Understanding Story Beats And How They Relate to Scenes

Good news: if the scenes work, so do the beats.

Yesterday afternoon during a co-working call with Ninja Writers, we started talking about ‘story beats.’ And I had to admit that I didn’t really understand them.

That’s embarassing. I mean, isn’t that one of those things that someone teaching fiction writing should know inside and out?

I associate story beats with the super fast paced publishing that some indie writers who put out a book a month (or more!) do. So, I guess I’ve just never taken the time to learn, since I don’t fall into either camp.

After doing some research today, though, I realize that I do, in fact, use story beats in my writing. I just don’t use the term. And that made me feel a lot better.

So beats are the stuff that scenes are made up of. The atoms of a story. And part of the reason why I’ve never paid too much attention to them is because as long as the scenes work, the beats do, too.

Also from that Story Grid article:

One of the reasons why I associate the term story beats with indie publishing is because it’s talked about so often by people who teach other people how to write in that style.

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