: Re: How do you assess the value of an individual scene? Authors need to understand which scenes in their stories to cut in order to help the reader enjoy the story best. Knowing what works for

@Shakeerah107

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The prevalent theory suggests that each scene must do one of two things: move the plot along, or offer characterization. To use your own words (or your quoted words):

In SW:A new hope, in the chess scene on the MF, the wookie wins 'because a droid won't rip your arms out if he loses.'
It's a cute scene, flavour, humour, ... and Luke is failing to master the force elsewhere in the room. We hear a line about the nature of the force.

So what you have here is fleshing out the world (chess is a thing), fleshing out wookies (they'll rip your arms off, even if it never happens), Luke's doing something important about his character arc (even if he's failing), and we learn something about the force (fleshing out the world).
So, think about that. This one scene offers some plot (Luke's character arc), and characterization as described above along with showing Obi Wan mentoring Luke (talking about the Force, teaching him the ways of the Jedi).
So really, this scene is working pretty hard here, even if it's subtle. Can you argue it can be improved? Yes, of course. Can you talk about Chekov's gun and the wookie rage? Yes, of course. Can you find more flaws? Yes, of course.
But think about what viewers would really have missed if this scene was skipped.
EDIT (just read the 'talk about what moves the plot' bit).
So, let's go right back to Luke's character arc. At the end of the movie, he needs to be at 'point Z', so to speak. But you can't just have him go, "A, B, Y, Z."
In this case, you are seeing tiny steps. This is Point C to point D of his character arc. He's learning more about about the force, he's seeing what he didn't know, what he doesn't understand, and he's failing at it. It's a little step, to be sure, but enough little breadcrumbs gets you out of the forest, says Hanz and Grettel.
Anyway, another way to put this is how I handled one of my stories, and Namiki Aya (from a Naruto fanfic). She was meant to master medical techniques, sound release techniques, and genjutsus by the end of the first story of her duology. But that's three tall orders, so she couldn't go from noob to OP master!
So I made her take little steps. I let her stumble with little things. Little hints here. Showing her thumbs sore and red from snapping all day from trying to learn this technique her sensei was trying to teach her. Showing her exhaustion (mental and physical) from working all day on other things. Showing her using her illusion techniques on her teammates to practice casting them, and have them practice dispelling them.
So you see her taking a lot of little steps over a longer period of time. This allows for her to grow incredibly, but in such a way that she doesn't feel overpowered, seeing as you read about her struggle to earn it along the way.
That's how you can view Luke messing up in the scene. He's growing a little, even if it doesn't seem like it.

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