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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/27030
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/27030
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

There is nothing wrong with serendipity in a story. Our lives are like that anyway, governed largely by chance. What matters in a story is the moral arc of the characters. What chance occurrences should not do is resolve the moral arc of a story. Practical problems are usually caused by chance and are often resolved by chance. But emotional and moral problems should not be.

For example, if you are basing your character's arc on their ingenuity, then, while you may by chance make the raw material available to them (as in every episode of the A-Team or MacGyver ever) they have to assemble them using their ingenuity.

Chance can create the character's problem. Chance can bring characters together. Chance can provide the means for the character to resolve the situation, as long as they still have to pay a cost commensurate with their moral arc in order to create the solution. The one thing that chance cannot do is to complete the resolution without the character paying a cost for it.

I just rewatched the final episode of BTVS last night and none of the planning and disposition of forces for the assault on the hellmouth makes the slightest bit of sense. Why send Anya and Andrew off to guard one of the exists by themselves? Why wait until The potential slayes are already in the hellmouth for Willow to activate them? Tactically and strategically it is completely stupid. And then there is the magical uber-vamp killing amulet that is delivered deus ex machina by Angel on the eve of battle. And why does it have to be worn by Spike in particular?

The answer to all of these questions is that each one of them sets up the circumstances for one character or another to complete their moral arc. No one gets off scot free. Everyone has to have their moment of reckoning. The things that the story does to set all that up make not the slightest bit of sense. But it doesn't matter -- or at least it does not matter much -- because it is far more important to us, say, that Anya and Spike get to perform their redemptive acts, than that there should be any logic to how those acts are set up.

In short, chance is part of life. It is the moral logic of your story that matters.

Original score: 11