okay that post on dramatic irony
Dramatic irony. When the audiences knows something at least one of the characters doesn't.
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fox1013 pointed out, "It has a very different role in fic, where the reader is already familiar with canon, than with most other kinds of stories, and that would be fascinating to explore."
Which, yeah! Just for instance, the show Merlin. I've watched all of four eps of that show, but as I understand it, Merlin's magic is a secret from Arthur for a good portion, if not all, of the show. I imagine that if you're doing a fic from Arthur's POV, the audience knowledge that Merlin can do magic makes instant dramatic irony that can be quite satisfying.
There should be all kinds of fic like this! But when I try to come up with any, a lot of audience knowledge seems to be built just as much on genre expectations, or shared common knowledge of tropes, as it is on canon knowledge. And then I started thinking about how the distinction between "actual" dramatic irony (where the audience knows something characters don't) and audience expectation (where the audience expects something characters don't) is really blurry to me.
And then I started thinking about how fanfic itself creates canon (fanon), along with its own expectations, similar to genre, and it all went downhill from there. And I know I've talked about fanfic as genre to several of you (kestrelsparhawk?); it's probably a whole topic in and of itself.
So below are some random anecdotes and observations on a common theme. Then there are discussion questions.
*
Okay, to start, a list of things you can use to create dramatic irony:
a) POV. An omniscient narrator can show the audience all kinds of things the reader can't. If you're doing third person limited, you can switch between POVs. Only first person and third person limited-to-one-character don't offer dramatic irony solely by merit of POV.
b) Genre. E.g. The blonde going down to the basement at night to find out what that noise was doesn't know she's in a horror flick, so she's not that scared, but you know she's in a horror flick, so you know what is going to happen.
c) Narrative expectation. There might be a literary name for this, idk. It's related to genre but is more general. E.g. Checkov's gun. If there's a gun in the first act you know it's going to be fired by the third (or whatever). You know this because you know you're watching a play; however, you could hang a gun above your mantle irl and that doesn't mean it'll get fired before you die.
d) Common knowledge. Maybe there's a term for this too, but what I mean is commonly accepted physical, societal, and emotional truths. Sometimes this can be a blurry line between genre and narrative expectation. E.g. Character A is always staring at B. Character B doesn't know why, but we the audience know because a) this is a book!, b) this is a romance!, but also c) we have the knowledge that sometimes people stare at people they're in love with/sexually attracted to. Character B might not know this if she's an alien who was raised by wolves, but we know it.
Common knowledge is also important when it comes to establishing an unreliable narrator. The social norms surrounding pedophilia help establish that Humbert Humbert is not alright in the head, even though he appears to speak "rationally."
e) Canon. Canon can sometimes overlap with common knowledge. When Jesus Christ shows up in Ben-Hur we know who he is and everything that's happening with him, even though the narrative hasn't been following him. This is common knowledge, but a specific kind of common knowledge based on a certain narrative. That narrative can be historical or literary. If you're using canon for dramatic irony, you have to be certain your audience knows canon. Which provides very interesting opportunities for fanfic.
*
The reason I started thinking about this in the first place is that I read this fanfic that didn't unfold the way I expected it to unfold, and I was disappointed. I've changed the fandom to protect the identity of the author, but it went like this: Snape is Headmaster. His son should have started at Hogwarts 5 years ago, but never arrived. Meanwhile, Harry Potter lives in a farm in Norfolk. On the day the story starts, Harry gets this weird impulse to travel to Hogwarts, and it goes from there.
The reason I didn't like this story is that the part where the reader knows Harry is Snape's son, but Harry himself has no clue, didn't go on long enough. I wanted to possess knowledge of why everyone at Hogwarts looks at Harry strangely, while Harry himself didn't know. Instead, as soon as everyone starts looking at Harry strangely, he figures out they think he's Snape's son. Then there is a little dramatic irony, wherein Harry thinks he's not Snape's son, but we the readers know he is--but that tension wasn't really drawn out to my satisfaction either. Turns out the point of the story was the plot behind why Harry didn't arrive at Hogwarts as he should have, not to Harry having to discover and own his identity. Which is fine. Just not the story I wanted.
Okay, so when this story did not go how I expected, I realized how bizarre it was that I had these expectations in the first place. Let's catalogue what I knew, what I expected, and why:
1) Harry really belonged at Hogwarts, which I know due to canon
2) Harry was really Snape's son, which I know due to the tags (I have never read a Severitus fic in my life; again, this is a hypothetical example)
3) Harry wasn't going to know he was really Snape's son, and when he found out he was going to deny it, which I expected because this is a trope, and also maybe this is what I wanted from the trope.
