Tone is a funny thing. Words spoken in a light tone can convey playfulness, but the same words in a serious tone can convey anger, fear, or even a threat. This holds true for actions as well—playfully chasing someone looks and feels different than chasing someone to cause them harm.
Too-flippant characters in a serious novel might undermine the danger and lesson then tension. Characters who never laugh or behave too seriously can turn a light-hearted comedy into melodrama. Even the words we use to describe the setting can send the wrong message if the tone conflicts with the scene (and that’s not the intent).
One of my favorite examples of this is in recut movie trailers.
Simply changing the music turns a comedy into a drama, a horror story into a love story, or a fun adventure into a serious thriller. It’s genius how the creators of these trailers recut and rearrange them to achieve a very different effect than the original movie.
When you picture Mary Poppins, odds are you imagine funny songs, dancing penguins, and a stern-yet-sweet Julie Andrews. But watch what happens when a lovable nanny and catchy tunes are reworked with a much darker undertone:
Quite the difference. Now, those foggy London streets are foreboding and you don’t want that woman anywhere near your children. It’s the same footage with a sinister tone, and it portrays an entirely different movie.
Even dark and sinister can change tones and come across as something touching and sweet, as in this fantastic recut of The Shinning:
Between the music and the new narration framing the story, this horror movie seems like a touching love story about healing and friendship. It even makes Jack Nicholson look like a lovable guy.
It doesn’t always take a huge shift in tone to change the feel of a story, however. Take this recut of Raiders of the Lost Arc as a Bourne-style thriller:
Same images, but the fun, adventure aspect is missing (and the great Indiana Jones theme). Any sense of a delightful treasure hunt is gone, and we’re left with a much darker version of the quest for the lost arc.
If you think some stories just can’t be changed by tone, try this recut of Pall Blart: Mall Cop as a Die Hard-style thriller:
If a different tone can turn Kevin James into Bruce Willis, any story can be affected by changing the tone.
Music plays a huge role in these trailers, and description and word choice in a novel works the same way. Setting a dark scene with light images can create the tone that turns The Shinning into Shining.
(Here's more on setting tone and mood in your scenes)
Pay attention to what tone you’re creating in your scenes, and make sure the images and words you use reflect the tone you want to convey. Because the wrong tone can turn that sweet romance into a story about a creepy stalker.
What tone is your novel? Have you even read a novel where the tone felt off or wrong?
Find out more about setting and description in my book, Fixing Your Setting & Description Problems.
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step-by-step through setting and description-related issues, such as
weak world building, heavy infodumping, told prose, awkward stage
direction, inconsistent tone and mood, and overwritten descriptions.
Learn how to analyze your draft, spot any problems or weak areas, and
fix those problems. With clear and easy-to-understand examples, Fixing Your Setting & Description Problems offers five self-guided workshops that target the common issues that make readers stop reading. It will help you:
- Choose the right details to bring your setting and world to life
- Craft strong descriptions without overwriting
- Determine the right way to include information without infodumping
- Create compelling emotional layers that reflect the tone and mood of your scenes
- Fix awkward stage direction and unclear character actions
Available in paperback and ebook formats.
Janice Hardy is the award-winning author of the teen fantasy trilogy The Healing Wars, including The Shifter, Blue Fire, and Darkfall from Balzer+Bray/Harper Collins. The Shifter, was chosen for the 2014 list of "Ten Books All Young Georgians Should Read" from the Georgia Center for the Book. She also writes the Grace Harper urban fantasy series for adults under the name, J.T. Hardy.
When she's not writing novels, she's teaching other writers how to improve their craft. She's the founder of Fiction University and has written multiple books on writing.
Dramatic changes in those movies, however, shouldn't there be flexibility in tone so the story is more interesting? I am working on a historic drama but reading this post, I, now, wonder if I should insert a few, very few, lighter scenes, maybe even a little comic.
ReplyDeleteOf course. Too much of any one thing can get tedious after a while. But there's a difference between a lighter moment in a dark tale and a light tone that's supposed to convey dark and scary. Using the opposite tone can work to show contrast, or tweak emotions, make a point, etc. Just like a soundtrack influences how a viewer experiences the emotions in a movie, tone and mood influence the emotions of the reader.
DeleteI've experienced this having someone else edit my writing and vice versa. Even a single word can completely change the same sentence.
ReplyDeleteI love doing that. It's like magic. I wave my writer's wand, and with no effort, bam -- the entire paragraph or even scene takes on an entirely different feel.
Those trailers are hilarious. This is a great post!
Thanks! I'm always amazed at how a single word can change things. It's so cool, and really shows the power of language.
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