Put Action Beats to Work in Your Novel

You’re getting better at writing scenes. You’ve learned to include brief bits of action that come before, between, or right after dialogue. Called “beats,” these actions can serve as speaker attribution so that tags such as “said” are not necessary.

But they also have purposes beyond the merely mechanical.

While I would never suggest you get stuck on finessing beats in your early drafts, I encourage you to focus on them during revision. The way you handle beats can enliven a scene when they reflect a character’s emotions and desires in fresh ways, or they can dull your writing when they are overused or common.

Do your beats work? Take a look at a scene or three in your writing and examine them. (Or look at how beats are used by writers you enjoy reading.) Using a highlighter or colored pen, mark all the beats and consider them in light of the following questions.

How often do you break up your dialogue with beats?

Do you sprinkle beats about or lay them on with a heavy hand? Too many beats can make scenes unnecessarily busy, negatively affect pacing, or overshadow the character’s speech.

I have read drafts so busy with action beats, the scenes are unintentionally comic with characters doing stuff. On the other hand, no beats at all might make readers feel they are experiencing disembodied voices floating in space. As in all things, determining how often to use beats is about about finding the right balance.

What is the effect of beat placements or long versus short beats?

A long beat could delay a character’s response and make her seem to hesitate without having to actually state she was reluctant to answer. Short or no beats can speed up a scene. Reading the scene out loud might help you detect when beats are enhancing or working against the rhythm and pacing you want to achieve in a scene.

Does the action beat come out of the character’s need—or the author’s?

If your character is going to get up out of her chair and move around the room, she needs to do it for reasons arising naturally from the what is taking place in the scene, not merely because the author needs to break up a longish section of dialogue or attribute a piece of speech.

Do you use the same beats repeatedly?

Do your characters frequently pause, nod, shake their head, stare, shrug, glance, grin, smile, chuckle, laugh, wince, raise an eyebrow, blink, tear up, or sigh? Please tell them to stop.

Any repetition in your work, unless carefully and consciously done well for effect, can be boring. In my experience, writers who use these generic stage directions (and let me assure you that many aspiring writers do) tend to overuse them. Use the “find” function in your word processing program to locate “grin” and “nod” and the others and check the counts. You might be surprised to see habitual repetition and how it might be turning your characters into goofy bobbleheads.

Are your beats fresh?

Early drafts are often full of clichés. Pat phrases come to us easily. There is no shame in that!

Think of clichés as place markers, and root them out or replace them in revision. Are your characters merely dialing phones, lighting cigarettes, inhaling or exhaling, looking out windows, or doing similar routine things that anyone could do anywhere? Stale beats can sap the energy from your writing.

Do your beats reveal character or advance your plot?

Again, beats should be meaningful. Write beats that are specific to your characters and their circumstances. Generic beats are not only stale and boring, they are missed opportunities!

A well-written beat is meaningful. It can betray a deception, convey an unspoken understanding or mood, or reveal an emotion or character trait. Beats can show the reader the scene’s setting, build tension, create suspense, or provide comic relief. They can be so much more than an alternative to dialogue tags.

Put your beats to work!

A version of this post originally appeared in The Florida Writer, the official magazine of Florida Writers Association.