Beats, Telling, and Point of View

Okay, my beta readers are sounding happy. No snoring from behind the screen, er, page.

But, I think I'm gonna have to do some changing.

Beats in dialogue: A beat in dialogue is that short or long pause that allows the reader's brain to keep up with the action. It avoids the machine-gun feeling of one line of dialogue after another, after another, after another.

Actually, I think I may generally get this into my dialogue.

Perhaps I learned about beats as a high school flute player. Keeping time with the tubas and the drums -- even when marching around on the football field in a too-big uniform -- may have stuck with me during the decades after. The ballet teacher in the loft at Broadway and 74th Street in NYC thought so. I was abysmal at doing the right steps at the right time. But I kept on the beat, every time, with SOME kind of step. The teacher's comment that I must have played an instrument (since I was hitting the beat) was small consolation for the looks of pity from the experienced dancers around me (since I was missing almost every type of step).

Anyway. Beats in dialogue: got it.


Telling vs. Showing: Now, I thought I was doing pretty well with this. But from reading "The First 50 Pages," by publisher Jeff Gerke, I'm thinking I'm gonna need to do some revising. Dang.

In particular, Gerke recommends absolutely no flashbacks in the first 50 pages. Agents and editors, supposedly, are likely to fling said manuscript across the room and then go over and jump up and down on it. And then, of course, reject it.

I'm guilty: The story has at least two flashbacks (Chapters 2 and 3), to a scene when the item that brings onto my heroine all the story's trouble is handed to her. Oy. Not sure what to do about this.


Point of View: In this second draft, I am introducing and fleshing out an important character much sooner. Essentially, the romance. This adds much-needed drama early on in the story.

I wrote the scene where the heroine meets the romance interest in alternating Points of View. I thought I got each part of the scene clearly separate. Actually, I was kind of proud of my cleverness.

But, supposedly the rule of thumb is: One Point of View per scene. All my pretty efforts, slashed and changed. Again, dang.

But this is the Writer's Way.

By Laure Edwards Reminick