Screenwriting : How to write tones in your screenplay? by Zorrawa Jefferson

It's a great question. I would say the action lines could be helpful to convey that tone. Words that would indicate a comedic sensibility or a light-hearted tone as opposed to a serious or sexual connotation. If your adjectives and other word choices describe the situation as comedic that will come across to the reader.

100% what Ariel said, Zorrawa Jefferson.

Another thing to consider is dialogue. Depending on how the characters react to the situation, tone becomes more clear

For me it comes down to character reactions and handling audience expectations.

If you want the audience on edge, like in a thriller. Keep them in the dark. Lead them in one direction with obvious clues while building a real direction to be disclosed as a surprise.

For a gritty crime drama, I would give people shorter fuses and a lack of humour. Make people serious. Plus have every moves a matter of life and death in some way.

Think of the emotional aspects of a human version of the tone. Them reproduce them as beats.

Was looking for a screenwriting book that specifically focusses on "Tone." Could not find one.

Hi Ariel and Zorrawa - Funny when somebody's dying harkens me back to Riggs' death scene (we think) on the freighter at the end of Lethal Weapon 2: very tense until the cigarette scene. Classic ;-). I think callbacks can be very useful for situations like those you describe.

I think there are different ways to incorporate tone. The style of writing - a chock-full wordy piece with bombastic energy will read different to a sparse page with little text. You're using your words to imply the tone.

Also just through general character and world building you're guiding the reader on what to expect - then you can use that to either pull the rug from under them, or to re-enforce the world in these big tentpole moments

Read a stack of scripts similar to your idea and see how the writers did it on the page.

Agree with the posts about reading other scripts where a scene has tonal juxtaposition. Websites like screenplayed.com have downloadable scripts as well as videos playing scenes from the movies alongside the shooting script pages, so you can see how the script transitioned to the finished scene.

Agree.