Beat Classes
From the Meridians Wiki · Public · Maintained · joint
Beats are the atomic units of scene structure — individual moments that advance story, reveal character, or build world.
Beat Functions (What the beat does)
| Function | Description |
|---|---|
| breathe | Pacing, atmosphere, sensory grounding, scene establishment |
| inform | Knowledge delivery — character or reader learns something now |
| advance | Forward momentum — plot moves, goals pursued, tension rises |
| bond | Relationship shifts between characters |
| turn | Scene pivots — revelation, reversal, interruption |
| reveal | Character interiority exposed — desires, fears, secrets surface |
| shift | POV character's perspective changes on situation or person |
| expand | World-building — systems, rules, culture, or lore introduced |
| foreshadow | Future events or themes seeded subtly |
| resolve | Local tension released — question answered, immediate conflict settled |
Beat Mechanisms (How it's delivered)
| Mechanism | Description |
|---|---|
| dialogue | Characters speaking |
| thought | Internal monologue |
| action | Physical movement, gesture, body in space |
| environment | Setting, weather, arrivals, sensory details |
| narration | Narrator addresses reader, authorial commentary, rhetoric |
| memory | Flashback, recollection, past event recalled |
| document | Letter, inscription, found text, in-world artifact |
| comic | Visual gag, physical comedy, absurd juxtaposition |
Usage: Each scene contains a sequence of beats. Beat profiles (distributions of functions and mechanisms) define authorial voice and pacing style.