By Joe Moore
Today is my lucky day. It started right after I poured my first cup of coffee, wandered down the hall to my home office, and launched my e-mail. I couldn’t believe my eyes when the first message popped up. It was from an exiled Nigerian king who escaped his country with a fortune in the bank but no way to get to it. Somehow he had found me and asked that I help him get his family’s money; and amount he estimated to be over fifty million dollars. For my assistance, he was willing to give me twenty percent of the funds: a cool ten million.
As you can imagine, I was speechless. But then things got even better. My second e-mail was from none other than the Official International Lottery (you guys have heard of it, right?). Believe it or not, my personal e-mail had been randomly chosen from among all the e-mail addresses in the world as the sole winner: a lump sum of $500k. Considering that there are hundreds of e-mail addresses out there, perhaps thousands, I felt like the luckiest guy on my block. I did a couple of cartwheels down the hall, and when my wife asked what all the excitement was about, I said that minus some small administrative fees I needed to forward via wire transfer to the king and the lottery guys, we were rich beyond our wildest dreams.
Now I know what you’re thinking: Joe, you’re one lucky guy. You might also be thinking that all this good fortune is hard to believe. After all, winning the International Lottery is one thing, but on the same day getting this incredible opportunity to help the Nigerian king is, well, an amazing coincidence. I bet there are even a couple of you that flat-out don’t believe it could happen. You think it’s just too much of a coincidence.
If this were a novel, chances are the reader would be kicked right out of the story. That’s because coincidence, if used improperly or overused, can be considered nothing more than a cheap trick. Using it can lower the writer’s credibility and believability. And if it comes as a blatant trick to solve an unsolvable problem, it could cause the reader to close the book and move on.
Coincidence is defined as something that happens by chance, it was never intended to take place, and is usually considered an accident. Improper use often occurs when a writer paints himself into a corner and there’s no way out except to turn to an unbelievable event or the introduction of a new element “out of the blue”.
Don’t get me wrong, coincidence is a legitimate writing technique if it’s properly setup and foreshadowed. The key is to make it realistic. Example: running into someone you know at JFK is not realistic. Considering an international airport like JFK has multiple terminals, dozens of airlines, and hundreds of thousands of passengers passing through it daily. How often have you run into someone you know at a big airport like JFK? Not too often, I’ll bet. If it doesn’t happen to you, why should it happen to a character in your story? It’s not realistic.
But let’s say two people are in the same industry. Each year they attend an industry tradeshow. They always stay at the same hotel. You’ve established this somewhere previously in the story. What are the chances of them running into each other in the hotel bar? Pretty good. That’s a realistic coincidence. You’ve already foreshadowed enough information to the reader that when it happens, the reaction is Aha, not No Way.
The secret to using coincidence is to narrow down the chances beforehand so that when the event takes place, you don’t make the reader roll her eyes.
A nasty form of coincidence is what’s called deus ex machine, Latin for god in the machine: a seemingly inextricable problem is suddenly and abruptly solved with the contrived and unexpected intervention of some new character, ability, or object. Your character suddenly has the ability to fly a jumbo jet without any prior experience, or a new character appears just in time to perform a life-saving rescue, someone that up until this point was never mentioned in the story. Don’t go there. It will make your writing weak and lacking in integrity. And it could cost you readers.
So how do you avoid coincidence and deus ex machine? Plan ahead. Take time to foreshadow so your reader doesn’t get blindsided. Map out the story in advance, drop hints, and keep things realistic. And as a last resort, if you must use coincidence, take the time to go back and insert the foreshadowing and hints. Doing so will make you look clever in the eyes of the reader.
How about you? As a writer, have you ever had to rely on coincidence? And as a reader, have you ever been put-off because of unrealistic coincidence?
BTW, one more thing about my fabulous luck with the Nigerian king and the International lottery: according to stats, last year U.S. citizens lost more than $550 million as a result of Internet fraud. I sure hope my new friend the king isn’t trying to put one over on me.
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13 comments:
I completely agree w/ you about foreshadowing.
But. My mother is famous for meeting people in far-flung places. When we were kids, we sat down to watch Shamu @ Seaworld and someone behind us tapped my mother on the shoulder. "Didn't you used to be Dotty L.?" She'd gone to high school w/ my mom.
And when she was in Puerto Rico (we lived in NJ and she grew up in Maryland), she met her cousin that she hadn't seen in 15 years.
Coincidences do happen, but in fiction, they strain credibility. They strain credibility in Real Life, but what are you going to do?
Nothing's more annoying than a "yeah right" moment when reading a book. Maybe it's me but when I run across "coincidences" that have a great bearing on the story, I'd just as soon move on to something else 'cause the author has lost me.
The phishing scams are out of control - must get 10 or 15 emails a day with "great news". Good luck with the king.
Maybe the character who suddenly was able to fly a jumbo jet stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night. 8-)
Coincidences can bring a story to a screeching and undignified halt. The other thing, perhaps somewhat of a separate note that also kills a story are characters that for no good reason refuse to communicate.
This has nothing to do with your point, but I’ve run into people I know in the Atlanta airport on several occasions.
As for handling coincidence, lampshading (also known as spotlighting) is also a great trick to have in our toolbox and it requires no foreshadowing. Even it has its limitations, but it works by having a character point out that it’s an unlikely coincidence. Two friends running into each other at the airport may seem like an even more unlikely coincidence than it actually is in real life if we put it in story at just the time we need them to meet up, but if the two characters discuss how unusual it is and one of them throws in a previous experience of running into a friend at the airport the reader’s doubts will go away. Because we don’t have to build up to the event, lampshading is particularly helpful when we want to dismiss a coincidence for now and later reveal that it wasn’t a coincidence at all.
Suelder, you’re right about coincidence occurring in real life. My wife and I were on vacation in the U.K. and during a stopover in a small town to have lunch, we discovered that the couple sitting at the next table lived about a mile from our South Florida home. But in fiction, it’s literary thin ice.
JaxPop, like you I get dozens of phishing scams every day. But this king sounds like he’s an honest fellow. He does make quite of few typos, though. Maybe he doesn’t have spell check in Nigeria.
Timothy, your tip is spot on right. Let the characters deal with it in a logical manner and hopefully, it will soften the blow to the reader.
I'd consider paying you $500,000 just to see you do cartwheels down the hallway.
Joe, congrats on your financial good fortune! Take me to dinner.
As for coinkadinks, my standing rule is to use them only to get the Lead into hot water, not out of it.
Mark, even for $500k, I don't think I could do it. My cartwheeling days are long gone.
Good rule of thumb, Jim. And as soon as the lottery check arrives, you and I are heading to IHOP.
I'm a banker in New York by day, and I can tell you from years of first-hand experience that the number of people who fall for these Nigerian King scams is unbelievable. I've even taken out the FBI sheets and shown them to the clients, but they refuse to believe the banker and the FBI, instead believing they're going to be millionaires as soon as they fork over a few thousand for "wire fees" and whatnot. It's staggering how blinding hope can make someone.
Ah, this is so relevant for me, Joe. The one thing my beta readers all zoomed in on for my latest novel was an unlikely coincidence that propelled the storyline forward. And they were right- it was weak, and in serious need of retooling. I ended up rewriting about a third of the book based on that alone.
On another note- one of the things I found most disappointing about The Girl Who Played with Fire is that there were not one but TWO times that a coincidence moved the plot forward. And both could have been easily avoided. If you're going to have a character see someone in a bar who is plotting against them, don't write that that character has not been to a bar in weeks, that this is, in fact, her first trip to that bar in ages. Make her a regular, then I can forgive it. Similarly, if a character hasn't stopped by an apartment to check on a friend in months, why would the one night he chances to visit be the same where she is attacked? Weak, and unnecessary. That type of coincidence is an insult to the reader and is best avoided.
Oh, and congrats on your good fortune. As luck would have it, I was also selected by the Intl lottery. Perhaps we'll be able to park our yachts next to each other.
(Foreshadowing:)
I happened to be surfing the net looking for someone to bestow good fortune upon.
(Coincidence:)
I wandered into the Kill Zone and saw your post, Joe.
(Good fortune:)
Just send me your credit card number, Social Security number (for verification), home address, mother's maiden name, and a $129.95 processing fee, and I'll send you the long-held secrets to writing a blockbuster novel PLUS a million dollars in cash!
Not valid with any other offer. Not to be used by women who are nursing, pregnant, or may become pregnant. Void where prohibited. Some assembly required. See dealer for details. Certain restrictions apply.
Thanks, Mike. Talk about luck. It's almost too good to be true.
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