Writers Tricks of the Trade Issue 2 Volume 8 | Page 31

U SING F ATE IN F ICTION
M ORGAN S T . J AMES
Fate is one of those “tricks of the trade” that can work in any genre to produce heart-thumping terror,
boundless joy, romance, hatred or any number of other emotions. Some believe in it, like me, and others
say it’s just something that happened. But think about its value when writing fiction.
A
F ATE CAN BE A VALUABLE TOOL
chance passing of apparent
strangers, and the world turns up-
side down. That happens my book
Betrayed. What would have happened if
two people who shape the chilling conclu-
sion each arrived at the fateful door a few
minutes later or earlier? The answer is
NOTHING. They would probably have
gone on their way without incident and I
would have needed a different plot de-
vice. Perhaps they meet at some other
time setting off the same firestorm. Using
fate, the author has the choice of how,
when and where.
S UMMER 2018
Imagine this: A car comes hurtling
around a dangerous blind curve and
slams into an oncoming car traveling in
the opposite direction. They crash and
one driver’s life changes. A few minutes
or even seconds earlier or later and they
would have missed each other and con-
tinued on their route. I know—it hap-
pened to me in 1983. But for that accident
many directions my life took would have
been radically different, and I probably
wouldn’t have been writing this article. I
would have been designing model
homes—that’s what I did.
C ONSIDER THE FORKS IN THE ROAD
P AGE 26
W RITERS ’ T RICKS OF THE T RADE