How to Write Good Dialogue, Wallabies, and the Three-Beat Rule

Dogs are Smarter Than People, Writing Exercise, Cool Submission Opportunity So, we’re been talking about dialogue in novels lately and tips about it and the purpose of it. To find any back posts, just head to LIVING HAPPY and search “dialogue.” One of the things that some writing stylists talk about is the three-beat rule, which is credited to Screenwriter Cynthia Whitcomb. Reedsy explains this as: “What this recommends, essentially, is to introduce a maximum of three dialogue ‘beats’ (the short phrases in speech you can say without pausing for breath) at a time. Only after these three dialogue beats should you insert a dialogue tag, action beat, or another character’s speech.” If it sounds a bit formulaic, well, it is. But it can be really helpful, too, the way formulas usually can. Reedsy made a little graphic to demonstrate all this: Here’s another example from Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451: Montag stopped at the door, with his back turned. “Millie?” A silence. “What?” “Millie? Does the White Clown love you?” No answer. “Millie, does—” He licked his lips. “Does your ‘family’ love you, love you very much, love you with all their heart and soul, Millie?” There’s no Rule of Three here. It’s more Rule of Three or Less, which makes it a tiny bit less formulaic, right, and it’s natural. What Bradbury does is integrate the dialogue (spoken word) with the dialogue beats (the stopping at the door, the silence, the licking of lips.”That action beat is different from a dialogue tag, which is the she said, he said, we yelled. It is a beat of action or emotion or setting/senses. And the dialogue beat again (which is what the rule is about) is the "short phrases in speech you can say without pausing for breath.: But back to the less-than-three-beat rule. When we look up that at that Bradbury piece, emotions glide right in. He communicates the tension of the scene, right? And those short lines and short bits of talking make it very fast paced. People's brains react to that fast pace and recognize it and look for it in dialogue. PLACE TO SUBMIT THE FABER ACTION! PRIZE Faber launches the Action! Prize in direct response to research from the National Literacy Trust that reveals children’s reading enjoyment is at its lowest level in almost two decades, and that the problem is most acute for boys. The prize will be launched in conjunction with Literary Manager and Film/TV Producer Eddie Gamarra, who will be judging the prize alongside Kieran Larwood, author of the World of Podkin One-Ear series, and with the support of EmpathyLab. The Action! Prize, now open to agented and unagented writers in the UK, Ireland and US, calls for fast-paced and filmic, action-packed adventure stories, and offers a publishing contract to the three winners. Entries to the prize need to feature a diverse cast of fully rounded characters in any one of these four age bands: 7–9, 9–11, 12–14, 14+. Faber Publisher Leah Thaxton says: ‘We are all alarmed at the falling number of children reading for pleasure, especially when it comes to boys; it is clear they are not finding enough of what they need on the shelves. I’m keen we offer a much wider range of instantly appealing, action-packed stories that will compete with the adrenaline rush of gaming and screens. We know books are vital to children’s development, so this prize is a call-out for high octane, filmic, thrilling fiction that will get children hooked (back) into books.’ Founder of EmpathyLab, the UK’s only charity that focuses on building children’s empathy through use of high-quality literature, Miranda McKearney, OBE, says: ‘This generation of boys face so many issues, including toxic masculinity, where an empathy education would help. Scientific research shows that empathy is learnable, and that books are a powerful tool to build it. So this Faber prize is a really welcome, practical initiative. Over time it will be a pipeline for author events from male authors, acting as inspiring empathy role models. Right now, our world has never needed empathy more.’ Submissions are until January 30. More information is here. DOG TIP OF THE POD Dogs like short sentences when it comes to dialogue. Sit. Treat. Walk. People do, too. It keeps our attention. COOL EXERCISE Katherine Cowley has a cool action beats exercise to help. “Write one paragraph in which a character takes a trip to the grocery store. Use just ONE type of action beat (for example, only long-shot action beats, only extreme close-up action beats, or only future action beats). “Then write a new paragraph in which a character takes a trip to the grocery store. This time use as many different types of action beats as possible.” RANDOM THOUGHT LINK Most of today’s random thought was brought to you by Carrie being anxious and depressed, but the cool stuff about the wallaby is from here. SHOUT OUT! The music we’ve clipped and shortened in this podcast is awesome and is made available through the Creative Commons License.  Here’s a link to that and the artist’s website. Who is this artist and what is this song?  It’s “Summer Spliff” by Broke For Free. WE HAVE EXTRA CONTENT ALL ABOUT LIVING HAPPY OVER HERE! It's pretty awesome. We have a podcast, LOVING THE STRANGE, which we stream biweekly live on Carrie’s Facebook and Twitter and YouTube on Fridays. Her Facebook and Twitter handles are all carriejonesbooks or carriejonesbook. But she also has extra cool content focused on writing tips here. Carrie is reading one of her raw poems every once in awhile on CARRIE DOES POEMS. And there you go! Whew! That's a lot! Subscribe