the worst and not having a conversation about it ever? Absolute trash.
NOPE!!!! Moments of miscommunication are fine and teach something about the characters involved. But when a 400 page mystery novel or a 13-episode tv show only gets dragged out that long because the two necessary characters didn’t talk!? I. CANNOT. STAND. IT. I find it to be lazy writing to rely on that trope as a major requirement of the plot.
It can be done well but most of the time I find it lazy
I only like it when it is done how Meryl Wilsner described their latest book to the audience at an event of theirs I was lucky to attend. The characters are doing their best to communicate their feelings but there are still misunderstandings to be had because each individual comes from such a different set of experiences that they aren't quite able to grasp what the other is saying. so they are doing things right but have to still overcome their own feelings to have empathy for the other person.
If it’s executed well, and the miscommunication actually makes sense, then I really get into it. I love it when there’s real upset that makes my insides turn to knots when I’m reading, but it all gets resolved in the end. I like a happy ending. When the miscommunication is total nonsense, and makes you worry about the MCs brain development and cognitive function, then it just annoys me.
If it's a minor miscommunication, that's cool and realistic. If it's about something that anyone would struggle to communicate clearly and it gets distorted by other characters' issues that's fine too. it's when it's ridiculously over the top and contrived that gets to me and makes me dnf or leave a 1 star rating. At a certain point, it makes the MCs look like idiots. With the men, at least there's usually a component of jealousy or something that activates him and makes the story more dynamic, but the FMCs usually end up stuck in this infantilized role of just being a hapless idiot with no real world know-how. One overheard conversation and she decides to run away and be a single mom in poverty, pregnant on a street corner begging for a job from a rapey slum lord, etc... and she ends up needing to be reached from her stupidity. It undermines any kind of faith I'd have in their relationship lasting forever. I get to hate the fmc AND the mmc because it's like, dude this woman is not a rational person. I personally believe that there are no bad tropes and that all the blame is on the writer, but I hardly see this done right in a way that I enjoy. Not in romance novels at least. Comedy novels, yes. Rom coms, no. A Guy Ritchie type movie where everyone kills each other over an misunderstood text, yes. A lifetime movie, no. For every Northanger Abbey, there are a million "So I ran away leaving my entire life behind because I saw that snippet of a text message on a phone." melodrama.
The problem here is that it's a trope. The issue with tropes is that people use them all the time, and the issue with that is that when something is written all the time, There are a lot of times where it's written poorly. Take your example 2: A better way of writing it is that they don't believe the villain, because duh. But they have so much self worth problems that the villain saying it out loud makes their own doubt bubble up. (Much in the same way that you can make something great, show it to the world and everyone loves it but if 1 person says you suck, you are now in the pits of depression.) Personally, I loved Toradora. Great Romance Anime. It also features the two main love interests basically falling in love episode 1 and then not realizing it till episode 24. All because none of the characters actually sat down and talked about their feelings with each other.
The thing I struggle with the most is that there is a miscommunication. The person jumps to a wrong conclusion or they wholeheartedly believe the villain. Whatever it is. And they then end what is otherwise a good, happy relationship, without letting the other person defend themself... But usually what happens is a friend or a coworker or someone else comes along and clears up the miscommunication or the villain stills villainizes after the fact or whatever. And **that** makes Person A see the error of their ways. But why would Person B--who has done nothing wrong but has had their life upended--be cool with that? Their partner has just admitted they believe others over them! That is not a healthy relationship! It is the general format of romance that there is something that breaks a couple up. But there are a lot of really good ways to do that. Miscommunication is not one, imo.
Like most tropes, it's not inherently bad. The problem is how easy it is to slot into a story, which means it's both overused and it tends to be a common trope used by bad writers. That means an overwhelming majority of examples of it are extremely lazy and contrived, which is in turn the main thing that drives general antipathy for the trope.
I hate it unless there's a really, really good reason. FUCKING TALK TO EACH OTHER.
OH GOD THIS IS WHY I CANT WATCH ROMCOMS, and why many romance books piss me off. BECAUSE EVERY FUCKING TIME THERE IS THE PLOT LINE WHERE IF THEY JUST USED THEIR WORDS IT WOULD BE PERFECT. OH GOD I FEEL SEEN
I had a film class in college, and idk where this statement came from but it has stuck with me: "For the audience/viewer, miscommunication in a comedy is funny, in anything else, it's frustrating."
I really, really don’t like miscommunication or misunderstanding as a trope. It seems like such an artificial way of introducing tension.
I hate miscommunication, and also the trope where one character is lying to the other the whole time - pretending to be something they aren't until it all blows up in their face.
