Omg "The reader is yelling at the character to get over it." Yes! Loved your observation that speculative fiction, especially, is about things happening in the interesting outer world.
The situations that bother me the most are the ones where the CHARACTER thinks something is an obstacle, but the READER knows it isn't. Like, one MC is convinced that no one will ever love them, but the reader knows that the other MC is head over heels (or will be).
Maybe the best inner obstacles are areas for character growth that aren't obvious within the genre or "blurb plotline." Like, the inner-obstacle resolution can't be a foregone conclusion from whatever you have telegraphed to get readers involved in the story.
If we know the character will be eventually be accepted to the magical academy (why we picked up the book in the first place), all her fears now about not getting in just seem tedious.
What do you think? Am I making sense here? (Sorry this was a longer comment- it took a bit to figure out what I was trying to say!)
You're making perfect sense! It's one of the reasons I come down pretty hard on internal conflict. Like many things in writing, it's not "bad" but it needs to be used with care. It's generally best when it's part of the foundations of a character, and influences the DNA of how they act.
To use your magical academy character as an example, if they have internal conflict around insecurity and the desire to be accepted, that can get them into a lot of gnarly situations. They could end up doing questionable things, or working for the wrong people, because they're so desperate to be accepted. In those cases, we've dramatised and externalised the conflict, and so it comes to life.
When it's just pages and pages of flatly telling the reader how insecure they are (especially when we already know they're going to get into the academy) it becomes really flat and dull. I think it's also part of the reason a lot of readers find the miscommunication trope so infuriating--it feels manufactured and rings false, and readers have a really good nose for sniffing out that stuff!
You bring up a really interesting issue. I just read a spicy romance from the ‘90s, featuring 2 POVs, and I had the CHARACTER/READER experience that you mention. In the FMC chapters, she kept reiterating that the MMC didn’t care for her, while in the MMC chapters, he said she was too snooty to care for him—so the obstacles the two characters complained about were in their heads. As the reader, I knew they would get together anyway and felt they were both a little silly and tedious. I appreciated the writer’s craft (I wish I could write so good!) but I wanted to see obstacles that really threatened the two characters from getting together.
Exactly this! Soooo many readers find this kind of miscommunication trope infuriating. If it could be solved by the characters sitting down and communicating honestly for less than five minutes, it's not really an effective source of conflict
But it could be, if the author just took the extra step to dramatise and externalise it. For example, the FMC thinks the MMC doesn't care for her, so she goes and does something else, or gets together with someone else. And the MMC does likewise. Both make terrible decisions because of those feelings, and those terrible decisions make the internal conflict real
When the writer is telling us one thing (each character thinks the other doesn't care about them) but showing another (they still hang around each other and the relationship develops) it rings false
Sometimes all it takes is removing the telling, and letting the characters act on their beliefs and misgivings--and get into a huge amount of grief along the way 😁
The way it's presented in many stories makes this trope one of the most criticized and disapproved ones. I've seen it mentioned too many online discussions about various reader icks. But the truth is, miscommunication happens all the time in real life. Between adults with fears, insecurities and limiting beliefs. Between spuses who've spent so many moments talking past each other. Because people do that when life gets tough and starts to pry open people's core wounds. All couples go through that at some point. Each believing they're right and the other one's wrong, and inching apart every day for it. That's one kind of miscommunication trope I'd like to read about more in books. The original one.
One thing I like to keep in mind though is that fiction is never meant to be a perfect reflection of real life. I’ve seen it described as real life + meaning. It’s why we don’t write dialogue full of umms, errs, and the other diversions and distractions real people use when they’re talking
Not all things that happen in real life can be perfectly reflected in fiction, and some of them will rub readers up the wrong way for whatever reason
I think miscommunication upsets readers for the same reason purely internal conflict can bother them: it feels manufactured, or otherwise “not real”. It’s a particular problem in stories, where we have to work hard to get the reader invested, because part of their brain already knows it isn’t real. So a lot of good fiction writing is finding ways to undermine that feeling of the story being manufactured or unreal
All of that said, I don’t think the miscommunication trope is “bad”. As with so many things, it just depends on the execution!
