The concept of beats in writing, especially scriptwriting, confuses a lot of writers.
We hear other writers, especially more experienced ones, talk about beats all the time. It’s such a basic term, we might be embarrassed to interrupt and ask, “Wait, what is a beat?”
Definitions online fall short. Too many different sources have too many different descriptions of what a beat is.
In some scripts, the word beat is used as a parenthetical stage direction to indicate a pause in dialog. (Side note: this is an amateur mistake. It’s best not to use beat like this. It’s an actor’s job to decide when to pause, not a writer’s.)
The kind of beat that’s important to know is the story beat, which is what writers talk about when they talk about beats.
Most amateur scripts fall short in the area of story beats. Not knowing exactly what they are is a big part of the problem.
A beat is when something changes. It can be a big change or a small change.
In dramatic writing, a beat is when the story changes. The biggest beat in dramatic writing is an act break. The smallest is a single exchange of lines or a subtle action that takes the story in a new direction.
In Story, Robert McKee points out how professional screenplays have a beat in almost every line of dialog. He proposes that unless there is a thematic value change between each line (or sequence of lines), a story is not moving forward. These minor—almost imperceptible—back-and-forth value changes (generated by dramatic conflict) lead to bigger changes at the end of each scene and even bigger changes at the end of each act.
They’re all beats, the elemental building blocks of every story.
In short comedic writing, the term joke beat indicates an escalation of the primary joke track of the piece, or “game of the scene.” Each new joke that escalates (expands or builds on) the joke is a beat.
Most stories, scripts, sketches, and humor pieces don’t have enough beats. They don’t change or build enough. It’s such a common problem, I’ll put it at 94% of all material. Pages and pages go on without anything changing, deepening, building, or turning.
If you’re wondering if your material suffers from a lack of beats, it does. Sharpening, finessing, and heightening your beats and making sure they’re paced well, with minor beats in every exchange of dialog and more major beats at the ends of scenes and act breaks, will improve your writing dramatically—and comedically!
Beat me, daddy, eight to the bar!
Hey, check out this article of someone using AI to re-generate George Carlin:
https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2024/01/11/george-carlins-daughter-slams-ai-generated-special-imitating-her-late-fathers-voice-and-comedy-style/
I’m looking forward to further comprehending and working on beats. I read Alex Baia’s cheatsheet yesterday and found ‘heightening’ enlightening and it seems like based on what you've written as well here, there’s some overlaps with beats? Heightening being one way of of skillfully employing beats, others including, as you mention, finessing and sharpening? No need to further elaborate unless you feel like it. I think I’ll get it more with time. I did notice how much Baia’s elevator satire heightened when it went from mundane elevator breakdown annoyance to more absurd to outright metaphysical. I guess that’s a heightening of beats. It was super helpful to become conscious of because I worried my satire draft was turning into the same joke throughout. Now I’m thinking about how to heighten the jokes as the piece builds.