The most important quality in writing is tone. There. I said it.
It’s true, and here’s why: tone is such a significant part of writing style, it tends to rule everything around it.
Tone determines structure. Tone accentuates subject matter. Tone focuses message. It really does make everything else better (or worse).
When you’re writing, consider tone first. Before you start. In the outline stages. What will happen is this: you’ll end up creating a message with more purpose and feeling, something that speaks to your audience in a way that isn’t possible if you ignore it.
When I first started writing here on the Matterhorn blog, I swore probably once or twice each post. But that hasn’t happened in a long time. The reason? I don’t swear much. It wasn’t sustainable in the blog because it wasn’t natural for me. And while that would be fine in a piece for one of our partners, where we take information and match tone to it, it doesn’t work here.
So the tone of the writing here, to continue the example, is very informal. The point is for Pat and I to be ourselves, and write about whatever happens to make our brains itch. The tone fits us, and Matterhorn, exactly.
It wouldn’t work for an insurance company. In fact, it would do a lot of damage to an insurance company’s credibility to have a really informal tone. That seems obvious, but think about how far it goes. In our example, informal tone also means truncated sentences and short paragraphs. So it links directly to structure. It would be next to impossible to talk about insurance this way, so the subject matter is compromised. And when those fall apart, the message is lost on the audience.
It’s worth it to write in your notes the tone you’re looking for. There are tons of ways to describe it. Light, dark, wordy, brief, grave, silly, funny, serious, direct, oblique, strong, soft, and on and on. Be specific, because you can’t really overthink it. It’s that important.
Tone connects everything you want to say to your audience. Spend some time, for both your sakes, and examine not just what you want to say, but how you’re going to sound when you say it.
Tags: blogs, content, content marketing, Copywriting, writing