If an author gives a couple the obstacle of miscommunication, it really needs to be reflected in behavior, too. When we read one character's action and also see how the other main character reasonably misinterprets the action to mean rejection, we continue to stay with the story. But if the action and the meaning feel disconnected, then we quit the story. So, in the book I mentioned in an earlier comment, the couple is lost in a jungle. The FMC pulls together meagre supplies and figures out how to make coffee and gives the cup to the MMC. The MMC interprets this negatively and believes she doesn't care for him. It really jolted me. The MMC's reaction seemed inconsistent with the FMC's action. I felt like the author created this scene in the hopes of building tension between the couple, but the scene didn't ring reasonable to me. And I found myself not caring about either of them, and my attention left the story.
Well, not too experienced. I have one gothic book out and I'm working on a story collection for later this year. But thank you for your comment about my user name. Now I'm feeling pumped!
This is one of the core problem with me and writing. I often feel that the constant obstacles feel too artificial and doesn't feel like the kind of story I want to tell. I tried some alternatives to do what I have in mind, but not quite sure if they actually works.
In the ensemble I'm close to completing, there's some sort of shared trauma between each characters that a direct obstacle to one would add tension to other characters long before I have to pit one character against another.
It kinda works. Still feels rather weak for me. But the interconnectedness means adding slight tension requires a ton of words and a ton more rechecking on parts across the entire story. Not confident on my ability to take on that mission quite yet.
Tried another way to create conflict in one of my post here by juxtapositioning internal chaotic evil character voice on neutral good appearing character. Don't know if that works, but sure is an interesting experiment.
Finally, I have to say that writing shorts on someone else's lead (be it prompts or actual other person) helps a planner like me ruin the well-crafted plans my characters had. I discover a lot of tools through that experiment. There are many ways to keep the tension and things like escalation, revelation, and resolution can pull a double duty across different aspects of the story.
Anyways, thanks for writing yet another great article!
Another very useful post, thank you for laying this out so clearly! You are creating that alchemy where none of this is new to me but you crystallise and clarify it and make it easier to implement.
Omg "The reader is yelling at the character to get over it." Yes! Loved your observation that speculative fiction, especially, is about things happening in the interesting outer world.
The situations that bother me the most are the ones where the CHARACTER thinks something is an obstacle, but the READER knows it isn't. Like, one MC is convinced that no one will ever love them, but the reader knows that the other MC is head over heels (or will be).
Maybe the best inner obstacles are areas for character growth that aren't obvious within the genre or "blurb plotline." Like, the inner-obstacle resolution can't be a foregone conclusion from whatever you have telegraphed to get readers involved in the story.
If we know the character will be eventually be accepted to the magical academy (why we picked up the book in the first place), all her fears now about not getting in just seem tedious.
What do you think? Am I making sense here? (Sorry this was a longer comment- it took a bit to figure out what I was trying to say!)
You're making perfect sense! It's one of the reasons I come down pretty hard on internal conflict. Like many things in writing, it's not "bad" but it needs to be used with care. It's generally best when it's part of the foundations of a character, and influences the DNA of how they act.
To use your magical academy character as an example, if they have internal conflict around insecurity and the desire to be accepted, that can get them into a lot of gnarly situations. They could end up doing questionable things, or working for the wrong people, because they're so desperate to be accepted. In those cases, we've dramatised and externalised the conflict, and so it comes to life.
When it's just pages and pages of flatly telling the reader how insecure they are (especially when we already know they're going to get into the academy) it becomes really flat and dull. I think it's also part of the reason a lot of readers find the miscommunication trope so infuriating--it feels manufactured and rings false, and readers have a really good nose for sniffing out that stuff!
You bring up a really interesting issue. I just read a spicy romance from the ‘90s, featuring 2 POVs, and I had the CHARACTER/READER experience that you mention. In the FMC chapters, she kept reiterating that the MMC didn’t care for her, while in the MMC chapters, he said she was too snooty to care for him—so the obstacles the two characters complained about were in their heads. As the reader, I knew they would get together anyway and felt they were both a little silly and tedious. I appreciated the writer’s craft (I wish I could write so good!) but I wanted to see obstacles that really threatened the two characters from getting together.
