A character's physical action placed near dialogue to show who's speaking without using a traditional dialogue tag.
An action beat is a brief description of a character's physical behavior - a gesture, movement, or interaction with their environment - placed alongside dialogue to attribute the line to a speaker. Instead of writing 'I'm fine,' she said, you write 'I'm fine.' She set down her coffee cup. The action does double duty: it tells us who spoke and it shows us something about how they feel or what they're doing.
Action beats keep your dialogue scenes grounded in the physical world. Without them, conversations float in a void - two disembodied voices lobbing sentences at each other. Beats anchor characters in space, reveal emotion through body language, and control the pacing of an exchange. They're also your best tool for avoiding an endless string of 'he said/she said' attributions.
McCarthy's sparse style uses precise, deliberate action beats to ground dialogue in physical tension. Characters load guns, count money, and check wounds while talking - every beat matters.
Rooney uses subtle physical beats - characters looking away, picking at food, shifting position - to reveal the emotional undercurrents beneath deceptively simple dialogue.
Gatsby's habit of reaching toward the green light, adjusting his smile, or stiffening at certain words reveals his inner state through action rather than explanation.
Keep a list of beats you've used in a scene. If someone has already sighed twice, find a different way to show that emotion - or cut the beat entirely.
A beat should be a sentence or two, not a paragraph. If the action needs more space, give it its own moment outside the dialogue exchange.
Remember: 'I agree,' she said (comma = dialogue tag) vs. 'I agree.' She nodded (period = action beat). Punctuation matters for grammar and clarity.
Every beat should earn its place. 'She blinked' tells us nothing. 'She blinked twice, like she was resetting' tells us something.
Write a two-person argument where neither character says what they're actually upset about. Use only action beats for attribution - no 'said' or 'asked' allowed. Let the physical actions carry the real emotion: slamming cabinets, avoiding eye contact, gripping a mug too tightly. Read it back and see if the subtext comes through.