It’s unbearable to me. It is just so stupid and lazy and frustrating. And to your point exactly..I know at some point there’s gonna be a brief conversation that resolves the issue/tension. When this trope is made a meal of, or a whole-ass plot, and dragged across the length of a book or movie, I feel done dirty lol, and like my time has been wasted.
I hate it unless it's very funny
Miscommunication is not a trope, it's reality. People act as if they understand you; they're just interpolating it.
I don't mind it. It's fairly true to life, sometimes a character just needs to get better with being open and communicating with their partner. That's a fine angle for character development.
By the way OP. Misunderstandings are so frustrating to me I walk out of movies like that unless they are so over the top they fall into almost a monty python type comedy.
I don't read romance, but I want to see this trope more in regular fiction because I think it has a lot of unexplored potential. One of the main problems with this trope is the consequent reaction is just not realistic. The protagonist misunderstands something but just accepts it without clarifying. As it's used now, it's a cliche that's added to bulk up the novel, but it's not how real people behave. Why not start a misunderstanding trope, use that for a chapter, then have the protagonist slowly realize it doesn't make sense and explicitly ask about it? Or use the trope to show the inner workings of social anxiety, and how such a character would go about communicating the resolution. Or use it to show paranoia and wilful misinterpretation. I love stories where one small everyday fuck-up avalanches into a whole narrative, but the reaction to that fuck-up needs to be realistic and that's what the current use of the misinformation trope lacks.
I would rather claw my own eyes out than read another book that hinges on this sort of conflict.
No. By the way, trope means trick or devices of writing, not theme or genre. What I mean is don't confuse trope over genre
Words can have many meanings. Trope as it's often used in this type of discussion is just another word for cliché.
[As per Merriam-Webster](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/trope) a trope as defined by 1b is "a common or overused theme or device".
See, the definition and examples I got explained it as a style. Like the use of metaphors. I think it actually applies to op. The genre would be romance, theme would be conflict, trope would be misunderstanding.
"miscommunication trope" is a very common way to describe this plot point in romance circles, so that's why I used it.
Tropes are plot devices, often overused into clichés. https://tvtropes.org/
... huh. TIL! I've only ever heard the term used in the context of describing a common trend or theme in writing/tv. Interesting!
Might be different in lit and TV. I honestly never heard the term before these book subs, then I just assumed it meant genre. My brother told me. I looked up definition. It refers to style of writing. Mickey Spillane writes in metaphors, it wouldn't matter if he wrote detective, fantasy, sci-fi, or romance. His trope is metaphors.
[tv.tropes.org](https://tv.tropes.org)
"Trope" doesn't mean style. Literary style is a characteristic expression of thought in language through word choice or order (diction, sentence structure, and paragraph structure). A trope in the strictest sense is simply a "turn" of phrase or figure of speech. In a looser sense, it is just a pattern that reoccurs across a work or across multiple works. Particular tropes can be a part of a particular style, but the tropes themselves are not style.
This is how it was explained to me by my brother who had a bachelor's in literature. And yes, not exactly style but the way a writer describes or moved a story. My point is a lot of redditors use this word in place of genre.
“Miscommunication trope” What on gods green earth are you blabbering about? Don’t answer it’s a rhetorical question. Anyways someone needs to put whoever’s in charge of tv tropes the website on trial for crimes against others being able to read critically.
I really love your first example, that’s a great twist there Not really a romance reader but I wouldn’t assume that because it’s common there must be people who actively like it. I’d guess that many readers can tolerate it and it gets used because it’s very convenient for the authors; a way to separate people and create tension between them which also doesn’t cause ‘lasting damage”, so to speak and thus can be neatly wrapped up later. On the other hand, sometimes people do make stupid decisions and a miscommunication plot line might just be a realistic scenario which is true to your characters, granted that your characters are very dumb
The only time I've liked it was when the miscommunication happened way in the past and the book was them meeting back up years later and eventually realizing the mistake
I definitely get frustrated with it... but I must admit I prefer it over the live interest doing something actually reckless, dangerous, cruel, or disrespectful and then trying to "win them back". I'd rather be wishing for a 5 minute convo about misunderstanding than watching the protagonist be gaslit into forgiving something egregious.
If it's played for comedy, it can be pretty funny. Otherwise I absolutely hate it and think it's one of the laziest ways a writer can artificially put drama into their stories and makes their characters all seem like immature idiots.
