What is Tone in Writing, and How Can You Use It?

I feel like I don’t always hear people talking about tone in writing, but it’s hard not to notice it when you’re reading. It’s even harder not to notice it when it’s inconsistent or somehow jarring.

What is tone?

Tone in writing is similar to the mood or feel of the writing; it’s about the style in which a story is told. It’s the attitude of the writing. Some of this can come down to the topics dealt with, but it’s as much about how those topics are addressed.

Genre and target audience might inform tone, but there’s a lot of scope to play with even within those parameters. When you pick up a high fantasy novel you probably have certain expectations about the tone. There’s likely to be some formality to the writing, for example. But amounts of humour can vary enormously from one high fantasy book to another, and some high fantasy is quite gritty while some is far lighter to read.

Examples of tone in writing

Sometimes it’s easier to understand tone by looking at some concrete examples. These three are from the first chapters of their respective books:

Comedic

“Hannah glanced around as quickly and discreetly as possible, and then threw up in the bin. It had not been a good day. In fact, even though it wasn’t yet lunchtime, today stood out as one of the worst days of her life – or it would have, if it wasn’t for the fact there had been so many of them recently. Life had become one long stress dream she didn’t seem capable of waking up from.”

The Stranger Times, C. K. McDonnell

The Stranger Times is obviously written with a humerous tone. Following up the comment about being sick in the bin with ‘it had not been a good day’ feels like understatement, obviously for comic effect. The line about life being a stress dream is funny as well. It has a slightly darkly comic vibe to it. The language isn’t particularly complex or formal, keeping the tone relatable and friendly.

Poetic

“When I was born, the name for what I was did not exist. They called me nymph, assuming I would be like my mother and aunts and thousand cousins. Least of the lesser goddesses, our powers were so modest they could scarcely ensure our eternities. We spoke to fish and nurtured flowers, coaxed drops from the clouds or salt from the waves. That word, nymph, paced out the length and breadth of our futures. In our language, it means not just goddess, but bride.”

Circe, Madeline Miller

You can immediately identify the longer sentences and more flowery prose of Circe. This book’s tone is more formal. Words like ‘scarcely’ and ‘coaxed’ aren’t massively complicated, but they’re slightly more uncommon. There’s a poetry to the writing with the use of metaphor, ‘That word, nymph, paced out the length and breadth of our futures.’ There’s also a sense of pessimism here, so you know the tone won’t exactly be fluffy in this read.

Conversational

“We always seemed to be moving, always for the better, always to make our lives better, whatever. I couldn’t keep up with the emotional whiplash. I’d attended so many elementary schools and middle schools I couldn’t keep their names straight anymore, but this, this switching high schools all the time thing was really starting to make me want to die. This was my third high school in less than two years and my life seemed suddenly to comprise such a jumble of bullshit every day that sometimes I could hardly move my lips.”

A Very Large Expanse of Sea, Tahereh Mafi

The tone of A Very Large Expanse of Sea is far more informal. You can tell from the use of words like ‘whatever’ and ‘bullshit’ that the tone is completely different from the previous sample. There’s also more colloquial phrasing, ‘but this, this switching high schools…’ The tone is conversational, and frustrated.

How can you set the tone?

The most obvious answer is through your use of language. The way you describe a room can do a lot to set the tone – is it cosy or claustrophobic? Buzzing with conversation or full of meaningless chatter? Whenever you introduce a character, your choice of which traits to emphasise and how to describe them contributes to the tone the readers will experience.

Narrative perspective can also do a lot to create and affect tone. If you’re using first-person narration, and your protagonist is telling the story, that character’s outlook will have a massive impact on the tone. If they’re an optimist, your story’s tone will be lighter than if they’re determined to see the worst in everything.

How to use tone in your writing

Tone can be part of character development. This can be particularly effective when writing in the first person, but even if you’re writing in the third person you can use tone to reflect the journey your protagonist goes on throughout the book.

Tone in writing can also be used to either support or contrast your setting. If the environment your book is set in is very formal, a formal tone will reinforce this. On the other hand, a comedic or flippant tone will undercut that. If you’re writing a story to critique the kind of environment you’re using for your setting, for example, you may want to use a contrasting tone to play into that.

 Can tone change throughout a story?

Personally, this is where I think we get to the difference between mood and tone in writing. The mood of the story can and should change over the course of the plot. The mood might change within a scene, even within a single conversation between characters. A dramatic revelation might escalate tension – that’s a change in mood. A romantic confession could dramatically shift the mood of a scene. Comedic characters and dialogue can be used to lighten the mood of an otherwise heavy moment.

Tone, on the other hand, can develop, but shouldn’t go back and forth. A book might start out feeling light, developing into a darker tone as the stakes escalate for the characters. Or it might start out cynical, moving to something more hopeful as the narrative perspective shifts in response to the events of the story.

How do you use tone in writing?

Are you conscious of the tone you write in, or do you find it’s something that comes out naturally in your work? Have you ever tried to deliberately change your tone for a project? Share any tips for using tone in the comments!

You may also like:

• The advantages of close third-person perspective
• How to start and end a scene
• How to tighten up dialogue