What is Tone?

One of the main things that separates creative writing from non-fiction or analytical writing is the use of language to create:

• moods,
• feelings,
• atmosphere and
• more vivid images of things.

Descriptive words are vital to your creative writing question in the exam, and can make the difference between a bland, detached piece of writing and a story which conjures up strong images and feelings in the reader.

A good exercise to improve your use of descriptive words is this:

1. Find a newspaper article (newspaper articles are often fairly plain and objective, with little use of adjectives).

2. Starting at the beginning, go through each sentence and try adding in descriptive words that "show" what has happened rather than just "telling". It won't end up looking like a proper newspaper report, but it's a good way to practise adding descriptive words to sentences to create feeling and colour!

For example:

"A recent surge in armed robberies has left the community of River Bend in shock. Local authorities say that they are looking for a man of short stature and red hair, who was last seen in the general store on Ronald Street. Residents are advised to lock their doors at night and keep an eye on children."

And with descriptive words added, it may look like this:

"A sudden, recent surge in violent armed robberies has left the sleepy rural community of River Bend in shock. Local authorities say that they are looking hard for a dwarfish man with flaming auburn hair who was last seen in the well-loved general store on historic Ronald Street. Residents are advised to lock their doors securely at night and keep a watchful eye on children."

While it is now a bit extravagant for a newspaper article, this demonstrates the powerful effect that the use of descriptive words can have on your writing.

What to avoid

When using descriptive words, it’s important to avoid the following:

• Overuse – you can overwhelm the reader
• Wrong context – the emotion intended to be created can be disrupted. For example, if you’re talking about someone being happy, you would not describe them as ‘grimacing’. A subtle difference would be that if your character is timid, you wouldn’t describe them as ‘stomping’ around.

The words you select have the power to enhance your tone or can create confusion and frustration in your reader.

How to create tone

Creating tone is easy.

It’s a combination of using descriptive words (in moderation) and "showing" what something looks like, how something sounds, smells or feels like.

Tone is also very much demonstrated through application. So, let’s see how we can create tone in writing.

Examples

Watch video to see worked example/s for the following:

I was running.

Re-write this sentence (using descriptive words and the senses) to create a tone of:

• Fear
• Anger
• Joy
• Disgust
• Sadness

Key Rules to remember:

• Create tone using descriptive language and the senses of touch, sound, smell, or sight.
• Don’t overuse descriptive language.
• Don’t use words that conflict with one another. Consider whether the word used enhances or reduces the tone.

Practice time!

Now, it's your turn to practice.

The questions in this checkpoint are provided to help you develop your writing skills.

To do your practice questions, click on the below to download your question paper. You can print it out or work from the electronic version. We do recommend that you write your answers by hand in a notebook or on paper.

NW-CP13-Questions.pdf

Once you have completed your questions, review the suggested solutions. You can download (and print if you wish) the PDF suggested solutions and/or watch the suggested solutions video (all below).

Once you're done with reviewing the practice question suggested solutions, move on to the next checkpoint.

NW-CP13-Answers.pdf

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