Just send it!!
Shirogane: Write, delete, write, delete! What am I, some idiot in love for the first time?
Narrator: Yes.
Narrator: Yes.
Bob has something he needs to tell Alice, such as a big secret that would change the course of her life, or simply that he is sorry for an argument they had previously. He pulls out his communication instrument of choice (pen and paper, typewriter, computer, cell phone, etc.) and composes some or all of the intended message in a text draft, but before finishing it and submitting, he pauses and then discards, destroys, or deletes it all. Alice is none the wiser.
In many shows or movies where this happens, due to Rule of Drama, Idiot Ball, keeping up the suspense or whatever else, the writer throws away, hides, or deletes the draft. For a paper letter, there may be screwed-up pieces of paper visible and crumpled ones in the trash or scattered on the floor. With enough anger or disappointment, the writer may opt to destroy them in a fire or something else that is flashy.
Usually the message in question will be seen on screen for the viewer, narrated via voiceover, or will be spoken out by the character as they're trying to compose it. There is some Truth in Television, where in Real Life, many a would-be recipient is painfully familiar with the dreaded (Typing...) text bubble should they happen to be currently in the chat.
If somebody does finally send such a message, expect it to be a highly dramatic moment, perhaps in slow motion, with somebody pressing "send", or posting the letter.
If the writer, after painstakingly composing their message, has no intention of sending or deleting it, but instead stores it in a drawer or saving it as an email draft, it is the sister trope Delivery Not Desired.
May lead to a "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot. Compare to Poor Communication Kills if actually sending the message would have resolved a problem, revealed important info, or prevented a tragedy from happening. Also see I Never Got Any Letters, when letters get intercepted before they can be read, and Never Sent Any Letters, when somebody pretends to be someone else over the written word.
The inverse of this would be Irrevocable Message and Embarrassing Voicemail. Many times in fiction, the Rule of Drama and the Rule of Funny dictate that there is an inverse correlation between how much you should send a given message, and how likely you are to send it.
Due to how common this is in real life, No Real Life Examples, Please!
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Boy's Abyss:
- Two instances of this happen in chapter 11, the first one occurring when Reiji Kurose attempts to text an apology to his mother Yuko under the pretense that he is staying overnight at a friend's without permission, when in actuality he is at his teacher Yuri Shibasawa's apartment after she caught and intercepted him attempting to do a lover's suicide with idol Nagi Aoe.
- The second time is when Yuri, after becoming obsessed with Reiji is on the toilet and deletes a passive-aggressive text draft to one of her friends who constantly bums her child on her, saying to herself, "...yeah, right".
- In chapter 122, Yuri in her car starts to text Reiji that the parents of his childhood friend Sakuko "Chako" Akiyama discovered that their daughter fainted somewhere outside of the family house, however she figured that it would cause him to return to town. Reiji still finds out about the fainting after Yuko tells him over the phone in the next chapter.
- The Dangers in My Heart: Near the end of Chapter 124, Yamada is typing "I miss you" to Ichikawa. But she relents from sending it, feeling guilty about sending pictures of herself in swimsuits she was shopping for while he was busy studying. Then he texts her hello, assures her that she's the exact opposite of a bother to him, and messages "I miss you" himself.
- During the summer vacation arc of Kaguya-sama: Love Is War, Shirogane is shown typing out a message for Kaguya on his phone to ask her to hang out, only to delete it instead. His dialogue makes it clear that he's been doing this for a while.
Shirogane: Write, delete, write, delete! What am I, some idiot in love for the first time?
Narrator: Yes.
Comic Books
- The Framing Device of the Batman: No Man's Land novelization is a very, very long letter Barbara "Gordon" Oracle is typing out for her dad, Commissioner Gordon, which begins with her confessing both her own Secret Identity and Batman's. After Gotham City ultimately survives the whole ordeal (albeit not without casualties, including Gordon's wife, Barbara's stepmother), she deletes the whole thing in the very last line.
Comic Strips
- Peanuts: Snoopy is sitting on his doghouse, typing a letter, which reads: "Dear Ex-Sweetheart, I still think of you often. I loved you more than life itself, but you turned me down. So why am I writing to you?" He crumples the letter and tosses it over his shoulder, deciding, "I'm not!"
Film — Live-Action
- My Father the Hero: In the original French film, Véro spends a lot of time trying to write a final love letter to Ben. André dictates the letter, surrounded by balls of screwed-up paper, muttering that they have spent four hours on this letter. He finally takes matters into his own hands, dictates the finish to the letter, and delivers it, ignoring Véro's plea to read the letter through.
- The Dark Knight Rises:
- Commissioner Gordon writes a speech coming clean about the events of the previous film (the fact that he and Batman whitewashed Harvey Dent by letting Batman take the blame for everyone Dent killed) and almost delivers it on the anniversary of Harvey Dent's death. But at the last minute he decides it's not the right time, instead delivering another speech in praise of Dent. Later, Bane acquires Gordon's notes for the undelivered speech and shares it with all of Gotham, undermining the public's trust in Gordon and the Gotham Police.
- Searching: The film uses this for great effect, where characters will type out what they really want to say, but delete it and replace it with something else.
- Unfriended gets a lot of mileage out of the teens writing a message and not sending it, or writing for a long time before sending a significantly shorter message. One particular example is Blaire defending Laura by writing a message about "her uncle", alluding to the possibility that Laura has a Creepy Uncle as a Freudian Excuse before deleting it without sending.
