Tone
Tone is the attitude a piece of writing expresses toward its subject and its reader. Tone is heard in word choice, sentence rhythm, and what the writer includes or leaves out — it’s the emotional register of the prose.
A medical report adopts a clinical tone. A eulogy adopts a solemn one. A satirical essay adopts an ironic one. In each case, the tone signals to the reader how to receive the information: with detachment, with grief, with skepticism. Getting the tone wrong — cracking a joke in a safety manual, or writing a love letter in bureaucratic language — doesn’t just sound off; it undermines the writing’s purpose.
Tone is distinct from voice. Voice is the writer’s characteristic sound across their work; tone is the attitude adopted for a specific piece or passage. A writer with a naturally dry voice can write in tones that range from comic to devastating — the dryness stays, but the attitude shifts.
In fiction, tone is shaped by the narrator. A first-person narrator’s tone reveals character — a bitter narrator and a generous narrator describe the same events differently. The gap between a narrator’s tone and the events they describe is one source of irony and unreliable narration.