Why “tone” is important:
Tone = Framing
Framing is in its essentials a way of choosing the right words, the “tone” to convey your point in a way that will convince people to agree with you.
One of the key things I want my writing students to come away from my class with is the importance of using their prose to tune the mood of the piece to match the message. This translates directly from fiction into politics or any other place where convincing the reader or listener is important. If I say something so rudely that I cause my allies to walk away, I’ve made a substantial mistake. If one looks at history one can see all too many examples of alliances broken by tone.
So, if you don’t care about tone, you don’t care about winning.
More on the flip
Talk to any professional writer or any professional salesman and you will get a further earful on the importance of tone to making your case.
Tone is the difference between making the sale and making an enemy.
Tone is the difference between “blame game,” and “accountability.”
Tone is “STFU” vs, “please be quiet”
Tone is “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” vs. “things were mixed.”
Tone is “Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this our sun of York,” vs “My brother’s victory made me feel good.”
Bill Clinton is a master of tone. John Kerry is not. The results are obvious.
I didn’t put this into the main diary, because I think it takes away from the starkness of the message, but it’s relevant to the point of the diary. It comes from a discussion with one of my fellow writers where I was trying to emphasize the importance of voice. In this case, voice and tone are pretty much interchangeable.
The single most important element of fiction is storytelling. And that can be broken down into having a good story to tell and telling it in a compelling way, i.e. strong voice. Voice is one of the more difficult aspects of craft to master, and the vast majority of writers begin by copying someone else’s voice.
There are series of steps where it comes to voice which most professional writers must pass through on their way to mastery.
Amen. I find it very hard when I am angry and frustrated to be less of tone than that of real content. That is where we are now in America, or at least I think it is.
Very interesting diary, as a long time writer I have struggled long with finding my voice in writings, humor is difficult as well.
I would add to this reg. salesman, revelant message is important as well. As an antique dealer who had an opportunity to witness many other antique dealers in their selling mode, have seen many a sale lost because the ‘sales person’ strayed off message to other topics and the buyer simply lost interest in the purchase. I think this holds true in many areas including politics.