How often do you set up a scene where characters bump into each other by coincidence?

[TheLemmaLlama]

Maybe the reader probably wouldn't refuse to suspend their disbelief if you use it very sparingly?

But I still feel weird doing it if it's a very unlikely coincidence (e.g. a character collapses in a quiet street, the first person to notice happens to be another member of the main cast)

Maybe framing matters? e.g. if
i) you're following the point-of-view of the discoverer (A) who's walking down the street when they notice the collapsed character (B), that feels less contrived than if
ii) you're following B's point-of-view as they walkdown the street and collapses, and in the next scene you see A shaking them or smth as B comes to?

so idk, how do you handle that kind of situation? Do you set up a reason for A to be in the area, do you just try to advance the plot without A having to be the discoverer, or something else entirely?

[ShidoDraws]

Honestly, just write whatever fits the story. Whether they are discovered by one way or another it can just part of a story and the reason can be as simple as a character taking a stroll. It could be an ongoing joke where every character you introduce meets that character the same way somehow.

Unless it's a serious situation you want to set up then reasons could be needed but a character can always evade answering such question if you want them to for the plot.

[liminal-collapse]

So, the way I like to look at it, is unless you are writing a very specific genre, most people are reading to read exceptional stories, not ordinary ones.

So sure, maybe it doesn't happen often that these two people would meet like this (think about many of the meet-cutes in romcoms, like Notting Hill. HUGELY unlikely), but people still want to read about what would happen in a world where they did. And they want us to make them believe it could.

You have to make it believable enough to carry the event - so each character here has to have a believable reason/motivation to be there, and to notice/engage with the other person.

I cannot get the summary tag to work lol so I'll steer clear of spoilers in case anyone is going to read it

In Parasocial, the "inciting incident" is a massively unlikely meeting followed by an even more unlikely reaction to that.

It's not at all a likely event, but I hope that the way the scene is constructed that both characters seem like they have valid reasons to be where they are, and for what happens next.

[NickRowler]

It happened a lot in my series Crow’s Worth.

I know the logic of the place makes no sense. I guess I strongly imply you can just walk to any location in the town which might cement the fact that the place is very small. Characters running into each other is of course plot convenient. But maybe not that unthinkable if it is a small town with a small population.

[BoomerZ]

I would pass on this. Most people don't like coincidences. It's an easy out for writers and most will notice it. There should be a reason for every thing that happens in your story. Randomness is fine in the real world, but in a story it comes across as wandering.

[AmysGames]

I had my MCs literally bump into each other because I have no shame, lol.

Personally, I feel like this trope is fine when:

• It makes sense. In my comic, the characters go to the same school, so it's not surprising that they'd run into each other.

• It furthers the plot in some meaningful way, e.g. as a way for the characters to meet each other for the first time. Your example of a character collapsing on the street and another character finding them makes perfect sense to me because like, what else is going to happen? Some rando finds them?

• You don't mind being a little cliche. My comic is pretty tropey by nature and I've learned to accept that.

It's important to remember that, while it's very true that too much coincidence can feel contrived, going too far out of the way to avoid it can hurt your story, too. People meet by coincidence in real life all the time, it's just less noticeable because most people IRL aren't secretly the chosen one. You're allowed to bend the rules a little for the sake of the story.

[cherrystark]

Honestly, I don't plan for these moments anymore. If them meeting up at a particular moment works naturally in the story, I let it happen. If it doesn't feel natural, I don't.

I stopped putting too much stock into what readers think in those moments because you can't make everyone happy. In my first story, I have a scene where my MC goes out on the town and subsequently runs into her estranged father and the man who would become her best friend. I had readers tell me how coincidental it felt and tried to get me to change things around to add to the "mystery". I didn't because it didn't work with the story in my head and I couldn't see any viable variations. So I did what I wanted and people are still buying the book.

[skidiggy]

I guess it depends on the frequency of the opportunities they have to bump into one another. If the characters work, live or go to school together, the probability is much higher than if they aren't regularly in proximity to each other.

[TheLemmaLlama]

So sure, maybe it doesn't happen often that these two people would meet like this (think about many of the meet-cutes in romcoms, like Notting Hill. HUGELY unlikely), but people still want to read about what would happen in a world where they did. And they want us to make them believe it could.

It furthers the plot in some meaningful way, e.g. as a way for the characters to meet each other for the first time. Your example of a character collapsing on the street and another character finding them makes perfect sense to me because like, what else is going to happen? Some rando finds them?

See, I'm worried about my particular situation because the characters already know each other before the collapsing incident; it's one thing if it's how they met (and thus the reason why Character A or Character B joined the main cast to begin with), but given A's preexisting set of relationships, it's very statistically unlikely for the first person to find A to be someone they know, as opposed to a stranger

... Maybe the solution is to not make this just some random street, but give A some reason to be there and foreshadow that? (a lot of my preexisting scenes kind of happen in a nebulous void atm anyway (since the focus was the character interactions), so that seems doable :P)

[moontokkym]

Petrichor, (my comic) has it's inciting incident be the MC litterally bumping into the plot as she's running away from police. They're not looking where they're going and they're running for a specific reason.

I remember hearing an author (which one I've forgotten) say "you're allowed one pure coincidence per book, and it can't save anyone". So that's what I've gone for.

Also I thing the "bumping into people" trope is more overused in some genres than others. When I described that scene to a friend she said "it's going to be really cliché if the two end up falling in love from it, especially love at first sight" and yeah thinking back on romance anime that's a really common trope. In my case the MC is an adult who bumps into an 8 year old so there was never a risk of that happening, but it would have raised more tropy flags in a romance.

[oldmanjohnny66]

Nothing wrong with it.Dont be your own worst critic.Hemmingway blew his brains out because his writing drove him nuts.Not really,but his quest for perfection certainly triggered his inner demons.Edgar Rice Burroughs did it in his Mars books, characters were always bumping into each other on the next page.

[Leyelle]

Well, it depends on a lot of factors, as you said: framing matters.

So, not as much for me what perspective it's written from, but a tiny bit of logic. For instance, you can reason them bumping into each other more easily if your OCs live nearby to each other. This is also easier if you plan it in advance say, one of your characters has a habit of walking the city at night because they are an insomniac, so when they're friend collapses on the street, they do end up being the person finding them.

basically I think there should usually be some sort of clear connections between both characters and the location that makes it make sense that they would both end up in the same place, even if they never intended to run into each other there.

I don't want to give super big spoilers, but I have used this idea in my novel "Damsel in the Red Dress" (in a part that has yet to come out yet) a character runs into someone they have a connection with at an award ceremony, but that isn't surprising as they both have ties, both directly and somewhat indirectly to the same person who was the one who set up the award ceremony. while it might be somewhat unlikely, I don't think it's completely unlikely in that context.