I Have the Beat

By Jan Pezarro

 “A few beats missing here.”

In the first year of my MFA program, after 40 years in business and on my way to fulfill a long-held ambition to write a book, my mentor added this comment to my submission. I was pretty sure she wasn’t referring to golden or purple beets, but neither did I know exactly what she meant by “beats.”

My knowledge gap of storycraft tools and techniques was formidable. Lectures on structure, place, scene, and character sent me repeatedly to the i...