Following scene: Shaken by the recollection, Elsie rummages through her closet for her hidden vodka bottle.
Previous scene: We see what the priest knows of Femi’s activities during the uprising.
Following scene: An embittered Femi, wishing he’d heard none of this, blames the priest for giving in to his demands.
Previous scene: From the POV of a long-dead alien, we see the invasion that led to the end of this planet’s civilization.
Following scene: Yaskar jolts from the alien reverie as the ruins begin to collapse.
Flash Forward
The Flash Forward transition moves the viewer ahead, but nevertheless occurs before the events of your story’s main action. You usually see this device used in TV, to give an intense cold open to a story that would otherwise start slowly. As of this writing one might argue that this device has been overused. Maybe by the time you read this book it might have gone away long enough for your revival of it to seem fresh.
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Our First Example
Upcoming chapters, where we get into the nitty-gritty of integrating beat mapping into your process, will make more sense after looking at a simple example. So let’s break from process talk to do just that.
After reading this example below, you may prefer to continue on to the implementation part, or skip ahead to the more in-depth examples presented later on:
The Mad Men episode “Have a Seat, Shut the Door” is an example of a primarily dramatic narrative with some procedural elements.
Another classic television episode, “Home,” from The X-Files, is mostly procedural with a few Dramatic beats.
In-depth look at a single dramatic scene from Alice Walker’s The Color Purple.
Beat Analysis: Maupassant’s “The Necklace”
More than a century after his death, French writer Guy de Maupassant retains a reputation as the master of the short-short story. He acutely observes both the vagaries and cruelties of human existence, particularly those arising from the French class system and the random horrors of war. Maupassant touched off a vogue for punchy narratives with stinging, ironic endings, inspiring such writers as Ambrose Bierce, Saki, W. W. Jacobs, and O. Henry.
His spare, unfussy style allows us to look at what he is doing without cutting through the prose thicket favored by many other writers of the late 19th century. By picking a very short story we can zoom in and define a beat for each shift in thought, emotion, or purpose. Let’s find them, along with the emotional rhythms and transitions in one of Maupassant’s most famous works, “The Necklace.”
• • •
She was one of those pretty and charming girls born, as though fate had blundered over her, into a family of artisans. She had no marriage portion, no expectations, no means of getting known, understood, loved, and wedded by a man of wealth and distinction; and she let herself be married off to a little clerk in the Ministry of Education.
1) Befitting his stripped-down style, Maupassant begins by introducing his protagonist and core question.
Our unnamed focus character has suffered a blow dealt by fate—her lack of class prospects forced her to accept a disappointing marriage. We’ll later learn her name: Mathilde Loisel.
By depicting a character unhappily in one state—disappointment—Maupassant leads us to wonder if she will wind up in another. The core question this opening poses, then, is: Will Mathilde rise out of her class disappointment? Expressed in terms of hope and fear, we hope Mathilde will rise from her disappointment, and fear that she will not.
Having posed this question Maupassant establishes his theme of class striving, and the first step of his throughline: from aspiration to devastation.
This first beat is purely expository, making it a reveal. It appears at the beginning of the story, where the reader, wishing to be oriented in the narrative, happily accepts exposition.
As we have no one else to identify with yet, Mathilde becomes our focus character, and we feel for her predicament. Her disappointment becomes ours: this first beat registers as a down beat.
Her tastes were simple[…]
2) In this very tiny beat, consisting of just one clause, we get a moment of hope: maybe Mathilde has adjusted to her disappointment after all. Thanks to the fluidity of the prose voice, we have now shifted into a sped-up, retrospective, third person version of Mathilde’s internal monologue, moving from information to her feeling about that information. So we can consider this a Dramatic beat within an interior monologue. Mathilde is both petitioner and granter, in an inner conflict between her dramatic poles, which have already revealed themselves, 65 words into the story, as striving vs. acceptance. (That’s 65 words in the translated version, of course.)
[…]because she had never been able to afford any other, but she was as unhappy as though she had married beneath her;[…]
3) But right away we see that her simple tastes in fact accord her no solace. The first part of the sentence flirts with acceptance, while the second tears it away. The distanced interior monologue shows that she is still at odds with herself. This second Dramatic beat ends on a down note.
[…]for women have no caste or class, their beauty, grace, and charm serving them for birth or family, their natural delicacy, their instinctive elegance, their nimbleness of wit, are their only mark of rank, and put the slum girl on a level with the highest lady in the land.
4) Another mid-sentence shift takes us out of Mathilde’s perspective and into authorial pontification—a classic Commentary beat. Where a 21st century prose stylist would likely work to bury the social observation in the action, Maupassant obeys the convention of the day, which not only accepts but encourages explicit editorializing. The content of the observation suggests that Mathilde’s sex leaves her especially prone to strive for a better class position, which mires her in her disappointment. So this plays as another down beat.
