: How do you determine if a plot device is too coincidental? I see lazy plot devices as anything that is too coincidental. Person One just so happened to be in the 'area' when Person Two was

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Several good answers and I don't want to repeat what they said, but let me add:

I think you can almost always get away with ONE coincidence that gets the story rolling. Like suppose the story begins with two people who are fierce business rivals just happening to meet in a social setting and becoming romantically involved, only discovering their identity as business rivals later. (The Shop Around the Corner, You've Got Mail) Is this an unlikely coincidence? Yes. But few readers will question it, because we accept that this is what gets the story started. It's unlikely, but if it didn't happen, if the two never met, there would be no story at all. When we are relating true stories, we don't talk about the 1000 times that someone went to the grocery store or the office or the park and nothing interesting happened and he went home; we talk about the one time that something interesting DID happen that changed his life. Same in fiction.

Ditto Lauren's comments about turning coincidences into probabilities. If you tell us that one day Bob is walking down the street and he just happens to see a gun lying on the sidewalk and he picks it up and sticks it in his pocket, and then he walks into a bank just as it is being robbed and he heroically saves the day, the reader will likely find the coincidence implausible. But if you tell us that Bob has been carrying a gun constantly every day for the last 20 years, it doesn't sound so implausible. Or if you say that Sally has long dreamed of opening her own restaurant but never had the resources to do it, and one day she attends a class on French literature where she meets someone with a similar dream who is looking for a partner, it sounds like an implausible co-incidence. But change it to a class on how to start a business, and it doesn't sound unlikely at all. Etc.

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If I think a new event or occurrence might be too unbelievable, I might have my protagonist express and work through the same doubts. Instead of skimming over the incredible coincidence, I would emphasize the luck involved. As long as they are used sparingly, having a perfect plot twist is believable because sometimes life actually happens like that.

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We have to distinguish two different layers of coincidences:

Coincidence in the beginning of the story vs. coincidence at the end of the story (Deus ex machina problem)
Conflict decreasing coincidence vs. conflict increasing coincidence

The reader forgives (and sometimes want) coincidences that happen at the beginning of the story and conflict increasing coincidences.

If the fortune helps the protagonist or is used at the middle or end to get further in the story, then it is perceived as cheating.

So the car accident between protagonist and antagonist at the beginning is ok. If they meet again when applying for the same job, the setting is already introduced ("Oh, that guy!").

The cavalry at the end rescuing the protagonist, because he is inapt doing it himself is a no-no. ("Why have I read all these pages if he can't rescue himself? What a loser!")

If the protagonist has a street fight against the evil doers and he is running out of ammo, then that's increasing the conflict. If he runs out of ammo in front of a gun shop, it is decreasing the conflict (i.e. unfair help for the protagonist). If the gun shop is locked it is increasing again (reader will like it again).

So coincidences at the beginning of the story and coincidences which are punishing the protagonist (increasing conflict) are good/acceptable, helping coincidences and stuff that happens later out of nowhere to keep the story running are no-gos.

Caveat: None of the above is true if you write a parody.

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If you feel like your plot elements show too much of the author's deus ex machina, then go back and figure out a way to make them more organic.

Sometimes this may mean backing up several scenes, or possibly halfway back into the book, to put your pieces in motion. If Sherlock needs to run into Molly late at night at the morgue, you have to establish early on in the storyline that Molly keeps long hours and has no life so it's not unusual for her to be at the morgue at 2am, on Christmas Eve, etc. This is less contrived than "Molly happened to forget her purse at the morgue and went back to get it because she needed her phone and just happened to run into Sherlock."

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I think the solution is to ask - and answer - "why"? Why did this person happen to be in the right place? How did they obtain that information that led them right to the villain? Has there been a rainstorm brewing for a few days - is it even the season for storms ( in the UK, the answer here is always yes ).

Events should never be random. However they can be the result of good fortune, as a pay back to hard work. The reason these particular people have become involved is also important - why was it Fred, not Joe who received the phone call? What marks them out as the appropriate person?

My short story linked in my profile tries to address this, as my only example. But the point is that I had to ask these questions, and the answers were sometimes a challenge. I had to make sure that the reader could get these answers, and know why a certain person was involved in something, why things happened in their favour.

Looking at why people make decisions they do - what drives them to one side rather than another - is fascinating, IMO.

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