Chapter 8

EASY BEATS

"Laura's illness is very complex," I said. "If you'd just-,,

"My wife obviously has a screw loose somewhere," he said. "I was under the impression that the family is informed when a person goes crazy."

I sighed. "Sometimes that's true," I admitted.

He said, "But you don't think my wife is crazy, or what?"

My frustration was mounting. "I wish you'd stop throwing that word around so casually," I snapped.

"I don't give a goddamn what you wish," he said. "It's obvious to me that my wife should be in an asylum."

What an odd choice of words, I thought. "There are no asylums any more, Mr. Wade;" I pointed out.

He got up, walked over to the window and looked out, then turned back to me.

"Whatever," he said. "A hospital, then."

I took off my glasses, rubbed my eyes. "Why do you think she should be in a hospital?" I asked him.

"Delusions. You've heard of them?"

"Once or twice." I said sarcastically, beginning to lose it. "Why don't you tell me about Laura's?"

"Thinking things that are obviously ridiculous," he said. "Misinterpreting everyday events and people's behavior as having something to do with her-with this power she thinks she has. Oh, but I forgot. You believe in witches."

By now you will have spotted several problems with the dialogue in this example, taken from an early draft of Fran Dorf's A Reasonable Madness. There are some explanatory speaker attributions (and one needless thinker attribution), several dialogue descriptions, and one -ly adverb. Yet if you read the example carefully, you can see that underneath these mechanical problems lies some dialogue with real snap to it. The dialogue explanations mask the tension of the scene, but that tension is still there.

And yet, editing out the unnecessary dialogue mechanics is not enough to bring all the tension to the surface. Consider:

"Laura's illness is very complex," I said. "If you'd just--"

"My wife's obviously got a screw loose somewhere," he said. "I was under the impression that the family is informed when a person goes crazy."

I sighed. "Sometimes that's true."

"But you don't think my wife is crazy, or what?"

My frustration was mounting. "I wish you'd stop throwing that word around so casually."

"I don't give a goddamn what you wish. It's obvious to me my wife should be in an asylum."

What an odd choice of word. "There are no asylums any more, Mr. Wade."

He got up, walked over to the window and looked out, then turned back to me.

"Whatever," he said. "A hospital, then."

I took off my glasses, rubbed my eyes. "Why do you think she should be in a hospital?" I asked him.

"Delusions. You've heard of them?"

"Why don't you tell me what you think those are, Mr. Wade?"

"Thinking things that are obviously ridiculous," he said. "Misinterpreting everyday events and people's behavior as having something to do with her-with this power she has. Oh, but I forgot. You believe in witches."

The tension is mounting, yes, but it still falls short of the relentlessness it could have. Now take a look at the passage as finally edited:

"Laura's illness is very complex. If you'd-"

"My wife obviously has a screw loose somewhere," he said. "I was under the impression that the family is informed when a person goes crazy."

"Well, yes," I said, "but-"

"But you don't think my wife is crazy, or what?"

"I wish you'd stop throwing that word around."

"I don't give a goddamn what you wish. It's obvious to me that my wife belongs in an asylum."

An asylum?

"There are no asylums any more, Mr. Wade." "A hospital, then. Whatever."

I took off my glasses, rubbed my eyes. "Why do you think Laura belongs in a hospital?"

"Delusions. You've heard of them?"

"Why don't you tell me what you think those are, Mr. Wade."

"Thinking things that are obviously ridiculous," he said. "Misinterpreting everyday events and people's behavior as having something to do with her-with this power she thinks she has. Oh, but I forgot. You believe in witches."

Now the tension is crackling. What's the difference? Self-editing for dialogue points helped, but what really improves the flow of the scene is the fact that in the second version the dialogue is interrupted less often. The revision contains fewer beats.

Beats?

Beats are the bits of action interspersed through a scene, such as a character walking to a window or removing his glasses and rubbing his eyes-the literary equivalent of what is known in the theater as "stage business." Usually they involve physical gestures, although a short passage of interior monologue can also be considered a sort of internal beat.

Beats serve a number of different purposes, such as allowing you to vary the pace of your dialogue. And as with interior monologue, it's very easy to interrupt your dialogue so often that you bring its pace to a halt. If good beats come easily to you, you'll be tempted to get carried away with the use of them. Or, you may be using beats to track your character's emotions, turning the beats into a running commentary on the dialogue.

