Ideally, each of your scenes would contain layers of multiple things that happen at once. So, in other words, just as your main plot thread needs to move forward in each and every scene, so do your subplots right. So if you're reading back through your draft and one of your quote unquote scenes reads a little flat, you might realize it's because that scene is only doing one thing, and maybe it would benefit from being turned into a beat. Or maybe it would be better if you combined that with something else to form a working scene. Welcome to the Fiction Writing Made Easy podcast. My name is Savannah Gilbo and I'm here to help you write a story that works. I want to prove to you that writing a novel doesn't have to be overwhelming, so each week I'll bring you a brand new episode with simple, actionable and step-by-step strategies that you can implement in your writing right away. So whether you're brand new to writing or more of a seasoned author looking to improve your craft, this podcast is for you. So pick up a pen and let's get started.

In today's episode, we're going to talk about story beats. So, straight off the bat, I don't mean beats like in the save the cat plotting method. I mean beats as in the things that make up each individual scene within a story. We'll talk about that more later, but I wanted to cover this topic today because I meet so many writers who just don't know that there's even something smaller than scenes to worry about. And what this usually looks like in real life is writers who come to me with super inflated outlines or drafts with a really high word count and things like that. This actually came up with one of my notes to novel students the other week. So she shared her outline with me and she said okay, I know you gave me a budget of how many scenes to include in act one, but there's just no way I can fit everything I want to include in eight scenes, because eight scenes was the budget I gave her for act one and long story short. I had to explain to her okay, I see what you mean, but not everything on your outline needs to be an actual scene. And when I said this, this opened up a bigger discussion within the group, because almost everyone who was on that call had similar concerns when working on their own outlines. So they either struggled to fit things in their outlines because they ran out of room or they stuck to the budget I gave them and then had to leave a lot of stuff out of their outlines which made their outlines feel really bare bones and flat. So we started talking about beats and I walked them through an example from a scene in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone where Harry and Hagrid shop for school supplies in Diagon Alley. I won't go through that now because I do have another example coming up later in the episode, but if you want to check out my breakdown of that scene in Diagon Alley, you can listen to episode number 153 of this podcast. That's called Scene Analysis, chapter 5, diagon Alley from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. I will link to that episode in the show notes for easy access.

Now, all of this being said, I wanted to do this episode today because I think it's important for writers to know what beats are, even though I don't recommend thinking of your story in terms of beats until you're in the revision stage, if at all. I'll talk about why that is a little more later. But I think knowing what beats are and then taking that knowledge into creating your outline and or writing your first draft, I think this will clear up some of the confusion that writers feel and also help you have a much easier time outlining and writing your draft too. So, with all that being said, let's go ahead and dive into this, starting with what's the difference between scenes and beats? Now, in a nutshell, beats are the smallest unit of story, so beats link together to create your scenes. Your scenes link together to create your sequences. Your sequences link together to form your acts, and acts link together to form your global story. So beats are the smallest unit, and beats specifically assist in the rhythm, pace and intensity of your story and help force actions, decisions and emotional reactions from your characters to move the plot forward.

In any given scene, there can be a number of beats, so there can be one beat per scene. There can be four or five beats per scene. You can mix this up. It just depends on the kind of story you're telling. But overall, beats can actually be a lot of things. So beats can be character interactions, so, let's say, a discussion between two characters.

Beats can help you show a change in your character's tactic or plan for achieving their scene goal. Beats can show a character's realization or reaction to something, so it might be more of a reaction beat or more of an emotional beat showing how the events of the scene have affected them. Beats can help you highlight a shift in emotion. So, let's say, as things get progressively harder to deal with in your scene, maybe your character gets more frustrated, or maybe it's the opposite, and they grow more and more hopeful. Right, whatever that is, beats can help you highlight that shift in emotion. Beats can also help you progressively complicate your scenes. So imagine you have three beats in a scene and each beat gets progressively harder for your protagonist to deal with, and things like that.

Beats can allow you to telescope reality. So what I mean by this is it helps you zoom into things and out of things, depending on what you want to do. Beats can help you control the tempo or pace of your story because, again, the more or less beats you have within a scene, the more or less scenes you have within a chapter. That all helps you control the pace of your story. Beats can do things like help you move a subplot forward. They can help you set up or pay off something in your plot. They can even include undramatic material. So things like exposition, world building, backstory, things like that, and a whole lot more. So, like I said, beats can do a lot of things for us in our stories.

Now, the main difference between beats and scenes is that beats can be told via narrative summary. Okay so, beats can be told via narrative summary, but scenes have to be written out in real time. In other words, scenes should unfold right there on the page as the events of that scene are happening. But beats can be summarized, which essentially allows you to bridge time and space if needed. Now, if you don't know what I mean by this, think about when you read a story and it says something like the next two weeks, unfolded in the way that so-and-so expected. You know it's that recap of time that we're bridging. So that's one of the main differences.

