Tone—What Attitude Looks Like in Writing

attitude

Tone—What Attitude Looks Like in Writing

Last post, we talked about how the attitude or tone of your writing can enhance or detract from the pleasure readers take in your work. This can be difficult to pick up so I want to work through some examples.

Some examples of different attitudes

Remember, the tone or attitude of your piece is usually carried by the narrator. This can be the main character telling the story from her point of view, or it can be how the setting,  actions, and speech, etc., are depicted.

So, let’s use the same setting—a children’s outing on a beach—and show how different tones affect the feel of the writing. As mentioned before, the attitude you think a piece takes  is often subjective, so you may not agree with my label for all of the following snippets. But focus on how different words and the choice of diverse elements of the scene can affect the tone.

Happy The sun sparkled on the water. And bounced off the metal grill of Dad’s car. It was hot. Really hot. Just perfect. We ran down into the water, yelling and screaming, and flopped ourselves down onto the sandy bottom.

Sad The children ran down to the beach. I sat up. Was that Danny? The sun was in my eyes. I squinted but couldn’t see. Then I sat back and shook my head. Of course it can’t be.

Angry I swotted the flies away from my drink. Damn sand always brought them out. And what the hell were those children screaming about in the water? Making an unholy cacophony. Parents these days don’t have any control.

Nostalgic It must have been a day just like this. Warm, almost hot, sun. And there must have been children much like these gambolling now on the beach. Older perhaps, but just as lively. And as carefree.

Sarcastic/Mocking A summer idyll. I don’t think so. I bet those parents think they’re making life-long memories for their kids. And feel a glow because of it. When all the kids will remember is how their parents done them wrong.

You see how focusing on different elements of the same scene can alter the tone of the piece. A happy piece doesn’t necessarily fix on the flies; a nostalgic one may use the present scene as a springboard into the past.

Whether or not your whole novel or memoir has a particular tone depends of course on whether it is sustained by its continued use.

What attitude do you want to convey?

Depends on your writing style and your intent for the piece.  But generally, I would advise against an a priori decision. Just write a good story. Tone, if there needs to be one, will probably emerge.

In fact, it is more likely that you’ll inadvertently transmit a tone which doesn’t fit or impedes the enjoyment of the story itself. So, unless you purposefully want to communicate a particular attitude and are clear why you want to do it, I think generally you’d be wiser to let the story engage the reader rather than overlay a tone.