Consider this example from Jill Robinson's Dr. Rocksinger and the Age of Longing:

Hedy picked up some apples I'd glazed from the first bushel I'd bought. "You and apples." He put them back in the old bird's nest I kept them in. "Let's put on some music.

I thought it might wake the children. But I decided not to mention that. I did sometimes play music when I was working. He saw me hesitate.

"Are you worried about waking the kids? We don't have to."

"Oh, they're used to it." I didn't say it was almost always Aaron Copland, the Best of Beethoven, and Mozart's Greatest Hits, and they would sometimes call down to me to turn it lower. I took off my jacket. If one was to be the seductive older woman one should probably not turn it down.

He moved with authority through the records and tapes stacked by what I still referred to as the phonograph. "Why," Brynn always said, "do you think it's so cute to call it that? You know it's called a stereo. We don't want parents playing dumb."

"Hey, this is nice." Hedy picked up a Chuck Mangione album I really did like.

"Oh, I adore that," I said. Something in common.

As with the Fran Dorf example at the beginning of the chapter, there is wonderful dialogue in here-surrounded by so many beats, both internal and external, that its effect is lost. The fact that the beats themselves are interesting and well written doesn't keep the constant interruption from irritating the reader.

Beats are also used to help tie your dialogue to your setting and characters. Beats provide those occasional little bits of imagery that guide your readers' imaginations. And, as with physical description, some writers may overuse beats because they lack confidence. After all, if you show every move your character makes, your readers are bound to be able to picture the action you describe. As in the following example from one of the authors:

"Dad, have you seen the tickets to the concert tonight?"

Nancy caught me in the middle of doing the dinner dishes, one of my favorite times of day. There's something soothing in the slosh of the water, the smell of detergent, the shine of the freshly washed plates. It's why I've never bought us a dishwasher.

"Weren't they behind the toaster?" I scoured off a cookie sheet, ran it under the tap, and set it in the drying rack.

She grabbed the toaster and held it up, spraying bread crumbs on the counter. "Nope."

I sponged off a handful of butter knives, scraping a moment at a stubborn bit of crust. "Well, at the risk of sounding like a parent, where did you see them last?"

"I don't know, that's why I'm asking.

I rinsed the knives, dropped them in the rack, and started on one of the plates. "I don't suppose you've asked your brother, have you?"

She stared at me a moment, then said, "I'll kill him, I swear," and was gone before I could tell her to kill him quietly.

When you describe every bit of action down to the last detail, you give your readers a clear picture of what's going on but you also limit their imagination-and if you supply enough detail, you'll alienate them in the process. Describing your action too precisely can be as condescending as describing your characters' emotions. Far better to give your readers some hints and then allow them to fill in the blanks for themselves. This pays your readers the compliment of assuming they're intelligent and imaginative, and in a dialogue scene, allows your dialogue to flow more natrally.

Of course, it is possible to err in the other direction and elude too few beats. Page after page of uninterrupted diarue can become disembodied and disorienting after a while, even if the dialogue is excellent. Consider this passage from Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye:

"What they going to do about Della? Don't she rave no people?"

"A sister's coming up from North Carolina to look after her. I expect she want to get aholt of Della's house."

"Oh, come on. That's an evil thought, if I ever heard one."

"What you want to bet? Henry Washington said that sister ain't seen Della in fifteen years."

"I kind of thought Henry would marry her one of these days."

"That old woman?"

"Well, Henry ain't no chicken."

"No, but he ain't no buzzard, either." "He ever been married to anybody?"

"No."

"How come? Somebody cut it off?"

"He's just picky."

"He ain't picky. You see anything around here you'd marry?"

"Well ... no."

"He's just sensible. A steady worker with quiet ways. I hope it works out all right."

"It will. How much you charging?" "Five dollars every two weeks."

"That's a big help to you." "I'll say."

Quite simply, the scene isn't as good as its dialogue. What's needed are a few beats to anchor it in reality. If you look back, you'll see that the edited version of the Fran Dorf example above still contains one beat ("I took off my glasses, rubbed my eyes") and one snippet of interior monologue ("An asylum?"). As with narration or immediate scene, the idea is to strike the right balance between dialogue and beats.

