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What Chris said, but with the concomitant point that solutions must be merited. They don't have to be probable. Little in most stories is truly probable. Stories basically run on coincidences. Thei...
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#4: Attribution notice removed
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#3: Attribution notice added
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/38069 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision
What Chris said, but with the concomitant point that solutions must be merited. They don't have to be probable. Little in most stories is truly probable. Stories basically run on coincidences. Their logic is moral. Misfortune is often merited by a moral flaw, but is can also exist to create some moral dilemma. Good fortune, on the other hand, must always be metited by moral action. If the lion refuses to eat Androcles, it must be because Androcles took a thorn out from its paw earlier. (There is also a role for apparent good fortune, which need not be merited if it leads to a new moral dilemma.)