Tone - Tumblr Posts
How To Perfect The Tone In A Piece Of Writing
The tone in writing is one of the most important characteristics of a piece of writing. Books, poetry, songs, articles, any writing whatsoever; the tone is everything. That being said, there are a lot of ways in which writers can either mess it up or completely forget to set the tone. Below is a guide to setting the tone to come across exactly how you want it to.
Some Things To Note
Tone is the character or attitude of a text that invokes emotion in the reader
There are two things you want to ask yourself when reading a text and studying the tone:
How does the text make you feel?
and
How is the text designed to make you feel?
Things That Create Tone
There are several different elements in writing that create the tone. Here are a few:
Body Language
How your characters act, interact, and speak all play a large role in how your readers perceive your story. If your characters are speaking cryptically, fidgeting, and the tensions are high, your readers will feel the suspense.
Volume (Dialogue Tags)
How loud people say things is a big indicator of how they mean for it to come across to whomever they’re talking to. It’s the same this with dialogue. While it’s important not to overdo it with the dialogue tags, you must also use them to your advantage. It’s kind of when you’re writing a script and you sometimes feel the need to add a note for the actor to say something a certain way in order for them to portray what you envision. Use specific dialogue tags sparingly, but use them well.
Context
The context of the situation is everything. If your reader doesn’t know what’s going on and your main character is super relaxed all of a sudden when they thought they were in the middle of a very stressful situation, it’s going to give them very weird vibes. Knowing where the character is, how they feel, and having some idea of what’s about to go down is imperative to creating the right tone.
WORD CHOICE
Word choice is the main way you can set the tone in your story. You must be clear, intentional, natural, and consistent with the way you choose how you phrase things in your story. We all have certain associations with specific words and using those associations will bode well for you.
Clear Word Choice…
Be clear before anything else when setting the tone. Portray what you need to in order to create the scene itself and put the reader in the story. Then change what words you’re using in order to make the reader feel a certain way. However, never sacrifice clarity in exchange for the use of a fancy word. If your read doesn’t know what you’re saying, what good does it do anyway?
Intentional Word Choice…
Be intentional when you’re deciding where to switch out words and where you decide to really hit the reader with a huge wave of tone. Don’t just fling words anywhere there’s a gap in the hopes that it will accomplish the same thing as intentionally injecting words where it will pierce the reader’s soul. See what I mean?
Natural Word Choice
While it’s important to choose words that fit the tone, they must flow naturally with the dialogue and descriptions. Don’t just slap your reader in the face with “OMG Becky did you hear what that brat Jessica said about you and your bae? She’s such a vacuous shrew!” because that’s not exactly natural is it?
I have a whole post called Improving Flow In Writing that expands on this quite a bit.
Consistent Word Choice…
Be consistent in your word choice. Don’t use the same words over and over again, but don’t go from calling dogs to “canis lupus familiaris”. Well.. unless it’s absolutely necessary.
Examples Of Tones
Some of you might be a little fuzzy on what I mean by tone in the first place, so here are a few examples of tone:
Comedic
Suspenseful
Enticing
Desperate
Terrifying
Happy
Dramatic
Romantic
Etc.. You get the picture.
Request a prompt list/writing advice/playlist/study help post here
So yeah, white-washing is bad, but more often than not unintentional.
As mentioned above, there have been a few blogs recently that make the claim of being against white washing, yet continuously misdiagnose and lack any fundamental understanding of basic color theory or anatomy. So, the intent of this post is to help give people a vocabulary through which they can address the issue of white washing, while presenting solutions in a way that other artists can understand and learn from.
White washing is inexcusable, but “too pale” won’t fix it.
tone du är en vinnare i mitt hjärta <333
Describing Accents
Anonymous asked: Hey there! In the story I am writing it takes place on a different planet. However I really want a certain race of people to have African accents. How do I describe accents that don’t necessarily exist? I hope that made sense!
There’s a wealth of ways to encapsulate an accent, what with all the words available to you. It’s a matter of how straight-forward or creative you want to go. Maybe some of the methods below will help.
Adjective:
She had a fragile accent.
The people had throaty voices, sawing out words in blunt grumbles.
Metaphoric:
His voice was splinters and broken glass.
Her accent had a song-like quality that reminded her of swaying tides.
Straight-forward:
He had a French accent.
“I have to go,” she said, though from her accent, French, the words sounded more like “I hive tego.”
Straight-forward & ‘Technical’:
He had a French accent, perhaps Northern, his voice lilting the edges of his vowels and dragging out others.
Some methods work better in combination with others, such as straight-forward combined with technical (as shown). It truly shouldn’t take many sentences to give readers enough info to imagine how someone’s voice or accent sounds. Therefore I wouldn’t overdue the clues, as it can stir into offensive.
More Reading:
Describing Voices
55 Words to Describe Someone’s Voice
Online Thesaurus
Describing Qualities of the Human Voice
~Mod Colette
Dos and Don'ts for Writing Your Viewpoint Character's Voice
Recently I had to introduce a new viewpoint character into one of my WIPs, and it was tricky. In the process, I was reminded of a few things that do work well, and that don’t work well.