Exactly this! Soooo many readers find this kind of miscommunication trope infuriating. If it could be solved by the characters sitting down and communicating honestly for less than five minutes, it's not really an effective source of conflict
But it could be, if the author just took the extra step to dramatise and externalise it. For example, the FMC thinks the MMC doesn't care for her, so she goes and does something else, or gets together with someone else. And the MMC does likewise. Both make terrible decisions because of those feelings, and those terrible decisions make the internal conflict real
When the writer is telling us one thing (each character thinks the other doesn't care about them) but showing another (they still hang around each other and the relationship develops) it rings false
Sometimes all it takes is removing the telling, and letting the characters act on their beliefs and misgivings--and get into a huge amount of grief along the way 😁
The way it's presented in many stories makes this trope one of the most criticized and disapproved ones. I've seen it mentioned too many online discussions about various reader icks. But the truth is, miscommunication happens all the time in real life. Between adults with fears, insecurities and limiting beliefs. Between spuses who've spent so many moments talking past each other. Because people do that when life gets tough and starts to pry open people's core wounds. All couples go through that at some point. Each believing they're right and the other one's wrong, and inching apart every day for it. That's one kind of miscommunication trope I'd like to read about more in books. The original one.
That’s so true!
One thing I like to keep in mind though is that fiction is never meant to be a perfect reflection of real life. I’ve seen it described as real life + meaning. It’s why we don’t write dialogue full of umms, errs, and the other diversions and distractions real people use when they’re talking
Not all things that happen in real life can be perfectly reflected in fiction, and some of them will rub readers up the wrong way for whatever reason
I think miscommunication upsets readers for the same reason purely internal conflict can bother them: it feels manufactured, or otherwise “not real”. It’s a particular problem in stories, where we have to work hard to get the reader invested, because part of their brain already knows it isn’t real. So a lot of good fiction writing is finding ways to undermine that feeling of the story being manufactured or unreal
All of that said, I don’t think the miscommunication trope is “bad”. As with so many things, it just depends on the execution!
If an author gives a couple the obstacle of miscommunication, it really needs to be reflected in behavior, too. When we read one character's action and also see how the other main character reasonably misinterprets the action to mean rejection, we continue to stay with the story. But if the action and the meaning feel disconnected, then we quit the story. So, in the book I mentioned in an earlier comment, the couple is lost in a jungle. The FMC pulls together meagre supplies and figures out how to make coffee and gives the cup to the MMC. The MMC interprets this negatively and believes she doesn't care for him. It really jolted me. The MMC's reaction seemed inconsistent with the FMC's action. I felt like the author created this scene in the hopes of building tension between the couple, but the scene didn't ring reasonable to me. And I found myself not caring about either of them, and my attention left the story.
This is such a great point!
Great way of putting it!
I agree! Sounds like you are an experienced romance reader. I love your username, by the way.
Well, not too experienced. I have one gothic book out and I'm working on a story collection for later this year. But thank you for your comment about my user name. Now I'm feeling pumped!
This is one of the core problem with me and writing. I often feel that the constant obstacles feel too artificial and doesn't feel like the kind of story I want to tell. I tried some alternatives to do what I have in mind, but not quite sure if they actually works.
In the ensemble I'm close to completing, there's some sort of shared trauma between each characters that a direct obstacle to one would add tension to other characters long before I have to pit one character against another.
It kinda works. Still feels rather weak for me. But the interconnectedness means adding slight tension requires a ton of words and a ton more rechecking on parts across the entire story. Not confident on my ability to take on that mission quite yet.
Tried another way to create conflict in one of my post here by juxtapositioning internal chaotic evil character voice on neutral good appearing character. Don't know if that works, but sure is an interesting experiment.
Finally, I have to say that writing shorts on someone else's lead (be it prompts or actual other person) helps a planner like me ruin the well-crafted plans my characters had. I discover a lot of tools through that experiment. There are many ways to keep the tension and things like escalation, revelation, and resolution can pull a double duty across different aspects of the story.
Anyways, thanks for writing yet another great article!
It can be such a delicate balance to strike, but it sounds like you're putting a huge amount of work into figuring it out
All the very best of luck with your writing!
Another very useful post, thank you for laying this out so clearly! You are creating that alchemy where none of this is new to me but you crystallise and clarify it and make it easier to implement.
This made my week! Thank you so much 🩶
Great insights and great advice once again Cae. Thanks
Thanks so much for reading. I’m really glad you found it useful!