The allowable coincidence

Here's a problem with rapid Nano-writing (apart from the typos, of course): you can easily fall into the trap of throwing in convenient coincidences to propel the story along. No time for careful consideration so let's have something unexpected but beneficial to keep things moving.

Stuck with characters who are not sure how to solve a problem? Crazy old uncle turns up out of the blue who just happens to know the solution...

Struggling to get a person from one continent to another? No problem, an unused airline ticket is lying on the ground...

Want the prince to meet the peasant girl and fall in love? Well, the boar he is hunting just happens to lead him to her lonely cottage in the woods...

You get the idea. You can drop in any convenience to get the character out of a situation or get them to meet someone in unlikely circumstances. As such, I had to reign in my own horse of improbable coincidence (the one called "Swift-Get-Out") on a couple of occasions. I mean, my heroine just happens to be hiding where two important characters decide to meet to have an all-revealing conversation...

Well, I didn't do that. Thought about it, was tempted but rejected it as unlikely.

But then coincidences happen. Our lives are full of them and so too are stories. If Sam Gamgee hadn't been in the garden outside Frodo's window in The Shire then he would never have tagged along to Mordor. He was the gardener, so was in a likely place to hear what Gandalf was saying.

The trick, I thought, was to have a likely coincidence. So, without rushing my plot in an unlikely way, I needed my heroine to know something. She had to get information in a plausible way. Find out from the sort of place where you would likely come across someone who listens in routinely to other people's conversations or even know the whereabouts of places.

I know exactly who that would be, and if I told you what I'd decided on you'd say, oh yes, of course...

I mean, every modern city has them. These people hear a lot in the course of their daily job.

So in my world that is an allowable coincidence. The 'listener-in' does not know my character wants to know something, but when it comes up in conversation, she grasps the significance of what others have said casually and can use it.

Well, I can't sit here writing this. I have to get on with the novel and move the story forward in allowable fashion.

A bit like hiring a taxi, I suppose.