The Curiously Non-Causal Quality of Coincidence

Does the “curiosity” in the title above merely add alliteration? No, because, sadly, novelists don’t necessarily treat causality and coincidence as antithetical. What’s the cause of that?

A loose definition of plot. Ideally, it stems not from a sequence of events but the sense that choices, usually dreadful until the end, produced this result. E.M. Forster famously observed

“The king died and then the queen died” is a story. “The king died, and then the queen died of grief” is a plot. The time-sequence is preserved, but the sense of causality overshadows it...If it is in a story we say “and then?” If it is in a plot we ask “why?”

Only causality can explain “why.” Forster published Aspects of the Novel back in 1927, but nothing has changed since. A recent Editor’s Blog reminds that “Coincidence messes with the suspension of disbelief because it so quickly and thoroughly reminds readers that they are reading fiction.”

And the cause of that one? With the same probability each time, life can deliver victories or catastrophes. Fiction doesn’t work that way. The bar for credibility is far higher than for anything based on fact. That’s why you risk sounding contrived any time you record exactly what happened.

Beware these trouble spots.

• Planted Clues

She never checked for phone messages, but because she did, Ellie found the note.

• Fortuitous Accidents

Before Ed could respond, the doorbell suddenly rang.

• Convenient Backup

Good thing Mark remembered to take his gun after all.

• Improbable Meetings

Her first love, out of Sue’s life for thirty years, stood on the subway platform.

• Impossible Rescues

Though unsure of the sergeant’s location, the troops arrived just in time.

Tip: Without credible motivation, responses and actions seem convenient, if not contrived.

How to fix the coincidence issue?

~ Plan your plot—and causally.

As Don Maass put it, “Every scene should be so essential that if you omit one, the whole thing unravels.”

~ Introduce objects and people in advance.

Never add characters, details, or characteristics only as the need arises.

~ Transform sequentiality into causality.

            Build your story not on what happens, but what motivates subsequent events.

Isn’t it curious how often coincidence crops up in fiction?  Convenient as that might be, only causality can earn an ending satisfying to both you and your readers.

Framing

You needn’t look closely to see that nature slips into compositions all the time. Out the window an oak dramatizes a sliver of moon and a single star. A staghorn fern fans itself across the glitter of mica-encrusted rocks.  Male and female goldfinches feed beside a six-foot-tall pure yellow lily. Nice.

But artifice, not nature, shapes the kinds of frames that novels need—the kind that add coherence and aesthetics to plot and tension.

~ Hooks.

Those of us raised on 19^th century novels associate the hooks with setting, often a long, long, long, LONG description of something. But these days anyone can visit exotic places with a couple of clicks. Though E.M. Forster’s Passage to India is a great novel, today’s readers no longer a need a dozen pages on the Marabar Caves—or anything else.

Instead? Hook with drama, tension, secret, promise. Begin and end every scene that way. Want to integrate conflict with setting? Go for it. Just don’t forget the conflict part. That’s the hook.

~ Sequence.

            “A story is already over before we hear it. That is how the teller knows what it means”

(Joan Silber, The Art of Time in Fiction: As Long as It Takes). Her observation suggests how fiction exerts its power. Novelists comment on truth not just through plot and character, but time itself. So many options. Where does the story start? How much backstory would add, and where does it belong? Is the ending foreshadowed? Does the pace let readers savor what’s interesting and speed past what’s not?  The unwinding of time contributes to the frame embellishing the story inside.

~ Scene structure.

           

Whether you make a plan before you write (definitely not a bad idea), or revise what’s already written, every scene should frame a moment in time. Photographers choose what to include, omit, and emphasize; similarly, novelists can use the constraint of each individual scene to make this chunk of plot coherent, dramatic, and causal.

~ Set-off.

            Frames exist to enhance what’s inside. You might think of description, foreshadowing,

            backstory, and the prose itself as the framework supporting the plot. If any of those distract or

            diminish tension, then the frame overwhelms the part that matters.

~ Set-up.

            Reality is random. What’s great about novels? They aren’t. But only if the narrator frames the

            plot.

Tip: Frame your story. Great frames make what’s inside even more compelling.