Synchronicity

While the first book definitely had a handful of synchronized moments that were never truly meant to sync up in any formal way, I have decided to continue to explore this interesting and not often studied phenomenon. I liked the feel it gave to a couple of scenes in the last story so I want to see how far I can take the concept without it making the story seem to stylized and hokey.

For those of you that are unaware of what Synchronicity is, I will reference Wikipedia: Synchronicity is the experience of two or more events, that are apparently causally unrelated or unlikely to occur together by chance, that are observed to occur together in a meaningful manner.

Some may try to form a relationship between Synchronicity and irony, trying to see them as the same thing. However, they are both independent of each other and have different meanings. While irony is usually seen as an unexpected occurrence or result somehow related to a particular happening, Synchronicity is the coming together of events that, while unrelated, appear to provide a singular meaning as they seemingly mesh together to provide one outcome. Some people have looked upon this subject as a sort of ESP or intuition. I will provide an example from the book.

In one particular scene, the character Emily is sitting on a bench outside of the store where the character John works. John is off that day, yet Emily is still there, thinking about him. John, who happened to be near his job on that day, decides to go by to see how things are going at the store. As he approaches the shop, he sees his friend Emily sitting on the bench. While neither of them expected to see the other there that day, somehow they both managed to be there not only that day, but also at the same time. You can see this sort of occurrence as coincidence, but you also have to wonder about the math involved: what were the chances that Emily, who knew John wasn’t working that day would be there at the exact time that John would just happen to think about going to the store to check on his co-workers be? Also, at that time in the story, Emily and John are having a very difficult time concerning one another so the likelihood that they would run into each other was very low. They both knew that they needed to eventually see each other to work things out, but hadn’t figured out a way to see to its happening. Given the circumstances, it’s hard to call this simply a coincidence. One might even call it fate.

Synchronicity.

Maybe they were supposed to have met that day in front of his store so that they could find a way to solve their personal problems with each other. The meaning behind the meeting is quite evident, however no plans were made to meet in that way, and there lies your meaningful manner.

I am looking to use this in my next work which is already in chapter two. I am also looking to use other literary tricks as well, seeing as how my first book was relatively straightforward in manner. I want to get this work out as soon as I can as I am very eager to complete the story which is already finished in my head.