by Will Dunne
In the sample beat from Hamlet, the role of main character is shared by a group: Horatio, Marcellus, and Bernardo. Acting as one, they have a clear objective: to find out why the ghost is here. Their biggest obstacle is the ghost's silence. Their motivation is the fear that this eerie occurrence may be a bad omen for the kingdom.
3. Climax. This is the point beyond which the conflict can rise no further. Finding that point is a subjective process that flows from the unique characters and their current situation. At the beat level, the climax is often relatively simple: a line of dialogue or a physical action which indicates that something has now been achieved or has now failed to be achieved. In the sample beat from Hamlet, the climax-the highest point of action-is the exit of the ghost.
4. Resolution (optional). In many cases, the beat doesn't come to a complete ending because its climax triggers the next beat, which then interrupts the action to begin something new. In some cases, however, the cli max of the beat may be followed by a line or two of dialogue or physical action that wraps things up. The sample beat from Hamlet includes a resolution: the acknowledgment from Bernardo that their attempts to communicate with the ghost have failed.
A beat is about one thing. This may be the simplest feature of a beat and also the most difficult to remember during the writing process.
HOW BEATS WORK TOGETHER
Beats in sequence add up to a scene. When you are editing a scene, it is important to stay aware of how this sequence is composed and particularly how the individual units of action connect or don't connect. Ideally, most beats link through cause and effect. The sample beat from Hamlet, for example, links directly to the next beat, which begins:
BERNARDO. How now, Horatio! you tremble and look pale: Is not this something more than fantasy?
What think you on't?
The activity in focus has now changed. The ghost has gone, so the group can no longer question it. Bernardo and Marcellus have switched their attention, therefore, to Horatio, the most educated of the three, and his opinion of what just happened. This beat would not have occurred, however, if the ghost beat had not preceded it. By linking beats through cause and effect, you can create a chain of beat events in which each beat contributes something essential to the larger main event of the scene.
In some cases, the relationship between beats is not causal. If the beat stimulus is purely from the inner life of a character or from forces outside the prior action of the scene, the relationship between two beats may be psychological or coincidental. In the opening of Hamlet, for example, the sample beat's relationship to the previous beat is coincidental, for, while the previous beats prepared us for the appearance of a ghost, they did not actually cause this appearance. The ghost enters of its own volition regardless of what the soldiers have been saying to one another.
ANALYZING THE BEATS OF YOUR SCENE
To do a full beat analysis, you need to know the broad strokes of your scene: who drives most of the action, what scenic objective is being pursued, what central conflict stands in the way, what's at stake, and what main event occurs. Though these broad strokes may change as you look at the scene from a beat perspective, they will provide a context within which to do the following detailed technical analysis:
i. Mark the beats. How many beats should be in your scene and how long should each one be? There is no formula to answer such questions, since every scene is something new. A short scene may consist of only one beat. A long scene may have several. The beats may be as short as one line or continue for pages. Most scenes have at least three beats so that the end can be different from the beginning because of what happened in the middle.
Remember that each beat is about one thing and that the process of identifying beats is subjective. As an exercise, draw lines to divide up the beats of your scene visually and create a simple map of its beat structure. As you do this, you may begin immediately to make discoveries about your scene. If you find yourself unsure of where one beat ends and another begins, for example, you may have uncovered areas that need editing and refocusing. Or, you may realize that you don't know what a particular beat is really about.
As you break down the scene, err on the side of making the beats too large rather than too small. If you chop up the scene too much, you may find yourself getting lost in details.
2. Give each beat a label. Think about what happens in each beat and briefly identify what it's about. You can do this by focusing on the beat topic (such as "the ghost appears") or the beat action (such as "to find out what the ghost wants"). Either approach can work as long as the beat has a clear single focus. Make sure that you know what this focus is and stick to it if you need to reshape the dialogue or physical action later.
3. Define the beat transitions. Think about how the beats in the scene connect or don't connect. For each beat, look at the stimulus and determine whether the transition between this beat and the prior action is causal (this beat is the result of that beat), psychological (this beat is the result of something that a character imagined, felt, or remembered) or coincidental (this beat starts something new and is not a result of what's happened so far in this scene.)
4. Evaluate the beat transitions. Scenes may take an unexpected turn now and then because of beats that arise out of the blue-for example, an unexpected emotional outburst, a chance occurrence, or an accident-and such surprises can be dramatically effective. True to the law of diminishing returns, however, too many surprises defeat their own purpose. For a scene to have a strong throughline, most of the beats need to be linked through cause and effect. If most of your beat transitions are not causal, you may have too many starts and stops, and a throughline that lacks continuity and coherence.
