Beating the Story

by Robin D. Laws

  106) In another Procedural down beat, the mutants beat on Mulder.

  107) Scully announces that she’s going for the mother, drawing one of the brothers away from Mulder and toward her. This puts her in more danger but evens the odds, and so counts as a Procedural success, with the up arrow that entails.

  108) Now it’s Mulder’s turn to shoot one of them, for another success in a Procedural beat.

  109) Scully stays one step ahead of her pursuer, but he’s still scary and she’s still in danger, so let’s call this Procedural beat a down arrow.

  110) After making a mighty but missed swipe with his axe, her pursuer gets ahead of her and falls into the tripwire. A booby trap takes him out. This Procedural beat also serves as a Reveal to the Question posed in beat 92. To our pleasant surprise, the answer to “Who will get caught in the trap?” is neither Mulder nor Scully, but one of the bad guys. That’s definitely an up arrow.

  111) The number of still-extant brothers has become confused during the fighting, so it provokes a down arrow when Mulder poses the Question: “Where’s the other brother?”

  112) The accompanying Reveal points to the partial victory so common in The X-Files. They find a hole under the bed where Mrs. Peacock once was, but no Mrs. Peacock. We might be resigned to this as a telltale pattern in Mulder’s world, but it still counts as a down arrow.

  113) An Outgrowth break keeps us at the same location but jumps us ahead in time. Mulder confirms that an APB has yielded no sign of the two missing mutants. “In time we’ll catch them,” Scully says, offering him consolation. “I think time already caught them, Scully,” he replies, granting her petition by indicating that he’s already fine. His statement brings us back to the throughline: the Peacocks have gone, in their upended way, from a bestial innocence to an awareness of the modern world. This Dramatic exchange shows our heroes on the same page and thus lands on as positive a note as a grim coda can get.

  114) A Break transition brings us back to the Cadillac and the sugary strains of Johnny Mathis, on a road at night. We hear Mrs. Peacock’s voice assure her last surviving son that they can keep going, make a new family, and find a new home. Then the son climbs out of the car’s trunk, where Mrs. Peacock presumably is, in a way that suggests the conclusion of an unpleasant intimacy. She has petitioned him to accept her consolation, and he clearly has. He then drives the car away. This ends the episode on a note of ambiguity: the disorder Mulder and Scully were called on to quash has at best become dormant. On the other hand, the scene’s fatalistic humor offers us a way to safely and vicariously enjoy the dark side, fulfilling a key clause in horror genre’s implicit contract with its audience. So let’s conclude on a set of wonderful, wonderful, crossed arrows.

  • • •

  If we zoom out to look at the entire map, the trajectory of “Home” looks like this:

  That’s the irregular downward slope we previously saw in the cases of Hamlet, Dr. No, and Casablanca.

  The downward movement comes mostly from three sequences of sustained horror:

  The buried infant sequence that comprises the first half of the pre-credits teaser, beats 1–8.

  The murder of Sheriff Taylor, commencing with the brothers’ departure from the house at beat 42. Significant relief comes only after the death of Deputy Pastor, when Mulder and Scully make their own plan at the house to start dealing with the brothers.

  Beat 84, the discovery of the mother under the bed, and the ensuing struggle with the brothers in the house.

  From beat 9, the beginning of the kids’ ball game, to the gag where Mulder props up his motel room door with a chair on beat 41, our oscillation between hope and fear keeps returning to a baseline. In one relatively brief series of beats, a general upswing occurs. This starts when Mulder and Scully take charge of the situation at the house, starting on beat 75, and ending when they find the mother, on beat 84.

  We’ve counted nearly twice as many beats for “Home” as we did for “Have a Seat, Shut the Door.” Procedural beats can be quite short in duration, especially on screen. So a primarily procedural story like this one will break down into more units than one in which Dramatic beats dominate. The events leading from the departure of the brothers from their house to the end of the Taylor murders comprise twenty beats. Those beats take up a little more than six minutes of screen time. A pivotal six minutes of the Mad Man episode, in which Don and Betty tell the kids about the divorce and Don then goes to Peggy to make a sincere second pitch for her to follow him to the new firm, also runs for about the same chunk of time. Yet since it consists of Dramatic scenes, even though they involve multiple characters and changes of tactic, it breaks down to only five beats. A heartfelt speech takes more space on the page or screen than a description of a trip wire.

  Let’s isolate the episode’s transitions:

  We see fewer transitions here compared to the Mad Men episode, as befits a predominantly procedural narrative, where momentum takes on greater importance. Of the episode’s 19 transitions, more than a third take place during the suspense sequence that occurs when the brothers drive from their house and eventually wind up at Taylor’s.

