In nonfiction writing, and maybe one could make a case about fiction writing as well, the most important thing to remember is audience. We all want to express ourselves, and some writers have even argued that you should write for yourself, but that’s BS—truly it is. Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin is not going to end The Winds of Winter with the revelation that all that came before was just a fever dream by Twilight Sparkle. We write for an audience, and we should see them in our head like a “ghostly crowd” (Hancock, p.70).
Connected to understanding your audience is recognizing and shaping the tone of your piece. Establishing a tone is really establishing the relationship you want to have with your readers. Are you going to lecture them for 20 minutes like a teacher? Are you sharing a story with a friend? Do you just want to rant at them, not caring that much about them?
Compare these passages:
Napoleon Bonaparte proposed the Arc de Triomphe, although it wasn’t completed until a decade after his death. It is 164 feet high, 148 feet wide, and 72 feet long. It has numerous friezes and reliefs designed by Francois Rude, Jean-Pierre Cortot, Antoine Etex, and Bernard Seurre among others.
As you walk down the Champs-Élysées, The Arc of Triomphe slowly rises before you, its size about half that of a football field, but its artistry making it seem much larger. Highly detailed sculptures of angels, one crowning Napoleon, others at battles watching over the French army, dominate the arc, its two centuries of weathered stone reminding visitors of France’s history of war.
To get to the Arc de Triomphe, you walk down the Champs-Elysses, a street reminiscent of an American mall: Disney, Gap, Nike, Abercrombie & Fitch all litter the street. At the end is the Arc. And it’s in the middle of a busy intersection. It took us forever to find how to get close much less up to the top. Would it kill them to put a better sign, maybe in English since there are so many tourists? Once we found how to get in, we learned that we had to hike up some steps to get to the top. Ugh. The day was foggy and cold, and we didn’t see much except traffic and dead trees.
The tone of each piece is very different. While the first is informative, numbers are abstract. How tall is 164 feet? No idea. The third doesn’t turn frustration into advice (we still don’t know how to find the steps), and the general dissatisfaction with the experience comes through. The tone is confrontational. The second passage attempts to be more conversational, and it is probably the most effective.
Your audience expects a conversational tone in most travel writing. They want to see humans like them in the places you are. Put yourself in the reader’s shoes. Imagine yourself as a reader, wanting to know more about the place you are writing.
We also expect that conversational tone in reviews as well. A review that sounds angry prejudices the audience against the writer more than the place under review. After all, some places we visit are designed and maintained by people; in other places, people are there to help with the experience. Good intentions abound even if they are not successful or not to the taste of the people reviewing. That doesn’t mean you should only write a positive review. It means simply that you should have a positive tone to your review, even if the review itself is negative. Compare the following and ask, as a reader, which one is more helpful:
- It was busy on the day we were there, so it took 30 minutes to get a table.
or
It took forever to get a table. - Our server visited us once, to take our order, and we didn’t see her again. Others brought our drinks, our food, and our check.
or
The service was not good. We rarely saw our waitress. - The plate of spaghetti that arrived was mountainous, and the sauce had a nice kick to it. My wife’s scampi portion was also fairly large, the plump shrimp resting in a rich, buttery garlic sauce.
or
My spaghetti arrived looking like something from a cartoon. The sauce was too spicy and gave me heartburn after the first bite. My wife’s scampi was swimming in oil. - Overall, the service was adequate and what one might expect in a family business with a high turnover, but the real star was the food—lovingly prepared, large portions of Italian staples.
or
We had a crappy time and I cannot discourage people from coming here enough. The word-of-mouth about this place is wrong. The service, food, ambiance were all worse than an Olive Garden.