Voice vs. Tone: What You’re Adjusting in Edits Because “cut this” and “tighten that” only get you so far.

Because “cut this” and “tighten that” only get you so far.

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When the Edits Still Don’t Work
There’s a moment that happens in editing—maybe you’ve felt it.

You’ve revised the sentences. You’ve cleaned up the paragraphs. You’ve even ruthlessly cut the detour about your childhood piano teacher (RIP, Miss Joan). But somehow, the piece still isn’t quite there.

It feels off. It feels flat. It feels like you showed up in your best writing voice, but something’s getting lost in translation.

That’s where tone comes in.

Voice Is You. Tone Is How You Show Up.
Most writers use “voice” and “tone” interchangeably, but they’re not the same thing. Voice is your signature—it’s the consistent you-ness that shows up no matter what you’re writing. Tone, on the other hand, is how you apply that voice depending on the situation, audience, or platform. If voice is your personality on the page, tone is your mood—and it changes.

Voice is what stays steady whether you’re writing a blog post, a book, or a Twitter thread. It’s what makes someone say, “I’d know your writing anywhere.” Tone is what helps that voice adapt. You wouldn’t talk to your therapist the same way you talk to your little cousin, right? Same rules apply in writing.

Same Voice, Different Tone
Let’s say your voice is wry, self-aware, deeply curious, with a touch of poetic melancholy.

In a memoir, that might sound like this:
“I didn't cry when the dog died. I waited until I ran out of bread three days later. Loss is strange like that.”

In a pitch email:
“I’m proposing a piece that explores how grief shows up in the body—sometimes subtly, sometimes sideways.”

In an Instagram caption:
“Grief can sneak up on you in the grocery store. Been there. Sending softness to anyone navigating a quiet ache right now.”

Different tone. Same writer.

When the Draft Feels Off, Try This
If your writing feels technically clean but emotionally weird, tone might be the issue.

Ask yourself: Am I speaking to the right audience—or at them? Does the emotional temperature match the subject? Am I softening too much for the format, or being too sharp for the platform? Do I sound like myself, or like a version of me trying too hard?

Read It Like It’s Not Yours
One of the easiest ways to check for tone issues is to read your work as if someone else wrote it. Would you trust this voice? Would you feel welcomed in, or kept at a distance? Does it feel too stiff? Too unsure? Too performative?

You don’t need to throw out the whole draft. Often, it’s not about rewriting—it’s about re-tuning. You’re not betraying your voice by adjusting the tone. You’re just using it more intentionally.

The Bottom Line
Voice is what keeps people coming back. Tone is what helps them stay. The best writing doesn’t just sound good—it sounds right for the moment it’s in.

You don’t need to reinvent yourself in every edit. You just need to listen to what the piece is asking for—and then show up as yourself, in the tone that fits.

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Christine de Pizan: Medieval Literature's Original Boss Lady

By Liz Dubelman (an excerpt from the forthcoming book Unruly Women by Penny Stallings, Bonnie Garvin, and Liz Dubelman)

Picture this: It's 1405, the printing press won't be invented for another fifty years, and most people think women's brains are basically decorative. Enter Christine de Pizan, quill in hand, ready to absolutely demolish every misogynistic manuscript in sight.

Christine didn't just stumble into writing—she had to write. When her husband died young, leaving her with three children, a mother, and medieval France's notoriously unhelpful social safety net, she did something revolutionary: she picked up her pen and made it her paycheck. Not as a hobby. Not as a "charming feminine pastime." As a profession. The audacity!

Her masterpiece, "The Book of the City of Ladies," reads like a medieval clapback that took 600 years to fully appreciate. Christine literally constructed an imaginary city populated entirely by history's most accomplished women, as if to say, "Oh, you think women are intellectually inferior? Let me introduce you to my friends Sappho, the Amazons, and the Virgin Mary. They'd like a word."

The brilliance wasn't just in what she wrote, but how she wrote it. Christine deployed the medieval equivalent of "well, actually" with surgical precision. When confronted with centuries of male scholars insisting women were naturally inferior, she responded with what can only be described as the literary equivalent of "citation needed." She systematically dismantled every argument against female capability with the patience of someone explaining why the earth isn't flat, which, frankly, would have been easier to prove in her time.

Her voice jumps off the page even six centuries later, sharp and witty and utterly unimpressed with masculine nonsense. She wrote about women's education with the enthusiasm of someone who had clearly spent years rolling her eyes at men's opinions. When addressing the ridiculous notion that learning would somehow damage women's delicate constitutions, she practically seems to shrug through the parchment: "Strange how these 'fragile' creatures manage to run entire households, raise children, and somehow avoid fainting at the sight of a book."

Christine de Pizan wasn't just writing—she was arguing. Every sentence was a small act of rebellion, every metaphor a tiny revolution. She took the tools of her oppressors (classical rhetoric, religious allegory, courtly literature) and weaponized them for equality. It's like watching someone win a sword fight using their opponent's own blade.

The woman who called herself "a lone voice crying in the wilderness" turned out to be the first note in a symphony that's still playing today. She proved that the pen could indeed be mightier than the sword—especially when wielded by someone who refused to be silenced.

Christine de Pizan: proving since 1364 that well-behaved women rarely make history, but brilliant ones definitely make literature.

Be it known that as charitable love prompts us to desire the well-being and spiritual development, the honour and prosperity of all woman, and to wish the downfall and destruction of everything that could prevent them, we feel moved to address some words of instruction to you.

It is not fitting for woman [of France] to do what they do other places […]: that the wife of a country labourer enjoy the same rank as the wife of an honest artisan in Paris, nor the wife of a common artisan as a merchant’s wife, nor a merchant’s wife as an unmarried lady, nor the unmarried lady as married lady, nor the lady as a countess or duchess, nor the countess as the queen. Rather, each woman ought to keep to her own station in life, and just as there is a difference in the way of life of people, so there ought to be a difference in their estates.

This is Christine in full strategic mode—essentially saying, "Look, I may have just written an entire book arguing that women are intellectually equal to men and deserve education and respect, BUT let's not get crazy about social hierarchy, shall we?" It's like she's throwing the medieval establishment a bone while simultaneously chewing through the rope that binds women's minds.

The genius here is in the packaging. She opens with this beautifully earnest declaration about wanting "well-being and spiritual development" for all women, which sounds lovely and harmless, then immediately pivots to what amounts to a medieval etiquette guide that would make Downton Abbey look egalitarian.

But notice the sleight of hand: she's addressing this to women directly, as if they have agency over their own behavior and choices. In a world where women were essentially legal property, even telling them to "keep to their station" implies they have stations to keep—and brains capable of understanding the distinction.

Christine was playing 4D chess here. She knew that if she pushed too hard on every front simultaneously, she'd be dismissed entirely. So she gives the patriarchy this reassuring little curtsy about social order while quietly revolutionizing everything else. It's the literary equivalent of "Yes, of course I'll respect the chain of command," while secretly teaching everyone to read the manual and question orders.

Essentially, Christine was saying: "Fine, you can keep your precious class system, but within each of those neat little boxes, women are going to be educated, articulate, and absolutely nobody's intellectual inferior."

Medieval compromise at its most subversive.