Tone and mood · Year 13
Tone is the writer's attitude towards the subject: angry, enthusiastic, sympathetic, humorous. Mood is the feeling a text creates in the reader: calm, joyful, tense, sad. Both are built by the writer's choice of words.
Key facts
- Mood comes from the setting, the senses and the pace: Rain dripped from the grey sky feels sad; Sunlight danced on the waves feels joyful.
- Short sentences, sharp verbs and darkness build tension: A door creaked. Silence. Then footsteps.
- Soft sounds, slow verbs and gentle adjectives build calm: A gentle breeze drifted over the still lake.
- Tone shows in the writer's word choice: It is outrageous that… (angry), What a fantastic idea! (enthusiastic), It must be so hard for… (sympathetic).
- To describe tone or mood, name it with a precise adjective and quote the words that create it.