5.3  Writing for Audience

      Good writers, like good dancers, can use different styles for different situations. When you are writing, the audience is the key: What are you trying to accomplish with that audience? If Deke decides to talk to his English teacher about the paper, his language will probably be a little different from what you saw in the previous scene, when he was talking to a friend.

      It's hard to find a simple definition of "style," but you might say style is a result of all the decisions you make as a writer. Think about style in clothing. Deciding what to wear on a given day takes more than one decision. You have to decide about hat, shoes, and everything between them. Your style in writing depends on a lot of decisions, too, but the two most important ones might be word choice and sentence structure. Another way to think of style is to think of voice what kind of personality comes through from the writing?

      Tone and voice are not the same. Tone is the attitude that lies behind the words. Has anyone ever said to you, "Don't use that tone with me"? If so, the person must have heard a disrespectful not in the words, but in the way the words were said. You know that you can say the words "School starts next week." in many different tones, depending on what your attitude is. You can describe tone in writing by using the same words you'd use to describe moods or emotion: happy, triumphant, sly, humorous, angry, fearful, and everything else.

      Be careful with interpreting tone in writing. How can you tell if tone is sincere or sarcastic? You can't see the speaker's face or hear the way the words are said, so some clues are missing. Context is important. If your family returns from an outing to find the kitchen flooded and the tap left on, someone might say, "What genius left the water running?" We know the tone is sarcastic and "genius" is used to mean its opposite, "idiot."

      Voice is related to tone, but is not the same thing. While tone reveals the attitude or emotions behind a particular word or sentence, voice is the personality that comes through from the whole writing. Voice includes more than emotion and attitude. It also includes authority. We might describe different voices as being speculative (suggesting or investigating), tentative (not really sure of himself or herself), authoritative ("This is the captain speaking."), and even arrogant, talking to you as if you don't know anything.

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