5. Look for unnecessary beats. Each beat is a unique and essential part of the scene's main event. Review your beat labels. Does any beat feel unnecessary because it only repeats another beat without adding anything new? Or because it is a tangent that exists for its own sake and doesn't really contribute to the main event? Or because it is just not that important? If your scene has too many beats, flag those that can be either combined or eliminated during revision.
6. Look for missing beats. As the characters interact and the main event unfolds, we in the audience may not always understand everything that is happening. For example, certain characters may be hiding information or concealing their true intentions. However, we need to know enough to participate in the story emotionally and intellectually. Look at the sequence of beats in your scene. Does the action flow in a way that will allow us to follow the transitions from beat to beat? Are there any significant gaps in this flow that may cause confusion or distance us too much from the dramatic action? If your scene has any missing beats, briefly note what needs to be added during revision.
7. Evaluate the French scenes (if more than one). A "French scene" is a unit of action that begins and ends with the entrance or exit of a character. Each time someone important arrives or leaves, the dynamics change and a new French scene begins. Each is a separate configuration of characters in which something happens. If the scene you are analyzing is comprised of more than one French scene, mark where each begins and ends. Then look at the cluster of beats within each French scene and how they add up. What is the event of this scene section? How does this serve the whole scene? If you find French scenes where nothing happens, you may have underdeveloped or missing beats in the cluster. Or, you may have unnecessary entrances or exits interrupting the action.
Long ago in France, before the convenience of copy machines, scripts for actors had to be hand copied. As a way to reduce the burden of this task, actors in rehearsal often received only the section of a scene in which they appeared. This led to the term "French scene" and implies that there is something worth rehearsing in each scene section.
8. Clean up the beat changes. A new beat may be triggered by such stimuli as the entrance or exit of an important character, by a change of topic, or by a change of behavior or emotion. Know where each beat
begins and ends. Don't muddy the beat changes. If two beats have a casual relationship, for example, know which speech or physical action in the first beat triggers the second beat, and reduce or eliminate any unnecessary wordage between that stimulus and its response. Watch out also for beats that bleed into each other because one of the beats ended or started too soon.
9. Evaluate beat length. The amount of time you devote to each beat suggests its importance in this particular scene. Review the length of each beat in relation to the beat label. Is the size appropriate for the content? If you are not devoting enough time to an important topic or activity, you may need to develop the beat further. If you are spending too much time on a topic or activity that is not so important here and now, you may need to streamline the beat. Flag any beats that need to be beefed up or trimmed down during editing.
ro. Evaluate the rhythm. Beats in sequence create the rhythm of the scene. Short beats speed up the pace and are common in comedy. Long beats slow things down and may be more appropriate for serious subjects and moods. For best results, aim for a variety of beats and, during editing, stay aware of the rhythm you are creating. Make sure that it matches the content and mood of the scene.
i I. Review common scene problems from a beat perspective. As you conclude your technical analysis of the scene, think again about the main event and how it develops from beat to beat. If, after revision, you detect any dramaturgical problems at the scenic level, you may need to go back and look at the beats again. For example:
• If the scene rambles or loses focus, there may still be unnecessary beats in the chain of action. If you can remove a beat without affecting the beats before or after, the beat in question is probably not necessary. Remove it.
• If the scene feels disjointed or doesn't add up, one or more important beats may still be missing.
• If the scene feels choppy or hard to follow, especially at an emotional level, some beats may still be underdeveloped. Flesh them out more.
• If the scene feels static or overwritten, some beats may still be overdeveloped. Trim them down to what matters most.
WRAP-UP
When you are developing the first draft of a scene, it's usually best not to plan out all of the beats in advance but rather to find most of them instinctively as you write the scene with its broad strokes in mind. Once you have a rough draft of the scene, you can go back and rework the beats you found.
During editing, some scenes will require more attention than others. The level of technical analysis that you bring to each scene will depend on its importance and how well it works. Doing occasional beat analyses can help you stay aware of beat principles, pinpoint dramaturgical problems, and evaluate your writing process, particularly your ability to think in beats as you flesh out the scenes of your story.
THE QUICK VERSION
Strengthen the dialogue of a scene
BEST TIME FOR THIS
After completing a draft of a scene
DIALOGUE: MUCH MORE THAN EVERYDAY SPEECH
Dialogue has the form and feel of conversation, but is actually a heightened version of everyday language-even when you are writing a story in realistic style. Effective dialogue boils thoughts and feelings down to their most important parts and expresses them in ways that are unique to the characters. At its best, dialogue reveals who characters are rather than explains who they are, and helps move the story forward rather than bring it to a stop.
In some cases, dialogue uses imagery to describe poetically what a character has experienced or how a character feels. Most of the time, however, dialogue is active: it is driven by desire and shaped by conflict and risk. Open to the beginning dialogue of any script, and you are likely to discover that this sense of objective and problem begins with the first line or, if not then, almost always the second line. For example:
Play: The Seagull, by Anton Chekhov
First line (MEDVEDENKO): Why do you always wear black?
