Tonal Blending or Sliding

[HGohwell]

So, when it comes tone in a story, one that tries to merge two different tones (and sometimes genres comes into this too) do you prefer a blend or a slide?

Blend: a story that mixes the two tones throughout the story pretty evenly but can lead to mood whiplash if to moves too far to one end of the other too quickly. Think dark story suddenly puts in chibis or comedy scenes. Or cute story suddenly murders a bunch of people. Often swings back and forth, can be more extreme or more mild.

Slide: a story that slowly moves from one two to the other in a slow, generally one way descent but can lead to sliding too far. A story starts cute and slowly moves into something darker in small steps. Or a dark story slowly becomes more light hearted.

Now, obviously, a lot of stories mix and shift tones in someway but more extremes are a bit trickier as a writer and a reader. I'm sure we've all read/watched series that suddenly shift and lots of people are dead without warning and the next episode is jokes again. And I'm sure we've seen series that slowly move to a point where you don't really notice until someone's dead and you realise this was a slice of life comedy when we started. (Yes, these are extreme, I know) Both a very common in things like shounen and magical girl anime, sometimes both at once.

So, which do you prefer as a reader? Is it different to as a writer? Do you like a mix of extreme tones spread pretty consistently across the series or a slow shift that can be almost unnoticeable until you look back?

And, just on the side, what about art? If the art shift purposefully (not just art evolution), what's your opinion on that? The most common example is sudden chibis but other examples can be the art slowly shifting as the tone does, cute style slowly grows more mature as the tone darkens, or reverse. Or, semi-common in magical girls/shounen battle anime, the shift when it comes to fight/post transformations. Madoka Magica's witch labyrinths are a pretty well known example.

[gmaximin]

I’m more into dramatic changes generally speaking. It feels more realistic somehow. So I’d call that slicing at fast pace... (so not exactly blending nor sliding)
If slow shift, then it needs to be extremely well done or else I have the feeling that the author was cheating on me on purpose, cooking false layers to lure me. To me Bone by J. Smith is an example of sliding nicely done, gently drifting from light comedic atmosphere to epic life and death battles without really clear cut change...

[darthmongoose]

I have a personal preference for blend. It's not objectively better, it just appeals to me more personally. Like I know some people hate when there's a light moment in a serious anime like Fullmetal Alchemist, or they don't like how many quips and gags there were in the Marvel movies after Guardians of the Galaxy, but to me, I find that better than something like the anime Slayers, where you'll have episodes or arcs that are really silly, then it's like "okay now everything is serious" and it's relentlessly dark.

Of course... this can be a matter of culture. I'm British, and one of the things we're kind of famous for here is making very dry jokes in bad situations. It's how we cope with them. To me, it's not unrealistic at all that when faced with a gigantic screaming monster somebody might say "oh dear, that's a bit much." because that sounds like exactly what my dad would do. In some cultures though, it might be considered very strange and disrespectful and so unrealistic to have characters making light of serious situations. That really is what British people are like though! My dad's friend once fell off the rock face while climbing, shattered both his ankles (like legit the bones were shattered into fragments, it took years to recover) and smashed his nose against the rock face, and before passing out he said to my dad: "Well that was stupid." fortunately these weren't his last words, but they would have been pretty funny and in-character last words for that guy. So to some people, my characters cracking wise and making light of serious situations might feel odd, but to me, it's just how "a hero" acts in my culture.

I doubt I'd ever go for chibis, because chibis are more for when the character is acting childishly, but the characters in my comics so often go into a more simplified or stylised versions for comedic scenes, usually with the dot eyes and simplified lines. I reserve that for more silly comedy though. If it was the sort of dry, stiff upper lip British quip where you've just been stabbed and say "Oh bugger, I really liked that jumper too." it's not really fitting to go all cartoony because it removes the pain and pathos of this very human reaction to something awful. The humour there isn't really meant to make the reader laugh, it's meant to make you feel an even stronger sense of pain because that person is being brave and cool right to the brink of death.

