[Blog] What Is Cohesion and Resonance in Nonfiction Writing?

By: Melissa Parks

I learned an important lesson about cohesion when we bought our 1923 brick bungalow 23 years ago and I painted my hallway pineapple yellow.

The color wasn’t a problem except its Miami-party vibe didn’t relate to the adjoining living room’s London-stroll mood.

The two didn’t work together. Even my husband, who admits he is design-dumb, was bewildered.

In less than 24 hours I repainted the hallway the same khaki grey as the living room.

As a self-trained decorator, I learned that cohesion in a home is created by repeating color, pattern, objects from room to room. Though each room is unique, the repetition of “themes” reflects the homeowner’s point of view and creates a pleasing whole.

What does this have to do with writing? you may ask.

Stick with me.

The Impact of Cohesion and Resonance in Nonfiction Writing

The other night, Dave and I hosted a live event, “5 Lesson from a Self-Published Memoirist.”

Our guest, Christina Quist, author of Kaleidoscope: Absurdly short stories of traveling and unraveling, shared that her initial draft of her memoir was a compilation of blog-post-type stories.

Christina says, “I gave that notebook to a friend, and asked her to take a look at the book I was putting together. And she said, ‘What is this? This needs more meat on the bones.’”

“Meat” didn’t mean more words. It meant Christina needed to tell the stories in a way that had a point of view.

The stories needed to be unified by a driving idea.

They needed cohesion. 

That’s when the hard work began for Christina. She began grouping her stories by themes related to her family’s decision to move from the American suburbs to South Africa.

One of the themes she identified related to becoming aware of the ingrained beliefs that she held from her pre-South African life but had never questioned.

Another theme was unlearning those beliefs as they were challenged by new truths her environment presented.

Finally, another theme was relearning—and owning—a set of new beliefs, tested and true.

Those categories gave Christina her memoir structure.

But what gave her memoir cohesion was her big idea—her point of view: navigating unknown places is messy and chaotic, but it’s how you learn something new and ultimately find fulfillment.

This is what the writing world calls “resonance.” Resonance is the result of your writing working together to point to a universal truth.

It’s when a reader sees themselves in your writing even though they aren’t in your writing.

Without cohesion—all the parts pointing to one idea—your writing will lack resonance.

You Can’t Create a Book from Blog Posts

I offer Christina’s example as a caveat for people who think:

I’ve got a journal I’m going to turn into a book.

I’ve got a series of blog posts I’m going to turn into a book.

I’ve got a series of presentations I’m going to turn into a book.

I’ve got curriculum I’m going to turn into a book.

I’ve got Instagram posts I’m going to turn into a book.

At best, these are a hodge-podge of ideas that loosely relate. At worst, they’re just nuggets of writing. Not a book.

You likely have some building blocks for a book from the writing you already have done. Stories and thinking that can be woven into a cohesive narrative.

But do the hard work that Christina did. Slow down. Identify your themes. Jettison the writing that feels like a glaring yellow hallway.

And from what remains? Create a narrative arc that leads the reader to a deeper truth told from your unique point of view.

That’s one way you create cohesion in writing. And that’s how you’ll resonate with your reader.