What is the author's tone in Characters and Viewpoint by Orson Scott Card?

The book is clearly intended as a kind of instruction manual. It is, in fact, almost a literary tool kit (again, see "Quotes", p. 2), a mostly objective presentation of tried and true techniques for successful literary creation. There are times at which the author's perspective becomes a degree or two more subjective—when he writes of personal experience in his struggles to create effective characters and narrative, and at these times, his comments carry a degree or two of additional weight. For the most part, though, his tone is conversational rather than dictatorial, suggesting rather than imposing—as previously discussed, the techniques he discussed are ideas and possibilities, rather than hard and fast rules.