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Q&A What do you think about having very different tones in a single story?

You could get away with drastically different tones if you had two different POV narrators. If one is Tina Fey and the other is Sylvia Plath, they will of course see the world differently. The cont...

posted 9y ago by Lauren Ipsum‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Answer
#4: Attribution notice removed by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-13T12:00:30Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/18077
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T04:25:43Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/18077
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by (deleted user) · 2019-12-08T04:25:43Z (almost 5 years ago)
You _could_ get away with drastically different tones if you had two different POV narrators. If one is Tina Fey and the other is Sylvia Plath, they will of course see the world differently. The contrast will probably make your book lean more towards humor/dark humor/satire, so as long as you're okay with that, give it a shot.

This is not the same as a lighter passage in a bleak book or a dramatic scene in a funny book. We're talking about entirely different tone, vocabulary, and imagery.

I would not have a third-person limited or omniscient narrative voice which changes from Fey to Plath without explanation. The whiplash would be off-putting.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2015-07-08T14:12:24Z (over 9 years ago)
Original score: 2