What's a little BM between lovers!
Do you know what BM is?
A BM is a big misunderstanding.
What? What did you think it was?
This is my least favorite craft technique in the realm of fiction writing. I also don't appreciate them as a reader. But I've found that they abound as a plotting device in early romances. Since I'm committed to reading books by romance's founders, I see that I'm running into them.
Take “The Flame and the Flower” for example. Kathleen E. Woodiwiss is credited with creating the modern historical romance when she penned 1972’s blockbuster hit and “New York Times Bestseller,” “The Flame and the Flower.” The book is credited with being the birth of the bodice ripper where women are taking forcibly by the hero in explicit scenes. Though the details of the sexual act were almost always written vaguely with flowery, wave crashing, and earth-shattering prose and no real details on the sexual act where the woman’s clothing was ripped from her in the often-non-consensual coitus. Half a century later, readers and scholars of the romance genre continue to debate, discuss, and dissect the notions of consent and agency in early, and present day, romance novels. The issues most interesting to me that Woodiwiss shined a light on was that of the BM, better known as the Big Misunderstanding or Big Miscommunication.
The Big Misunderstanding is a plot point or trope that stems from a break in the communication between the lovers. Being a forty-something-year-old divorcee who dipped a toe back onto the dating scene recently I can confirm that communication is key relationships. Unfortunately, so many doors are locked or get slammed in the face of old and new affairs because individuals fail to talk to each other or be clear in their discussions. In Brandon Birmingham and his wife by force, Heather, the two fail to understand and hear each other from the first time they meet. The BMs in “The Flame and the Flower” revolve around rape, blackmail, infidelity, suspected infidelity and murder.
When Brandon meets Heather, it’s after she runs away from a family member who tried to sexually assault her. She’s running in the streets scantily clad, and Brandon assumes she’s a prostitute. Heather thinks he’s the authorities who come after her from fighting back against her uncle. Brandon sees a clean, innocent looking child (she was seventeen at the time), and instead of questioning if she’s truly a fallen woman, or even listening when she begs him not to assault her or to stop when begins his seduction, he full on rapes her. Not once. Not twice, after he realized she was a virgin, but three times before she managed to escape.
The next BM happens after Heather’s family discovers she’s pregnant and hunts down Brandon and to make Heather his ball and chain. Heather believes Brandon solely wants to make her his mistress, something he had said to her and repeats when they’re reunited. Brandon believes Heather is part of the blackmail scheme to tie him down. Once again, instead of talking to each other, the two wage a cold war that stretches across the Atlantic Ocean.
Once ensconced in Brandon’s home, Heather has a choice of where to sleep. Brandon offers his bed, which is what he secretly wants her to choose, or the sitting room next door. Heather believes Brandon has offered her a false choice so that he can still bed his ex-fiancée as he vowed never to share Heather’s bed again, because of the blackmail BM. Instead of talking to each other, Heather chooses the sitting room and the two grow further apart.
It takes a second assault before Brandon and Heather begin to a tentative dialogue with each other. One of Brandon’s good friends decides he must have Heather. This friend has been making eyes, advances, and putting his hands in in appropriate places when he waltzes with Mrs. Birmingham. All of this is done under Brandon’s nose and he says nothing, just stews. When this friend finds Heather alone, he launches himself on her. “Don’t fight me. I have to have you,” he says despite her protests. Brandon shows up just in time to rescue Heather from these unwanted advances. The problem is his jealousy is still raging green. Instead of comforting his wife, he forces her to bed for the first time since they’re first bloody encounter. “I will have you,” Brandon insists. And he does. Only this time, Heather decides she likes sex now. And with a few vague paragraphs of flowery, nondescriptive prose, she might have even had an orgasm.
Brandon and Heather aren’t entirely unself-aware. Near the end of the novel, Brandon admits that their marriage has been full of misunderstandings. Though it takes the last third of the book before Heather communicates her biggest secret to her husband; that she believes she’s responsible for the death of her uncle –the man who tried to rape her mere moments before Brandon got his hands on her. By this point in the novel, Brandon has been accused of murder twice. It’s a boon that Heather never doubts his innocence and stands firmly by his side. However, the true murderer is someone from Heather’s past. Had Heather simply told Brandon about her past deeds, the true murderer would’ve been caught possibly before anyone died. But this crucial information is kept from the hero of the novel until Heather is once again placed in danger, and about to be raped and murdered by another man. The surprise reveal is that Brandon knew all along because Heather talks in her sleep –something he did not communicate to her.
It’s unclear if Heather and Brandon have learned their lesson and are better communicators by the end of their tale. This reader feels very certain that BMs will continue to clog up their relationship into their old age. Especially when one of the last lines of the novel had Brandon asserting that the murderer got his just desserts for trying to rape Heather. Heather retorts that Brandon did rape her. But Brandon pulls his wife close and reminds her that he married her.
Do you love these book reviews like this where I go deep on a craft technique? You can join me and my book bestie L Penelope on our new podcasts Ink and Magic where we're breaking down Nalini Singh's PNR bestselling Psychangling series. Find us on your favorite podcatcher app or visit https://www.inkandmagic.net/
Oh, my gosh, I have such a love/hate relationship with BMs. I think modern day writers and book-a-week-or-more readers are highly sensitive to them. And our tolerance levels for them go down for them the older and wiser we become.
I believe that, like sci-fi, romances are a reflection of society at that point in time. So the Woodwiss novel was written at a time before the invention of the word (if not the concept) of slut-shaming ,when SA was regularly used as a conflict plot device in every kind of medium, and communication was never spelled with a big C unless it was at the front of a sentence.
I love that we now live in a time where Communication has become such a central component of all relationships that we're often baffled by the easily circumnavigated BM plotting of yesteryear.
Still, the reason I love a BM, then and now, is because of the itch it scratches when it is all cleared up.
Often, when I become upset at a BM, it's because the BM is too easily cleared up or doesn't make sense in this modern era of high Communication couplehood, and, even worse, signals that the couple who can't Communicate with each don't have great odds for the long haul.
BUT, when the BM is totally understandable, let's goooo.
Ex. Hero lies to Icky Guy about thinking the wonderful heroine is awful on a work trip to keep her out of IG's icky sights and then gets stuck drive with WH back to the city in an old vintage car, which breaks down during a blizzard, stranding them together in a cabin with that BM until the storm rides out. Then, YAHHHSSS, I'm looking forward to them clearing up that BM--all night. And if it includes a good grovel or a confession of a long time crush/obsession. Dude, SWOON!
Because basically we're watching a fantasy that often doesn't occur in real life: Potential Couple has a simple-but-justifiable BM obstacling their Potential True Love. Potential Couple clears that obstacle and lives happily ever after.
The key elements in this book math is that the couple needs to be truly suited for each other, even if it's for reasons we can't see at the beginning of the book. And, even, more importantly, the BM must be all the way cleared up in a satisfying manner.
Otherwise, it's like watching on of those ASMR cleaning videos where the object is still dirty after the mesmerizing cleaning is done.
(So sorry, about the super long post. I honestly didn't know I had so many thoughts about BM as a plot device until I started writing this comment. Lol!)