So what's the right balance? Once again, there are no hard-and-fast rules, but there are a couple of principles that can help you find the balance that best fits your story. Remember, beats allow your readers to picture your dialogue taking place. As with other forms of description, you want to give your readers enough detail to jump-start their imaginations and enough leeway for their imaginations to work. You want to define the action without overdefining it. If your dialogue is taking place over dinner, for instance, an occasional dropped fork or sip of wine are enough to keep the readers in the scene. You don't need a description of the meal from soup to nuts.

How many beats you need depends on the rhythm of your dialogue. Like a piece of good music, good dialogue has an ebb and flow to it. Where you want the tension high, as with the confrontation scene that opens this chapter, pare the beats down to a bare minimum. If you've just had two high-tension scenes in a row, let your readers relax a bit in the next one with some quiet conversation interspersed with pauses (signified by beats).

Notice how the beats in the following passage from Stephen King's Dreamcatcher give a feel for the pauses in the conversation:

"Okay," he says. "So you came in. .." His eyes move as if watching her come in. "And you went to the counter . . ." His eyes go there. "You asked, probably, `Which aisle's the aspirin in?' Something like that."

"Yes, I-"

"Only you got something, too." He can see it on the candy-rack, a bright yellow mark something like a handprint. "Snickers bar?"

"Mounds." Her brown eyes are wide. "How did you know that?"

"You got the candy, then you went up to get the aspirin . . ." He's looking up Aisle 2 now. "After that you paid and went out.... Let's go outside a minute. Seeya, Cathy."

Cathy only nods, looking at him with wide eyes.

Although there are a lot of beats, the effect isn't interruptive. The beats act as a counterpoint to the dialogue though numerous, they aren't pointless.

One situation that almost always requires a beat is when your dialogue changes emotional direction-when your character drops a pretense, say, or has a sudden realization in the middle of a line. For instance:

"I might have expected something like that from an ignorant dolt like you. Oh, my God, I'm sorry, I never should have said that."

doesn't read as clearly as:

"I might have expected something like that from an ignorant dolt like you." Her hands flew to her mouth. "Oh, my God, I'm sorry, I never should have said that."

The best way to fine-tune the rhythm of your dialogue, of course, is to read it aloud. Listen for the pauses as you read, and if you find yourself pausing between two consecutive lines, consider inserting a beat at that point.

Knowing where to put your beats is not as important as knowing what beats to insert. Beats do more than control the rhythm of your dialogue. They are also a powerful way to convey your characters. Any good actor knows the importance of body language in projecting a character, and the same holds true in fiction. A few years ago, a New York Times review complimented a new mystery on the quality of its characterization and demonstrated that quality by quoting a beat. It was just a little bit of action, but it told us more about the character than lengthy description or narration would have: "He blew his nose on the sheet."

Or consider the following passage, from Barbara Kingsolver's Animal Dreams. It has only one beat, but it's a good one:

"You don't have to talk about this," I said.

"I don't ever talk about him. Sometimes I'll go a day or two without even thinking about him, and then I get scared I might forget he ever was."

I laid a hand on his gearshift arm. "You want me to drive?"

That one simple bit of action dropped into the dialogue in exactly the right place makes the driver's sadness over his brother's death more real to us and at the same time conveys the narrator's compassion.

Beats can also be pointless, distracting, cliched, or repetitive. Haven't you read scenes in which the characters are forever looking into each other's eyes, down at their hands, or out the window? You want to write beats that are as fresh, as unique, as your characters. No two people cross a room in the same way, and there are as many ways of showing, say, uneasiness as there are situations to make a character uneasy.

So where do you find good beats? Well, as Yogi Berra once said, "You can see an awful lot just by watching." Watch your friends. Notice what they do with their hands when they're bored, with their legs when they're relaxed, with their eyes when they're nervous. Watch old moviesHumphrey Bogart in particular used stage business very effectively. Watch yourself. Keep an eye open for those little movements that bring your personality to the surface, the gestures that reveal who you are or how you're feeling. If you collect enough of these little movements, your characters won't ever have to look at their hands again.