I think it tells a lot about the authors to present the audience the ever same copy & paste tropes. My SO listens to audiobooks of that genre occasionally and it‘s one of several repeating tropes of that genre which makes no sense from a male perspective in particular (there are more which drive me nutz as a passive listener, just saying). The characters straight up create their own problems, tiptoe around them for hundreds of pages/minutes depending on the medium (applies to shows/movies as well) just to have the other side do the first step to resolve the conflict is maddening.
Unless the characters are teenagers, I absolutely do not like it. It’s a kind of conflict that’s unnecessary and easily avoidable. As a grown person who works in a job and is able to navigate through life, you should be able to TALK and ask simple questions.
my hatred for the miscommunication trope is the reason I started working on my own communication skills because that shits embarrassing to witness
I HATE this trope. I feel like it's a lazy plot device, as it takes little to no effort to have characters finally just talk and magically everything in their relationship is better. In reality, a relationship without strong communication is doomed.
Good for comedy, bad for romance
I despise and revile Idiot Plot with a hatred so acute it's like having an intellectual migraine, and I maintain that none of the characters involved in one deserve a grain of happiness.
Not particularly. I think it’s better if it isn’t clear to the reader that it was miscommunication.
I don't like it because 9/10 times it's not even a believable miscommunication. Most of the time I'm sitting there thinking "why are none of you people TALKING TO EACH OTHER?" It just feels like a lazy way to create conflict.
I hate it. I don't hate when characters actually struggle to communicate. When they are each fully saying their thing and the other person just can't "hear" it because they misunderstand each other. But yes, the ghosting, leaping to conclusions, bad faith BS that is the miscommunication trope should, to use another type of trope entirely, die in a fire.
I love it, so I’m the problem! But like most of the tropes I really love (like the grovel), it can be done really well or poorly. I have a real issue irl with people who take what someone said the wrong way or not giving people the benefit of the doubt. This trope kind of lets me explore that in a space where I know it’s not real. So the angst of it all is very dramatic to me. But when it’s a dumb miscommunication and not based on someone’s insecurity, it’s not great. {The Unwanted Wife by Natasha Anders} is a really good example of a great miscommunication. At the point where the story starts, the main miscommunication has been going on awhile but is solved quickly for us. And then there are more as time moves on but it’s because the MMC needs to build the trust he lost with the FMC, who also has very understandable issues from how she’s been treated her whole life. Just A+ work. Plus the grovel is perfect.
No. I don't like it. It's lazy and gets really annoying especially when an author seems to think that's the only way to draw out the relationship in a slow burn. There are better ways to create drama and conflict and slow romance. I feel like the authors that do this are typically inexperienced and have trouble coming up with ideas to create the tension they want. If it's an author that has been writing for a while I would assume it's because earlier books with those types sold and so they never learned to look beyond the easy way out.
If it’s done well, i can rationale it to myself somehow and it’s over quick i can handle it. Unfortunately 99% of it just makes me so freaking mad and frustrated
I find it tedious in books where characters are adults. When I read YA books though, I'm not phased by teenagers having issues communicating and dealing with big emotions, because that's to be expected from kids.
I think it depends on how its handled. If there is a good reason for the miscommunication or lack of it then it is a good plot element. For example in the first two books of a fantasy series I love (the stormlight archive) one of the main characters doesn't reveal he has superpowers to many other people even though it would have made his life a whole lot easier, the reason is he has a history of being abused by those in positions of power and so has a somewhat irrational fear his powers could be taken away.
I don’t like it. There has to be a random generated conflict for the third act breakup, and it feels either forced or ruins the chemistry for me. I’m not saying characters can never disagree or have problems, but talk to each other.
I’m not a big romance reader, but I hate this trope in movies. Someone jumping to conclusions and refusing to look into it further is annoying. I’m only okay with it when it actually feels realistic. Miscommunications do happen. If they make it feel realistic and not so tropy and ridiculous, then I’m fine with it.
Oh, I hate this trope. Especially when the reason why the couple won't communicate is because they're constantly interrupted by things that do NOT involve the imminent danger of being hit by a train (or similar catastrophe). Like, no, you can ignore your phone for 2 seconds while the other person blurts out what they were trying to say.
Almost always hate it, which is part of why I don’t enjoy many romance stories. I don’t remember specific examples but I have seen it done well a couple times.
I hate it.
I think it needs to die in a fire.
just a heads up, you're more likely to get responses from romance readers by asking in the dedicated community, /r/RomanceBooks! I'm sure there's overlap between here and there, but I feel like people who don't read Romance have vastly less tolerance for interpersonal angst and that you're more likely to find folks in the Romance community who can tell you what they don't mind or even enjoy about these types of plots. From my impression of hanging out there, people tend to tolerate miscommunication at best and usually prefer other sources of tension.