The First Five Pages: Tone

Well, it has taken me awhile to get to the exercises in this chapter. I suppose doing a quick reno of my ms as well as spending a few days unable to sit anywhere near 45 degrees without the risk of ruining my keyboard with tossed cookies took a toll on my Lukeman writing overhaul.

But, I’m back on the exercise bus. (The writing kind, not the body kind.) Don’t even make me think of the circuit class I missed yesterday nor all the Words of the Day backed up in my inbox or the list of words I’ve written down that I haven’t looked up. There are an impressive amount of words out there that I cannot define.

Tone is interesting as it differs from sound and style, but they all work together to give the read a general, overall feeling. Tone is incredibly important, if you ask me. Tone is what can turn you on or off a book.

Anyway, I tried re-writing my first page in different tones. Happy, angry, sad, and nostalgic (a bit tricky in a dialogue-heavy page written in first person, present tense). It was interesting because as my character went through different emotions as she tried to figure out what was going on in the scene, I found that I either had to change a lot or very little to make it change to the tone I was applying like a coat of paint. It’s amazing how changing one word can change the tone. It is so subtle and easy to affect. It makes me want to write a checklist to refer to before I write a scene. What is the tone? What is character feeling? Who is the character? What are they trying to accomplish? Where are they? How does it feel? Smell? What is the purpose? Where is this scene taking the character? The book? Except of course, my checklist would be a mile long and I would never actually get the word on the page.

Then I tried writing in the omniscient point of view. Ugh. It would be so hard to not let everything out of the bag. I wanted to explain EVERYthing, just because I could. Silly, I know. It makes me think that, yes, I think I did pick the best point of view for this particular piece as well as my style.

So there you have it.
Know what I hate? I hate the f**king, ‘put the toys away’ song. Never heard it? You are damned lucky. It has an awful tune and goes like this: It’s time to put the toys away, toys away, toys away. Who is helping?

It. Gets. On. My. Nerves.

Wanna hear my version? It goes like this: It’s time to put the cross away, cross away, cross away. Who is guilting?