Craft Wednesday #14 Overflow of the Heart

This blog needed a place for talking about writing. "Craft Wednesday" will be me talking about all things writing: how to write, why to write, and my own craft journey. I hope to learn and to share experiences with you.  

Overflow of the Heart

Writers sometimes have to urge to write about some very specific event or about a strong, sometimes ambiguous, emotion. When writers write these deepest thoughts of their heart they speak to whomever will read their written words.

Sometimes people write for work, while at other times writers write because they must. It is a physician who wrote, “The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks” (Luke 6:45). In using words, a person broadcasts the contents of his core being.

Perhaps when a person speaks she is practicing lines or reading out a script; but when a person speaks without much prompting, with individual agendas that may or may not have anything to do with the subject matter, the individual speaks because her heart is overfull. The words spill over from her thoughts, emotions, and attitudes lying beneath the textured surface.

So it is that a great many things are revealed about an author in her writing. One of these features is the attitude the author has toward her subject and the attitude toward her audience, which interact to create tone.

Tone can be misread and misinterpreted more often than the meanings of specific words. Even skilled readers can mistake the author's attitude. Sometimes it is difficult to identify a tone because it is also difficult to determine how another person feels or thinks when one is having a live conversation with them, despite clues revealed by body language and other unspoken communication. In written work the specific words and the way they are presented provide subtle clues to the tone of a piece. 

A tone can be sarcastic, jovial, nostalgic, mournful, scolding, etc. A writer may write in a sarcastic tone if she has a negative attitude toward the subject and if she trusts her audience is intelligent enough to notice the ridiculous yet sour words used in an attitude of fake favor. A celebratory tone shows that the author is happy about the subject and either wants to express or cannot help but express that joy to what she believes is a sympathetic audience.

Possible, too, is the writer believing that her audience is comprised of imbeciles, and she may toy with them by using puns and ambiguous words that she believes are out of their understanding. She could also try to flatter them with phrases such as "Intelligent people know that" and "It is obvious" so as to persuade them that her view is the best, the right, or the only way of thinking about a subject.

A writer with a pessimistic attitude will carry that attitude into her writing. A lighthearted attitude with sharp words may be mimicked, but with a deeper attitude of scorn or irreverence the general effect will be one of mockery.

 At its core, the tone of a piece is influenced by the author’s thoughts and feelings toward the subject of her writing. It is possible to understand an author's deepest thoughts and intentions, although not foolproof. Grave errors may be made by even the most skilled readers. Communication is not only thoughts, nor purely good or bad intentions, but all the subtle ways in which those thoughts are expressed.