The Tone Sets the Stage for a Story

As I have started and restarted writing my next story, I’ve been thinking a lot about tone. I want to make sure the mood for this new story is set. Actually, I’ve rewritten the first part of the first chapter a few times as I try to set the mood. I know what I want this story to be, and I needed to get the story started off with that tone.

Tone is very important to stories. It involves the words, dialogue, and details used in a story. I’ve thought back to many of the books I’ve read lately and in years past, and thought about the mood of those stories. Sometimes, the story may be told from the first person perspective an the protagonist lets the reader know almost immediately how they see life and exposes their prejudices. For me, one of the biggest things to help set the mood and the tone is through dialogue between characters.

In the same way dialogue can set the tone for a story, I think it can also set the tone for a real world interaction. If I’m positive in my interactions, even during frustrating or stressful moments, it has an effect on those around me. It sets the mood. Nothing happens quickly, especially when people change, but trying to be more positive in my interactions seems to make it easier for others. I find myself thinking about this a bit more in my new responsibilities in my day job. What mood am I wanting in my interactions? How can I influence that?

I’ve finally got a good start to the first chapter of my next novel, a fantasy novel. The mood is set, and now I can write it.

Check out some of my books on Amazon.

My latest book, Collected Lives, is now available on Amazon Kindle and as a paperback. Check it out. This story takes place near the end of the twenty-second century, with vacations and tourism to Earth by off-worlders controlled by major corporations. The largest corporation, Collected Lives, has several enemies. The story follows the events as four people from different portions of Collected Lives’ process are thrown into the middle of a larger problem.

My fantasy, A Map, a Mage, and a Sacrifice, is set in a world with limited technology, but where sacrifice is a necessary element to magical power. The greater the pain and suffering, the greater the magical power generated. The few mages in power use voluntary sacrifice of the citizens to generate power they use to protect and defend the empire. But their rule may be coming to a close.

Malignance, my third book in my time travel series that began with Resonance and Dissonance, is on Amazon as a kindle and a paperback. That was a fun series to write, and for now, it is completed. I have also placed all three books from that series into one volume titled The Machina of Time.

If you’re looking for a science fiction story, try my book The Promise of Dust, which takes place in a cloud city floating in the atmosphere of Venus. Or Progenitor’s Legacy: Deceit, which takes place many years in the future on a tidally locked world that orbits a red dwarf and has been reached by humanity in their search for the alien progenitors who seeded the galaxy with nano machines.

If a young adult science fiction is more to your liking, check out my series This New Earth, that starts with Demons of a Dead World and Secrets of a Dead World.

If you are looking for a young adult fantasy, check out my book The Threads Unbound.