The Most Important Tool for Observing the Structure of a Narrative Episode

I’ve spent a few weeks showing both why structure matters and how to observe it. My focus to this point has been on macro-structure—structure across entire books or large subdivisions—because that is the part I’ve seen most people neglect in their Bible study. And there is great value in doing this well.

In this post, however, I’ll narrow my focus to distinct episodes in a single genre: narrative. How do you observe the structure of a narrative scene? And how does that structure convey the author’s meaning?

What We Learned in Grade School

For years, I spent so much time trying to be ingenious when observing structure that I missed something I learned in grade school. And I’ve recently come to see that thing I missed as the most important tool for observing the structure of a narrative.

That tool is the essential plot structure that nearly all narratives follow.

Do you remember learning, in school, terms such as setting, conflict, climax, and resolution? Those are the building blocks of narrative plot structure.

• Setting (or Exposition) is what sets the scene for the action to take place. Setting can include an introduction of characters, a description of time or location, and even some basic action that sets up the body of the story.
• Conflict is the story’s heartbeat. Tension enters the story in the form of man vs. man, man vs. nature, man vs. society, man vs. technology, man vs. himself, or man vs. God.
• Rising Action narrates how the chief tension moves the story forward and builds through the episode.
• Climax is the point at which the conflict is dealt with or reversed in some way.
• Resolution (or Falling Action) describes the consequences of the climactic reversal.
• New Setting (or Denouement) is the situation in which the characters find themselves as a result of living through the conflict and its climax. This new setting often sets up the next episode.

With these building blocks, we can quickly outline nearly any narrative episode. (Exception: Sometimes a single episode serves no other purpose than to elaborate the setting or to introduce the book or subdivision. If there is no conflict and reversal, we’ll need other to use other tools to observe the structure.) And there might be some gray area as to where exactly the setting ends and conflict begins, or which precise statement constitutes the exact climax. But if we get ourselves in the right ballpark, we will do well.

Putting the Tool into Practice

Let’s outline the narrative in Mark 2:1-12 of the healing of the paralytic.

• Setting (Mark 2:1-5): Jesus teaches in Capernaum after some days. So many people listen to his teaching that a group of friends can’t get in the door. They open a hole in the roof, lower their friend, and Jesus forgives his sins. Someone could argue that the struggle to get into the crowded house introduces conflict (man vs. environment), but the fact that the story doesn’t climax with their entry to the house suggests Mark wants a different conflict to grab our attention.
• Conflict introduced (Mark 2:6-7): Scribes vs. Jesus. Scribes question Jesus in their hearts: God alone can forgive sins!
• Rising action (Mark 2:8-10): Jesus knows their thoughts, bluntly addresses them, asks a few questions, and reasons that though it would be easy to say “your sins are forgiven” (since you can’t see or touch the evidence to verify that forgiveness took place), it would be harder (i.e. more objectively falsifiable) to say “rise and walk.” Will he have the chutzpah to go there? Maybe he will! To make them know that the Son of Man has authority to forgive, he speaks…!
• Climax (Mark 2:11): “I say to you, rise, pick up your bed, and go home.” The point of conflict was whether Jesus had authority to do what he had done. He now puts that claim of authority on the line by doing that which is more objectively falsifiable.
• Resolution (Mark 2:12a): The paralyzed man immediately rises, picks up his bed, and walks out in plain view of all. The proof is presented; the gauntlet has been thrown down.
• New setting (Mark 2:12b): All are now amazed and glorifying God, as they’ve now seen something they’ve never seen before: A man with divine authority to forgive sins.

Let me give another example from Exodus 13:17-14:31, the crossing of the Red Sea.

• Setting (Ex 13:17-22): God leads the people along a certain route.
• Conflict introduced (Ex 14:1-4): God commands the people to turn back and camp between Migdol and the sea because Pharaoh will think they’re helpless. God will harden his heart so he can get glory over Pharaoh. Striking: The primary conflict is not between Israel and Pharaoh; it is between Israel and God! Will they trust him, even when he makes their situation harder than they expect?
• Rising action (Ex 14:5-28): Pharaoh indeed responds as God foretold, and God indeed hardens his heart. Pharaoh pursues the people, and they see their impossible predicament. They cry out to God through Moses, and Yahweh wants them to move forward instead of crying out. He holds Egypt back long enough to set up walls of water for them to race into. Then, through Moses, he crashes the water down on Egypt’s chariots.
• Climax (Ex 14:29): If the chief conflict is between Israel and God (will they trust him through the painful circumstances?), the reversal happens in verse 29 when the people walk on dry ground through the sea. In doing this, they obey God’s command to “go forward” (Ex 14:15). It’s tempting to place the climax at Ex 14:28, when the waters drown the Egyptians; but the Egyptians were not the chief antagonists in the narrator’s framing of the story.
• Resolution (Ex 14:30): Yahweh saved the people that day (summary statement), and Israel saw Egypt dead on the shore.
• New setting (Ex 14:31): The people who were struggling to trust their God have now seen his great power. They have learned to fear Yahweh and to believe both Yahweh and his servant Moses.

Sometimes the exact boundaries of the different plot components will be fuzzy. But the clearest points should be 1) when conflict is introduced, and 2) when that conflict climaxes in a reversal. If you can find those two things, the rest of the pieces fall into place.

Why This Matters

We will typically find the narrator’s main point at the point of climax or resolution. The climax presents the reversal he seeks to portray. The resolution draws out the implications of that reversal. So we must look there for the main point.

Observing the narrative’s plot structure in this way helps us to avoid placing too much weight on unimportant details. For example, in Mark 2, we ought not make much (either interpretation or application) of the fact that Jesus saw the friends’ faith and thereby forgave the paralytic’s sins (Mark 2:5). That’s only part of the setting, or the set up for the actual main point: Jesus’ authority to pronounce forgiveness. For another example, in Exodus 14, our application will focus more on developing trust in God than in necessarily expecting to be rescued from hard circumstances.

And outlining a narrative’s plot structure enables us to answer the age-old question of whether a particular narrative is meant to be prescriptive or descriptive. Identify the conflict, climax, and resolution, and you’ll be close to the main point. Grasp that main point, and you can have confidence in what the author wants us to get from his narrative. Perhaps it may be a descriptive point; perhaps it may be more prescriptive.

Putting Micro-Structure and Macro-Structure Together

And when you combine the micro-structure (plot arc) with the macro-structure of the larger division, you are approaching mastery of the text and a profound grasp of the narrator’s intentions.

For example, you might notice that the story of the paralytic is preceded by 4 healing episodes (Mark 1:21-28, 29-31, 32-39, 40-45) and that it is followed by 4 controversy episodes (Mark 2:13-17, 18-22, 23-28; 3:1-6). The paralytic story is itself both a healing and a controversy. The first two healings take place on a Sabbath, and the last two controversies take place on a Sabbath. The passage begins with Jesus having more authority than the scribes (Mark 1:22), and it ends with Pharisees and Herodians taking counsel to destroy him (Mark 3:6). There is therefore a clear chiastic (symmetric) arrangement here (A-B-C-D-E-D-C-B-A), with the paralytic story sitting at the prominent hinge point in the center.

So Jesus’ divine authority (perhaps even his specific authority to forgive sins) must be a major component of the message of the full section that goes from Mark 1:21 to Mark 3:9. Append Mark 1:16-20 as an introduction and Mark 3:7-12 as a conclusion, and you’ve got your hands on Mark’s first major literary division.

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I’m grateful for a few Simeon Trust preaching workshops, which alerted me to the importance of these plot devices in outlining a narrative’s structure.