19. Coincidences to get characters into trouble are great; coincidences to get them out of it are cheating. It doesn't mean contrived is great - it just means

19. Coincidences to get characters into trouble are great; coincidences to get them out of it are cheating. It doesn't mean contrived is great - it just means sometimes bad things happen and you have to deal with it, and we often don't understand the root causes. But if you rely on random good things to solve your problems, you won't have a very satisfying story. This is just saying it is fine if a random car crash starts the conflict. But if a random car crash takes out the big bad, it's cheating.