This kind of thing happens far more often than you might expect, but this was a perfect example. Over on a writing forum, someone asked a question about the really tired, obnoxious trope, the fact that a lot of conflicts, especially relationship drama, wouldn’t exist if the two characters would just carry on a decent, adult conversation. This goes on in TV dramas all the time, where the writers are seeking a 45-minute plot that could, and should, go away in 5 minutes if the characters involved would just open their mouths.

And this is when someone I’m well acquainted with opened his mouth.

Now I’ll be honest, I’m not the biggest fan of this individual at all. He’s by no means the worst but he’s pretty high up on the list. He doesn’t know anything about anything. Every single thing I’ve ever seen him write sucks. He doesn’t seem to understand how reality works, he has no clue how people operate and he certainly doesn’t know how a story goes together. He’s also not remotely interested in learning, which is why I’ve basically written him off as a complete waste of time.

So we were having a discussion with people who couldn’t really understand the concept. I figure these are young people mostly, which is often the problem. So I gave this very simple example: Take a boyfriend and a girlfriend. The boyfriend does something innocent which is misinterpreted by the girlfriend, she over-reacts and from there, chaos ensues. The entire situation would have been solved had the two of them simply had a 5-minute adult conversation about the problem. Yet if they did that, there wouldn’t be a story, would there?

This guy shows up and says “but not everyone is willing to do that!” Granted, but I had specified an adult conversation. You know, the things that actual adults engage in? Not what immature children of any age can’t quite figure out how to do. I figured that would make my point, but, of course, it didn’t.

He came back with this:

I was married for nearly 30 years to a woman I couldn’t talk to. It’s not ridiculous or contrived to have this situation in a fictional story.

Thank you for proving my point!

Now maybe it’s just me, but I don’t write about immature idiots who can’t behave as adults. Maybe he does, but I think that’s absurdly sad. Why in the world would you ever write about stupid people as the hero of your story? Maybe because he’s just dumb, I don’t know.

Yet this happens all the time, even on shows where the characters are consistently portrayed as intelligent, right up until they’re not. Even the best writers can have an off day once in a while, I guess. This even shows up over on TVTropes as the Poor Communication Kills trope, which is a subset of You Could Have Avoided This!

This really is bad writing. It’s pure laziness to take what ought to be a 5-minute problem and stretch it out to a 45-minute episode. This same thing happens in books too, of course, most often in genre romance because, honestly, how much can you do with “will they or won’t they?”

Isn’t the point of being a decent writer knowing how to avoid these terrible tropes? News flask for everyone, nobody actually likes these things, at least those of us that understand what’s wrong with it. Granted, that probably doesn’t apply to the individual who responded to me because, sadly, he’s living it.

What an idiot.