Is there a time when eavesdropping should be avoided? Is there a better way to let a protagonist know what the baddies are up to?

I don't know if I've ever used this device.

Yes. The best way to let a protagonist know what the baddies are up to is to let him guess based on misleading information and then do something that makes his situation worse when the baddies' real plan is put into operation.

My favorite overheard conversation, though. The people who lived in the apartment next to me were talking on their porch one summer night. I could really only hear the woman's voice. She was going on and ON about their relationship and her feelings and what she wants and needs. You've been in that conversation before, I know you have.

Finally she says "Thank you for listening to me. I'm really committed to making this work, so I want to understand what you need, too." (and on and on.)

There's a pause and I can hear the guy murmuring something.

Then the woman says, "Sure, I can try to keep the cat off the counter."

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Then the woman says, "Sure, I can try to keep the cat off the counter."

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Oh, that almost made me snort my drink through my nose!

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Having a MC overhear crucial information is very tricky. Not only can it be a deus ex machina, but it can also commit the sin of writing known as "maid and butler dialog" where two people tell each other things they already know so the reader will know it too.

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This is what I'm worried about. I've tried to not to do that(Well you see, my dear Jeeves, I really do intend to put rat poison in Sir Bromley's Darjeeling..." but that, along with the whole coincidence thing is nattering me to death.

P.S. That rat-eating scene from "V" gave me nightmares for weeks. Maybe that's why this technique is embedded in my subconscious...

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The manner of the eavesdropping is important

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OK, the situation is this: In the storyline, protagonist A is sneaking about in the palace gardens at night (for a very good, plot-advancing reason). He accidentally comes across characters B and C, who are discussing updates on an assassination scheme. Protagonist A doesn't see B and C, only hears their whispered, unrecognisable voices. A short snippet of converation reveals they are planning a high-level assassination. Problem is, Prot A is under house arrest and not supposed to be out in the first place. Furthermore, A is already under suspicion for another, earlier murder.

Sound plausable? Or done-to-death?

If your character A already knew that B and C were up to something, and spied on them in their secret little cubbyhole of plotting by clinging to the stong wall outside their fourth story window or something like that, then that would be a lot more believable and work better dramatically. Because then character A is working for the information.

The whole scene might have to go, I'm afraid, because the only reason I made character A run into B and C was to make him feel even more miserable in his current situation than before. (He wouldn't be able to stop the aforementioned assassination.)

Thanks for your help,

Varishta

Miriel -- Interestingly enough, that's what I
intended to do at first. But then I thought, "Oh, I don't know if it'd be interesting enough if the info was obtained from a second-hand source" and so the scene changed to MC overhearing things himself -- which was a bit over the top, even for my dramatic style.

I've returned to the idea of a minor character breaking the info, but in a later scene, when that minor character is under extreme duress -- and no one believes her but the MC, who is powerless at this point of the story to help her, himself, or anyone else.