Writing Excuses 20.30: Using Why To Shape Tone
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Jul 27, 2025 The discussion kicks off with the significance of tone in storytelling, highlighting its role in shaping emotional landscapes. The hosts explore how contrasting tones can enhance narratives, using vivid examples from various genres. Techniques for manipulating tone through word choice and sentence structure are dissected, offering valuable insights for writers. A creative exercise challenges listeners to rewrite a scene with differing emotional tones, encouraging deeper exploration of character interactions and reader perception.
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Tone as Emotional Beats
- Tone in fiction is primarily an emotional set of beats conveyed by prose, independent of genre.
- Contrasting tones, like horror with cheerfulness, can coexist to enrich storytelling.
Setting Tone Through Opening Scene
- Dan Wells opens his book "Partials" with the death of a baby to set a somber tone.
- This contrast with joyful characters highlights emotional complexity in a post-apocalyptic world.
Tone as Content and Style
- Tone in prose is a balance between content's emotional weight and phrasing's musical quality.
- Contrasting word tone and content tone creates engaging, nuanced storytelling.
