"#19. Coincidences to get characters into trouble are great; coincidences to get them out of it are cheating."
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| Photo credit: topher76 on Flickr |
A writer's job is to make life difficult for their characters—after all,
without conflict, there isn't much of a story at all. People like to read
about characters who have overcome outstanding odds and great difficulties, so
when a character overcomes said difficulty due to sheer coincidence, the
victory feels unearned. The character didn't really overcome anything—they just
stumbled into good fortune. Unfortunately, life rarely works that way, and when
it comes to fiction their lives should never work that
way.
The same idea applies to random nature/God/fate/whatever events in your
writing. If, for example, your main character is fighting your antagonist
during a thunderstorm and it looks like he's going to lose, then a
bolt of lightning comes out of the stormy clouds and strikes your
antagonist dead at the last second, your readers are not going to be very
happy. If, on the other hand, your main character is faring well in the fight
and that same bolt of lightning strikes him down and turns the tables, well,
your character is very unlucky, but it's fair game.
Our characters don't always deserve the misfortune that befalls them—in
fact, often times they don't deserve it all, but they must always deserve their
victories, even the small ones. Readers love to cheer for the underdog, and
quite frankly, they're fun to discover in our writing. But the moment life
starts looking a little too good or events just happen to turn in your
characters' favor, you know it might be time to change your character's fate—and
not for the better.
What do you think? Do you include coincidences in your writing? Do they
help or hurt your protagonist?
24 comments:
On Friday do we get to see a companion piece on "Coincidence and Fate: Don't Be Too Cruel"? :D Or is there no such thing?!
I think whether or not such a thing even exists is up for debate. I suppose there can always be too much of a good thing, but considering I've written about how being a sadist helps you become a better writer, you're probably asking the wrong person. :D
Interesting, Ava Jae! I've never really thought about coincidences. Don't know if I used them (too much), but it's something to think about.
It is indeed a fact that readers love it when your main character gets a lot of trouble. They're probably gutted, but if an author doesn't give his characters a hard time, readers are bound to complain.
Oh, and yes, I'm cheering for the underdog too ^^
I suppose it depends on whether or not the sadistic hardships a character endures derive from the story or, as you say, come out of the wild blue yonder just to mess with the protagonist's day.
Lol at the bolt of lighting striking the villain. I just blogged about this! Great point that it's fair to do it the other way around to give them more of a challenge. Definitely never make it easy ;) Off to check out that list...
I used to be a huge fan of 'Buffy', and there's one episode where she tells Giles:
"There are two things that I don't believe in: coincidence and leprechauns."
That pretty much sums up my view. I don't believe in coincidence, so I don't include it in my writing.
I worried about the conclusion of my first novel as it could be seen as a twist of fate solving everything, but hopefully the intelligent readers see that I spent the whole novel setting it up as inevitable. But I agree completely. We always want to write a twist of fate to help but we should never do that. Everything happens for a reason, except bad stuff, that just happens.
http://goo.gl/F3cg4
I think the relation between coincidence and fiction is very interesting.
In real life unexplainable things happen all the time and often we have no choice but to accept them. We can't close the book of our reality. I can close any other book. And I indeed will always do so if I feel cheated (Well, almost always, think of Italo Calvino's 'If On A Winter's Night A Traveller...').
I think that the reason I don't want to be cheated with coincidence when I read a book is that books also are a tool with which we explain the unexplainable coincidences we encounter in reality.
Agreed. It should fit within the realm of the story, otherwise it'll just look a little ridiculous.
If writers don't give their characters a hard time, they're going to be hard pressed to find many readers willing to stick around. Conflict is the backbone of the story--without it, what is there?
Wow! I just checked out your post--very funny that we both blogged about this and mentioned the bolt of lightning thing. What a coincidence, hmm? :D
Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
Except for minor things, I don't believe in coincidence, either. Which is probably why my characters don't see very many happy coincidences.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Angela!
I find that the greatest temptation to write kind twists of fate comes when we've dug a hole so deep for our characters that we can't quite figure out how to get them out of it. In the end, though, as Ms. Coats put it, creating an easy problem-solving twist of fate or coincidence is cheating.
Thanks for stopping by, Matthew!
You bring up a really interesting point. Even in reality we tend to search for reasons why the inexplicable happens--after all, many branches of science and religion were formed because we continued to ask why even when no one seemed to have answers. In a book, however, we do have someone to turn to and ask why--the author--so writers are often held accountable for their characters' fates.
I admit, I have to learn to be more cruel to my characters. I just like them so much that I want everything to go right for them. But I know that I have to let them fight their own battles. It's a work in progress though.
Everyone has room for improvement in one area or another. Just the fact that you know that you have a tendency to be too kind to your characters makes avoiding that tendency even easier in the future. :)
Thanks for stopping by, Andrea!
Thanks for checking it out! Nice to be on the same page, for sure.
Great! In my opinion this was one of your best posts, and certainly one of the most helpful to me. Also that PIXAR storyboard person's tips were great. :) Plus ironically this is one of your shorter posts but I absorbed it and reread it twice! Thanks. Keep up the good work. :D
~Author Steven
Wow! Thank you, Steven! I'm so glad you found this post so helpful! ^_^
I love the Pixar tips, which is why I knew I had to share it with you guys. They're very insightful.
Thanks for the kind words!
reading this today just made me realize I've a spot where I definitely let things go too easy for my main character, and I think making it harder will not only make the story more interesting, but it fixed some of the other problems I was having. Thanks!
You're very welcome, Chris! So happy to hear you found this post helpful. Best of luck with your writing! ^_^
I think it's kind of like parents with their kids. If you don't let them out in the "real" world, they'll never know what they're really capable of.
Very true! Great comparison!
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