True coincidences you might not believe in a novel

[Ray McCarthy]

I have a co-incidence and the "police" in the story correctly conclude it's a co-incidence

 

[paranoid marvin]

I don't know if anyone's made this point yet, but one major plot-driving coincidence is fine in fiction (for example, someone being in the right place at the right time to learn or do something). In a way, the story then becomes about that coincidence and the consequences thereof. But any more than that, and it loses credibility, in my experience.

This.

Coincidences can and do happen ; repeated coincidences don't (unless there is an outside influence guiding things).

 

[Dave]

Thinking more on this - if coincidences are just a function of high statistical probability, as I maintain, then there are huge implications for the kind of time travel story where someone goes back in time to change some event. Most of these rely on the fact that there is some single event-time that can be altered or erased.

To take the example of Springs' man on the bus - if her future self decided that her life turned seriously wrong at that point in time and she wanted to stop herself meeting him then that might actually be impossible. If she missed him on the bus, then she would see him at the bus station, or in the Mall or at the newsagents or the doctors surgery the following week. It is going to happen anyway.

Marty McFly's parents would always meet eventually and the Terminator might kill Sarah Connor but a different child would become leader of the resistance in place of John.

 

[paranoid marvin]

To quote King 'The past is obdurate'.