Reality Isn't Very Realistic

Before I became a professional writer, I was a creative writing student. Before that, I was an amateur child writer who shared my works only within my small circle of such friends and colleagues as amateur child writers have.

Sometimes, when I got a draft back from a fellow creative writing student or amateur child writer friend, there would be a comment along the lines of "This part isn't realistic...it's too coincidental."

Although I can agree that in many cases this feedback improved the draft, I find it strange that we demand our fiction be realistic and not coincidental. Reality isn't actually very realistic and it's often coincidental. As Mark Twain said, "Truth is stranger than fiction." And as I say (inspired somewhat by my history professor), "I find reality to be very strange."

I should define what I mean by "coincidental". Some people believe that life is chaos and randomness. I don't believe that. I believe that, like an author, the God of our world has put a lot of time and thought into building a reality full of delights. I personally don't think it's a coincidence when the person you've been thinking about all day just happens to be at the grocery store or when you have a hard day at work and then someone brings you cookies. Those are what we LDS folk call "tender mercies," and I believe that the hand of God is in them because He cares about us. There are other things that I would consider coincidences, like that you and all your closest friends were born on the 11th day of different months (I'm just making stuff up here). And yet, I still don't think those coincidences are as coincidental as we'd like them to be. I don't necessarily think they have any special meaning, but I do think they're little fun things that God threw into the design of the world...just for fun.

Anyway, whatever you believe coincidences are, life is just full of 'em.

Consider this: three of my four grandparents were born in the same year. Now, it's not very weird that my dad's parents were born in the same year, since they met in college. But both my parents' mothers were born in the same year, which is really weird. Statistically speaking, when you consider how many fertile years an adult woman has in her life, the chances of you marrying someone whose mother was born in the same year as your own mother are very low. Like, I legitimately don't even have any friends whose mother was born the same year as mine. Shutterbug's mom is probably a couple years younger than mine, but she's the only one who even comes close. A friend in junior high's mother was six or seven years younger than mine because she gave birth in her teens; Viola's mother is about 20 years older than mine because she gave birth in her forties. The span is wide.

What about this? Older Sister is a brunette; I'm a blonde (though not as blonde as I once was). Little Sister is a brunette; Baby Sister is a blonde. Little Brother is a brunette; Baby Brother is a blonde. Our hair colors alternate perfectly.

Or this? Little Brother was born on our dad's mom's birthday, and Baby Brother was born on our dad's dad's birthday. I mean, yeah, Little Brother was induced the day before our grandma's birthday, and there was a decent chance of him not coming until the next day. But Baby Brother came on his own about three weeks early. There's no accounting for it.

I've been thinking about this a lot the last few days because of a true event that no half-decent editor would ever let a writer put in their novel: an acquaintance who lives here in Hometown contacted me with some questions. The conversation ended, and I thought nothing else about it. A few weeks later, that acquaintance went to New York City, where there are literally millions of people. Yet he still happened to run into Older Sister outside a theatre and then asked her about the same topic!

In short, if fiction is supposed to mirror real life, then it should have more, and not less, coincidences.