#2 on this list suggests something interesting--that is that tags, warnings, titles, summaries can be a part of the construction of dramatic irony. These external trappings can be compared to book jackets, titles, and sales pitches of profic--which, in turn, can be tied to genre. The cover, title, font of the title are all going to contribute to what genre you think a book is, as is the shelf on which you find the book at the bookstore (this leads to all sorts of interesting questions about what online book sales do to genre expectation). Meanwhile, the shelf on which you find fanfic is a little corner of the internet--and usually, you expect to get a certain thing there, just like you expect to get a certain thing from the Romance corner of the book store.
And recently, I've been noticing that most fanfic I read draws on that type of reader knowledge and expectation more than canon knowledge. Which is darn weird? Since it's not like we have a solid definition of the definition of fanfic as a genre, and we do have solid definitions of canon (though let's not get into a discussion right now about whether the Buffy comics are canon, etc). I wondered if I was noticing this because I was reading a lot of AUs at the time--but then again, many AUs make extensive use of canon knowledge; it really depends.
For instance, take an AU of The Avengers, from Tony's POV; he's worked with Hulk before but doesn't know who he is. When Tony meets Bruce, we know Bruce is Hulk, so there's this cool tension where we know and we're wondering when Tony will find out, because of canon knowledge.
Okay, now take an AU from Tony's POV in which there is no Hulk, no super powers at all. We might still know that Tony, when he meets Bruce, will be interested in Bruce, because that's MCU canon--but it might also be because of the Tony/Bruce tag. And we might know that there's more to Bruce than the shy, shuffle-y guy that meets the eye, because that's canon too, but it might also be textual hints, such as his reluctance to meet people's eyes, or the way he flinches at things. We know that when General Ross shows up, he'll cause some kind of problem, because that's canon.
Okay, now take another AU, in which everyone's in highschool. If Loki shows up, and we were in one of the fics above, we might guess he was going to cause a problem, because that's canon. But now that we're in this highschool AU, we actually know that Loki is going to be an emo drama kid with eyeliner; we know that Steve is gonna be star quarterback, Tony's gonna be the most popular rich douche in school and head of the debate club, while Bruce is gonna be the nerdy kid in the A/V club. And we know they're all gonna interact somehow and Tony/Steve are gonna bicker and Tony/Bruce will be bff--and that's less because of canon and rather more because we just know how this fic works.
In some ways, fanfic can be much less what the audience knows about canon, and a lot more about what's gonna get tweaked or changed about canon. An AU is an extreme example, but everyone's interpretation of canon is different. So maybe part of the magic of fanfic is you come in with this set of expectations: Bruce is the Hulk, Tony is Iron Man, but your expectations are actually much, much denser than that, and what you're looking for is how those expectations will be met, thwarted, or shaped into a completely new view of canon itself.
*
The fact that the Severitus fic mentioned above didn't satisfy me probably has a lot less to do with "actual" dramatic irony than reader expectation set up by certain tropes. And because tropes can be handled in so many different ways, often we're not really dealing with "expectation" so much as the hope or desire that a trope will go a certain way.
I've been thinking about this a lot recently, possibly due tobrown_betty's post about "tissue paper kink"--a trope/kink you really like, but only when it's done a certain way. For instance, if you love slave AUs, but only when both characters are former slaves and it's about dealing with trauma; you don't like it when one is a master and the other is a slave; you also don't like it when someone is going undercover to bust a slave trading ring, etc.
(Btw, if this interests you, she also did a call for recs of X for people who don't like X. So, for instance, if you don't like slave AUs, you could go look at the list and see whether there are any that leave out the stuff you hate about slave AUs but do some of the stuff you might like about slave AUs.)
*
Sometimes it's the trope you want, but it's just not done the way you want it. Other times, it's just done badly, and I find that this also happens a lot with dramatic irony. With that Severitus fic, I couldn't tell whether it just wasn't done the way I'd wanted it, or whether the writer had seriously just botched understanding reader expectation.
A classic example of badly handled dramatic irony is when Character A and Character B don't talk to each other. Character A loves B, but B doesn't know it. And B loves A, but A doesn't know it. You, the reader, know that A and B love each other and would live happily ever after if they only knew. You, the reader, have superior knowledge, because you're getting both A and B POV, so this is dramatic irony. But you also know you're reading a romance, which could be called dramatic irony sometimes, or maybe just genre trappings on other occasions.
This is a sweet set up, and I love it. But the absolute worst is when it drags on too long. The reader knows A loves B and B loves A and that they're meant to be, and after a while A and B just look like idiots because they can't figure it out! Ugh.
*
Random anecdote: I once wrote this Bruce Wayne/Gordon fic that really only works if you know that Bruce Wayne is also Batman. It was from Gordon's POV, which provided some excellent opportunities for tension; the audience knows why Wayne behaves the way he does, but Gordon doesn't. This tension took little to no work to create, because a) I didn't have to establish that Wayne is secretly Batman, because the reader should come into the fic knowing that, b) I didn't have to worry that much about Gordon appearing clueless, since it's canon that people don't recognize Batman's voice, jaw, mannerisms, etc.
Then, a couple years later, I wrote this Harry Potter/Draco Malfoy fic with a premise very loosely based on the Bruce Wayne/Gordon fic. Draco had a secret identity, Rabbit, but it was from Harry's POV. Harry interacts with both Draco and Rabbit; the reader is supposed to guess Draco is Rabbit, but Harry isn't. This is significantly more difficult to achieve, because I had to establish a) that Draco is secretly Rabbit, b) that Harry's not an idiot--i.e., there have to be enough clues for the reader to conclude that Rabbit is Draco, but not enough clues for Harry to figure it out; since it's from Harry's POV, this is hard, c) that Harry Potter is a world in which people have secret identities.
So, I couldn't rely on readers to know Draco's secret identity just because they knew canon, but I could rely on them to figure out Draco's secret identity because it was still fanfic. That is, the fic was labeled Harry/Draco. It was posted for a Harry/Draco exchange fest. While sometimes people pair Harry with other people in Harry/Draco fandom, it doesn't happen nearly as often as say, Peter/El in Peter/Neal fandom in White Collar. I even relied on the fact that Harry/other is often problematized in Harry/Draco fic; if Harry's with Ginny or someone else, whoever, there's something wrong with the relationship so we can easily see why he should be with Draco instead. This isn't the case with all Harry/Draco fic, but it's often the case.
Lastly, secret identity/mistaken identity/identity-fuckery is also a common trope in fanfic. Amnesia is not that common irl, but in fiction it's way more common, and in fanfic it's even more common. Same goes for identity tropes. So, I relied on all of these things put together, as well as some strong hints within the text itself, to help the reader come to a conclusion the character couldn't come to, in order not to make the character seem too clueless, and in order to give the reader a hit of the nice tension dramatic irony gives you. I don't think the fic was entirely successful; I'm just using it as an example.
In the Batman fic, dramatic irony is built off knowledge the reader absolutely should have that the characters don't. In the HP fic, dramatic irony is built off the text itself a little bit, but also genre, tropes, and reader expectation. Why did I tell you this story? I have no idea.
*
Two really great uses of dramatic irony, imo, were:
1) Tigana. So, all that shit with Dianora is fucked up, but omg, knowing who she is while Brandin doesn't killed me. There's also this other part where her brother is right there and neither of them know.
2) Gladiator. When Maximus faces Commodus and we know who he is and Maximus knows who he is but COMMODUS DOESN'T at first ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
I don't think either of these are the most stellar pieces of literature, but when I think of dramatic irony, they're what I think of most. I was literally biting my nails during both.
*
Okay, so questions:
1) What are some fanfics that make good use of the reader's canon knowledge to create dramatic irony? (Links?)
2) What are some bad uses of dramatic irony that annoy you?
3) Do you like dramatic irony? Why is it so awesome? Is it because I'm just a know-it-all who really, really likes knowing things other people don't?
4) What are some other ways to create dramatic irony?
5) What are some profics/movies/tv/other media that make great use of dramatic irony? Was it nail-biting?
6) What are your thoughts on how to set up a narrator as unreliable?
7) Do AUs make more use of dramatic irony through canon knowledge, or genre expectation, or does it just depend on the AU?
8) What are your thoughts on fanfic as a genre?
9) Do you consciously use canon knowledge to create dramatic irony? Or does it just happen?
10) What are your thoughts on dramatic irony vs reader expectations? Is it useful to make a distinction? Is there a distinction, etc
idk guys I just wanna talk
*
fox1013 pointed out, "It has a very different role in fic, where the reader is already familiar with canon, than with most other kinds of stories, and that would be fascinating to explore."Which, yeah! Just for instance, the show Merlin. I've watched all of four eps of that show, but as I understand it, Merlin's magic is a secret from Arthur for a good portion, if not all, of the show. I imagine that if you're doing a fic from Arthur's POV, the audience knowledge that Merlin can do magic makes instant dramatic irony that can be quite satisfying.
There should be all kinds of fic like this! But when I try to come up with any, a lot of audience knowledge seems to be built just as much on genre expectations, or shared common knowledge of tropes, as it is on canon knowledge. And then I started thinking about how the distinction between "actual" dramatic irony (where the audience knows something characters don't) and audience expectation (where the audience expects something characters don't) is really blurry to me.
And then I started thinking about how fanfic itself creates canon (fanon), along with its own expectations, similar to genre, and it all went downhill from there. And I know I've talked about fanfic as genre to several of you (
kestrelsparhawk?); it's probably a whole topic in and of itself. So below are some random anecdotes and observations on a common theme. Then there are discussion questions.
*
Okay, to start, a list of things you can use to create dramatic irony:
a) POV. An omniscient narrator can show the audience all kinds of things the reader can't. If you're doing third person limited, you can switch between POVs. Only first person and third person limited-to-one-character don't offer dramatic irony solely by merit of POV.
b) Genre. E.g. The blonde going down to the basement at night to find out what that noise was doesn't know she's in a horror flick, so she's not that scared, but you know she's in a horror flick, so you know what is going to happen.
c) Narrative expectation. There might be a literary name for this, idk. It's related to genre but is more general. E.g. Checkov's gun. If there's a gun in the first act you know it's going to be fired by the third (or whatever). You know this because you know you're watching a play; however, you could hang a gun above your mantle irl and that doesn't mean it'll get fired before you die.
d) Common knowledge. Maybe there's a term for this too, but what I mean is commonly accepted physical, societal, and emotional truths. Sometimes this can be a blurry line between genre and narrative expectation. E.g. Character A is always staring at B. Character B doesn't know why, but we the audience know because a) this is a book!, b) this is a romance!, but also c) we have the knowledge that sometimes people stare at people they're in love with/sexually attracted to. Character B might not know this if she's an alien who was raised by wolves, but we know it.
Common knowledge is also important when it comes to establishing an unreliable narrator. The social norms surrounding pedophilia help establish that Humbert Humbert is not alright in the head, even though he appears to speak "rationally."
e) Canon. Canon can sometimes overlap with common knowledge. When Jesus Christ shows up in Ben-Hur we know who he is and everything that's happening with him, even though the narrative hasn't been following him. This is common knowledge, but a specific kind of common knowledge based on a certain narrative. That narrative can be historical or literary. If you're using canon for dramatic irony, you have to be certain your audience knows canon. Which provides very interesting opportunities for fanfic.
*
The reason I started thinking about this in the first place is that I read this fanfic that didn't unfold the way I expected it to unfold, and I was disappointed. I've changed the fandom to protect the identity of the author, but it went like this: Snape is Headmaster. His son should have started at Hogwarts 5 years ago, but never arrived. Meanwhile, Harry Potter lives in a farm in Norfolk. On the day the story starts, Harry gets this weird impulse to travel to Hogwarts, and it goes from there.
The reason I didn't like this story is that the part where the reader knows Harry is Snape's son, but Harry himself has no clue, didn't go on long enough. I wanted to possess knowledge of why everyone at Hogwarts looks at Harry strangely, while Harry himself didn't know. Instead, as soon as everyone starts looking at Harry strangely, he figures out they think he's Snape's son. Then there is a little dramatic irony, wherein Harry thinks he's not Snape's son, but we the readers know he is--but that tension wasn't really drawn out to my satisfaction either. Turns out the point of the story was the plot behind why Harry didn't arrive at Hogwarts as he should have, not to Harry having to discover and own his identity. Which is fine. Just not the story I wanted.
Okay, so when this story did not go how I expected, I realized how bizarre it was that I had these expectations in the first place. Let's catalogue what I knew, what I expected, and why:
1) Harry really belonged at Hogwarts, which I know due to canon
2) Harry was really Snape's son, which I know due to the tags (I have never read a Severitus fic in my life; again, this is a hypothetical example)
3) Harry wasn't going to know he was really Snape's son, and when he found out he was going to deny it, which I expected because this is a trope, and also maybe this is what I wanted from the trope.