  11

  Beat Analysis:

  Sofia Confronts Celie

  (from The Color Purple)

  The pair of previous analyses treat only major shifts in tactic as full Dramatic beats. But you can also drill down more precisely into dramatic scenes, mapping each movement in thought or emotion from petitioner and granter. At this level of detail, our reaction to each separate tack taken by either character registers as its own beat.

  Alice Walker’s 1982 novel The Color Purple lends itself to this treatment. Its epistolary format compresses incidents to their core essence. The technique allows Walker to present a story of Dickensian sweep with great concision, not to mention emotional punch. For our example, let’s look at the key scene in which the protagonist, Celie, faces a reckoning from the indomitable Sofia, wife of her stepson Harpo. Though long the subject of horrific abuse from her husband, Celie has counseled the feckless Harpo to gain authority over Sofia by beating her.

  All beats in this scene are Dramatic unless otherwise noted. Transitions do not come into play here, as we’re looking at a single scene.

  1) Writing a letter to God, as she does throughout the novel, Celie begins recounting an incident by describing her recent troubles sleeping. The conflict Celie describes is with herself, and she’s in distress—a beat that ends on a down note. We hope that Celie finds rest and fear that she will not.

  2) She describes her various efforts to combat her insomnia, all of which fail. Here she is trying to find an external solution to an inner problem, making this arguably a Procedural beat, with a down arrow.

  3) After reading the Bible, an inner voice suggests that maybe she can’t sleep because she did something wrong. She sinned against someone’s spirit. This realization offers hope of a resolution, making this an up note in the struggle between Celie and Celie.

  4) Later she realizes who she’s wronged—Sofia. At first this seems like a breakthrough, giving this beat another up arrow.

  Now we come to an eight-word sentence that contains two beats: “I pray she don’t find out, but she do.”

  5) “I pray she don’t find out,” surprises us with the discovery that Celie, having identified the source of her insomnia, fears the reckoning she would have to face in order to deal with it. In the conflict between Celie and Celie, her fearful impulses have crowded out the ones that would move her toward a positive resolution: a beat with a down arrow.

  6) “…but she do.” Although we might from a loftier perspective want Celie to sort matters out with Sofia, we’re now identifying with her sense of mortification. And though we might be encouraged if she were the one going to Sofia, it doesn’t feel like good news that it’s now the other way around. The arrow points down.

  7
) “Harpo told.” The revelation that the feckless Harpo has given her away supplies an additional note of mortification. In those two words we feel the sting of Harpo’s betrayal, and of Celie’s foolishness in trusting him to keep their conversation to himself. Down arrow.

  8) Celie describes Sofia marching her way, a cut on her face. The tension grows worse.

  9) Sofia begins with a reproach, telling Celie she had looked to her for help. Her opening tactic is to shame Celie. She seeks to hurt Celie as she has been hurt, and we feel worse for both of them, for another down arrow.

  10) Celie parries by disingenuously pretending she doesn’t know what this is about: “Ain’t I been helpful?” This is a weak move in a couple of ways. One, it’s a stalling tactic at best and unlikely to withstand any further pushing. Two, it’s dishonest, reflecting poorly on a character we want to identify with. We squirm along with Celie, for another down arrow.

  11) Sofia deepens her shaming effort, thrusting back at Celie some curtains and thread she lent her, along with a dollar for the privilege of having used them. This just keeps getting worse: another down arrow.

  12) Celie refuses to take them—a less shameful tactic than her previous one, but equally unlikely to stem Sofia’s fury. At best this attempt to reconcile keeps us in an emotional holding pattern, for a lateral arrow.

  13) In response, Sofia comes straight to it, shifting her tactic to direct confrontation: “You told Harpo to beat me.” Yet another down arrow.

  14) Celie resorts to the weakest of tactics, sheer denial. She keeps making weak moves in response to Sofia’s strong (and justified) ones. Another down arrow.

  15) Sofia calls her on her lie—another strong move from the angry petitioner, and another down arrow for the reader.

  16) This leaves Celie with the weakest response of all from a guilty party, that most weaselly of ways to concede wrongdoing: “I didn’t mean it.” This takes the arrow down further.

  17) Celie has left herself open to the obvious riposte: “Then what you say it for?” And the arrow goes down again.

  18) Walker describes a moment of silent impasse between the two. With nothing left to say, Celie can only behold Sofia’s fury. Her inability to respond doesn’t bode well for a positive resolution, and so calls for a down arrow.

  19) Finally Celie says the first thing that might help her out of this, admitting blame: “I do it because I’m a fool.” The concession offers a glimmer of hope, pointing the arrow up.

  20) Celie continues with a broader admission, admitting that she’s jealous of Sofia because she fights back. This builds on our hope for conciliation between the two, for another up arrow.

  21) This “takes the wind out of [Sofia’s] jaws,” moving her from anger to sadness. This sign of understanding moves the arrow up.

