Composition Resources
Establishing Tone In Your Writing
Christopher Blankenship
More than 100 years ago, Lev Kuleshov, a Soviet filmmaker, discovered that viewers interpreted an actor’s facial expression differently depending on what they were shown before it. They interpreted a man’s facial expression as showing hunger when paired with a steaming bowl of soup but as lustful when paired with a pretty woman on a couch. In fact, the shots of the actor were identical. We can see this in modern movies too. Leonardo DiCaprio’s intense stare seems distraught in Titanic, disturbed in Inception, and deranged in Shutter Island.
Similarly, the human voice is an amazing tool for conveying meaning with a flexibility we often take for granted. By changing small things in the sound of our voices, such as the pitch, the volume, or the length of the sounds, we can convey a wide variety of meaning, even when we use the same words. And that communication DOES happen, just like my mom tried to teach me when she would say “don’t take that tone with me!” in response to my teenaged “fine” and “whatever” comments.
Tone is how we let the people we communicate with know our attitude about our topic or even about the reader. It lets our reader know that we’re passionate, angry, interested, indifferent, or any other emotion about the topic of discussion. It also lets the reader know how we view them: as a novice or expert, interested or apathetic, respected or not. And we establish tone in a variety of ways using sight and sound.
When we communicate in person, we use our body language as well as the sound of our voice to convey meaning. We lean forward and make eye contact to tell someone we’re interested in the topic; we lean back to indicate disinterest; we cross our arms to show resistance; we smile to show that we’re supportive.[1] What may seem like a very simple in-person conversation is actually a very rich medium of communication where all of these elements work together to produce a specific effect.
Another filmmaking technique to establish tone is the reaction shot. Here, a director shows the audience how they should interpret the actions of the actors in the scene by having the background actors react in a certain way. During a marriage proposal, we know whether to be hopeful, worried, or angry depending upon how any friends or family in the background react to the event.
We can even see this effect in narrative writing. Novelist and screenwriter Steven Brust describes how he writes these types of reaction shots:
“He held out his arm, and she took it. Her friend glanced at them and gritted her teeth.”
vs.
“He held out his arm, and she took it. Her friend glanced at them, then looked away, suppressing a smile.”
The reaction of the friend in the first scene tells us as readers that we should feel frustrated or worried, whereas the second scene tells us we should feel happy or hopeful about the scene.
So, if tone is such a complex thing to build in media that are