Paul Whybrow
Full Member
It's a common cliché in crime stories and thrillers, for the protagonist to say something like, "I don't believe in coincidences." At which point, our hero gamely goes his own way, and, after disproving synchronicity collars or kills the baddy.
But, in real life, coincidences do happen. In the mid-1980s, I worked as a milkman, and took a holiday in the Black Forest of Germany. I saw a few British registered cars, but didn't think anything of it, until I returned to work and one of my customers showed me a photograph she'd taken of my Mini sitting next to her vehicle in a car-park 600 miles from where we lived. She'd told me she was going on holiday, and to cancel her milk delivery, which I made a note of for the relief roundsman, but we had no idea we were going to the same place.
Even weirder, was a coincidence that I didn't discover for 35 years. I helped to run a community centre from 2005-2009, and one of my friends and colleagues was born within two days of me, in a neighbouring county. One day we were talking about the career choices we'd made as teenaged school pupils, and I happened to mention that I'd been unexpectedly interviewed, on my 18th birthday, by a mysterious and very tall gentleman from the Civil Service, who asked me searching questions, even though I'd never expressed an interest in working for this government administrative body.
My friend looked at me with a grin, saying, "Me, too...you know who he was, don't you?" I had no idea, and was stunned when he told me that this crusty British gent was one of the senior figures in MI5, who was looking for recruits! I somehow doubt that I'd have ended up as 007, but it proved what a small world it is, that we'd been interviewed by the same spook days apart in 1972.
The use of coincidence in famous literature is well-known. In Suzanne Collins’s Hunger Games Katniss's sister Prim just happens to get drawn as a tribute in her first eligible year. D'Artagnan somehow chooses to insult Porthas, Athos and Aramis on his first day in town in Alexander Dumas's The Three Musketeers. Jane Eyre left Mr Rochester, fleeing into the night alone, and winds up exhausted and starving on the doorstep of a random house—that, amazingly enough, belongs to her long-lost relatives—Charlotte Brontë hardly hung her head in shame, for this coincidence was a plot device that gave Jane money and breathing space away from Mr Rochester.
In my WIP, which is told from a multiple POV, I have one main antagonist, a murderous art gallery owner, along with four other criminals—a cat burglar, a prostitute and twin brothers who've been stealing money from car-park ticket machines and ATMs. The action takes place in a small Cornish town of 6,000 residents, so it's quite possible that they'd interact. Indeed, 30,000 words into the story, some of them already have, for the cat burglar stole three forged paintings from an overflow store owned by the art gallery owner, and used them as payment for sexual services from the tart—who's also serviced the twins!
I'm casting around, in my addled brain, for one big coincidence that will draw two of the characters together in a fateful way; maybe the tart goes to have the paintings valued by the homicidal art gallery owner, who originally commissioned the forgeries; or, perhaps the cat burglar breaks into his gallery and they fight.
Any story requires a suspension of disbelief, for the reader to accept that it's within the realms of possibility, however unlikely. Villains in the underworld do business with one another, so I'll come up with something that's plausible.
Have any of you used coincidence in your plots?
What about strange coincidences in your own life?
But, in real life, coincidences do happen. In the mid-1980s, I worked as a milkman, and took a holiday in the Black Forest of Germany. I saw a few British registered cars, but didn't think anything of it, until I returned to work and one of my customers showed me a photograph she'd taken of my Mini sitting next to her vehicle in a car-park 600 miles from where we lived. She'd told me she was going on holiday, and to cancel her milk delivery, which I made a note of for the relief roundsman, but we had no idea we were going to the same place.
Even weirder, was a coincidence that I didn't discover for 35 years. I helped to run a community centre from 2005-2009, and one of my friends and colleagues was born within two days of me, in a neighbouring county. One day we were talking about the career choices we'd made as teenaged school pupils, and I happened to mention that I'd been unexpectedly interviewed, on my 18th birthday, by a mysterious and very tall gentleman from the Civil Service, who asked me searching questions, even though I'd never expressed an interest in working for this government administrative body.
My friend looked at me with a grin, saying, "Me, too...you know who he was, don't you?" I had no idea, and was stunned when he told me that this crusty British gent was one of the senior figures in MI5, who was looking for recruits! I somehow doubt that I'd have ended up as 007, but it proved what a small world it is, that we'd been interviewed by the same spook days apart in 1972.
The use of coincidence in famous literature is well-known. In Suzanne Collins’s Hunger Games Katniss's sister Prim just happens to get drawn as a tribute in her first eligible year. D'Artagnan somehow chooses to insult Porthas, Athos and Aramis on his first day in town in Alexander Dumas's The Three Musketeers. Jane Eyre left Mr Rochester, fleeing into the night alone, and winds up exhausted and starving on the doorstep of a random house—that, amazingly enough, belongs to her long-lost relatives—Charlotte Brontë hardly hung her head in shame, for this coincidence was a plot device that gave Jane money and breathing space away from Mr Rochester.
In my WIP, which is told from a multiple POV, I have one main antagonist, a murderous art gallery owner, along with four other criminals—a cat burglar, a prostitute and twin brothers who've been stealing money from car-park ticket machines and ATMs. The action takes place in a small Cornish town of 6,000 residents, so it's quite possible that they'd interact. Indeed, 30,000 words into the story, some of them already have, for the cat burglar stole three forged paintings from an overflow store owned by the art gallery owner, and used them as payment for sexual services from the tart—who's also serviced the twins!
I'm casting around, in my addled brain, for one big coincidence that will draw two of the characters together in a fateful way; maybe the tart goes to have the paintings valued by the homicidal art gallery owner, who originally commissioned the forgeries; or, perhaps the cat burglar breaks into his gallery and they fight.
Any story requires a suspension of disbelief, for the reader to accept that it's within the realms of possibility, however unlikely. Villains in the underworld do business with one another, so I'll come up with something that's plausible.
Have any of you used coincidence in your plots?
What about strange coincidences in your own life?