  22) Sofia explains how she’s had to fight all of her life, growing up in a family full of men. Now she’s moving toward Celie instead of pushing her away, pointing the arrow up.

  23) Then she draws the line: “I never thought I’d have to fight in my own house.” Though they’re beginning to understand each other, Celie’s offense still remains. The arrow points down.

  24) Sofia says she loves Harpo, which offers a note of hope, and with it an up arrow…

  25) ...but she’ll kill him rather than let him continue to hit her, which reinstates the conflict (even as it leads us to admire her). The arrow goes down.

  26) Sofia goes back on the attack, telling Celie that she should keep on advising Harpo as she has been if she wants him dead. Definitely a down arrow.

  27) Celie comes toward her by confessing her shame, for an up arrow.

  28) She obliquely indicates that she has already been suffering for her guilty conscience: “And the Lord he done whip me little bit too.” This apparent move to bridge the gap with Sofia allows us an up arrow.

  29) The two exchange fatalistic epigrams about the workings of God. The text notes that this puts them on a new footing: “This open the way for our talk to turn another way.” A growing accord between them gives the reader an up arrow.

  30) The other way turns out to be a new petition from Celie, who now seeks understanding from Sofia: “You feels sorry for me, don’t you?” This show of (not unwarranted) neediness points the arrow down.

  31) Sofia reluctantly admits that she does. They may be speaking honestly, but it’s an uncomfortable honesty, which we might mark with the crossed arrows of ambiguity.

  32) Thinking she knows why, Celie pushes it further, asking Sofia to explain. A request for potentially unwelcome truths introduces suspense, which in beat analysis we treat as a down arrow.

  33) Sofia reveals that Celie reminds her of her mother, who her father mistreats. Although the two women are building an understanding, it’s through their mutual experience of endemic abuse. The beat registers as positive on the dramatic level but negative on the broader thematic plane, sounding a conflicted note marked by crossed arrows.

  34) Their sharing of stories continues, moving into less oppressive territory, for an up arrow.

  35) Sofia’s description of the nonstop scrapping among her brothers and sisters leads Celie to say that she has “never struck a living thing.” This sounds another ambiguous note: peacefulness might be admirable, but given the events of the rest of the novel we wish Celie could fight back.

  36) Sofia asks what she does when she gets mad, and Celie’s answer shows that she has utterly repressed the ability to feel rage of any kind. This moving and terrible revelation provokes our pity for her, for a down arrow.

  37) Sofia pushes her a little, and she admits that although her husband sometimes “[gets] on her pretty hard,” she shrugs her shoulders and reminds herself that life will be over soon, and that “Heaven last all ways.” This provides a classic example of a beat that reads differently to the audience than to the character, with Celie’s solace likely landing as horror to most readers.

  38) Providing needed relief to the reader, Sofia suggests that she ought to bash her husband’s head in now and think about heaven later. The two collapse in laughter, achieving the unity we wanted for both of them when Sofia charged up to Celie in fury. Their exchange resolves on an up arrow.

  39) Sofia adds a reinforcing up note by proposing that they make quilts together out of the curtains.

  40) The chapter’s final line reveals that Celie now sleeps like a baby. The resolution of her emotional conflict with Sofia has conclusively solved her practical problem, insomnia. This ends the scene on an up note.

  When we zoom out to examine the scene’s full trajectory, we see a very pronounced down-slope, as Sofia lays into Celie, and she responds with a series of weak defenses. At beat 21, Celie switches tactics, coming clean with Sofia, allowing her a partial recovery. Celie both gains and loses until the conclusive up notes when both petitioner and granter achieve an accord and get what they want from one another.

  What You Can Learn From In-Depth Scene Analysis

  Except for those of you who write as a means of making yourselves crazy, I wouldn’t recommend performing this sort of micro-beat by micro-beat analysis on a routine basis. Or maybe ever, really. The analysis of Celie and Sofia’s exchange serves as more of an academic exploration of the system’s limits.

  However, when a scene isn’t working for you, and you’re not sure why, beat mapping it may help you understand the problem.

  You might discover that its trajectory doesn’t match your intention for the scene. Dramatic exchanges tend to follow one of a few basic lines. These depend on who we identify with and which character gets the better of the other.

  A more-or-less flat line suggests an exchange in which both petitioner and granter give as good as they get. This scene pattern contains the most moment-by-moment variation in hope and fear. The only reason not to use it is to avoid overusing it. The occasional scene with a more striking line ma
y add rhythmic variety to your overall piece.

  A down-slope followed by a flat line, as seen in the Celie vs. Sophia exchange, indicates that the identification figure either:

  is the granter, and initially makes weak responses to the petitioner, but ultimately stiffens and refuses the petition

  is the petitioner, and initially faces strong resistance from the granter, and then rallies and overcomes it

  An up-slope followed by a down-slope maps a scene in which the identification figure is either: