Reader Question: What are some tips on striking the right tone in a script?

Atlanta asks:

Any tips on tone? What I’m most intimidated by, strikes me as what you most gain through experience (and if Diablo Cody didn’t nail the tonal shift in Jennifer’s Body to folks’ satisfaction, what hope do I have, esp as a newbie?).

Does tone entirely spring from genre? Is it tempo? Is it emotion?

If my story has lots of action, some humor, some violence, some love, how can I make sure the tone is melodious in all the ways it needs to be?

Any and all savvy appreciated. Thank you, Scott!

This is a critical critical. Let me start by making this point re your Jennifer’s Body reference.

I break movies into three categories: (1) Genre: Straight ahead movies squarely in a genre (e.g., Action, Comedy, Thriller). (2) Cross Genre: Movies with substantial narrative elements of two or more genres (e.g., Action-Comedy, Drama-Thriller). (3) Sub-Genre: Specific story type within a genre (e.g., Action Adventure, Romantic Comedy).

In a movie like Jennifer’s Body, whatever issues some viewers may have had related to disjunctive tone are not about the tone per se, but rather about the attempted conjunction of genres. If you go to the movie’s IMDB page, the genres listed are Comedy / Horror. Why do we not see too many of these type of movies? Because it’s really hard to pull off a story that is both really scary and really funny. Zombieland is an example that worked. One reason why I think most people responded more favorably to that movie (7.8 IMDB rating) compared to Jennifer’s Body (5.2 IMDB rating) is that with Zombieland, the writers created a post-apocalyptic world where zombies have taken over the United States. The premise not only lends itself to humor, it creates more of a fantasy environment that has one more level of distance between the movie world and the real world. This gives the filmmakers latitude to have more fun as the rules of that universe are different our ‘normal’ rules.

But back to the larger point, on the whole scary and funny are a challenge to mesh. Yes, it can be done, it’s just harder than other types of cross genre movies.

So if tone shifts were an issue in Jennifer’s Body, it’s not so much about the tone, as the disjunction of genres.

That object lesson provides a segue for me: Tone has to be grounded in the genre. And here we get into a subject I’ve covered before: Narrative Voice. A screenplay has an invisible character: That is the attitude of the writer toward the story as reflected in style. I even have a formula for it:

Genre + Style = Narrative Voice.

As you immerse yourself in your story universe, get to know the characters, become familiar with some of the themes you want to explore, and the emotional plot of the story as well, my guess is the appropriate tone will emerge along with your Narrative Voice. 

Balancing action, humor, violence, love, that requires you creating a consistent attitude toward the story. You must be clear about what genre(s) you are writing and as your Narrative Voice emerges, that should pretty much take care of it. 

If you do not have a clear sense of your story’s genre(s) or Narrative Voice, then what can happen is the action in this scene or the humor in that one will tend to dominate the moment, a case of the tail wagging the dog. Those specific narrative elements should all be subordinate to an overriding Narrative Voice you bring to the entire story.

My two cents. Happy to read other’s comments.

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