Desmond’s Drops: Dramatic Irony
By Desmond Hall | July 17, 2024 |
Welcome to a new edition of Desmond’s Drops!
This month, enjoy three drops focused on one topic–dramatic irony.
Dramatic Irony: Tension
Dramatic Irony: Humor
Dramatic Irony: Technique
Email subscribers, please click directly to staging-writerunboxed.kinsta.cloud to view, or visit all of Demond’s Drops on YouTube.
Look for more of Desmond’s Drops in September!
Have your own bit of wisdom to share? Drop it in comments.
Desmond Hall, author of YOUR CORNER DARK, was born in Jamaica, West Indies and then moved to Jamaica, Queens. His second novel, BETTER MUST COME, a fiercely evocative, action-packed YA thriller that examines that darker side of light-filled Jamaica, released in May, 2024. He’s worked as both a high school biology teacher and English teacher, counseled at-risk teens, and served as Spike Lee’s creative director at SpikeDDB. He’s also written and directed the HBO movie, A DAY IN BLACK AND WHITE, which was nominated for the Gordon Parks Award. He’s written and directed the theater play, STOCKHOLM, BROOKLYN, which won the audience award at the Downtown Theater Festival at the Cherry Lane Theater. He’s also served on the board of the Partnership for Drug-Free Kids, and was a judge for the Addys, and the Downtown Urban Arts Film Festival. Named one of Variety Magazine’s 50 creatives to watch.
Hello Desmond. Thanks for taking up one of my favorite things. As a sometime mystery writer, I have made heavy use of dramatic irony. The idea of being coy for a couple hundred pages and jumping through many hoops to maintain the whodunit factor doesn’t work for me. With dramatic irony, the reader knows what other characters don’t. This way, reading pleasure comes from watching the protagonist struggle through ignorance to truth. In two of my mysteries, the reader knows whodonit by the end of the first chapter. She enjoys watching the criminal interact with others who don’t know who/what they’re dealing with.
Hey Barry, I totally agree!
Hi Desmond, I always enjoy your teaching. And I will echo Barry. In any novel, the reader often knows more than the main characters. This involves the reader, who worries and becomes anxious as the plot leads the MC into the thick of tension. And yet as the creator of this tension, the writer also keeps some secrets for the final chapters, thus providing dramatic changes which are needed to bring all story lines to a satisfactory conclusion. Here’s to good writing and thanks for your guidance.
Hi Beth, I also agree with you. And saving those twists for the end is one of the reasons I write.
Best,
Desmond
Great drops, Desmond. The Importance of Being Earnest is one of my all-time favorites, for just the reasons you mentioned. (It’s also loaded with terrific one-liners.) Erik Larson makes great use of dramatic irony to evoke the tragedy of historic events, as in Dead Wake, about the sinking of the Lusitania, and Isaac’s Storm, describing the massive hurricane that hit Galveston, TX in 1900. Readers know what deadly fate awaits these characters, who bumbled about painfully clueless until it’s too late.
Hi Christine! Thanks for the advice. I haven’t read Erik Larson but I just put him on my TBR.
Desmond,
Your comments about dramatic humor made me recall how Aaron Sorkin uses those techniques.
In one example from The West Wing, President Barlet is about to make a speech in the garden of the White House as staff members talk about the weather report showing rain. The discussion is whether the reports are accurate. Bartlett starts his address to mention the perfect weather around them, just as clouds appear and rain descends.
One example from The Newsroom when McKenzie calls Sloan to her office to learn about economics. Expects to learn four years of college and several of grad school as she says, “Give it to me in five minutes.”