Coincidence and character agency

If narrative is about the limits on human agency, then coincidence is the writer’s wild card. Coincidences are the writer’s fingers in the pie. You supply them; the characters have to deal with them.

Coincidence has no motivations or intentions per se. It doesn’t care about the outcome. It just does what it does. At your behest.

The way you use coincidence in your writing can make or break the story. Using coincidence to solve script problems is a very easy trap to fall into, and it always diminishes the power of your story, because it reduces the character’s agency.

Make coincidence a challenge, not a solution

Stories often start with a coincidence. The inciting incident that kicks the character out of Act 1 into Act 2 is often a coincidence. That coincidence can either present as a threat, or an opportunity. Either an obstacle to be overcome, or a chance to be taken.

But once the story is properly underway, coincidence needs to single-mindedly present problems to the character. No more solutions.

A character is defined by the difficult choices they make and the risky actions they take. You get better stories out of making the character’s life more difficult, not easier.

So even in the rare cases you need to make a coincidence appear to be a solution, make sure it’s only a temporary solution that opens up a larger obstacle. Let it look like a solution; but make it a test.

Example: The Asteroid

Suppose your story is about an ordinary woman who leads an army of oppressed peasantry to confront a powerful and cruel colonial force.

Would we be happy if, at the peak of the crucial battle, an asteroid fell from the sky and destroyed the opposing colonial army?

We might feel an enormous sense of relief, but if the story ended here, we would feel cheated.

All this ending tells us is that fate (or the gods) favoured one side over the other. The central character and her allies have not been properly tested.

Narratively, it’s a kind of coitus interruptus. The narrative would be much stronger if, instead of the asteroid rescuing our Joan of Arc character, it became yet another obstacle.

Perhaps, foreseeing the possibility of an overwhelming frontal assault by the colonial army, she had set aside her elite troops for a surprise counter-attack – and the asteroid wiped them out. Now she has to battle on without her backstop.

And what does the asteroid do to her claim that her authority rests on the support of the gods?

Coincidence posing a test

Alternatively, rather than being a direct obstacle, coincidences can pose a test.

Suppose at the height of the battle, just when the enemy is gaining the upper hand and all seems lost, the asteroid does wipe out the colonial army? Victory – but what now?

Now, our Joan of Arc character has to decide what to do with the invaders’ women and children, left behind and defenceless. And with an army raging with triumph and unfulfilled bloodlust.

Coincidence is your direct, unfettered power within the story. Use it to raise the stakes of your story, and to connect to your premise. But always use it to make the characters do the work.

Spectacle vs Narrative power

Although the immediate impact of coincidences and other major acts of the Uncaring Universe can be spectacular, they’re generally just a narrative sugar hit.

Their real narrative impact is NOT the immediate direct consequences, but the ongoing consequences. The narrative has to leave room for the protagonist to come to grips with the direct consequences and deal with them. That is the real story.

Because of this, major story-changing coincidences generally need to happen well before the end of the story, so there is narrative room for the consequences to play out.

Coincidence in ‘CONCLAVE’

To my mind, this is a major weakness in the Oscar-winning script of CONCLAVE.

The final twist in Conclave is that the Pope-elect is a woman. Or at least has a uterus and ovaries, even as she passes as a male cardinal. Her visionary and compassionate response to a suicide bomber blowing out the windows of the Sistine Chapel wins over a Conclave that was implacably divided between the traditionalists and the progressives.

But the Conclave never finds out she is a woman. That key piece of information remains a secret, known only to the dead Pope and the two cardinals managing the selection process.

That leaves no room in the narrative for the consequences to play out. Presumably that was a deliberate choice by writer and director. But it left me feeling cheated by a deus ex machina.

What if, instead…?

What if the hail of stained-glass that rained down on the Conclave came earlier in the script?

You could still have the battling cliques unifying to choose the compassionate visionary to lead them rather than the disciplinarian. But now there’s time for the secret to come out and reignite the debate.

As it is, the film avoids the real story – what would the Conclave of Cardinals, and in particular the fierce traditionalists, do if, in the gap between being chosen and being publicly anointed, they got the information that their chosen Pope had ovaries and a uterus?

That would take you to the meat of the situation.

As the story stands, there is no room for the real consequences of the ‘asteroid’ (the suicide bomber) to play out. Instead of setting up a test of the cardinals, and therefore a genuine philosophical, political and theological question, the coincidence rams the writer’s desired outcome home.

By coming so late in the story, the coincidence dodges the real questions, leaving us with the sugar hit of the twist ending.

The writer has rescued himself. And let down the story, and the audience.

So…?

Coincidence is one of the most powerful tools in the writer’s arsenal. And it belongs solely to the writer, nobody else.

It’s our job to use it wisely.

Related Essays:

Don’t Rescue your Characters