You can also see an awful lot just by reading. Start paying attention to beats as you read-the ones that make you wish you'd written them and all the ones that distract or irritate. As you do, you'll notice that good beats, as in this passage from Eudora Welty's story "The Wide Net," are unobtrusive:

"I've lost Hazel, she's vanished, she went to drown herself."

"Why that ain't like Hazel," said Virgil.

William Wallace reached out and shook him. "You heard me. Don't you know we have to drag the river?"

"Right this minute?"

"You ain't got nothing to do till spring."

"Let me go set foot inside the house and speak to my mother and tell her a story, and I'll come back."

"This will take the wide net," said William Wallace. His eyebrows gathered, and he was talking to himself.

The beat in the passage that follows, from Frederick Buechner's novel Treasure Hunt, supplies the all-important factor of the narrator's reaction to the dialogue:

"Of course [Mr. Bebb] raised me from the dead in Knoxville, Tennessee, dear. That was many years ago and you know the story. He was forever telling me he should have saved himself the trouble. He said I never really lived the life he'd gotten back for me, just shoved ... just shoved it up my you-know-what and sat on it. He said hurtful things for my own good. He was my Rock of Gibraltar, and when he went, it seemed like he took my faith with him."

It was like driving past an accident. I tried not to look at Brownie as he spoke, but most of the time I couldn't help myself.

A longer beat can turn up the tension by slowing the scene down at a critical moment, as in this scene from John le Carre's The Russia House:

"Don't know a K, don't know a Katya, don't know a Yekaterina," Barley said. "Never screwed one, never flirted with one, never proposed to one, never even married one. Never met one, far as I remember. Yes, I did."

They waited, I waited; and we would have waited all night and there would not have been the creak of a chair or the clearing of a throat while Barry ransacked his memory for a Katya.

"Old cow in Aurora," Barley resumed. "Tried to flog me some art prints of Russian painters. I didn't bite. Aunts would have blown their corks."

"Aurora?" Clive asked, not knowing whether it was a city or a state agency.

"Publishers."

"Do you remember her other name?"

Barley shook his head, his face still out of sight.

"Beard," he said. "Katya of the beard. Ninety in the shade."

A beat can also provide breathing space in an emotionally tense scene like this one from Ellen Gilchrist's The Annunciation, in which the father of a child given up for adoption tells the mother he has seen their daughter:

"You went to look for her, didn't you?" Amanda said. "Tell me straight, Guy. I know you did. I know damn well that's what you were doing there."

"Let's go to your house," he said. "I don't want to talk about this in the car."

"Then stop the car," Amanda said.

He pulled the car over to the curb and turned and took her hands.

"She looks like you. She's all right. She's married."

"What else?" Amanda said. "Tell me. Tell it all to me. She's blind, isn't she? I know she's blind. I've always known she would be blind. I remember when she was born her eyes were stuck together. I remember them being stuck together."

"She sees as good as you or me. She does everything. She was playing tennis. She won. I went to the New Orleans Lawn Tennis Club and watched her play."

"Then what is it?" Amanda said. "Tell me what you aren't telling me. Why do you sound like this?"

Guy turned his eyes away and let his hands drop from her arms. "She's very pretty and very ladylike and she's married to a young lawyer. You were right about one thing. If you'd kept on living there you would have met her sooner or later. You probably passed her on the street a thousand times."

"She looks like me?"

"Yes, but with dark hair. She's quieter. Well, I don't know that. I didn't get to talk to her. I just watched her play tennis. I kept thinking she looked like Grandmomma might have when she was young."

"She won?"

"Of course," he said. "Of course she won."

In a powerful, poignant scene from Anne Tyler's Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, the beats accomplish both purposes simultaneously-increased tension and breathing space:

"And see what I was like at your age?" She handed him the picture with the tam-o'shanter.

He glanced over. He frowned. He said, "Who did you say that was?"

Me.

"No, it's not."

"Yes, it is. Me at thirteen. Mother wrote the date on the back."

"It's not!" he said. His voice was unusually high; he sounded like a much younger child. "It isn't! Look at it! Why, it's like ... a concentration camp person, a victim, Anne Frank. It's terrible! It's so sad!"

Surprised, she turned the photo around and looked again.

"So what?" she asked, and she held it out to him once more. He drew back sharply.

"It's somebody else," he told her. "Not you; you're always laughing and having fun. It's not you."

