SPOOKED

 

Some things, which the rationalists call “coincidences,” will spook those of us who think lives are a mixture of the coincidental and the coherent deliberate invisible pattern woven by the supra-human.

 

I am positively spooked right now, and it isn’t Halloween.

 

When working to polish and revise my longer stories, I go through two full drafts of the middle-grade novels before I share them with anyone. In the past, I had three or sometimes four beta readers lined up, and I turn my completed second draft to the first, revise per feedback, and on to the second, etc.

 

For my current work-in-progress (=WIP) I had three Betas ready to look it over.

 

The first Beta is managing serious health challenges. When she returned the WIP to me, I noticed that many of the chapters had not a single comment or typo correction, which (if you knew me) is not possible.  I mentioned this to her, and she said it was likely a matter of her comments not having been transmitted to my system. Shortly after attempting to go over them again, she had to abruptly sign off saying she was too ill to continue.

 

I felt very bad at causing her to struggle thus and told her my next Beta reader will deal with whatever it was I still could not see.

 

Two days after mailing my third draft to Beta number two, two decades younger than myself, I was informed she had passed away. I felt terrible about that, never mind my manuscript.

 

Beta number three was set to receive my next draft two months from then, but I asked if I may send it early. “Sure,” she wrote back. “Send it as soon as you are ready.” This I did after again looking it over and catching a few more issues myself.

 

Beta number three, a superb professional with a work ethic to rival no one and energy befitting her young age, usually took two weeks to return drafts back to me with her feedback. A few days ago, I received a note that she has been seriously ill, sicker than she had ever been in her life, and was not able to work on my WIP.  She vowed to return to it when she was better.

 

But, by now, I am wondering if this manuscript is carrying some sort of curse. I certainly would not dream of inflicting it on anyone else. This thing, my latest novel, appears to be a killer and not in the good way some use the word.

🫣 SPOOKY😨

COINCIDENCE?

 

Or, put another way—

DO YOU BELIEVE THE ARE NO COINCIDENCES?

 

There are those who think everything that happens (i.e. the plots of our lives) are tied together in (or by) a mysterious force operating beyond what we can see. They find proof of this everywhere.

That’s the school of No Coincidences.

 

Then, others believe everything is coincidental, and marvel at what would have been had they made the slightest different choice at any junction.

That’s the school of charting on tabula rasa with meaning coming out of choices combined with blind luck.

 

When we plot and tell stories, invariably our philosophical bias on this matter comes through.

It was beautifully explored in the movie Sliding Doors. The film alternates between two storylines, showing two paths the central character's life could take depending on whether she catches a train.

*Spoiler alert!—  In that story, the surprise ending shows that ultimately things turn out the same, though the road to that ending is different.

 

This is my personal bias as well. The grand scheme is not coincidental; the mini-turns along the way hold many different possibilities.

 

Writers are often reminded to tie the plot in a meaningful way and never allow it to be a list of unconnected actions. This makes the bias of a storyteller strongly leaning to the No Coincidences school.

Thus, writers tend to be the self-selected believers in ultimate destiny.

Suits me.