The Place For My Writers Notes

Original Posting: Fri, 12 Mar 1993 17:05:01 JST

Practically every book on writing fiction comes out strongly against coincidence. Sometimes they'll suggest that you can get away with using one coincidence to set up a conflict, but after that, you're on forbidden territory.

A very bad book I read used it everywhere - to establish the conflicts, to complicate them, and even to resolve them. Everything "just happened" to work, making the plot a farce, at best. Unfortunately, the author didn't have the humor of "A Hithchiker's Guide to the Galaxy" or other socially redeeming qualities to make me accept this style.

However, one of the scenes reminded me of a similar scene in another book - except that one worked, while this one made me (figuratively) throw up my hands in disgust and discard any pretense of suspending disbelief. To salvage something from my waste of time, I tried comparing the two scenes to see what was different.

In both, the protagonist wandered into a bar where they coincidentally met the people needed to move the story further. The descriptions of the bar, the people, etc. while different, were both reasonably good. Still, one was believable, one wasn't. What was different?

After careful review, I realized the key difference. The one that didn't work started out "The bar was...". The one that worked started out "The third bar was...". One little word, "third", made all the difference - and was difficult to notice.

What does that "third" do? Very simply, it turns the "coincidence" into a result of the protagonist's action - it isn't the first place they walk into that "happens" to have the right people, it's the third one. A tiny difference, but it's enough to take the edge off the "chance meeting" the author is about to introduce.

Without the "third", it may be a surprise to the reader that these people "just happen" to be in the bar (unless you set it up ahead of time - something either book might have done, although both protagonists were improvising at this point in the plots, which would have made such a setup difficult to believe). The only things that belong in the first bar you visit should be things the reader would expect in any bar.

With the "third", the reader smoothly assumes that the protagonist has been looking hard, and now we're going to see something useful or important. So meeting the people in the bar isn't chance - we've been looking, and now we're running into someone (or something) that will help. With the "third", the bar can have exactly what you need to get the plot on track again - since you've looked for it, and found it.

So, when your character needs a "long shot" chance to keep the plot moving, remember the third bar rule. The fifth locker, the fourth cabby, the sixth interview - your character _can_ find what they need to find, but let the reader know they had to look for it!

Or, to paraphrase a common cliche - In fiction, when you look for something, it should NEVER be in the first place you look. It'll be in the third bar, waiting for you to find it.

mike