A Conversation for Writing Right with Dmitri: Last Words
The tone of the age
minorvogonpoet Started conversation Jun 8, 2015
Don't you think the writer has to take into account the tone of the age?
So Dickins could give Sydney Carton the words "It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known."
If you did that today, readers would say 
"He must have been a politician looking for a soundbite."
Modern writers tend to be less certain, more tentative. The end of Ian McEwen's latest book 'The Children Act' is:
"They lay face to face in the semi-darkness, and while the great rain-cleansed city beyond the room settled to its softer nocturnal rhythms and their marriage uneasily resumed, she told him in a steady quiet voice of her shame, of the sweet boy's passion for life, and her part in his death."
The tone of the age
Dmitri Gheorgheni, Post Editor Posted Jun 8, 2015
Excellent point! 
Think about the way Dickens ended his books compared to, say, Hemingway.
And yeah, it's always a contest between what you want to say and what the traffic will stand, isn't it? 
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The tone of the age
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