Coincidence: The Sequel
Yesterday I posted this response to a reader question about the use of coincidence in stories:
Let me draw a distinction between a coincidence and a conceit. Think of the former from inside the perspective of your story world: there a coincidence is much like it is in our world, a seemingly random confluence of events. A conceit, on the other hand, is best seen from the writer’s viewpoint outside the story world: it is a core narrative element around which the entire story is developed. In other words, without it happening, there is no story.
In comments 77kart said…
Sorry, but I don’t buy your coincidence vs conceit taxonomy.
IMO, a more useful question is, why do some coincidences work (in the story) and some don’t. What’s the MTC (Maximum Threshold of Coincidence) that audiences will accept? Most films, even great films, have coincidences but, for whatever reason, we buy into them. In Casablanca, Rick acquires the letters of transit on the exact night that Ilse walks into the bar needing them. In Shawshank Redemption, Tommy, one of only three people in the world who knows Andy is innocent, ends up in the same prison and group as Andy. Anyone want a refund?
That and other comments in the OP make me think we would benefit from discussing coincidence further.
The idea of Maximum Threshold of Coincidence is something I touched on at the very end of my post:
So yes, James, you’re right to be concerned about overusing coincidences in your stories, which is why as a rule of thumb, you should limit it to one per script.
In comments, Emily Blake said:
I think it was in a workshop of Bill Martell’s that I first heard that you get ONE coincidence per story, and I’ve stuck to that rule. I think it’s a good policy to follow.
I didn’t hear the “one coincidence per script” thing from Martell, but certainly picked it up somewhere along the line. And I’ve had plenty of story meetings where the issue came up, voiced by execs, producers, directors, etc. So I do believe it is a pretty well accepted ‘fact’ in Hollywood.
What’s the big deal? In my OP, I mentioned the concern of “writer’s convenience.” I’m pretty sure I’ve written about this before, but as a reminder, writer’s convenience is any time in a script where a reader feels the writer at overtly work, pulling strings in an obvious way. Whether it’s a character acting out of character or a deus ex machina event, anything that comes across as artificial to the plot in order to expedite matters within the plot, that is writer’s convenience.
The net effect of a writer’s convenience contrivance in a script is to yank the reader out of the story world and into the world of the writer. So when 77kart says, “Most films, even great films, have coincidences but, for whatever reason, we buy into them,” the for whatever reason is why I thought it was helpful to point out the distinction between coincidence and conceit, as a means to try to understand why.
I still think the language is helpful. In our world, a coincidence is a random confluence of events. In the story world, a coincidence must appear to be a random confluence of events. Everyone who watches a movies knows that, in fact, a writer has constructed the plot, and so if we step waaaaaayyyyy back out of the story world, we understand that the whole thing is artificial. But that’s not how most people watch movies. We watch with the desire to be sucked into the story world. And once there, we want it to feel like it is an organic experience, where the characters control their own actions and the events that transpire do so per the rules of the story world as established by the writer.
This is why handling coincidence is so critical as noted above per writer’s convenience.
Now to drill down a bit further into this idea of conceit — a core narrative element around which the entire story is developed — if it does involve a coincidence, it’s best to get it all set up and out of the way as early as possible. 77kart mentions two good examples of this:
* In The Shawshank Redemption, the movie begins with the trial of Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins). Within all that exposition between the trial interrogation and D.A.’s summary of facts, we learn of one big fat coincidence: The night that Andy showed up drunk with a gun outside the cabin where his wife was having sex with her lover, the couple ended up dead — although as Andy claims not by his gun. Indeed, the characters say it right there in the script:
ANDY
I did not. I got back in the car
and drove home to sleep it off.
Along the way, I stopped and threw
my gun into the Royal River. I feel
I’ve been very clear on this point.
D.A.
Yes, you have. Where I get hazy,
though, is the part where the
cleaning woman shows up the next
morning and finds your wife and her
lover in bed, riddled with .38
caliber bullets. Does that strike
you as a fantastic coincidence, Mr.
Dufresne, or is it just me?
Screenwriter Frank Darabont established the coincidence right up front in the movie, which makes it easier for a viewer to accept. But again, I think this goes to the idea of a story conceit: The entire premise of the movie — Andy going to Shawshank prison — is based upon this one idea: The coincidence of him at his wife’s lover’s cabin on the night they are killed, thereby resulting in him being found guilty. That’s the conceit of the movie.
* In Casablanca, again the story gets the conceit out of the way up front: Two letters of transit have been stolen. These letters — which by the way screenwriters Julius and Philip Epstein totally made up, there were no such things in real life — allowed their owners to travel anywhere in the world with total immunity. Ugarte (Peter Lorre), who stole them, gets killed and Rick (Humphrey Bogart) ends up with the letters. That’s established in the script on P. 16, early in Act One. The coincidence, of course, is, as 77kart notes, that Ilse Lund (Ingrid Bergman) and Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid) just happen to show up on the night the letters of transit come into Rick’s possession. But again, it occurs early in the movie, the news that Laszlo is in Casablanca announced by Renault (Claude Reins) on P. 24 and the couple making their first appearance on P. 34. Another example of what I would call the story’s conceit: Without either the letters of transit or Laszlo and Ilse, you have no movie. Viewers understand this as part of a narrative tradition and as long as at the filmmakers handle such coincidences well and early in the story, they’re in good shape.
