Irony

Irony is a gap the audience is meant to see: between what someone says and what they mean, between what a situation promises and what it delivers, or between what a character knows and what we know.

Three things share the name, and mixing them up is the usual source of confusion.

Verbal irony. The speaker says the opposite of what they mean, and expects to be understood. Wonderful. Another form. The tone or the situation tells the reader to flip the sentence over. Litotes is a mild, structured form of the same move; sarcasm is verbal irony aimed at someone.

Situational irony. The outcome is the opposite of what the situation promised. The fire station burns down. The safety inspector falls down the stairs. Coleridge's becalmed sailors put it in two lines: Water, water, every where, / Nor any drop to drink. It is a property of events rather than of language, and it is the kind most often used loosely, for anything that is merely a coincidence.

Dramatic irony. The audience knows something a character does not, so ordinary lines carry a second meaning. That one has its own entry, because it is a structural tool rather than a figure of speech.

Irony on the page: an example

The Runner, a feature screenplay by Jeffrey Doka, the editor behind Final Boss Editing, opens with an aerial chase. Here the F.B.I. pilot, Sandra, has just been outflown, and her copilot checks on her.

ROBERT

He's losing speed... you OK?

SANDRA

Fine.

ROBERT

Convincing.

Why it works: Robert means the opposite of convincing, and one word of verbal irony tells us how these two partners talk to each other. No tone direction is needed, because Sandra's clipped Fine has already set up the gap.

Two pages later the smuggler Rich jokes, Don't I look like I'm flying car parts? The script has already shown the reader something white hidden inside his marijuana bales, so the line carries dramatic irony, and it turns situational on page 10 when Rich finds out his own cargo is not what even he thought it was.

Making irony read

What all three kinds share is a reader who can see both layers. Irony the audience cannot detect is not irony; it is an error, and that is the practical risk. Verbal irony on the page has no tone of voice to carry it, so the scene has to establish the gap first: show the disaster, then let the character call it wonderful. An unreliable narrator is a whole book built on that principle, and subtext is its quieter cousin.

• Irony nobody can see. If a beta reader takes the line literally, add one plain fact before it.
• Coincidence labelled as irony. Ask what expectation the outcome reverses. If there is none, it is just bad luck.
• Winking at the reader. Having the narrator point out the irony was not lost on her spends the effect. Let the reader notice.

Frequently asked questions

What is the simple definition of irony?

Irony is a gap between how things look and how they are, which the reader is expected to notice. It can be in words (saying the opposite of what you mean), in events (the opposite of what was expected happens) or in knowledge (the audience knows something a character does not).

What are the three types of irony?

Verbal irony, where a speaker means the opposite of what they say; situational irony, where the outcome contradicts what the situation promised; and dramatic irony, where the audience knows something a character does not.

Is a coincidence the same as irony?

No. Rain on a day you planned a picnic is bad luck. It becomes situational irony only if the outcome reverses an expectation the story set up, such as a weather forecaster whose own wedding is rained off after she promised sunshine.