Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
around—surprising, yes, but also massively coincidental and thus less than
believable.
Of course, not all coincidences are created equal. With so many of them
in almost every story, it stands to reason that some coincidences have little
to no ill effect on believability or audience engagement, while others can
be catastrophic. It's important to know the difference.
The Benign Coincidence
So what are the coincidences a storyteller can generally afford to leave in?
The first was recently revealed as being one of animation giant Pixar's
in-house rules of storytelling: coincidences which get your characters
into
trouble are fine, but coincidences which get them
out of
trouble are a
form of cheating. Audiences are much more likely to “buy” something ran-
domly making life more difficult—but when the opposite happens, it can
feel forced; the invisible hand of the writer may be felt manipulating the
odds.
The second type of coincidence that storytellers can safely leave intact
is a bit fuzzier to define. It essentially boils down to:
Does the audience
even notice it at the time, or shortly thereafter?
Just because the writer is
aware of a contrivance in the story doesn't necessarily mean that the audi-
ence will notice it. A clever storyteller can often get away with turns of fate
which seem small and insignificant at that moment, but end up having a
huge, important impact on how the story ultimately plays out.
Let's go back to
Star Wars
for an example. In the middle of Act I, when a
dejected Luke Skywalker and his uncle Owen are shopping for new droids
from the Jawas, C-3PO and R2-D2—the two characters the audience has
been following up to this point in the movie—are among the available
choices. Owen quickly chooses C-3PO for his communication abilities,
but instead of also picking his companion R2-D2, Owen opts for a red R5
unit.
C-3PO seems disheartened and R2 is clearly upset—these two have ob-
viously been through a lot together. And as audience members we, too,
were set up to hope they would not be separated.
So when the red R5 unit obligingly explodes while rolling its way toward
Luke, just about everyone—C-3PO, R2-D2, the audience—is relieved. Seiz-
ing the opportunity, C-3PO quickly steps in and recommends R2-D2 as a
replacement. Luke suggests it, Owen concurs, the Jawas agree, and our
