Guide
The Beat System
The Beat System is the dramatic framework behind Story System. It divides a story into beats, small definable moments, and gives each one a type, the purpose it serves in the narrative, and a resolution, where it leaves the audience emotionally as it closes.
What a beat is
In the composition and performance of drama, a story can be divided into units of action called beats. The idea grew out of the work of the Russian actor and director Konstantin Stanislavski, whose system split a play into small units, each with its own objective. His students brought the approach to the United States, where those units became known as beats.
As in other dramatic theory, beats are the building blocks of story. They divide a narrative into a series of separate moments. Each beat resolves in a way that alters or reinforces the audience’s hopes or fears for the story. The occasional beat resolves ambiguously.
Why beats work
Any dramatic theory is a finite framing that helps storytellers ask the right questions and make sharper choices. It is not how everyone works, and not even how trained storytellers work all of the time, but it is how many professional storytellers have completed their dramatic compositions.
These techniques have worked reliably from Shakespeare’s day to ours, and they pay off most when they become instinct. That said, some of the most memorable and resonant moments in fiction, theater and film come when creators break, or seem to suspend, the so-called rules.
The more conventional or classical a narrative, the more readily beat analysis explains it. Works with atypical or repetitive rhythms can succeed brilliantly, but a poorly constructed work of any kind will fail to engage and satisfy its audience.
Types and resolutions
A beat has two components. Its type tells you what purpose it serves in the narrative. Its resolution marks where the story is trying to deliver the audience emotionally as the beat closes.
| Resolution | Emotional direction |
|---|---|
| Positive | A rise toward hope. |
| Neutral | Level or ambiguous. |
| Negative | A fall toward fear. |
A resolution can feel mixed. We might register elation and fear at once over an action beat, or contradictory feelings toward a character. That is fine: story design is alchemy, not science. In Story System, the stored resolution is positive, neutral or negative.
Type and resolution are separate choices. Some types are about hope and some about fear, but any type can resolve positive, neutral or negative. A type does not force a particular resolution.
Reading the twelve types
Three types charge the story toward hope and three toward fear. Procedural and Dramatic are the types used most. The rest each do one job: Emotion progresses emotionally through the world, Commentary explains the world, Spectacle shows the world, and Undefined holds a place until you decide.
The twelve beat types
Positively charged: hope
LLift
Positively charged: hope
A positive mood-setting moment of security, good fortune or serendipity that raises hope.
A mood-setting beat in which the audience feels a positive moment that floats free of the main narrative, raising the emotional register toward hope. It usually turns on a moment of security or proof, where the character’s surroundings reinforce the justice or good fortune of their situation.
Circumstance
Often a stroke of good luck or serendipity.
Examples
- By grace and luck, the fairy Merryweather has not yet given baby Aurora her gift when Maleficent curses the child. Merryweather uses it to soften the curse: Aurora will sleep, not die. Sleeping Beauty
- In a stroke of good fortune, Lex recognizes the Unix system on the monitor. She can get the park back online. Jurassic Park
AAnticipation
Positively charged: hope
Preparation or expectation of success or gratification; the audience shares the promised victory.
Creates an expectation of coming success or gratification. The moment can foreshadow a victory to come, or set one up to be subverted.
Circumstance
The characters prepare, literally or metaphorically, for a coming challenge.
Conflict
We are not worried for the protagonists. The audience revels in their promised victory.
Examples
- Popeye eats his spinach. Popeye the Sailor Man
- The team suits up in silence before taking the ice against their crosstown rivals, the Hawks. The Mighty Ducks
RRelief
Positively charged: hope
A pause for rest or safety, repairing or taking stock before the narrative drive resumes.
Offers the characters a moment of rest and safety.
Circumstance
The forward drive of the narrative often pauses so the audience can rest and recharge before the story resumes. Characters often repair or take stock of their condition.
Example
- Dr. Grant, Tim and Lex climb into the branches of a giant tree, meet a gentle Brachiosaurus, and Dr. Grant promises to stay awake all night to keep watch over them. Jurassic Park
Negatively charged: fear
DDrop
Negatively charged: fear
A negative mood-setting moment of atmosphere or misfortune, without requiring direct conflict.
A mood-setting beat in which the audience feels a negative moment that floats free of the main narrative, dropping the emotional register toward despair. It usually turns on pathetic fallacy, where the character’s surroundings reinforce their misfortune.
Circumstance
Stock examples: it starts to rain just after a character is dumped, or a creepy atmosphere settles over a horror story.
Conflict
There is usually no direct conflict. A drop signals negative forces at work against the protagonist.