There are two other lessons we can learn about the management of coincidences from Shawshank and Casablanca. As noted above, Shawshank actually references the coincidence in dialogue. So does Casablanca in one of the more memorable lines in the movie:
Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, she walks into mine.
The lesson? If you have a coincidence, embrace it, even to the point of having characters acknowledge the fact. That way, it seems less like you — the writer — are trying to pull a fast one on the reader. Put it right there out in the open for all to see, including your story’s characters.
Then there’s the case of Tommy Williams (Gil Bellows) who just happens to show up well into Act Two, then reveals that he just happened to be a cellmate of Elmo Blatch who confessed to killing Andy’s wife and lover (P. 82 of what the 1st draft).
This is something of a fudge. The fact that Blatch was there the night that Andy showed up with the gun, that goes to the original conceit of the story. It’s the reveal of this information, specifically tied to Tommy’s appearance in the movie and the coincidence of him having roomed with Blatch that’s the issue. But as 77kart notes, “Anyone want a refund?” Of course not. So why does this coincidence work, essentially a second one, breaking the rule of one coincidence per movie?
Because we are so invested in the story at this point, we want it to work. The revelation is huge news and has a direct impact — potentially — on Andy’s fate, a character we have grown to care about.
The lesson: If you must have a second coincidence or a significant one that happens late in the script, make sure you’ve got enough narrative stuff going on to motivate the reader to want the coincidence to work.
Finally there is a larger point at work re coincidence and that’s this: A writer must respect the rules of the story world they create. For example, if your story presents a Protagonist and a Nemesis, and you dig into who they are, what their goals are, what their respective talents are, creating a world around them — society, laws, customs, characters, subplots — then set them into their Final Struggle, and suddenly have a meteor careen out of the sky, smashing the Nemesis to bits (assuming of course you haven’t set up the meteor), that is more than a coincidence, that is breaking your story rules. The Final Struggle should be resolved within the context of all the narrative elements you’ve set into motion, not some external force. In other words, respect your story rules!
So there you have it: probably more than you’ll ever want or need to know about coincidences. Or is it? If anyone has anything further to add, please do so in comments.
UPDATE: Three great comments from GITS readers that are definitely worthy of mention here.
Luzid said…
One other thing — we tend to accept negative coincidences that hurt the hero by making his dilemma worse, but rightfully reject those that help the protagonist.
It’s the “at least nothing else can go wrong!” sudden thunderstorm cliche, which works because we all know what a bad coincidence feels like, so we can relate and accept it. But very few of us ever get a helpful deus ex machina in our daily lives.
ggw07 said…
Dickens was the master of using coincidence. He not only embraced these techniques, but had a philosophical position about surprise being a part of life, that we all should accept and enjoy.
Of course he was also a master of character, so we delight in his unexpected revelations.
In “On the Waterfront,” it is a coincidence that Joey Doyle’s sister,Edie,happens to be visiting her family,when her brother is killed. The audience does not mind because it is deftly handled and fuels the dramatic conflict of the film.
In “Stranger Than Fiction,” the entire movie is based on the coincidences in the life of Harold Crick, skillfully managed by the author in the film, Karen Eiffel.
The audience balks at a film when coincidence is illogical, used to fill plot holes or weak character action.
Annika W said…
There’s also a whole subgenre of films — usually black comedies — that are built around coincidence as the main structural support beam. I love films like this, which usually have an ensemble cast of characters whose lives intersect and intertwine in the most lip-smackingly delicious, sometimes downright ridiculous, ways. Alfred Hitchcock made numerous movies where coincidence played such a major factor, you could say the film was about coincidence itself. This was also the stock and trade of the Seinfeld series. While the show’s creators always said it was a show about nothing, structurally and thematically, it was a show about coincidence. Three or four separate story lines were put into play during the first act. By the final commercial break, those lines had always converged into one.
As far as Shawshank goes, there’s another reason the Tommy coincidence works. Tommy was in prison with Red for a long, long time before he put two-and-two together. If he would have walked in, sat down to lunch with the fellas, and said something like, “Hey — aren’t you that banker who was accused of murdering his wife? Boy — do I know something you’re gonna wish you’d known all along!” we would have all been torn out of the movie, no matter how much we cared about Andy. Instead, Tommy had been in prison for a few years before he finally adds it all up, and when he does so, he’s talking to Red, not Andy. This rang true for me because there’s a psychological truth to it. This is how our minds work. Tommy got new information about Andy from Red, and that’s what triggered his Ah-ha moment. So it feels real, not like the glaring hand of the writer.
Amazing that this topic has generated such insights. It’s almost a… coincidence.
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