Take a story's temperature by studying its tone. Is it hopeful? Cynical? Snarky? Playful?
Desperate and Scared; Detached and Just
Depending on where he's writing, Steve uses two completely different tones. This helps him strikes a balance for himself, and this balance seems essential for his sanity as he goes through his trial.
Desperate, Scared
Let's look at Steve's journal entries first. Each entry seethes with desperation and fear. Here's an example:
All they talk about in here is hurting people. If you look at somebody, they say, "What you looking at me for? I'll mess you up!" If you make a noise they don't like, they say they'll mess you up. One guy has a knife. It's not really a knife, but a blade glued onto a toothbrush handle. I hate this place. I hate this place. I can't write it enough times to make it look the way I feel. I hate, hate, hate this place!! (3.1-2)
He's focused on the horrors of jail, unable to get past the hate he feels for everything there. He even throws in some exclamation points and underlining. This is some serious fear, folks.
His fears aren't just about prison, though. He's afraid of the ways in which he's changed and the impact his trial is having on his relationships with his family:
I've never seen my father cry before. He wasn't crying like I thought a man would cry. Everything was just pouring out of him and I hated to see his face. […] I didn't do nothing! I didn't do nothing! But everybody is just messed up with the pain. […] Seeing my dad cry like that was just so terrible. What was going on between us, me being his son and him being my dad, is pushed down and something else is moving up into its place. It's like a man looking down to see his son and seeing a monster instead. (9.1)
Steve's journal entries ooze his fear of himself. Please don't let me be a monster, his tone pleads desperately.
Detached, Just
Steve's screenplay turns his emotional switch to off and shifts him into robot mode. By recording the trial in the form of a movie, Steve remains emotionally detached—a detachment that's key to his ability to maintain sanity during such a stressful experience.
Though Steve continues to share clips of his past mingled with the present, his tone is decidedly unemotional when he's in screenplay mode. Take a looksie:
FADE IN: EXTERIOR: STEVE'S NEIGHBORHOOD. Camera pans. Homeless men have built a cardboard "village" on rooftops. Then: to edge of roof, where we see a crowd in the street below. As camera zooms in, we pick up a cacophony of sounds. Gradually one sound becomes clearer. The accent is West Indian, and a ground-level camera comes up on two dark, somewhat heavy and middle-aged WOMEN. (10.1)
The juxtaposition of desperate and detached lets us dig deeply into Steve's character without answering every question for us.