Examples
- The band at the Tully and Frey wedding begins to play “The Rains of Castamere,” and Lady Stark’s face falls like an arrowed bird. Game of Thrones, the Red Wedding
- Jerry Lundegaard’s car, alone in a desolate parking lot, is iced over after his father-in-law shuts him out of a promising deal. Fargo
PEPeril
Negatively charged: fear
Impending failure or danger creates suspense; the protagonist may be unable to protect what is at risk.
Creates an expectation of coming doom or failure. The audience fears it, which creates suspense.
Circumstance
The protagonist, or the audience without the protagonist, discovers the forces, circumstances or preparations laid to defeat the protagonist’s goals.
Conflict
Peril is about the impending realization of the protagonist’s fears. The protagonist usually cannot immediately protect what is in jeopardy.
Examples
- John Doe smiles quietly on his knees as a delivery van comes over the hill with a very special package for the detectives. Se7en
- Sid, the boy next door, tapes Buzz Lightyear to a giant firework while Woody lies helpless in the corner. Toy Story
TTragedy
Negatively charged: fear
Failure or doom experienced as a clear negative culmination of the moment’s goal.
The characters fail to reach their goal and meet their doom instead.
Circumstance
The moment should deliver a clear sense of negative finality. The protagonist fails to attain a core goal, and their worst fear is realized.
Examples
- The Balrog’s whip lashes out of the darkness of the chasm and catches Gandalf’s leg. He is pulled into the abyss as his companions watch in horror. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
- Tatum Riley struggles to free herself from the rising garage door and is crushed. Scream
Most used
PRProcedural
Most used
Progress physically through the world
Progress toward or away from an external, practical goal through action, information, resources, access or tactical negotiation.
About a character’s external, practical goal: they try to move physically through the world. When the beat resolves, it has moved them closer to the goal or further away, with the audience’s hopes and fears held in the balance.
Circumstance
The protagonists are often in jeopardy, directly or indirectly, or at least at risk of a setback. Procedural beats tend to create suspense, intense or subtle depending on the stakes.
Conflict
Verbal conflicts resolve through negotiation, threats or other tactical considerations. One party, the petitioner, seeks something practical from the other, the granter: information, equipment, money, access or a promise not to interfere. Once they have it, the petitioner can move on toward the goal.
Examples
- Obi-Wan Kenobi uses the Force to convince the stormtroopers that these aren’t the droids they’re looking for. Star Wars
- Marion Ravenwood drinks the roughneck patrons of her Nepalese bar under the table. Raiders of the Lost Ark
DRDramatic
Most used
Verbal or communicative attempts to coordinate, oppose one another or seek concessions.
Other
EEmotion
Other
Progress emotionally through the world
Progress toward or away from an inner emotional goal through communication, feeling or emotional concessions.
Focuses on progress toward an inner, emotional goal. To get there, a character must negotiate with someone they are emotionally connected to.
Circumstance
The protagonist may ask others for expressions of feeling, or accept or reject what others ask of them. The audience hopes the beat moves the protagonist toward a positive inner change and fears a negative one.
Conflict
Conflict is verbal or communicative rather than physical. The petitioner seeks an emotional concession from the granter. In more complex beats, both people act as petitioner and granter for each other.
Examples
- Shrek finally tells Princess Fiona he is in love with her. Shrek
- Trinity tells Neo the Oracle prophesied she would fall in love with the One, and that she loves him. So he must be the One. The Matrix
CCommentary
Other
Explain the world
A pause in goal progression to underline theme or plot through observation, reporting or another dramatic conveyance.
The protagonist’s movement toward or away from the goal is suspended while the story underlines its themes through some dramatic device.
Circumstance
Often uses observers that work like a Greek chorus: a person, a broadcast, a newspaper, anything that introduces or reintroduces themes or plot elements.
Example
- April O’Neil reports on the evening news about the crime wave gripping New York City, and that neither the police nor City Hall have been able to stop it. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
SSpectacle
Other
Show the world
Emphasis shifts from narrative progression to visual or experiential elements, such as action or a musical number.
For any moment where narrative progress slows and the focus shifts to the visual or experiential.
Circumstance
Action sequences and musical numbers are two common examples.
Example
- The Dancing Cavalier pauses for Don Lockwood’s extended modern number, “Broadway Melody.” Singin’ in the Rain
UUndefined
Other
A supported placeholder when the beat’s type has not yet been chosen.
A placeholder for a beat whose type has not been chosen yet. Story System supports it so you can lay out a story before deciding what every moment is.
Beats in Story System
Story System gives storytellers a way to organize, audit and visualize a story beat by beat. Beat View lays the beats along the story’s rise and fall, with act, sequence and scene pins marking the structure. Script View shows the same beats alongside the screenplay. Both use the same twelve types and three resolutions, and Storylines groups beats by the threads they belong to.
See a sample in the app, or explore plans and pricing for your own work.
For the larger organizing idea, read What is a narrative operating system?