Maintaining consistent tone is important for the readability and marketability of your script. Everything about your screenplay- from the style and formatting, to the dialogue and structure-is designed to draw the reader in, engage them, and make them feel the story is coming to life. The reader, like the eventual viewer, needs to relate to the hero and feel they are experiencing the story through that hero’s eyes. Anything-from poor spelling, an incorrectly formatted slug line, a lack of description or stilted, unnatural dialogue-will break the spell and remind the reader that they are just reading a screenplay and not immersed in the world you have created. Breaking tone will do this instantly. Tone can be a hard concept to understand, but it is a vital part of crafting a quality story.
Tone, in this context, refers to the atmosphere and feeling created within the story. Tone is related to the genre as well as the writer’s own unique voice and style. Horror, as a genre, requires a certain dark, ominous, creepy tone, but depending on the writer and the specific story, the tone may also leave room for some irony and laughs, as in Jennifer’s Body or Shaun of the Dead, or have religious commentary and undertones, as in The Exorcist, Rosemary’s Baby, or Stigmata, or be psychologically based, as in The Shining orThe Silence of the Lambs. In all of these instances, despite the slight variations, a certain tone is a requirement of the genre, and breaking that tone through incongruent elements will remind the reader that he or she is just reading a screenplay. They’ll stop being scared with the characters, stop turning the pages, and stop caring about who’s going to die next. In a horror movie, a creepy, scary tone must be maintained at all times. Nothing should be inserted into the story that makes everything seem okay, or not that scary, or no big deal. Everyone’s life is at stake, and this necessitates an intense, ominous and suspenseful tone. Signs and War of the Worlds stop being scary the moment we realize how easily the aliens can be defeated. Those revelations break tone, we stop being scared, and the whole world of the story, the whole premise around which the film is based, comes crashing down and ruins the experience.
An action-packed thriller must also maintain a certain tone consistently. There is wiggle room, as in horror, for a little humor or sex, but if things get too light, too slow, or too easy, the tone is broken and the story falters. Humor is fine, but often I see writers devolving into comic-book based cartoonish violence and gags when the tone should be serious and realistic. If you’re writing a gritty police murder-mystery thriller there’s no room for the characters to slip on a banana peel or hit the bad guy with a frying pan. Witty banter is fine, but slapstick is not and completely breaks tone.
The best way to familiarize yourself with the right tone for the genre you are writing in is to read screenplays and watch films of that genre. Immerse yourself in all the different takes on the genre and you’ll see that within all of the myriad ways writers have brought the genre to life, there is always a certain tone associated with the genre. When tone is broken, the reader is taken out of experiencing the story and reminded that they are reading a poorly written screenplay. And that is something you never want your reader to realize.
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