Tone

An Element of Fiction

Tone is an elusive fictional element, a little hard to pin down and keep still long enough to examine. But, thankfully, some writers and teachers of the craft have pondered it and shared their thoughts.

Madison Smartt Bell is one of them, “Tone. It is what the story sounds like; analogous to tone of voice in ordinary conversation, which often does more to convey the mood of the speaker than does the actual content of the speech.”

And the ever-ready-to-enlighten-Jacques Barzun, “Tone — that is the starting point of any teaching in composition. What effect are you producing and at what cost of words? The fewer the words, and the more transparent they are, the easier they will be to understand.”

He elaborates, “Both tone and words are the manifestation of an attitude. Whether put on or unstudied or (in most cases) half-conscious, the attitude inspires the choice of words, affects the length and rhythm of the sentences, and produces an impression that the reader always takes as deliberately aimed at him. He responds to the atmosphere, and from it pictures the personality of the writer, or at least his professional type. That is why tones can be characterized by such terms as: journalistic, novelistic, legalistic, pedantic, patronizing, arrogant, smart-aleck, shuffling — and as many others as the writing itself puts into our minds.”

The Oxford Dictionary chimes in with a great definition: “Tone is a style of speech or writing regarded as reflecting a person’s mood, attitude, or personality; it’s a mood or attitude conveyed by an author’s style.” [My italics]

“The omniscient narrator never speaks colloquially,” says Flannery O’Connor. “This is something it has taken me a long time to learn myself. Every time you do you lower the tone.”

“The choice of point(s) of view, the voice in which one narrates one’s story, can make an immense difference to the tone, the effect, even the meaning of the story,” advises Ursula K. Le Guin

And back to Barzun, “The best tone is the tone called plain, unaffected, unadorned. It does not talk down or jazz up; it assumes the equality of all readers likely to approach the given subject; it informs or argues without apologizing for its task; it does not try to dazzle or cajole the indifferent; it takes no posture of coziness or sophistication. It is the most difficult of all tones, and also the most adaptable. When you can write plain you can trust yourself in special effects.”

How about Walt Witman? “The art of art, the glory of expression is simplicity. Nothing is better than simplicity. Nothing can make up for excess or for the lack of definiteness.”

Barzun agrees, “To achieve the plain, even tone recommended by Whitman and Mark Twain, the first requisite is sincerity; the second is a distinct thought.”

Writer and teacher Philip Gerard has this to say, “Word choice, selection, and arrangement of parts — especially juxtaposition — contribute to tone. If writing has a morality, it is expressed in tone.

“Even when you think you are being neutral, your fiction is projecting an attitude, even if it is an attitude by default. Pay attention to this. If the attitude, the tone, creates an effect different from the one you intended, change it.”

Vladimir Nabokov observes, “The more gifted and talkative one’s characters are, the greater the chances of their resembling the author in tone or tint of mind.”

Back again to Barzun, “Consistency is the prerequisite of tone. Tone need not always be uniform but it can be harshly broken by the occurrence of an ill-assorted word or phrase. The aptest words, if not sustained by good linking, good sense, and good rhythm, will lack unity of tone. The impression given will be incoherent, and the atmosphere — possibly well-established and pleasurable at the start — will dissipate.”

I come down on the side of Barzun when he advises us to write as simply and as clearly as we can, that will allow the reader to fall through the page and into the story and there create his own tones and emotions.

© Wolfstuff