Reader Question: What about the use of coincidence in a comedy?

A reader question from James Tillery:

What are your thoughts on coincidence in comedy? It feels cheap when characters are constantly bumping into each other, but how about using coincidence to get into the second act?

A good example might be Date Night since the plot hinges on the Main Characters taking the wrong reservation. Is that too big of a coincidence or does that simply put the idea into high-concept territory?

As writers we’re trying to start our stories right before something significant happens. Can a major coincidence be the start of that significant event?

Good question, James. 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.

So re your specific reference to Date Night, if Phil (Steve Carrel) and Claire Foster (Tina Fey) do not show up at the restaurant, wait for a long time for a table, then out of desperation take a reservation for another couple, setting into motion the mistaken identity dynamic that drives the plot, then you have no movie. That central idea is not so much a coincidence as it is a conceit.

Movies like North by Northwest, The 39 Steps, Red Rock West, The Big Lebowski, The Majestic, and many others are all based on the central conceit of mistaken identity. In order to make that happen, a writer has to orchestrate events wherein Character A mistakes the identity of Character B as Character C. Again within the story world, that’s a coincidence; outside the story world, it’s a conceit.

Specific to comedy, as long as the writer creates a degree of plausibility, I think the writer is cut a bit more slack with coincidence than other genres. Why? Because people go to see a comedy to laugh. And intersections between various subplots can be a whole lot of fun. If done well, it comes off more as ironic, rather than coincidental.

An example: One of my favorite dark comedies is After Hours. Here is the conceit:

A meek word processor [Paul Hackett] impulsively travels to Manhattan’s Soho District to date an attractive but apparently disturbed young woman and finds himself trapped there in a nightmarishly surreal vortex of improbable coincidences and farcical circumstances.

The story is filled with subplots. Read the summary here and you’ll see. Throughout Act Two and into Act Three, the Protagonist Paul intersects with all of the various subplots, then they intersect with him, and each other, over and over and over again, building in intensity and craziness, like a sort of comic fugue. Are these intersections coincidences? Within the story world, yes. But from a writer and even a viewer’s perspective, they are part of the conceit: one man’s nightmarish journey. And importantly, each subplot is set up, all the characters have a reason to be where they are at that time of night, so there is a base level of plausibility. 

Here is the trailer for After Hours which by the way was directed by Martin Scorcese (screenplay by Joseph Minion):

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. But don’t confuse a coincidence with a conceit as the latter is often at the core of a story’s concept. Script readers and moviegoers are willing to accept a conceit as long as it’s handled well and doesn’t smack of writer’s convenience.

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