An Incident of Coincidence

For the past month and a half Laura and I have been visiting our families in Utah. My parents just built a home in the country and we have been enjoying their company, sleeping in late and eating for free like refugees before we return to Vancouver.

Last night was my cousins wedding and my mom being the florist she is was asked to do the flower arrangements. With an excess of flowers we were tasked with taking them home and after arriving home late we simply set them on the ping pong table in the garage without thought and went to bed. The following morning I went out to the garage in order to check out the aftermath and stumbled upon this scene:

Behold, one of the finest in my dad’s old album collection—Deep Purple, surrounded by a plethora of purple flowers. (Purple + Purple get it?) Okay, admittedly my “discovery” this morning was not earth-shattering and will most likely not alter my destiny, just a plain old inconsequential coincidence…or is it?

How common it is in story narratives to find seemingly insignificant coincidences and happenstances that have the most profound and earth shattering consequences. Was it coincidence that led Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy to find the wardrobe that transported them into Narnia where they were to save an entire kingdom? Was it happenstance that Harry happened to become friends with the two people that possessed the exact inherent gifts necessary to help him overcome Voldemort and save humanity from a state of Death Eater fascism? These and other millions of examples seem to occur not because they can happen but because they need to happen.

Perhaps from now on I won’t be so quick to judge a narrative in which sometimes things just seemingly fall into place. The real world is full of good that needs to happen, and give credit to whom you will—but it does happen. The invisible author’s hand seems to guide and will events into place, but we as characters ultimately have the choice of how we react to such circumstances.

Don’t get me wrong, I love a credible storyline (something the literary world has a great need for), but there is a certain undeniable romanticism to random coincidence (or perhaps purposeful coincidence). Coincidence no matter how subtle can cause cataclysmic changes in narratives and the lives’ of your characters even your own.

Whatever the case writers need to proceed with caution, using coincidence in narratives is like hot sauce—tasty in small doses and detrimental in large. Check yourselves often—stay true to your characters, do not alter things merely for convenience, and never overuse or waste a good coincidence.