What a Coincidence! Creating Plots That Don’t Feel Like Accidents

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Too many coincidences in a novel will make readers question the plausibility of your plot.

No matter how exciting a story may be, if the plot hinges on coincidences and contrived events, readers will feel cheated. Does the protagonist always seem to find the right person at the right time, who happens to have the exact item she's looking for? 

What about the hero who overhears conversations that reveal the information he needed? If solutions to problems seem to fall into the protagonist's lap with little to no work, odds are your plot is going to feel contrived.

Plots work best when events happen for reasons rooted in character goals and motivations and not just because the author wanted it to unfold that way. There’s a fine line between situations that read plausibly and ones that feel like a series of unlikely coincidences.

6 Ways to Identify a Contrived Plot

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Contrived plots not only stretch plausibility, they hurt an author’s credibility with readers. They trust us to tell them a solid tale, and they lose that faith if we cheat by forcing events to unfold and benefit our protagonists so they win with no effort.

Some argue that every story is contrived, because as writers, we manipulate what happens to tell our tale. On one hand this is true, but it’s how we manipulate that determines how contrived a story reads. For example, if we show our protagonist coming home from her karate class in the first few pages, it’s no surprise to readers when she’s able to fight off an attacker later. But if we mention she’s a black belt after the attack has been thwarted—or worse, comment that, “it was good thing she’d just earned that black belt” during the attack, then it’ll likely feel contrived. The vital skill wasn’t in the story until it was needed.