Beats Part I: How to Structure a Beat
July 29, 2022Beats Part III: Structuring Beats for Non-POV Characters
August 13, 2022In Beats Part I: How to Structure a Beat, I went over the basic formula of a beat. Here, we’ll discuss when to use that formula and what impact it could have on your scene.
Here’s the example from Part I.
Before:
Lily followed the bouncer down the hall, stumbling here and there to complete the illusion of her drunkenness. When they reached the door to the office, the bouncer motioned her ahead of him. This was where things got dangerous. She stepped over the threshold and heard the latch click behind her.
After:
Lily followed the bouncer down the hall, stumbling here and there to complete the illusion of her drunkenness. When they reached the door to the office, the bouncer motioned her ahead of him.
Lily sucked air in between her teeth as she stared at the door. If the bad guys knew she was wearing a wire, that door was the perfect place to jump and kill her. No time for back-up to come. No opportunity to dodge. Just dead. She stepped over the threshold and heard the latch click behind her.
In some situations, making this transformation will be super useful. Other times, it could get in the way of the actual story.
When Should you Choose to Articulate Beats?
This may come as a surprise to some of you, but you don’t always have to explicitly write out some of these beats. In fact, sometimes minimizing those moments can really help the pacing of your story! It really depends on the purpose of the beat you’re exploring. If the transition is not of importance to character development (which the one from the above example one doesn’t seem to be) or if emphasizing it won’t benefit the scene by raising the tension or modifying the pacing in a beneficial way, then there’s no reason to do more than drop the internal thoughts portion of that paragraph down a line, making it its own paragraph to mark the change from third person limited narration to third-person limited thought process. Like this:
Lily followed the bouncer down the hall, stumbling here and there to complete the illusion of her drunkenness. When they reached the door to the office, the bouncer motioned her ahead of him.
This was where things got dangerous. She stepped over the threshold and heard the latch click behind her.
How do you know which beats to enunciate, and which beats to leave alone?
Some of these one-sentence beats will be just fine, while others need a little extra umph behind them. Which ones are which? Well, let’s dive into what adding that little bit of thought process to these beats does to your scene on a character and pacing level. Then, you can decide for yourself what your scene needs.
1. Well-enunciated beats show character - by definition.
If this is the first time we’ve seen a character (a lot like you meeting Lily for the first time through this example paragraph), then we usually want a moment to get a bead on her character. Adding thought processes to the beat can really help with that.
If this is a moment where a character is undergoing character development, then the beat should also be enunciated. For example, if this was the first time Lily has ever been scared of an undercover operation, then showing that moment instead of glossing over it with one sentence would be very important.
2. Well-enunciated beats can also increase tension in some situations.
(Like here, with her facing down a potentially deadly doorway).
Without listing all the reasons why that door is dangerous, your readers may be inclined to think something along the lines of: “no matter what the narrative just said, it’s still just a door.” Listing all the reasons why this is a dangerous situation, though, will help the reader understand the danger instead of merely reading that there is danger.
This works with non-dangerous situations, too. In a mystery novel, using a well-articulated beat to follow the detective’s train of thought as they think through a particularly important clue can serve the same tension-raising purpose. In a scene where the MC just received shocking news, watching them process that information can help the reader to fully understand it, too.
In fact, that leads me to one of the most important take-aways.
3. Well-enunciated beats give the reader processing time.
If you take nothing else away from this post, please remember this. It will change your whole view on pacing and tension.
Readers need processing time, too!
One of the reasons articulating beats is so important is that readers require time—these are moments while they continue to move forward with reading the next things on the page—to process what just happened.
Even if the main character just got word that the entire planet they’re on is officially trying to shake itself apart, the reader won’t fully understand that the planet is dying until they’ve had time to let that sink in. If you move on before the reader truly gets it, then bang. Tension lost. Reader confused.
Ever wondered why none of your beta-readers remembered that one bit of information from chapter two that becomes essential in chapter six? Well, I can’t guarantee that this is the sole reason, but I bet it’s a contributing factor. Try adding an extra two sentences about that same topic (turn it into a full beat!) and see if that helps your reader remember.
4. Enunciating beats can slow pacing.
Time for a word of caution. Over enunciating moments like the one in our example can potentially slow your pacing. This is because you’ve just spent more time (again, this time is the time it takes the reader to read all these new sentences) on the same topic without adding any new information or action. Every moment the reader is being slowed down so they have time to process the information they just got, they are not progressing along the main plot line.
So how do you combat this?
Make sure to either keep the sentences short (which helps increase the pace) or keep your beat structure to one or two sentences. Increasing tension (by adding hard-hitting content) can help increase the pace, too.
Well, that’s about it. Beats are an essential part of the story, and they range in use from helping your reader process the crazy changes happening in the story, to helping your characters grow, to serving as one more handle to control the pacing and tension in your story. Master this subunit of a scene, and you’ll have yet another tool in your toolbox with which to create more amazing stories.
Did I miss anything in this post? I love, love, love chatting about beats, so post in the comments to let me know about your favorite way to use them.