The Screenwriting Life with Meg LeFauve and Lorien McKenna 111 | Tone In Your Writing: The Definitive Episode (w/ Sheila Hanahan Taylor)
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Nov 11, 2022 AI Snips
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Tone Is A Strategic Attitude
- Tone is an intentional, strategic attitude that determines how you treat a subject to make audiences feel a specific way.
- Sheila frames tone as syntax, word choice, and a chosen attitude that guides cinematography, costume, and sound to amplify feeling.
Match Prose Rhythm To Tone
- Adjust sentence length, word choice, and syntax to match the tone you want—comedy uses different prose than action.
- Example: a comedy writer had to shorten sentences and drop comic words like "spleen" when switching to action.
Use Tone To Make Hard Topics Accessible
- Tone can be a deliberate choice to make difficult topics accessible by shaping audience emotion.
- Example: Promising Young Woman uses a bubblegum pop tone to lead viewers from surprise to outrage over a heavy topic.