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How do I add a silence or mark a beat in my text?
To give a line some room to breathe, Imparato interprets two specific stage directions. There is no sound effect to insert: everything happens directly within the writing of the text.
The two stage directions
(pause)triggers a silence of about 1 second(silence)triggers a silence of about 2 seconds
Write them in parentheses at the exact spot where you want the voice to stop:
@Hamlet
To be (pause) or not to be. (silence) That is the question.
For a longer silence
Chain the stage directions together as many times as necessary:
(silence) (silence)
will trigger a heavy 4-second silence 😉.
Where to place them
A stage direction can stand alone on its own line, or at the beginning, middle, or end of a line:
@Character (possible here)
(alone on a line)
(here too, at the start of a line) blah blah blah (but also here, in the middle) blah blah
blah blah (or even there, at the end of a line)
Two pitfalls to avoid
The closing parenthesis is mandatory. (silence without a closing parenthesis will cause a syntax error. If you run into trouble, check out the Solutions for syntax errors.
Don't confuse them with sound effects. Silences are stage directions, written in parentheses within the line. Sound effects use the @Soundeffect character followed by a keyword — and there is no such thing as a silence sound effect. For sounds, see How to insert a sound effect into my text.