More tips from STYH:
Screenwriting Tip #166‘EXT. DESSERT – DAY’
Yeah, that’s not good.
Screenwriting Tip #165When you write ‘All hell breaks loose’, what you’re actually saying is ‘I couldn’t be bothered to write real action lines here’.
Screenwriting Tip #160No need to put (beat) or (pause) into the dialogue because you think it’ll sound nice — the actors will have their own ideas. Parenthetical beats work best for suspense or timing-dependent jokes.
Screenwriting Tip #159You can’t just tell us there’s speech coming from the radio, or the TV, or some character in the background. You have to actually write the dialogue.
Ouch! Slapped down but good by STYH. But in the end, it feels so good to know the truth, right?
Cringe. I'm guilty of #159.
In defense of (beat), if you have a long speech by a character, it breaks it up on the page. I probably use too many, but I find them preferable to, say, an unbroken nine-line speech.
I usually break up a long speech by using a hard return which puts a line in between the paragraphs.
Thanks again for the shout-out, Scott! I'm just glad John August hasn't publicly denounced me.
I use "beat" — and why not? It breaks down dialogue.