the clank on the chain on the gate.
the hoot of a barn owl in some tree close by.
the stomp of a horse’s hoof.
the tinny thud of a metal feed door being nosed by a horse.
the contented munch of a horse eating.
the patter of feet across the metal roof of the barn [say by a squirrel or a rat].
the whoosh of water into the bucket.
The wind carried the sounds of… the announcer's voice for the junior high football game in a stadium close by.
the roar of the crowd.
the drumming of the band.
a goat bleating next door.
the rasping of metal on metal as a knife pulled clear of the block.
In the city, I heard…
the whir of car tires on pavement.
a short loud blast of a car horn.
police sirens wailing at first near and then growing distant.
car keys jangling in someone’s pocket.
the drone of a jet passing low overhead.
skipping shuffle of footsteps on sidewalk.
a pedestrian coughing.
the smack of skin against skin [someone being hit].
the sudden yowl of a tom cat.
laughter and fake screams from a throng of young people exiting a bar.
the hiss of spray paint can in the hands of a graffiti artist.
echoing footsteps in an alley.
the rattle of trash can being knocked over, rolling.
the clink of a piece of metal being kicked.
a Harley rumbling to life.
Out of the mouth…
* * *
We all know that “said” is considered the perfect dialogue tag. Still, there are times when someone wishes to convey a feeling through a well-placed verb. Or a beat:
He started babbling.
He started prattling off every detail about [object].
He clicked her tongue.
He made a tsk-ing noise with his mouth.
He smacked his lips.
He spat the words out through gritted teeth. There was frustration and disdain wrapped up in his words.
His words trailed off.
She cooed at him.
Silence enveloped us.
Beyond that, nothing out of his mouth would sound appropriate, so he left it there.
"I need more." His voice broke low on the word.
Her voice spiked upward as she struggled.
His tone brooked no argument.
“It—” She broke off, goggling as vicious curses erupted from the rear of the house.
“Sure,” she piped up.
She choked out.
She croaked.
His voice was redolent with good breeding: deep, measured, forceful, and with perfect enunciation. It rang out chillingly over her.
I stretched out the last word for emphasis.
He let his voice roll over her. It was pleasingly deep-toned.
…he said, his breath tickling her ear.
…she said with a windy sigh.
…she asked, her voice a bare whisper in the night.
…he said, his voice sweet and smooth like syrup.
…she said in carefully spaced words.
…the men said in stereo.
Breath
Another thing that comes out of a mouth is, of course, breath. Here are some nice breath-related beats:
He let out a breath he hadn’t even realized he was holding.
With some loud, straining breaths, he [lifted heavy object].
He waited until [action] before exhaling a deep and relieved breath.
…drawing in a frustrated breath…
His breath came out in small puffs of cold air.
She exhaled.
He blew out his cheeks.
She huffed.
She snorted.
His tongue felt fuzzy. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d brushed his teeth.
He caught a whiff of mint.
He had tobacco-stained teeth that hadn’t seen a toothbrush up close in years, and the breath to prove it.
His bad breath had nothing on his body odor.
Her breath escaped soft and moist; a sinless sound; a thing almost pure.
Hands and legs
* * *
An easy way to show what someone is thinking is through their feet: whatever they’re pointing at, that’s where their attention lies. Other ways to use hands and legs in your beats include:
Tenting his short fingers…
With a flourish, she brandished a letter dramatically.
He brushed a hand under his nose like a child with a cold.
His hand jutted out over the edge of the bed.
He lifted his hands.
He spread his hands.
He leaned on one elbow.
Nods, head and back
* * *
How about using our characters’ entire head to illustrate a point?
He let his forehead touch the window.
He got a crick in his neck looking up at her.
He shook his head as if clearing cobwebs from his mind.
She ducked.
He shook his head.
His head wagged back and forth.
Her head twisted left and right atop her shoulder.
Her head nodded like it rested on a rusty spring.
His head spun like a top.
His head lay at a right angle, making him look lopsided, like something inside had come loose.
She tipped her head in his direction.
His head wagged side to side, in time with the music.
Her head bobbed a nervous nod, putting her balance in disarray.
Her head dipped a quick nod.
His head did a quick bobble.
He tossed a nod toward the bushes and narrowed his lazy gaze against hers.
Her nod tipped real subtle.
Her nod fell heavy, final.
PART 3: OTHER BEATS
Analogies, Metaphors, and Similes
* * *
A good analogy is harder to find than… erm… well, it’s pretty hard. Unless you have these to help*:
She slammed against the chair, her adrenal system upgrading from zoned out to Defcon 1.
The idea of being that close to her hit him like a shot of tequila in a Red Bull.
She's crazier than a sackful of raccoons.
