Organic Coherence: Enhancing A Scene’s Effectiveness

How many times have we heard that every scene must have a goal, conflict, and pivot, concluding with an upward or downward shift in the protagonist’s journey? The formulation sounds right and, to an extent, it is. Like most generic advice, however, it’s too rigid and mechanical; something’s left out.

That’s because we need to go beyond the beams and girders of a scene’s “architecture” and think about its organic coherence – its experiential structure, the lived experience of the flesh-and-blood reader – which is different from its dramatic structure, though each can affect the other.

Organic coherence is the sense of satisfaction we have, as readers, when a scene “gets to us,” feels meaningful and whole. Without it, a scene may be technically perfect but flat.

Four principles, in combination, help to create this coherence. These principles offer a guide to writing effective scenes and a means of assessment.

First, the resonance between the beginning and ending.

The way the scene opens and the way it closes must be related, but that relationship needn’t be as mechanical as “protagonist is closer to story goal” or “protagonist is farther from story goal.” There are many other ways the beginning and ending can be related – and experienced as related by the reader. For example:

• By echoing: the repetition of an evocative image, object, or phrase – first appearing early in the scene – whose meaning reverberates in a new way at the end.
• By elevating: the solidification of a longing, foreboding, or hunch that was suggested at the beginning of the scene. This can be the movement from idea to action, or from lesser to greater intensity – that is, from a “quiet” desire, fear, or action to a stronger iteration of the same emotion or behavior.
• By inverting: the reversal of a belief, desire, alliance, or expectation that was dominant at the beginning of the scene. This can be partial, through the arousing of doubt, or total, through a shock such as betrayal or the appearance of new knowledge.
• By undoing: the character’s exit from a setting that provoked regret, humiliation, fear, or another emotion that threw her world off-balance.

Ask yourself: Isolate the first and last paragraphs of a scene. Is it clear that they belong together, like bookends?  If the answer is no, what can I do to create the missing resonance?

Second, a moment of peak intensity.

Somewhere in the scene, typically near the end, there needs to be a sentence that captures the scene’s particular emotional quality. It’s the moment that grabs your reader, the sentence she just can’t forget. Prior sentences lead up to this peak; subsequent sentences show its effects.

Although this peak moment can reflect a new realization, it’s better to avoid words like “realized” and “understood,” since they shift the focus to the mind. In general, the reader’s experience of peak intensity is strengthened by the use of concrete details, rather than by words that name generic emotions.

Ask yourself:  What is the one sentence, without which the scene would lose its emotional power? If you’re not sure, try deleting different sentences and note the effect. If you can’t find that peak sentence, add it. If there seem to be several, you may have over-written the scene; try picking just one.

Third, the use of supporting features to evoke reader participation.

Story events are given texture, nuance, and depth by passages of interiority and exteriority. Interiority means stepping inside the point-of-view character’s mind (through reflection, emotional response, or memory). Exteriority means describing the outer world, usually to create context or mood. The purpose of both techniques is to enhance the narrative events – to help the reader feel why an event matters, and to whom.

But their use can’t be random. Timing (placement in the scene) and duration (length of the passage) must be thoughtfully rendered, or they will jolt the reader out of the flow of empathetic engagement. Thus, the writer must be crystal clear about her intention.

If you’re using interiority, what is your specific purpose right now? Is it to evoke empathy, show conflict or struggle, connect with the past or future?  Why is interiority the best way to accomplish this?

Ask yourself: What would happen if I externalized the moment instead – through an action, gesture, or interaction with the environment (e.g. the character fingering the frayed fabric of the couch, rather than ruminating on how her life seems to be falling apart)? How can I draw the reader into the character’s embodied experience, rather than into her mind?

If you’re using exteriority, why have you selected a specific aspect of the environment to move into the foreground right now (e.g., sound, light, temperature) or given an object a specific quality (e.g., size, color, location)? Is it to evoke a memory or show something about the culture, social dynamics, or power relations among the characters?

Ask yourself: How else, other than through description, can I convey this?  Can I use dialogue or movement instead of descriptive details? How can I pull the reader inside the scene as a participant, rather than keeping her apart as an observer?

Fourth, a re-opening after the apparent resolution.  Yes, every scene needs a satisfying ending, a clear indication of how the world of the protagonist is different from the way it was at the beginning. But it also needs to unsettle us again, to provoke a new question, suggest further complexity, signal that there’s more to come. A coda that says: Or maybe not. 

Ask yourself: What sentence lets the reader know that the story isn’t over?

Goal, conflict, resolution – these are the bones that give a scene its shape. But an effective scene needs an emotional structure as well – not merely the evocation of strong emotional reactions, but a coherence among these responses, the felt experience that they belong together.

The principles and techniques, outlined above, can help to promote this coherence.

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Barbara Linn Probst, author of the groundbreaking book on nurturing out-of-the-box children, When the Labels Don’t Fit, is a writer, teacher, researcher, and clinician living in New York’s Hudson Valley. http://www.barbaralinnprobst.com/

About WHEN THE LABELS DON’T FIT

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