Literature
- Adrian Mole: Played with, when somebody writes a resignation letter, decides not to send it, but someone sends it anyway.
- In Growing Pains, Adrian is looking after the Braithwaites' house, and sees a scathing letter from Ivan Braithwaite, resigning from the local Labour Party. As there is a stamped addressed envelope next to the letter, Adrian assumes that Ivan was too busy to post it, so he posts it himself. It turns out that Ivan had written it, but decided not to post it, and he blames his wife for posting it.
- In Wilderness Years, Adrian writes a letter of resignation from the Department of the Environment, and writes on the envelope "for the attention of Mr Brown". He puts the letter under his blotting pad, and in his absence somebody delivers it to Mr Brown, and his resignation is accepted. It is never revealed who delivered the letter.
- A different exaggerated example occurs in Weapons of Mass Destruction, almost as an Overly Long Gag. Adrian writes several versions of a letter to try to end his relationship with Marigold Flowers, but cannot bring himself to send any of them, even standing beside a post box with the letter in his hand. He asks his family which one he should send. When he asks for advice from Daisy Flowers, she drafts a brutal letter for him, which makes Adrian hesitate about pairing up with her.
- The Basic Eight: Lily sends Flannery a letter about her and Douglas's relationship (as Flannery and Douglas dated before, though Douglas is gay). Flannery lampshades this trope by going through the "layers" of Lily's crossed-out writing: some of it is barely crossed out so as to remain completely readable, while other parts are completely blacked out and Flannery has to go to great lengths to read it.
- The Expanse: In Leviathan's Wake, when Miller begins searching for Julie Mao he finds a message on her computer from her father, Jules-Pierre Mao, threatening to junk her beloved racing pinnace unless she comes home. Miller finds an angry rant and a wheedling message to talk him out of it, both discarded drafts. The reply she actually sent simply says, "Do what you have to," as she refuses to be manipulated. Miller's estimation of her rises after reading that.
- Things We Have In Common: After Alice disappears, Yasmin writes "I know who took her" in a message on her Facebook page, and then deletes it without sending it. It's one of the first signs of her loyalty truly turning towards Sam (though she doesn't really know if he's the kidnapper at least, not yet.)
- Worm: Taylor, whose original plan was to spy on and betray the gang of supervillains who recruited her, starts writing an email to a superhero with information she's just gathered. Coincidentally, her father chooses that moment to lock her in the house until she comes clean about why she's been missing school. Taylor starts to write a letter to her father confessing to being a supervillain, but in the process comes to accept that she feels that she truly belongs with her gang and doesn't want to sell them out. She deletes the email, burns the letter, and escapes to join the Undersiders for good.
Live-Action TV
- Al Rawabi School For Girls: Ruqayyah initially texts Tareq that she isn't going to send him photos of her without the hijab, but discards that draft. When he endlessly praises her, she gives in and sends him multiple photos of herself, some of a more...racy nature.
- Baby Reindeer: In episode 2, Donny deletes his response to Martha on Facebook after she asks if they are official. She notices that he stopped typing and then spams him with questions as to why.
- CSI: NY: "The Lady in the Lake": In the midst of Mac's speech aphasia arc wherein he's having memory problems, Christine is giving him the silent treatment for not opening up to her at all about whatever's going on with him. Early in the episode he leaves her a voice mail which ends with "I don't wanna leave things... Just call me, please." Near the end, when she still hasn't responded, he calls again. Getting her voice mail, he finally admits to something being wrong that he wants to talk about. A recording comes on telling him to press one to send the message or press two to delete it. The camera focuses on his screen as he presses the number two.
- Sex Education: this happens multiple times. Protagonist Otis in particular is an overthinker when texting Maeve.
- Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: In a particularly dark episode, The Captain is dictating a log entry to the computer (which normally get filed and submitted to HQ) laying out all the dirty deeds he committed in that episode in pursuit of a good cause. At the end of the episode, he convinces himself he can live with the consequences, and suddenly instructs the computer to delete the whole episode-long entry, preventing the brass at Starfleet (and history) from ever truly knowing what went down.
Sisko: …Computer, delete that entire log entry.Computer *confirmation beep*
Video Games
- Emily Is Away: Played for Drama in Chapter 5, where trying to ask Emily difficult questions about the nature of your relationship after you hooked up has the message partially typed before being immediately erased and replaced with generic and banal questions. This repeats several times before the only options left are "goodbye", "goodbye", and "goodbye".
- Venba: In Chapter 6, when Kavin and Kris are discussing the school lunch scene over text, Kavin wonders whether Priya could eat nothing in the scene due to her feeling embarrassed about food from her culture. When Kris replies that this would not fit the tone of the scene and asks him to suggest a dish, Kavin starts to write about how apprehensive he himself would feel about opening the lid of his lunchbox in school, and that the scene would make him feel like he had been overreacting, before quickly erasing the message and saying that he will check his mother's old cookbook.
Visual Novels
- Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: The fifth episode has a scene where Edgeworth discards a letter on the floor as Phoenix enters. Upon retrieving the letter, it turns out to be a letter of resignation. When confronted Edgeworth says that he changed his mind, but Gumshoe takes it more seriously.
Western Animation
- In Invincible (2021), season 2 episode 6, Amber standing on the wall at a college party begins to text Mark "I miss you", after they mutually broke up due to the difficulties of sustaining a relationship with a superhero, but deletes it after brief pause.