The other main difference is that, just like scenes, your beats will usually contain a mini arc of change, but they don't always have to. You might even be able to identify crisis moments or instances where the point of view character in that scene has to make a tough choice within your beats, but, again, not always. They don't always have to. Now here's where the difference comes into play. If there is a crisis moment in your beats or an arc of change present in your beats, then usually the consequences of that crisis or the arc of change within a beat is going to be less impactful than that arc of change or that crisis would be at the scene level. Okay, so in most cases there will be that arc of change present, like I said, but not always. And if it is present, it's less impactful or less significant in terms of the bigger story compared to the arc of change or that crisis moment in scenes.

Okay, so I wanted to look at an example to bring this to life, because I know that was a lot of information and I feel like this is one of those episodes where you might have to listen to a couple times and then think about it you know, looking at your draft or looking at one of your favorite stories just to see what I actually mean. So the example I want to go through is from Throne of Glass by Sarah J Maas, and I actually am going to take you through chapters one, through four. So the first scene in this book spans about 5,700 words and it's almost four chapters long. We'll talk about that more in a second, but here's the gist of what happens. So in this scene, dorian Havillard and Kael Westfall pull Selina Sardothien out of the Andovir salt mines to offer her a deal Enter a competition to become Adderlyn's assassin, working for the king, and they'll grant her her freedom after six years of service. The three of them bargain and eventually Selina agrees to enter the competition, but only if they'll grant her her freedom after four years, not six. Later, selina eats dinner and falls asleep in a fancy room, thinking about all the events that transpired earlier when talking to Dorian and Kale.

Now, if you're not familiar with this story, the next part might be a little hard to follow, but I'm going to do my best to explain the beats that exist in this scene across these four chapters within the context of that description I just shared with you. If you are familiar with the story, if you have a copy of the book, it might be helpful to pause this episode, go, read through the first four chapters and then come back to this episode, having just read through the text. Okay, so let's take a look at the individual beats within this scene, within these four chapters, to see how they add up to the scene's arc of change. So in the first beat, what happens is that Kale retrieves Selina and brings her to the throne room, and the purpose of this beat is to set up Selina's character and her goal. It establishes her hatred of Otterlin and introduces the main conflict of the scene, including the scene's inciting incident. We'll talk more about that in a second.

In beat number two, this is when Selina is in the throne room and she's discussing her time in Endovir with Dorian and Kael, and Dorian offers her a chance to win her freedom. Within this beat, selina accepts and this beat actually contains the majority of the scene's conflict, including the conflict that comes after the scene's conflict, including the conflict that comes after the scene's inciting incident in beat one, all the way up to the turning point and the crisis of the scene. It also introduces a key character, duke Parrington, but in kind of a small way. Okay, so that's beat number two. In beat number three, selina gets cleaned up, she eats dinner and falls asleep. This beat is told mostly via summary and it provides the resolution of the scene.

Now, you might see this a little bit differently than I do, and that's okay, but what I hope we could agree on, or at least reach similar conclusions on, is the arc of change that these three beats and this one scene helps create. So if you zoom out and ask what's the point of these beats, what's the point of this scene? You might come up with an answer like this Selina feels hope that her freedom is within reach after Dorian and Kael offer her a place in the king's competition. So, externally, she's gone from being a slave in the salt mines to being free, yet still technically a captive of Otterlin. Internally, she goes from feeling fear that Kale might be leading her to her death to feeling hope that her freedom is finally in reach. So, no matter how we word it, hopefully we could all agree that this is more or less the arc of change that we're seeing across this scene and across these three beats.

Now, something else I want to draw your attention to is the chapter breaks, because they are strategically placed. After moments like the inciting incident, which is when Dorian is waiting in the throne room, there's another chapter break after the turning point, which is when Dorian says hey, selina, we have a proposition for you. We want you to participate in this tournament and possibly work for my father. And then, after the climax, there's another chapter break. So the climax is when selena agrees to the deal. Now, by breaking up the scene into chapters, sarah j mass is able to hook and hold our attention and keep the pace of the story moving at a relatively quick speed. The beats within this scene further support this by establishing the character's goal, building the conflict, tension and stakes and then relieving that tension with a more emotional and summarized resolution.

Okay, now you might also be wondering why this scene is 5,700 words, especially because that's quite a bit longer than what I typically recommend on this podcast. Well, there are two things I want to say about this. So first, it is okay to have scenes that are longer than the recommended word count range that I give, which is around 1500 to 2500 words, from time to time, especially when you're writing a story that requires world building, like science fiction, fantasy or even historical fiction. But also, this scene does a lot of heavy lifting, as I've already mentioned. So it introduces us to Selina, shows us her hatred of Otterlin and gives us insight into her character and how badly she wants to be free. It also introduces three really significant characters, so Dorian Kale and Duke Parrington. And again, sarah J Maas controls our reading experience by putting in chapter breaks at strategic places within the scene. So, yes, it's a long scene, but because of those chapter breaks and because of all the heavy lifting it's doing, it actually works. Now I know I just threw a lot of information and a pretty big example at you. So if you are familiar with this book, if you do have a copy of this book, I highly recommend going and reading those chapters if you haven't already. If you haven't read this book, hopefully this example still makes sense. You can always download a sample of the book and see how far that sample brings you into the first four chapters. But hopefully it's more or less making sense based on the summary I gave earlier.

