Who among us has not had to suffer through that interminable ride in Disneyland? “It’s a Small World” is already playing on a loop in my brain by just thinking about it!

Last week I talked to a lovely voice on the phone, someone who wanted to come to a StoryStudio class but didn’t know which one. We chatted for a while, I listened to her describe some publishing successes and where she wanted to take her writing. And then I heard a name of someone who I do not know, but it was a name that keeps popping up in conversation. How weird, I thought.

But last night I was at my novel workshop (yes, I’m always a student too!) and a friend in the workshop, who has no connection to StoryStudio, sat next to me with a Cheshire Grin and said, “I heard my friend Anne signed up for your class.”

It never ceases to amaze me how small the world is, how connected we all really are if we just take a moment to think about it. Cliche? Yes. Coincidence? Maybe.

The irony is that these types of surprises happen to us all the time in life, and yet many of us writers are afraid to include such coincidence in our stories for fear that they will ring false. But it always seemed to me that stories are supposed to take images, events, people from our lives, and then figure out how to tie it all together. Yes, a sense of belief is important; convince me that this could happen in the fictional world you’ve created. But don’t be afraid to add a little of the “unbelievable.” It’s fiction, right?

(Tell us some of your strange coincidences in Comments.)