It was as futile as carrying water with a knife.
The food was spread out like a Thanksgiving feast.
Her comfort zone retreated into darkness, waving farewell with a lace handkerchief.
His voice was soft as a feather, yet cold as a hungry tomb.
Her mouth worked soundlessly, the words unable to permeate her brain. Instead, they bounced around her skull like rogue Ping-Pong balls.
Her apartment looked like a tornado had blown through it and left a couple frat brothers behind.
Her red blouse was a favorite—the shredded material looked like a yeti had tried to make out with her.
She had her kitten motor on purr.
He moved his mouth around her finger as if he were sucking on a piece of candy.
She was smiling so hard, the corners of her mouth were getting introduced to her ears.
Fortunately, he cleared his throat, which pulled her back from the lust ledge just in time, before she swan-dived right into the Abyss of Really Bad Ideas.
It's going to start raining like a cow pissing on a flat rock, so let's cut to the chase.
The words rang through her head like a cymbal crash.
…coming from her mouth gave the words a wasp-sting-like quality.
The pleasant smell wafted toward me like a snowflake carried by a gentle breeze.
He swore up and down and in every compass direction he was innocent.
She climbed the stairs with less grace than a drunken hippo.
She moved toward him like a skinless snake on broken glass.
&
nbsp; A gossamer dress so fine, that spiders might have sewn it.
The memory faded from her head like last night’s dreams.
Trees with skeletal limbs, badly in need of a trim, scraped against slate, like oaken nails on the lid of a coffin.
He looked at the fancy balusters, like young girls at their first dance, all curves and waists and giggles.
Paintings in vibrant colors covered walls, like small windows into faraway scenery.
He vanished, like a movement one catches with the corner of their eye, but disappears when they turn.
The thought dissipated like morning fog at the rising of the sun.
Soldiers scurried about like ants swarming from a heap.
They scurried in a frenzy like the desert lizards do when people interfere with their sunbathing.
The image melted away like mist before the sun.
Anger like sharp barbs formed on her words.
The idea melted inside her head like an ice cube on an August sidewalk.
He sprang up as quick as a sucker punch to a blind man’s nose.
Whispers buzzed though the crowd’s tight huddle like hungry mosquitoes in search of a crimson meal.
She pranced about like a newly-minted deity demanding worship from somebody—anybody.
He trailed back to her, like a scared hound hoping for table scraps.
His eyes went as wide as a pair of pies cooling on a windowsill.
The words tumbled from her lips like loose pebbles bent on disturbing still waters.
His face blurred like a funhouse mirror.
His head bobbed like his neck was hanging from a string.
Insults fell like rocks from an angry mob seeking revenge.
His head gave in to a tilt that made him look like a hound hearing a whistle for the first time.
She wondered who had managed to coax a little sugar from that old pillar of salt.
She rose like a hornet got her on the backside.
I trickled inside the room like a slow leak.
Sweet melody dripped from her perfect lips like nectar from a flower. I swear I could almost smell the jasmine behind the soft words.
Her hands trembled like an old drunk, fresh on the wagon.
Her heart banged inside her chest like a tiger raging against the cage that stole its freedom.
Ideas like butterflies fluttered around her head.
Her fists drew up like angry stones.
His grin came lopsided, like the two sides of his face couldn’t agree on any one particular expression.
A smug grin took perch on her thin red lips like an ugly vulture.
He picked her to pieces, like plucking the wings off a nasty old fly.
All her words grew wings like moths and fluttered a-loose of her head.
She drifted back to her cot like a pale wisp of smoke.
She spat his name from her mouth like a sharp tack.
Ideas bounced inside his head like tiny rubber balls.
He chewed on some idea or other, gnawing away as if they there were seeds or pulp.
He hemmed and hawed, shuffled his feet like a petulant schoolboy who doesn’t want to confess a wrong deed.
He sifted words like sand, trying to lessen a blow he never meant to administer.
She could see the string dangling from his thoughts like a kite caught in a tree.
Her nose went all wrinkled as if she had caught whiff of a raccoon long dead.
His words hummed inside her head like a nest of angry hornets some fool poked with a stick.
She swallowed courage by the glassful, letting the words slip through her lips.
Her voice rang like a pealing church bell announcing the second coming.
His eyes went wide and bright, as if in competition with the low-hanging moon.
She didn’t know if she’d call fear, that sharp taste at the back of her throat, but his words swooped down on her like angry swallows coveting a barn.
He dropped to the ground like a lead mannequin.
Her hands were as cold as a hot-water bag in the morning.
The stone was as cold as the drifting snow.
Her belly was as cold as if she had swallowed snowballs.
Her lips were as cold as the night winds.