Objective: To find out more about the woman he loves.
Problem: He is puzzled by her chronic melancholy.
Screenplay: Chinatown, by Robert Towne
First line (CURLY'S VOICE): Oh, no.
Second line (GITTEs): All right, enough is enough-you can't eat the Venetian blinds, Curly. I just had 'em installed on Wednesday.
Objective: To calm down his client Curly.
Problem: Curly is so emotionally upset that he's wrecking Gittes's office.
Play: In the Blood, by Suzan-Lori Parks
First line (HESTER): Zit uh good word or a bad word?
Objective: To find out the meaning of a word scrawled on a wall.
Problem: She doesn't know how to read.
To write dialogue is not simply to reproduce how people talk. It is to use speech to show who characters are, what they want, and what problems and risks they face. Whether the conflict seems large (you don't understand someone you love) or small (your client is biting the Venetian blinds), something is at stake here and now for the character who speaks. The words that come out of the character's mouth embody a need to address this risk. They reflect and reveal a character in action.
In the final analysis, it is the action that matters most. No matter how brilliantly and beautifully the dialogue is written, the story is not about what the characters say, but rather what they do. If there is a discrepancy between a character's words and actions, the actions speak loudest. All of this reflects the idea that we go to the theater to "see" plays and films, not "hear" them.
Your most effective dialogue will come from your characters themselves as you write the scene. In other words, great dialogue is not planned. It is allowed to flow while you put yourself in the moment with characters whom you know well. At some point, however, you need to stop and take an analytical look at what you've put down on the page. Much of the revision process involves making choices about where to clarify, where to add, and-more often than not-where to cut.
ABOUT THE EXERCISE
This exercise presents general guidelines to help you revise the dialogue of a scene you've written. Remember that they are guidelines and not rules. The terms speech and line are used interchangeably here and refer to whatever one character says at one time. It may be as short as a word or phrase and can sometimes run on for pages, depending on the complexity and importance of the message.
If you have trouble writing dialogue in a scene, it may be a sign that you don't know your characters well enough yet or that you don't really understand the dramatic event taking place between them.
STRENGTHENING THE DIALOGUE OF A SCENE
Keep these questions in mind as you review a scene:
I. Does each character have a unique voice? What characters say grows out of who they are, what they have experienced in life, and what they want now. Ten characters with the same need can find ten different ways to express it. Some characters are educated, some aren't. Some speak formally, some use slang. Some are crude, some refined, some terse, some verbose. Most use language that reflects their lifestyle, occupation, location, heritage, and special interests. Make sure your characters each have a dis tinct voice. If lines of dialogue are easily interchangeable, you have not yet found the voices of your characters.
If each character does not have a unique way of talking, go to the section "Developing Your Character" and try "Finding the Character's Voice."
2. Is most of the dialogue active? Except for special moments where imagery may be used to evoke extraordinary feelings or ideas, dramatic characters are almost always trying to influence whomever else is here now-to make the other character feel good or bad, to convince the other character of something vital, or to find out a critical piece of information.
Beware of speeches where characters are preoccupied with selfreflections, elaborate explanations, or brilliant analyses rather than affecting each other in a specific way. Know what your characters want from each other during the scene and let these objectives guide what they say and don't say.
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sp; 3. Is the meaning clear? We may not always know what the characters are really up to, but we should at least understand what they are saying. If we get confused by the basic meaning of a line or by a reference, our attention wanders from the action while we figure it out, and we may have a hard time catching up with the story that has continued on without us. Great dialogue communicates the information we need to know in order to understand the characters, action, and ideas of the story here and now.
Try to reread your dialogue as if for the first time and hear what would be communicated to an audience if these characters said these things at this point in the story. Clean up any speeches that might be confusing because their content is not stated clearly enough, or because they are too complicated or too detailed, or because they rely on too many references to the past or offstage world.
Big confusion can sometimes be traced to little words, particularly pronouns used incorrectly. When you're deep into a story, it's easy to forget what you knew in elementary school-for example, that the word "she" in a line refers to the female most recently named. If another female has been named since then, we will have the wrong "she" in mind as we hear the dialogue. A good way to test the clarity of your script is to ask someone you trust to read it and sum up what happened.
4. Does the dialogue make room for subtext? Great dialogue travels the surface of the character's thoughts and feelings, presents the most important details, and lets us infer the rest from the clues given. This approach is the opposite of "writing on the nose," where everything is spelled out in the lines. Ironically, the more you explain, the less we care. For the audience, part of being engaged is listening to the dialogue and figuring out what's not being said. If there is no subtext to be discovered, we tend not to believe the lines we have heard.