Now a question you might be wondering is when should I worry about story beats? So is this something I worry about when I'm outlining my story? Is this something I worry about when I'm writing or editing? Like, how does that work? And my two cents on this is I don't want you to try to outline or write in beats, especially when it comes to your first draft. I would much rather you focus on telling the story and getting things down on paper. Okay, beats are something you can think about when it comes time to revise. If you even worry about them at that point, I would much rather see you focus on writing quality scenes when you're outlining and writing your first draft. And that's because if you write a scene that works, then your beats will most likely always work by default. So if it were me, or if I were your coach, I would encourage you to focus on mastering scene-by-scene writing before you even worry about beats. Now you might be wondering how do I know if something should be a scene or a beat? Is there some kind of tip or trick that will help me know the difference between what should be a scene and what should be a beat? And the truth is, you probably won't know what should be a scene or a beat until you're editing.

Once you're in that editing phase, you can look for clues that your quote-unquote scenes might actually be beats. So, for example, let's say you have three quote-unquote scenes in a row that contain more or less the same arc of change. In this case, you have two options right? You can change up a few of your scenes so that the arc of change feels different from the surrounding scenes, because, remember, we don't want to deliver a story where in every scene the arc of change feels the exact same. That becomes boring and predictable, right? So you can either change up a few of those scenes so the arc of change feels different. Or you can demote some of those scenes to beats and use them to move the scene forward through one arc of change. So just to be really clear, if you were like, you know what? All three of these quote-unquote scenes have the same arc of change. What would it look like if they were all actually beats within the same scene?

Okay, another thing you can look for in your scenes is repeating goals. So, for example, if your point of view character has the same goal in four different quote-unquote scenes, it's likely because those scenes need to actually become beats. So the character in question would pursue that goal over four beats with escalating conflict, not four scenes. Thinking this way is going to help you tighten your story and the overall word count, if that's something you're worried about too. The last thing I want to say is that you can also keep an eye out for quote-unquote scenes where only one thing happens. So, for example, if you have a scene that's built around a conversation between two characters, that might not be enough to make a scene on its own.

Ideally, each of your scenes would contain layers of multiple things that happen at once. So, in other words, just as your main plot thread needs to move forward in each and every scene, so do your subplots right. So if you're reading back through your draft and one of your quote-unquote scenes reads a little flat, you might realize it's because that scene is only doing one thing and maybe it would benefit from being turned into a beat, or maybe it would be better if you combined that with something else to form a working scene. So again, you probably won't know what's better off as a scene or a beat until you edit, but just some things to look for, no matter when you're thinking about this. Okay, now let's do a really quick recap of all that, because, again, I know it was a ton of information.

So, key point number one we learned that beats are the smallest unit of story. So these are the smaller moments that link together to form your scenes and although they can, and usually do, include many arcs of change, they don't necessarily have to, but they do have to contribute to the scene's overarching arc of change, usually by helping to escalate the conflict and move things forward. Key point number two beats are not something I want you to worry about when you're outlining or writing your first draft, but I do want you to be aware that they exist, because I think that this awareness will help cut down some of the confusion that comes when you're trying to outline or write your first draft and maybe you're experiencing what a lot of writers experience, which is an inflated scene count or an inflated word count, things like that. So only look at beats when you're revising if you need to, and I say that because beats are usually only something you need to worry about if there's a problem. So if you're reading a scene again and things feel flat, that's when you can kind of zoom into the beat level. Okay.

And then key point number three is to be flexible, especially when you're in that revision phase. So when you're revising your draft, you might realize that certain scenes need to become beats or vice versa, and if this happens to you, it's totally normal. You should actually expect this to happen, and this flexibility will make the editing process easier. It will also make your story stronger at the end of the day, okay. So I hope this breakdown of beats versus scenes was helpful.

If you want to explore this even further, I'd encourage you to grab a copy of my book the Story Grid Masterwork Analysis Guide to Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, because I literally break down each scene in the story, including how many beats are in each scene. I think this is a really good way to start seeing how the different parts of story structure play with each other. And if you're a Harry Potter fan, then it's extra fun because you get to dip back into that world as you study right. So I will link to that book in the show notes. I will also link to another episode about scene structure. Maybe, if it's been a while since you've heard that, you could go back and listen to that as well and just kind of round out what you learned in this episode about the difference between beats and scenes. So that's it for today's episode.

As always, thank you so much for tuning in and for showing your support. If you want to check out any of the links I mentioned in this episode, you can find them in the show notes listed in the description of each episode, inside your podcast player or at savannahgilbocom forward slash podcast. If you're an Apple user, I'd really appreciate it if you took a few seconds to leave a rating and a review. Your ratings and reviews tell Apple that this is a podcast that's worth listening to and, in turn, your reviews will help this podcast get in front of more fiction writers just like you. And while you're there, go ahead and hit that follow button, because there's going to be another brand new episode next week, full of actionable tips, tools and strategies to help you become a better writer. So I'll see you next week and until then, happy writing.