[nathanKmcwilliams]

I like Sliding I guess. I love it when something cute and happy becomes a misery fest of pain and brutality.
A good example would be the Netflix K Drama Possessed. It kinda had a dark tone the whole time, but overall felt like things would turn around. There were plenty of happy characters and great jokes. But then...they just went full blackout depressing. Good stuff.

[HGohwell]

I'm British, and one of the things we're kind of famous for here is making very dry jokes in bad situations. It's how we cope with them. To me, it's not unrealistic at all that when faced with a gigantic screaming monster somebody might say "oh dear, that's a bit much." because that sounds like exactly what my dad would do. In some cultures though, it might be considered very strange and disrespectful and so unrealistic to have characters making light of serious situations. That really is what British people are like though!

I think the epitome of this cultural difference, even between English speaking countries, is the Hitchhiker's Guide movie and poor Arthur Dent's character went from ridiculously British and done with all this alien shit and can't get a decent cup of tea to just awkward and kind of useless and a lot of cringe humour. And I feel like it's a big example of how British humour can be really missed outside of Britain.

[darthmongoose]

Eeeeeeeghhhhh..... I kinda feel like the biggest cultural clash is how badly the British humour is executed in that movie compared to say, the old BBC TV series adaptation from the 80s. They tried to make all the humour more silly in the movie, and less dry, and they put in a lot of really rubbish slapstick and stuff that was never in the book or the old audio drama or old TV serial, so it's kind of like... trying to do British humour for a foreign audience. I'm personally not a fan of it at all.

[HGohwell]

Yeah, it didn't really capture any of the original humour too well. It was too British. And too Douglas Adams, I guess. There's a reason even the radio dramas didn't try to do anything original after he died and they are British. One of the reasons I'm glad Terry Pratchett was so involved with the three big Discworld movie adaptions.

[Luminescent]

Sliding works really well for darker/horror plots. You can build endless tension over time, and once the climax/twist hits, it's both shocking AND relieving lol.

Blending is better for fast-paced series-- stories meant to give you an adrenaline rush.

I personally prefer blended stories. It's really hard to make a book/comic/movie using the sliding technique without it just coming off as boring (not to say I haven't seen/read some excellent ones!)

[DokiDokiTsuna]

I'm a blender~. I don't think I can even trust myself to slide in earnest (if I do, it's probably just a natural consequence of the plot progression, rather than me going explicitly "okay, tone is darker now").

And as a reader/consumer I LOVE blending; I crave it...there are so few shows that actually try it and do it really well, like:

I'm British, and one of the things we're kind of famous for here is making very dry jokes in bad situations. It's how we cope with them. To me, it's not unrealistic at all that when faced with a gigantic screaming monster somebody might say "oh dear, that's a bit much."

^^ I knew there was something I loved about British humor (now I'm inspired to find more shows to add to my watchlist).

Anyway, ^this is what I'm talking about; I love that so much! When the blending is just seamless like that...it's not enough to just have levity moments; making jokes in dark times isn't the point. It has to have the right tone; you have to be able to feel the exasperation and 'doneness' in whatever quips are made. It's really rare in (I guess, American) media...

Of course, there is also space for more dramatic blends...that's where I come in~

I enjoy writing dark stories with light moments, except my signature blend is 'at least half the cast is just barely taking this seriously'. ^^ The whole atmosphere becomes a bit different; sort of cartoony...to summarize, the characters' reaction to their very real impending doom is less * legitimate horror and despair * and more "aw, nuts".
And then when things get undeniably serious and some pathos leaks in, I could probably be accused of tone whiplash... 9u9 But I don't mind taking the risk, for the sake of the style. Like, yeah, this is spooky funny land, but the stakes are legit. What, you think just because the characters are cute and make jokes that nothing bad can happen to them...?