What sort of things do you do to set the tone of a piece? And also how do you stay consistent with said tone? I've been playing around with taking a light tone to a sad story or a serious tone to a more absurd or silly story. It's interesting how the tone or voice of the narrator can be used to shift a more typical reading response. I was going to say that this contrast seems to work best in third person, but I'm not so sure that's actually true. What are your thoughts on this? And what do see you as the benefit to approaching a story with this sort of contrast between narrative voice and subject matter?
Playing around with tones works quite well. Two prominent examples that come to mind: The movie Airplane is a cult classic where they didn't only shoot for a serious tone despite all the silliness, but went as far as to only hire actors who hadn't ever been in a comedy before. Besuch der alten Dame/The Visit is another long-time classic where a surreal morbid/dark story is set in a comedic & silly tone to create tragicomedy. An interesting bit for both those examples is that they start don't start with the tone, but with the story. I wonder if that's largely universal for tones that defy the story. First chapter is vital, first scene and even first words - as those will spark the first impression which can later be subverted (or adhered to). The HP books are an interesting bit here because they're often referred to as an example of a series' tone gradually turning darker and darker - I disagree there, because the first scene in both the books and the movies sets a tone we see in the post-Voldemort narrative. It's not a gradual change, but a return to the beginning (which was set right after the Wizarding war and Voldemort's fall, of course). Consistency is important. I loathe having slapstick humour interjected in otherwise serious stories - it doesn't fit and detracts from the narrative. Occasional laugh works only when it is consistent with the tone; Hollywood's weird clinging to comic relief characters is a good example for this because they have everything from disastrous characters (Jar-jar Binx) to enjoyable relief (Ragetti & Pintel) regardless of what tone they want to hit. The opposite of a comic relief (a serious character in a comedic story) is ill-advised, they're generally perceived as "edgy". Keep the tone consistent with the characters; but characters can also contrast the narrative.
Pretty much all tone and voice usually derives from character. You can have plenty of lightness and even levity, in a deadly serious novel, by having a viewpoint character who in some ways yields to that.
One book starts out with this.. Dark clouds punctuated a bleak lifeless sky that was as obtrusive in its heat as it was in its smog. A large dog barked at John as he jogged across the barren parking lot to the safety of his car. The other like this.. Children ran across a field dotted with intermittent patches fresh clover. Playful dogs found their colorful balloons hard to resist and gave chase. John spread out a blanket and took off his shirt. Winning the Powerball Jackpot earlier in the day sure was nice.
I believe tone accumulates through word choice. Rewriting the passage on another day can change the tone. If we consciously control it, we can do things like editing out emotional negativity, or inserting humour, but to produce a certain tone: trial and error
Even though this thread is a few months old, this is something I regularly find myself playing around with. And the thread seems to have got more attention now than when it first was up. I'm thinking now that the narrative distance has a lot to do with the constancy and also setting the tone. What do you think? @evild4ve -- I do agree that our word and language choices can have a lot to do with it. I think sometimes people forget how important the actual language is. I would argue it's more so important than anything else when it comes to the voice and tone of our writing. However, @Gary Wed, I'm not sure I'm on the same page as you that it all comes from character. I do think it's important to produce character-driven works given the current demands of the market, but what I was talking about here was creating a contrast and I do believe this is really only something that can be achieved through the language. Also, I was predominately talking about writing in third person. In my writing I can't say it's the characters setting the tone (or voice in third person). Of course, our characters are the meat of any story, but I don't see them as the creators of tone in a piece unless it's first person because then the language and everything is filtered through a person, but then it might be harder to obtain the contrast I was talking about.
Let me try to reconcile this, if I may make the feble attempt. Consider 1st person, wherein the voice of the narrative is clearly that of the viewpoint character, and the viewpoint is assumed to be the person of personal interest (not the author, but the actor assumed by the author). Move forward to omniscient 3rd writing, which is definitely a range of approaches. In most cases of omniscience, at least in the portion of narrative assumed by the god-like actor, it is a person. That person assumes the narrative bias and tone. If we are speaking about limited omniscience, the omniscient CHARACTER hands the limited view to someone else (think The Stand by Stephen King). That actor assumes view, or the entire window into the work. Everything is left, right, up, down, forward or behind that limited viewpoint actor, and the narrative assumes that person's bias, meaning it assumes words, phrases, consideration, narrowed limited interests. If this is done, the narrative adds interest and credibility and we become vested in the actor that is our limited view. Move forward the pure limited or multi-limited work (about half of all genre fiction, today). In that, I'm not going to walk into a bar and see or feel or care about everything. I'm going to see the veiwpoint actor's wife carrying on with the rogue across at the seats in the corner under the dartboard. I'm going to express my NARRATIVE language relative to that actor and his bias. The world narrows to present theme, attitude, tone, the works, all carried by a narrative that has the feel of character bias. Voice, theme, tone, language, all follows from character. If not, it's the writer raising above the work, which is also an option, but one I'd prefer not to read.
I think you answered your own question, to a great extent. When in view, the narration generally ought to reflect all the attitudes, beliefs, absurdities, biases, etc., of the viewpoint character, and thus VOICE emerges and through that we get tone. In fact, whenever I write a humorous novel, the only thing I care about is the viewpoint actor. We are all full of humor requiring nothing added to our simple view of things. It's just one more example of view being everything in writing. Having said that, I disagree about 3rd person having more possibilities here than 1st. In fact, most of my writing is either limited 3rd or 1st person, and by limited 3rd I mean the same viewpoint actor for the entire book, begging the question, why not 1st. If I have a truly odd character, particularly if they are unreliable, I want to be 1st person, and this is almost the same thing as saying that I am shifting voice and tone to reflect someone out of step with the world around her.
