Serendipity in your writing: Common?

[MemoryTale]

A pretty major one happened in one of my WIPs. I introduced an organisation intending it for simle world building. A few chapters later and it was pretty clear they were the villains of the piece.

 

[Boneman]

Personally I think it's your subconscious mind's sense of humour... when you write down an incident, your subconscious mind could give you the whole thing, but chooses to hold something back until you've achieved say 80,000 words and then it releases a little bit more. It's got a mind of its own, that subconscious...

I wrote a whole book, finished it, edited it, rewrote it, edited it, rewrote it etc etc and was pretty happy with it. In one scene, hero and girlfriend camp by a pool, which has pebbles in it. They decide to take one as a momento, and it was used at a couple of points for psychometry, just to pile sadness on the hero, who's had to leave the girl behind. Was a neat tool, as a way of allowing hero a 'glimpse' into what was going on back home. End of story.

Except... t'other day I was trying to work out why it was the hero was affected by magic (as he's going to use it for three books, where did it come from?) I didn't want a 'chosen one' scenario and there are no predictions in my book, and then my subconscious fell about laughing, and told me it had insterted the pebble incident for just that: it's a 'trap' and the first person to find the stone gets an unwanted ability for reasons that will be revealed later. Added a completely new dimension to my story.

 

[Mouse]

I've just had one! A while ago two of my MCs were confronted by a nutter with a gun (mostly because I needed a gun to appear in the story as I'll need it later, but...) both characters knew who this man was, but for different reasons. One reason was because he was the ex-husband of the head of the talent agency in my story.

Now, one of those MCs is needing information about one of the clients of the agency. My plan was to have him go in and just use his fists to get the information. Turns out, having information about a gun-weilding ex-husband is a very good bartering tool!

 

[Venusian Broon]

Years ago I would in my initial attempts to write, I struggled hugely with naming characters. For some reason (ah the folly of youth) I had told myself that the name of the character had to have some meaning relative to the work. Some sort of hidden and secret one and not too obvious.

Of course this was pretty stupid - and it could literally stop my writing in it's tracks for weeks!

Now I tend to start with a visual image and character quirks or physical situations. Then instead of worrying for days about a 'proper name' I clear my mind and just take the first one that 'springs' to attention. It only takes seconds, and if it really isn't that good it's easy enough to replace with another attempt. This approach saves me oodles of time!

Now what freaks me out a bit is when I've been using a name for months and months and then decide to check out it's meaning I discover that, say 75%+ of the time, there is a very strong connection between the name and what the character is doing in the WiP. This applies even to a made up name, a name from a foreign language that I have absolutely no knowledge of, or a word choosen for a name because the sound of it seemed right.

Before you all say it: yes I think I am applying a strong positive bias to this, so it's not really true.

But when it happens it's really spooky!

 

[HareBrain]

Now what freaks me out a bit is when I've been using a name for months and months and then decide to check out it's meaning I discover that, say 75%+ of the time, there is a very strong connection between the name and what the character is doing in the WiP. This applies even to a made up name, a name from a foreign language that I have absolutely no knowledge of, or a word choosen for a name because the sound of it seemed right.

Before you all say it: yes I think I am applying a strong positive bias to this, so it's not really true.

But when it happens it's really spooky!

That's happened to me. I came up with Tashi as the name of a young man who comes from a Tibetan-style monastery, and when I googled it, not only did I find it is a genuine Tibetan name, but the first reference was to a monastery! I suppose it's possible I "knew" this subconsciously, having come across the name and not remembered, but I can't think where. I hope it wasn't the name of an important character in "Tintin in Tibet" or something.

 

[Venusian Broon]

That's happened to me. I came up with Tashi as the name of a young man who comes from a Tibetan-style monastery, and when I googled it, not only did I find it is a genuine Tibetan name, but the first reference was to a monastery! I suppose it's possible I "knew" this subconsciously, having come across the name and not remembered, but I can't think where. I hope it wasn't the name of an important character in "Tintin in Tibet" or something.

I think you're alright with the Tintin!

I've done precisely what you describe above, HB, with a few of my characters too.

Of course it could be some sort of Jungian collective consciousness we're tapping into here, which might explain how we can make the connections with absolutely no foreknowledge.

Drifting into New Age territory now... I'll get my coat.

 

[RcGrant]

I think you're alright with the Tintin!

I've done precisely what you describe above, HB, with a few of my characters too.

Of course it could be some sort of Jungian collective consciousness we're tapping into here, which might explain how we can make the connections with absolutely no foreknowledge.

Drifting into New Age territory now... I'll get my coat.

I'm fascinated by the idea of the collective consciousness; read far too much on it. I'll grab my coat and follow.

 

[Ursa major]

I chose the first names of the two main human characters in my frame story almost at random. (The only non-random thing was that one of them was German and I wanted a name that emphasised that.)

When I looked up what these names meant, one could mean Idol and the other could mean Pious. (Whether these two characters are always antagonistic towards each other is another matter....)

 

[Hammerhand]

It is so much fun reading this thread! I simply must add my own experience!

One of my main protagonists is having a conversation with one of the antagonists about 8 chapters in (of an 11 chapter story). I wanted to make it obvious that the pair knew each other for a long long time, and what's more, they were once great friends (i.e showing rather than telling). It had to be something personal, something you would only tell a very close friend. Out of the deepest darkest recesses I had the antagonist provoke the other about an abusive father that was often violent with him and his sister and WHAM! Not only did it fit his personality as if I had planned it from the start, it gave me additional punch to my ending, added an extra dimension to the character who was previously so introvert he was difficult to love and gave me a strong and evocative prologue to the entire story.

I honestly tried to kiss myself!

But I also have to say, I have had more than one instance of a bright idea dragging me off down thousands of words of dead ends. And I am acutely aware that I have some serious editing to do later after giving some characters some items that I had planned to explain something later on but are now redundant because I had a much better idea along the way!

I suppose that's what you might call taking the rough with the smooth.

 

[Ursa major]

This weekend, I've noticed another odd coincidence, though I wouldn't call it serendipity exactly.


Those of you who've seen versions of my prologue** in Critiques and elsewhere will have seen the word, ulas. I use it for the material that protects ships and craft from being damaged by enemy action. (Its strength is said to come from an odd sort of quantum entanglement that seems to obey an inverse-square law.)

Some may also have seen - though not in Critiques - my WiP's first chapter where the main protagonist starts running on all fours.

When looking further into quadrupedalism (I was checking up on particular gaits), I saw a link from the (not very long) Wiki article on quadrupedalism to a family called Ulas, which includes some members who walk on four feet.

I hadn't seen the family name until yesterday, and my use of the word, ulas, comes from elsewhere, a dictionary of a foreign language. It's all a bit strange, really.


** - This is out again so has not been submitted to HV.

 

[FeedMeTV]

Ah! The hand of fate, Ursa!

 

[Venusian Broon]

Not quite an exact serendipity, but it's close enough for me to claim it, I think:

I had to come up for a surname of a character and chose Baey (from a big list of possibles - it felt right).

A few weeks later a read an article on Baetyls (pronouced 'beetles') - meteorites from outer space that have falled to earth and were worshipped as living gods.

My character is a pilot of a space craft, a member of the ruling caste of her society, and with powers beyond the ken of normal humans.

She's called Baety now. Perfect!