Coincidence?

Confession: I think too much. I over analyze. I don't know how to stop.

Reading:

• Someplace to be Flying, by Charles de Lint

Writing:

• "Ferian Fetlock Cures a Horse"

Revising:

• "Cora and the Sea"

First of all, you may notice that I've finished yet another Star Wars book. They're remarkably quick to read. Nothing really deep, just all candy and fluff. So yeah, it's junk food literature, but there's nothing wrong with a little of that now and then.

In reading them, though, I noticed the operation of coincidence over and over. The main characters split up to pursue their own separate plotlines. Through unrelated events, they all reconvene. How the hell does that work?

I mean, in The Empire Strikes Back, we saw the heroes split into two groups. But their reunification was realistic, at least insofar as you accept the deus ex machina of the Force. But in Zahn's books, we have no such tidy explanation. Plot threads are woven into a tapestry. That's true with any story, but in the case of these books, you can see the goddamn weaver!

I like to feel that the past is tied down, but the thread of the future is unbound, whipping out before me, and only set into place when I reach it. But that's how real life feels to me, too. I don't believe in fate, per se.

That may be a bit disingenuous. I do believe in God, and that it is possible to be led in the "right" direction (whatever your definition of "right" is), but I also feel that it is entirely my choice whether I follow that path or not. If the future is predestined, then what point is there in trying?

When writing, I want my characters to feel the same. And through them, I want the reader to know that anything can happen, good or bad. Let the tapestry of the story emerge from what the characters do to it. Let them be their own weavers.

Rejection Counter: 1