I do think I'm talking about using narrative distance to create a tone that is unexpected or unusual for a given story. The tragic events juxtaposed to a careless or indifferent tone in the narration. My story in question in omni, but in keeping with the narrative distance there is no dropping into characters heads or anything. I don't believe that an omni narrator needs to know what characters are thinking. There are other ways to bring that out. I've tried to stay consistent with this throughout the story. I know stories are always about character, but I've omitted the internal thoughts and makeups of my characters for this piece. Again, I've come to the conclusion that setting a tone that juxtaposes the narrative in an unusual way has a lot to do with narrative distance. My narrator is not a character and not representing a character. My story would not work the same if that was the case. I haven't had much trouble maintaining the narrative distance, but I can imagine running into a tough spot or two. Does anyone here have trouble maintaining narrative distance in their stories or have any tips or tricks to make sure it stays consistent? How much narrative distance to you and to use? I think using narrative distance might be the only way to pull off a sad story in a more silly tone and vice versa. At least the way I'm viewing this that seems to be the case. I would love to hear your thoughts on how narrative distance can effect such apexes of a story like tone. Here, in my story, I've created an uneasiness that the narrator shares with the reader but not the characters. Have any of you used narrative distance to create something similar?
I did a submission ages ago, it was either to Strange Horizons or Metaphorosis, can't remember which, and I got shot down. (Typical for a pro pub . . .) But I did get to talk to one of the senior editors and what they wanted. What they told me was contrary to what every writing book had recommended, and that was that they wanted to be less in the character's head, not more. They wanted the story shown more from afar. That's when I really started focusing on narrative distance. It cost me a good sale, so I'd better try to figure it out. It really threw me for a loop at the time. I mean, deep POV is still held up as the goal, but not every story needs that. It sounds like you're already up on this. I'm just framing my own discovery of narrative distance. Anyway, so what I do these days is define the narrator. Even if the narrator is the MC, they can exist as a separate entity. For example, To Kill a Mockingbird is narrated by Scout, but it's Scout from the future, so she knows more than the MC, who is also her, and so she can look around corners and make insights that her child self would never have. She can step away from the action and instead of inner dialog you get future dialog. Things like that. (Trembley does the exact same trick in "Head Full of Ghosts" as a modern example. The narrator is the MC from the future.) It's easy to set up the distance once you know exactly who the narrator is. You have to figure out the "when and where" of the narrator. That plays with tenses a lot. I mean, you can state the story in 1st-person present tense, but the narrator can still be looking back and can present it with a remove. Picture Grandpa rocking in his chair, recounting a story as if it's happening that moment. Similarly, you can have past tense, but the narrator can be mentioning it seconds or even years later. You have to define that narrator and lock them in. In a normal story you won't shift from that defined narrator. * You have voice and preconceptions of the narrator too, coloring it all, and that's a separate issue but it also gets addressed with the same forethought. If you make character notes, include the narrator in those notes. tldr: I guess my recommendation is to really solidify who the narrator is, even if they're an all-knowing presence, and where they're speaking from. Once it's defined, don't waver from it. * in a normal story . . . of course you could switch around narrators for fun and effect
I have no idea of the specifics, but my first impulse is that you learned the wrong lesson, here, and perhaps because they were not clear enough. Let me start by saying that I tend to favor very close limited 3rd or 1st person in my own writing. At the same time, I have never been told that I spend too much time in the head because I decidedly do not. There is a misconception that close limited 3rd writing means lots of head time (extreme subjectivity). In fact, you can be absolutely lock-step in view, as close as humanly possible, and even be writing the work objectively. Now, I'm not saying that we ought to write objectively, but I am saying that good close limited 3rd work is not defined by how much of a head dump we indulge. It has to do, instead, with absolutely everything else. Viewpoint is god, so indulge me a moment. How do we know that we are in view, and more importantly, why would it matter, one way or the other, if we chose to be in view? Is it just that we are allowed to be in the head? What about the voice of the work? What of those things that the reader is introduced to and made to notice? In most works of note, the voice of the work is largely influenced by the view. Voice relates to what we see, how we see it, our bias and attitude about it. Every word and phrase matter while in voice. Our actors will speak a certain way, mention those things that matter, act upon them as result of who they are. So, VIEW influences all three of the biggies: Dialogue, action and internal narrative. We will find the heavy hand of our viewpoint actor in every single phase of the work, even if that person never once directly thinks. That's the true goal of close limited 3rd, not added head dumping. When a publisher says that there is too much thinking, they mean exactly that. Read nothing into it. It's clear as a bell. AND, it has nothing to do with distance at all...maybe.
Spitballing, I wonder if they have that preference out of an intent to maintain a somewhat alien sense between the reader and the POV to get the right feel for speculative fiction. In other words, they don't want him to be too easy to relate to: the audience might forget the protagonist is in another world. This, albeit tangentially, reminds me of sci-fi (I'm simple, so Robocop) that intentionally contains humour the audience would not find funny, but the characters do. I'd buy that for a dollar...
