Coincidence in Fiction: Unearned Clues and Lightning Strikes

By David Griffin Brown

Mark Twain once wrote: “Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn’t.”

We all know real life serves up wild coincidences. You run into an old friend halfway around the world. A single decision changes the entire course of your life. Reality doesn’t have to explain itself.

Fiction does.

When writers lean on coincidence to move a story forward, readers are likely to cry foul. But that doesn’t mean coincidence should be banished from your work. Used carefully, it can launch plots, deepen tragedies, and keep readers turning pages. Used poorly, it undercuts the entire story.

When Fate Feels Fake

Readers expect cause and effect. They want events to ripple forward from what came before: decisions, mistakes, goals, rivalries. Coincidence breaks that chain. It’s akin to the puppeteer’s handing coming into view above the stage. We don’t want to be reminded that there is an author behind the illusion. And that’s exactly what can happen when you conveniently hand the protagonist a clue or solve a plot problem.

The further we get into a story, the more coincidence risks diminishing the story’s power. When chance swoops in to save the day, the protagonist is no longer driving the causality. And that’s when readers stop believing.

When Chance Works in Your Favor

Coincidence isn’t always the enemy. Some of the best stories hinge on it—when it launches the plot, complicates the journey, or turns everything upside down.

The Unlucky Break

Katniss Everdeen’s life changes when her sister’s name is drawn in the Hunger Games lottery. A random event, especially since it’s the first time Primrose’s name has been included in the draw. This moment catapults Katniss into danger, forces her to act, and sets the entire story in motion.

The plot owes its existence to this chance occurrence, but readers don’t complain. Why? Because the chance isn’t as remote as a Powerball draw, because we can anticipate that something like this will happen, and because it makes things harder for Katniss, not easier.

The Lucky Break

In Treasure Island, young Jim Hawkins finds a treasure map only because a dying pirate happens to stay at his family’s inn. Again, sheer chance. The map seems like a ticket to fortune, but it draws ruthless treasure hunters who chase Jim across the seas. This lucky break ignites more fires than it puts out.

The Door Opens at Last

Sometimes coincidence delivers an opportunity the protagonist has been longing for. Think of The Great Gatsby. Nick Carraway moves to West Egg and ends up next door to Jay Gatsby, giving him a front-row seat to Gatsby’s obsessive pursuit of his cousin Daisy. For Gatsby, this coincidence feels like fate cracking open a long-locked door.

But the story doesn’t get easier from there. Gatsby still has to chase, to scheme, to dream. The coincidence only lights the fuse.

When Fortune Turns Cruel

Negative coincidences can do powerful work when they arrive in the middle of a story. Unlike deus ex machina rescues, these accidents worsen the protagonist’s situation, pushing the story into darker territory. They raise the stakes, force hard choices, and often shape the character’s emotional arc.

The key is that they don’t solve anything. Instead, they escalate conflict or close off the easy way out.

Take Romeo and Juliet. Friar Lawrence sends a letter to Romeo about Juliet’s faked death. But when the letter goes undelivered, a fragile plan turns into catastrophe. The plot pivots on this accident, but it doesn’t feel cheap because the lovers still make their own fatal choices within the fallout.

Early on in Lord of the Flies, a ship passes the island, but it just so happens that their signal fire has gone out. This negative coincidence strands them and makes the rest of the story possible.

Wuthering Heights gives us a more intimate blow. Heathcliff overhears the worst part of Catherine’s confession to Nelly Dean. The incomplete context warps her meaning, convincing him she has rejected him completely. He leaves, and the misunderstanding sends him on a decades-long mission of vengeance and heartbreak.

These negative coincidences work because they corner the characters rather than liberating them. They force consequences the characters can’t undo. They create new obstacles. They also align with the story’s tone: Shakespearean tragedy thrives on fate’s cruelty; Golding explores the fragility of civilization; Brontë leans into misunderstanding and miscommunication.

Used well, mid-story accidents serve as pressure points. They tighten the screws on characters’ goals and relationships. They also keep readers hooked because they deepen the story’s emotional cost. What matters isn’t the coincidence itself, but what the characters do in its aftermath.

The Jury’s Still Out

Some plot coincidences spark endless debate. Are they cheap tricks or strokes of genius?

In The Lord of the Rings, the giant eagles swoop in at the final moment to rescue Frodo and Sam from Mount Doom. The rescue comes after the climax—Sauron has already fallen—but readers still argue over whether the eagles feel like divine intervention or an earned salvation.

In Jane Eyre, Jane discovers not only a long-lost family connection but also a sudden inheritance, all in one lucky twist. Even fans of the novel admit the double coincidence strains belief.

And in Jurassic Park, the T-Rex barges in at the last moment to kill the velociraptors threatening the main characters. Spectacular action, yes. But narratively? The rescue depends on the right predator in the right place at the right time. It’s a deus ex machina, but one that is at least plausible within the established chaos of the park.

These moments divide readers because they blur the line between fate and convenience. Some accept them as part of the story’s design. Others call foul.

Different Genres, Different Rules

Mystery fans hate coincidences that solve the puzzle. A detective who stumbles onto the final clue by luck robs readers of the satisfaction of a fair-play ending. Coincidence can launch the case, but the solution needs brains, not a convenient twist of fate.

Romance, on the other hand, allows for serendipity. Lovers bump into each other across continents, reunite after years apart, or have a meet-cute in the unlikeliest places. Readers forgive these twists because the genre embraces destiny and soul-mate synchronicity.

Fantasy and horror sometimes blur the line between coincidence and fate. Prophecies, curses, and cosmic forces bend events toward a sense of design. A coincidence with a prophecy behind it has a sort of metaphysical causality that provides the needed plausibility. What’s crucial is that the protagonist still needs to act rather than wait for the gods or the universe to do all the work.

Earning Your Lightning Strikes

The difference between careless coincidence and clever craft often comes down to setup.

If a storm blows in at the perfect moment to save the hero, readers roll their eyes. But if the storm has been building for chapters, if the protagonist even plans around it, then the timing feels inevitable.

In other words, foreshadowing turns coincidence into consequence.

Character motivation does the same. If the detective finds the final clue because she decided to search the old warehouse one last time, the discovery feels earned. If she just trips over it, readers feel cheated.

And above all, coincidence should complicate rather than resolve. It should raise questions, heighten conflict, or launch the story at the outset. Once it starts handing out answers and easy escapes, readers stop trusting the narrative.

Start a story with a stroke of luck or misfortune. Let chance pile trouble on the protagonist’s shoulders. But otherwise, build your protagonist’s journey with causal action. Lightning can strike. Just make sure it strikes at the right time, in the right way, and never as a shortcut to resolve plot problems, especially at the ending.

David Griffin Brown is an award-winning short fiction writer and co-author of Immersion and Emotion: The Two Pillars of Storytelling and Story Skeleton: The Classics. His debut novel, When the Sky Breaks, was released in 2025. He holds a BA in anthropology from UVic and an MFA in creative writing from UBC, and his writing has been published in literary magazines such as the Malahat Review and Grain. In 2022, he was the recipient of a New Artist grant from the Canada Council for the Arts. David founded Darling Axe Editing in 2018, and as part of his Book Broker interview series, he has compiled querying advice from over 100 literary agents. He lives in Victoria, Canada, on the traditional territory of the Songhees and Esquimalt Nations.