She suffered endlessly, feeling herself born for every delicacy and luxury. She suffered from the poorness of her house, from its mean walls, worn chairs, and ugly curtains. All these things, of which other women of her class would not even have been aware, tormented and insulted her. The sight of the little Breton girl who came to do the work in her little house aroused heart-broken regrets and hopeless dreams in her mind. She imagined silent antechambers, heavy with Oriental tapestries, lit by torches in lofty bronze sockets, with two tall footmen in knee-breeches sleeping in large arm-chairs, overcome by the heavy warmth of the stove. She imagined vast saloons hung with antique silks, exquisite pieces of furniture supporting priceless ornaments, and small, charming, perfumed rooms, created just for little parties of intimate friends, men who were famous and sought after, whose homage roused every other woman’s envious longings.
When she sat down for dinner at the round table covered with a three-days-old cloth, opposite her husband, who took the cover off the soup-tureen, exclaiming delightedly: “Aha! Scotch broth! What could be better?” she imagined delicate meals, gleaming silver, tapestries peopling the walls with folk of a past age and strange birds in faery forests; she imagined delicate food served in marvelous dishes, murmured gallantries, listened to with an inscrutable smile as one trifled with the rosy flesh of trout or wings of asparagus chicken.
She had no clothes, no jewels, nothing. And these were the only things she loved; she felt that she was made for them. She had longed so eagerly to charm, to be desired, to be wildly attractive and sought after.
She had a rich friend, an old school friend whom she refused to visit, because she suffered so keenly when she returned home. She would weep whole days, with grief, regret, despair, and misery.
5) This extended beat provides the concrete detail to further support Mathilde’s state of disappointment. Another Dramatic down beat.
This ends the first scene. It establishes the protagonist’s situation without introducing a particular outcome or
consequence. The next features the same character and dilemma, making this first transition a Continuation.
One evening her husband came home with an exultant air, holding a large envelope in his hand.
“Here’s something for you,” he said.
Swiftly she tore the paper and drew out a printed card on which were these words:
“The Minister of Education and Madame Ramponneau request the pleasure of the company of Monsieur and Madame Loisel at the Ministry on the evening of Monday, January the 18th.”
6) The introduction of any possibility of action suggests that Mathilde could have a chance to break free of her suffering. The invitation gives us hope, and registers as an up beat.
Instead of being delighted, as her husband hoped, she flung the invitation petulantly across the table,[…]
7) But then are again whipsawed: the invitation has worsened her suffering.
[…]murmuring:
“What do you want me to do with this?”
“Why, darling, I thought you’d be pleased. You never go out, and this is a great occasion. I had tremendous trouble to get it. Every one wants one; it’s very select, and very few go to the clerks. You’ll see all the really big people there.”
She looked at him out of furious eyes, and said impatiently: “And what do you suppose I am to wear at such an affair?”
He had not thought about it; he stammered:
“Why, the dress you go to the theatre in. It looks very nice, to me . . .”
He stopped, stupefied and utterly at a loss when he saw that his wife was beginning to cry. Two large tears ran slowly down from the corners of her eyes towards the corners of her mouth.
“What’s the matter with you? What’s the matter with you?” he faltered.
But with a violent effort she overcame her grief and replied in a calm voice, wiping her wet cheeks:
“Nothing. Only I haven’t a dress and so I can’t go to this party. Give your invitation to some friend of yours whose wife will be turned out better than I shall.”
He was heart-broken.
8) This beat comprises our first scene between a petitioner and a granter. Mathilde’s husband petitions for her to accept the invitation as a good sign, and to emotionally reward him for bringing it to her. She rebuffs the petition, refusing to accept it as anything more than a reminder of her thwarted aspirations.
M. Loisel might not be our focus character, but we sympathize with him and wish he had been able to reduce her disappointment. Her rebuff strikes another down note.
“Look here, Mathilde,” he persisted. “What would be the cost of a suitable dress, which you could use on other occasions as well, something very simple?”
She thought for several seconds, reckoning up prices and also wondering for how large a sum she could ask without bringing upon herself an immediate refusal and an exclamation of horror from the careful-minded clerk.
At last she replied with some hesitation:
“I don’t know exactly, but I think I could do it on four hundred francs.”
He grew slightly pale, for this was exactly the amount he had been saving for a gun, intending to get a little shooting next summer on the plain of Nanterre with some friends who went lark-shooting there on Sundays.
Nevertheless he said: “Very well. I’ll give you four hundred francs. But try and get a really nice dress with the money.”
9) M. Loisel introduces a new tactic, trying to console her with the offer of a new dress. She accepts his offer, and he succeeds in mollifying her. This moves her away from disappointment and toward hope of happiness—as promised by the rich appearance necessary for her class aspirations. The second beat of this dramatic exchange reverses the previous one: her husband gets his petition granted, and it concludes on an up note.
