Aggie Blum Thompson
One day while waiting to pick up my children outside their elementary school, I saw a woman who looked vaguely familiar. Although her hair was shorter, and she was twenty years older, I was sure she was an acquaintance of mine from college. I called her name – let’s pretend it was Paula — and she turned. When I asked her if she was Paula Smith, her smile disappeared – did she recognize me? – and she curtly said: No. I’m Paula Davis before turning away and melting into the crowd.Later that day, after a little sleuthing, I discovered that Paula Smith had married and become Paula Davis. She was the same woman. So why had she pretended not to be? As a writer, I could come up with a dozen answers for her reluctance to acknowledge her past – fleeing an abusive ex maybe? Outrunning a life of crime? I folded this idea into my debut novel, I Don’t Forgive You, which centers around a similar serendipitous meeting in suburbia.
Coincidence in fiction can get a bad rap — and for good reason. It’s often employed as a lazy way out of either poor plotting or weak character development, and readers can see right through that. But that doesn’t mean there is no place for coincidence in fiction. The Pixar movie studio has a rule that coincidences that get people into trouble are fine, while coincidences that get people out of trouble are not. What that means is coincidence can jump-start a story but can be lethal to a good ending. For thriller and mystery writers, there is extra pressure to avoid it in the middle. What seems like coincidence must be explained and have a rational reason. In fact, this can be a very effective strategy in suspense – revealing to the readers that what looked like a coincidence was actually a devious plan all along.
Here are some suspense novels that have used coincidence effectively to launch their narratives.
Coincidences abound in the beginning of Alice Feeney’s novel His & Hers — the detective assigned to a murder case and his ex-wife who’s a journalist covering the crime both went to high school with the victim. But once the reader is over that hurdle, buckle up, because the rest of the novel is a twisty, suspenseful ride that doesn’t depend on coincidence to ramp up tension or solve the mystery.
In Patricia Highsmith’s classic, Strangers on a Train, two men who meet while traveling divulge that they both have people in their lives they wouldn’t mind seeing dead. What are the odds of sitting next to someone who not only would like to eliminate someone from their life, but is willing to talk about it? Who cares, when what follows is Highsmith’s crystalline prose depicting the intense psychological drama of the twisted relationship that develops between these two people.
In Harriet Lane’s literary thriller, Her, the story starts when a middle-aged woman recognizes someone from her childhood entering a shop in London. That coincidental sighting sets off this slow-burn novel, which alternates between these two women, one of whom is set on revenge.
Finally, one of my favorite novelists, Peter Swanson, uses coincidence to great effect in many of his novels. In the dark Before She Knew Him, Hen moves to suburbia and discovers her next-door neighbor might be a murderer. What tips her off? I won’t give it away, only to say that sometimes one outlandish coincidence feels absolutely true, and in this case terrifying.
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