She floated onto the street like a ballerina on her big debut.
He waved off her words like they were mosquitoes.
Her gaze hit the floor like a dropped quarter.
A rip along the bottom of her bag called to mind some battlefield casualty, like a veteran’s scar.
He grinned like that ancient serpent, tricking foolish Eve all over again.
He crept across the threshold like a mangy old mutt scrounging for the crumbs of yesterday’s supper.
Liking her came as easy as sipping iced tea on a lazy August afternoon.
Denials leaped from my tongue like watermelon seeds bent on winning a distance contest. But the words bumped one into another, falling into a pile at my feet.
His cheeks pinked up real nice, like a schoolgirl’s.
Smoke swirled up like a charmed snake from his pipe.
Angry words buzzed through the room like hornets threatening with their barbed stingers those evicting them from their nest.
She stood bare before him, a new Eve; a female Cain.
She spun hard on me like a top that’s lost its center.
His greed came awful heavy, like a wet wool blanket suffocating, snuffing out the light.
My words fell dead and brittle like oak leaves in fall.
His gaze took hold of her, searched her body up and down like she’d only just now appeared from the ether; a dream or a specter looking for something solid to rest upon.
Secrets swirled around us like spirits of the dead looking in on sins of the living.
Second thoughts poked and jabbed at him like a sharp stick.
Long shadows like dirty fingers reached out from between darkened houses forever empty.
Fear swallowed whole the curiosity I’d foolishly dared sport with.
A familiar recollection filled the void in my head, spinning memories of…
His voice came as soft as his brown-eyed gaze.
He spewed demands as thick as black smoke.
The little house sported airs of a petulant child demanding a treat despite its naughty doings.
She rose like a hornet got her on the backside.
A grin curled around her full lips like a lazy cat settling in a puddle of midday sunshine.
They drifted inside the house like flotsam wandering away from the actual wreck.
Nobody could snatch that smile from her lips.
The darkening sky rumbled like an empty stomach.
Her gaze sifted him like a handful of loose pebbles.
He knitted wisdom to logic and strung a fine bunch of words together; lines carrying enough sway to spring a condemned soul from a death owed.
A bead of sweat like a lover’s fingertip traced her spine beneath her blouse.
Like a benevolent specter from the netherworld, he eased back into the inky black.
Like a perfect ballerina, she pulled lazy pirouettes behind the true bones of his discontent.
She drifted toward him like smoke.
Footsteps in the stairs outside yanked her from the dirty little smudge of her naughty daydream.
Her dress graced the floor with a pale blue splash like fallen sky. Discarded underpants conjured visions of puffy white clouds.
He grinned at her like the devil grinned at Eve.
His grin washed away like chalk drawings in a spring rain.
Like quiet smoke, her body settled into the narrow scrap of space of the bathtub.
A jumble of protests meant to plead his innocence came loose from my lips and fell to the floor, scattering into nothing worthwhile.
Her silence pricked the sticky air and made it bleed.
Silence sprinkled the room with its ancient dust.
Silence, heavy as
baled cotton, fell in around them, blotting out the happenings on the street.
Her tongue went dry as toast; her tone cracked against the quiet air.
He was as nosy as a heated tomcat.
Suspicion turned the sticky air fearful.
Lines of smoke swirled from his nostrils like dizzy snakes.
Smoke, like twin phantom snakes, curled lazily from his nose. Demons they were, peeking through for a curious gawk at what lay ahead of her.
Inky black butterflies gathered along the edges of her sight, whispering threats of putting out what little light remained.
His words came out delicate, an easy saying wrapped in a whisper.
Her words fell out a frantic mess, like frenzied bees shook loose of their hive.
Her eyelids gave a flutter like brand new butterfly wings hoping for flight. She fixed on him through a lazy squint.
His brow furrowed as if ideas bumped headlong into his mind.
The words lingered in the space between them like the stench of something gone rancid in the heat.
The name came sour against her tongue, sharp and jagged. She spoke it aloud and cringed at the taste.
Hushed voices conspired like conniving schoolboys behind the thin door.
His point jabbed me like the sharp end of a stick.
The building was designed with a sort of enclosing roof, a Noah's Ark on stilts, offering the added advantage it would forever be beyond the reach of floods.
* Some of these can also be found in respective parts of this book.
Chairs, windows, and furniture
* * *
He stood up. She sat down. I don’t know about you, but I’ve had a pretty hard time describing these two simple actions in a non-yawn-inducing way. Until I came across these:
He sank into his chair.
She rested her elbows on the table.
He shifted in his seat.
She slumped in the chair.
She shuffled in her seat to better sit upright and rubbed away the tears with the sleeve of her fleecy jacket.
Emotional Beats Page 5