"Oh, fine, it's not me, then," she said, and she returned to the rest of the photos.

For the sake of contrast, take a look at the same scene with the beats eliminated:

"And see what I was like at your age?"

He said, "Who did you say that was?" Me.

"No, it's not."

"Yes, it is. Me at thirteen. Mother wrote the date on the back."

"It's not! It isn't! Look at it! Why, it's like ... a concentration camp person, a victim, Anne Frank! It's terrible! It's so sad!"

"So what?"

"It's somebody else," he told her. "Not you; you're always laughing and having fun. It's not you."

"Oh, fine, it's not me, then," she said.

The scene is still moving-the dialogue effectively conveys what's going on and its importance, and it's easy to tell who is speaking. What's lost is a great deal of the resonance, the deepening of the emotional content. You need the beats for those.

A. First, try editing out beats that don't work.

"You're sure it runs?" Mr. Dietz said.

I leaned against the fender. "It did last time I tried it."

"Yeah, well, when was that?" He peered through the back window.

I picked at some dirt under my fingernails. "Just last week. Here, listen." I pulled out the key, hopped in the front seat, inserted the key, drew the choke, popped it into neutral, and hit the starter. The engine ground a few times, caught, and then sputtered and died. I pumped the gas once or twice and tried again. This time it caught and began to purr.

"Well, I don't know. It sounds all right, but I don't like the looks of the body." He kicked the tire.

"Look, for three hundred dollars, what do you want?"

I pulled the hood release, stepped around to the front, and lifted the hood. "I mean, listen to that, it's running like a baby. You should get twenty thousand miles out of this with no trouble. At least twenty."

He peered into one of the wheel wells. "As long as one of the tires doesn't fall off on me."

I slammed the hood. "There's a spare in the trunk. Now what do you say?"

B. Now for one where you have to put the beats in.

"Do you really think this is a smart move?" she said. "I mean, you don't know anybody in California."

"I'm pretty sure," he said. "After all, it's not as if I have a choice. You've got to go where the jobs are.

"What about the kids?"

"Honey, it's not like I'm going to be gone forever. I'll send for you as soon as I can."

"Yeah, but when will that be? Where are you going to stay, what are you going to do, how are you going to live there?"

"I'm taking the tent, and I can sleep in the car if need be. Besides, I'll find something within a week, I'll bet you."

"I ... It's just that I'm scared."

"I know. So am I."

ANSWERS TO EXERCISES

Chapter 8

A. At least one beat between every line of dialogue, some of them cliches (kicking the tire, for instance) and some of them simply too detailed (three separate actions to open the hood). Try the scene again with the deadwood gone.

"You're sure it runs?" Mr. Dietz said.

I leaned against the fender. "It did last time I tried it."

"Yeah, well, when was that?"

"Just last week. Here, listen."

I hopped in the front seat and hit the starter. The engine caught, then sputtered and died. I pumped the gas once or twice and tried again. This time it caught and began to purr.

"Well, I don't know. It sounds all right, but I don't like the looks of the body." He kicked the fender, and little flakes of rust fluttered to the ground.

"Look, for three hundred dollars, what do you want?" I revved it a little. "I mean, listen to that, it's running like a baby. You should get twenty thousand miles out of this with no trouble. At least twenty."

He peered into one of the wheel wells. "As long as one of the tires doesn't fall off on me."

"There's a spare in the trunk. Now what do you say?"

B. Now for one where you have to put the beats in. In this particular example, the beats help add a sense of rhythm to the dialogue, to show some of the hesitance that can come with strong emotion.

"Do you really think this is a smart move?" she said. "I mean, you don't know anybody in California."

"I'm pretty sure." She could see him lying there in the moonlight, hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling. "After all, it's not as if I have a choice. You've got to go where the jobs are."

"What about the kids?"

He rolled to face her. "Honey, it's not like I'm going to be gone forever. I'll send for you as soon as I can."

"Yeah, but when will that be? Where are you going to stay, what are you going to do, how are you going to live there?"

"I'm taking the tent, and I can sleep in the car if need be. Besides, I'll find something within a week, I'll bet you."

"I . . ." Her hands were knotted in the sheet. She forced herself to let go. "It's just that I'm scared."

He reached out to her and brushed back a wisp of hair that had fallen over one eye. "I know. So am I."