But first, let’s review what character voice actually is, because for a lot of us, it feels elusive and magical–like something that just “happens” (sorta like how people view theme). Here is my voice equation:
What the character thinks about + How he or she says it = Voice
I already did an article breaking this down here, that you can read if you want to know more about this. And it should be said that one of the key components to crafting a voice, is working from the inside, out. You need to really know your character, first. You need to know his or her wants, contradictions, flaws, motives, fears–all that jazz.
But today, I want to talk about actually putting that voice onto the page. Because sometimes, even when you know the equation and character, it can still feel elusive when you go to actually write. In part, in reality, this is because–like everything in writing–we are trying to take a notion, an aesthetic, or a feeling that is somewhat abstract, and make it concrete with actual words.
And when you are doing this with a brand new character, it’s hard not to fall back on other voices you’ve already used. Or already heard.
I have no problem if you want to grab inspiration from other characters, but since this character is a different person, he or she needs to sound like a different person.
So let’s assume you already know the character rather well.
From that point, I’ve found there are a few things that are usually best avoided when working with a viewpoint character’s voice, and things that are usually good ideas to implement when working with one.
Avoid
“Always” Sentence Structures (ex., always talks in long sentences or short sentences)
- When looking at developing voice, it might seem like a good idea to play with sentence structure–heck, it is a good idea, to an extent. But if you are too rigid with it, there are problems. The most obvious is that trying to read a story where every sentence is about the same length is a terrible experience for the reader. But it’s more than that. Sentence structure is also used to control pacing, tone, and emotional experience. If you get too locked into a specific type of sentence structure, you doom other parts of your story. Also, most people don’t adhere to a specific structure, constantly, in real life either.
Dominating Emotions that Undercut the Story
- If you are writing in a voice where the viewpoint character almost always sounds calm or relaxed–guess what? Chances are it’s going to minimize the tension you have in your story. Because if they are calm, the reader is calm. If they aren’t worried, the reader isn’t worried. The only way you can get away with this consistently, is if you are writing a story with extremely high stakes at every turn, so that the calmness is a counterpoint that adds humor or irony. Likewise, a character who is consistently sad about whatever, might start to sound melodramatic–and when you get to the really sad part later in the story, it won’t be as powerful, because we’ve already spent so much time feeling sad. In short, frankly, some dominating emotions work better as a viewpoint character’s voice than others. (And every character should have their own dominating emotions.) Avoid dominating emotions that are going to undercut the power of your story.
Relying too Heavily on Accents
- There was a time where people did not really know what a particular accent sounded like, so it was helpful to actually write how that accent sounded in the text. Today’s audience is different. Most of us have heard all kinds of accents. And if we don’t know one, we can look it up online. Today, it’s better to sprinkle in a few regional phrases here and there to remind us of the character’s accent and background, rather than write the whole thing that way. (Not to mention, that makes it more difficult to read).
Stock Voices
- Once in a while you run into a character voice that sounds like a hundred other character voices of that genre. For example, YA is known for protagonists having a snarky voice. That’s not a bad thing necessarily, but if you do have a viewpoint character whose voice sounds similar to many others, find a way to individualize it. Lots of people are snarky. But they are snarky in their own ways. How is your character snarky?
Pretty Much “Always” Anything
- One of the problems I sometimes run into is when the text is trying so hard to be voicey, that it’s annoying. Like almost anything in writing, if you go too extreme, for too long, the reader can’t wait to close the book. The same thing can happen with voice. We sometimes hear people say things like this about books: “Every viewpoint character sounded totally different and unique!” In reality, while someone may have felt that way, I’m willing to bet there wasn’t that much “total” about it. Like accents, usually the most successful voices today aren’t “always” anything, but instead regularly something specific–a dash of snark here and a dash of slang there.
Keep reading
Movie Fun Facts #01
Miranda Priestley
Miranda’s character is famously inspired by Vogue’s Anna Wintour, but did you know Streep modeled Miranda’s voice after Clint Eastwood?
She wanted a calm, quiet, yet terrifying presence. And those white hair and glasses? Streep’s idea, adding that iconic touch.
Cornucopia - Ph. Lewis Hayward Model. Jordan Ebbitt Make Up & Hair Jaimee Thomas Publication. Volt Magazine
Photo by @idee_explores | Sunset in the #adirondacks casts a warm #tone over a vibrant tapestry of autumn colors. With a nod to @thebeachboys, all the leaves aren't yet brown. 🍁🍂 . . I #optoutside with @the_explorers_club @natgeointhefield @canonusa @terrasolutions @ausableriver . #sunset #leafpeeping #autumnvibes #mountains #lightchaser #natgeoyourshot #reflection #hope #🍁 #somewheremagazine #skyporn #sunray (at Planet Earth) https://www.instagram.com/p/CVi65L5v1cm/?utm_medium=tumblr
Me trying to learn salvo core
#Tone #workout with my biggest workout partner. @carlapikenina you are the best. #lesmillstone #vivafit #tiredbuthappy #gym #gymmotivation #summergoals #fitnessbody (at Vivafit Jardins da Parede)