After this, the next scene moves ahead in time, picking back up with the acquisition of the dress. With a new scene arising directly from the last, we mark the transition as an Outgrowth.
The day of the party drew near, and Madame Loisel seemed sad, uneasy and anxious. Her dress was ready, however. One evening her husband said to her:
“What’s the matter with you? You’ve been very odd for the last three days.”
“I’m utterly miserable at not having any jewels, not a single stone, to wear,” she replied. “I shall look absolutely no one. I would almost rather not go to the party.”
10) We discover that the dress has not been enough to prevent Mathilde from sinking further into depression. Another down note.
“Wear flowers,” he said. “They’re very smart at this time of the year. For ten francs you could get two or three gorgeous roses.”
She was not convinced.
“No…there’s nothing so humiliating as looking poor in the middle of a lot of rich women.”
“How stupid you are!” exclaimed her husband. “Go and see Madame Forestier and ask her to lend you some jewels. You know her quite well enough for that.”
She uttered a cry of delight.
“That’s true. I never thought of it.”
11) In this beat Mathilde, apparently unconsciously, petitions her husband for a solution to her problem. He provides it by suggesting she borrow jewels from a friend, moving her from despair to delight—an up note.
We now cut to the scene in which she borrows the jewels—a direct outgrowth of this exchange.
Next day she went to see her friend and told her her trouble.
Madame Forestier went to her dressing-table, took up a large box, brought it to Madame Loisel, opened it, and said:
“Choose, my dear.”
First she saw some bracelets, then a pearl necklace, then a Venetian cross in gold and gems, of exquisite workmanship. She tried the effect of the jewels before the mirror, hesitating, unable to make up her mind to leave them, to give them up. She kept on asking:
“Haven’t you anything else?”
“Yes. Look for yourself. I don’t know what you would like best.”
Suddenly she discovered, in a black satin case, a superb diamond necklace; her heart began to beat covetously. Her hands trembled as she lifted it. She fastened it round her neck, upon her high dress, and remained in ecstasy at sight of herself.
Then, with hesitation, she asked in anguish:
“Could you lend me this, just this alone?”
“Yes, of course.”
She flung herself on her friend’s breast, embraced her frenziedly, and went away with her treasure.
12) In this dramatic exchange Mathilde petitions Mme. Forestier for a physical object that represents the thing she most wants: greater class status. She starts out happy and grows even more excited when her friend grants her what she wants without resistance, for an up beat. The jewels allow Mathilde to go to the party, making the upcoming party scene an outgrowth of this one.
The day of the party arrived. Madame Loisel was a success. She was the prettiest woman present, elegant, graceful, smiling, and quite above herself with happiness. All the men stared at her, inquired her name, and asked to be introduced to her. All the Under-Secretaries of State were eager to waltz with her. The Minister noticed her.
She danced madly, ecstatically, drunk with pleasure, with no thought for anything, in the triumph of her beauty, in the pride of her success, in a cloud of happiness made up of this universal homage and admiration, of the desires she had aroused, of the completeness of a victory so dear to her feminine heart.
13) In the party scene, the phrase “completeness of a victory” tell us everything we need to know—this is a big up beat for our protagonist.
She left about four o’clock in the morning. Since midnight her husband had been dozing in a deserted little room, in company with three other men whose wives were having a good time. He threw over her shoulders the garments he had brought for them to go home in, modest
everyday clothes, whose poverty clashed with the beauty of the ball-dress. She was conscious of this and was anxious to hurry away, so that she should not be noticed by the other women putting on their costly furs.
14) Now the prospect of disappointment looms again: she risks exposing
herself as poor. This Dramatic scene features not a conflict with another character, but an inner struggle between Madame Loisel’s poles of striving vs. acceptance. The striving side of her personality defeats the accepting side, plunging our protagonist into anxiety, for another down beat.
Loisel restrained her.
“Wait a little. You’ll catch cold in the open. I’m going to fetch a cab.”
But she did not listen to him and rapidly descended the staircase.
15) Maupassant has established her husband as a voice of reason. On an instinctive level if nothing else, we know enough about stories and the mythic patterns underlying them to worry when a character fails to heed a warning. This premonition of catastrophe scores another down note.
When they were out in the street they could not find a cab; they began to look for one, shouting at the drivers whom they saw passing in the distance.
They walked down towards the Seine, desperate and shivering.
16) In the story’s first purely Procedural beat, the Loisels attempt with increasing desperation to find a cab. Their failure increases suspense and heightens our distress—another down note.
At last they found on the quay one of those old nightprowling carriages which are only to be seen in Paris after dark, as though they were ashamed of their shabbiness in the daylight.
Beating the Story Page 8