#2 on this list suggests something interesting--that is that tags, warnings, titles, summaries can be a part of the construction of dramatic irony. These external trappings can be compared to book jackets, titles, and sales pitches of profic--which, in turn, can be tied to genre. The cover, title, font of the title are all going to contribute to what genre you think a book is, as is the shelf on which you find the book at the bookstore (this leads to all sorts of interesting questions about what online book sales do to genre expectation). Meanwhile, the shelf on which you find fanfic is a little corner of the internet--and usually, you expect to get a certain thing there, just like you expect to get a certain thing from the Romance corner of the book store.
And recently, I've been noticing that most fanfic I read draws on that type of reader knowledge and expectation more than canon knowledge. Which is darn weird? Since it's not like we have a solid definition of the definition of fanfic as a genre, and we do have solid definitions of canon (though let's not get into a discussion right now about whether the Buffy comics are canon, etc). I wondered if I was noticing this because I was reading a lot of AUs at the time--but then again, many AUs make extensive use of canon knowledge; it really depends.
For instance, take an AU of The Avengers, from Tony's POV; he's worked with Hulk before but doesn't know who he is. When Tony meets Bruce, we know Bruce is Hulk, so there's this cool tension where we know and we're wondering when Tony will find out, because of canon knowledge.
Okay, now take an AU from Tony's POV in which there is no Hulk, no super powers at all. We might still know that Tony, when he meets Bruce, will be interested in Bruce, because that's MCU canon--but it might also be because of the Tony/Bruce tag. And we might know that there's more to Bruce than the shy, shuffle-y guy that meets the eye, because that's canon too, but it might also be textual hints, such as his reluctance to meet people's eyes, or the way he flinches at things. We know that when General Ross shows up, he'll cause some kind of problem, because that's canon.
Okay, now take another AU, in which everyone's in highschool. If Loki shows up, and we were in one of the fics above, we might guess he was going to cause a problem, because that's canon. But now that we're in this highschool AU, we actually know that Loki is going to be an emo drama kid with eyeliner; we know that Steve is gonna be star quarterback, Tony's gonna be the most popular rich douche in school and head of the debate club, while Bruce is gonna be the nerdy kid in the A/V club. And we know they're all gonna interact somehow and Tony/Steve are gonna bicker and Tony/Bruce will be bff--and that's less because of canon and rather more because we just know how this fic works.
In some ways, fanfic can be much less what the audience knows about canon, and a lot more about what's gonna get tweaked or changed about canon. An AU is an extreme example, but everyone's interpretation of canon is different. So maybe part of the magic of fanfic is you come in with this set of expectations: Bruce is the Hulk, Tony is Iron Man, but your expectations are actually much, much denser than that, and what you're looking for is how those expectations will be met, thwarted, or shaped into a completely new view of canon itself.
*
The fact that the Severitus fic mentioned above didn't satisfy me probably has a lot less to do with "actual" dramatic irony than reader expectation set up by certain tropes. And because tropes can be handled in so many different ways, often we're not really dealing with "expectation" so much as the hope or desire that a trope will go a certain way.
I've been thinking about this a lot recently, possibly due to
brown_betty's post about "tissue paper kink"--a trope/kink you really like, but only when it's done a certain way. For instance, if you love slave AUs, but only when both characters are former slaves and it's about dealing with trauma; you don't like it when one is a master and the other is a slave; you also don't like it when someone is going undercover to bust a slave trading ring, etc.(Btw, if this interests you, she also did a call for recs of X for people who don't like X. So, for instance, if you don't like slave AUs, you could go look at the list and see whether there are any that leave out the stuff you hate about slave AUs but do some of the stuff you might like about slave AUs.)
*
Sometimes it's the trope you want, but it's just not done the way you want it. Other times, it's just done badly, and I find that this also happens a lot with dramatic irony. With that Severitus fic, I couldn't tell whether it just wasn't done the way I'd wanted it, or whether the writer had seriously just botched understanding reader expectation.
A classic example of badly handled dramatic irony is when Character A and Character B don't talk to each other. Character A loves B, but B doesn't know it. And B loves A, but A doesn't know it. You, the reader, know that A and B love each other and would live happily ever after if they only knew. You, the reader, have superior knowledge, because you're getting both A and B POV, so this is dramatic irony. But you also know you're reading a romance, which could be called dramatic irony sometimes, or maybe just genre trappings on other occasions.
This is a sweet set up, and I love it. But the absolute worst is when it drags on too long. The reader knows A loves B and B loves A and that they're meant to be, and after a while A and B just look like idiots because they can't figure it out! Ugh.
*
Random anecdote: I once wrote this Bruce Wayne/Gordon fic that really only works if you know that Bruce Wayne is also Batman. It was from Gordon's POV, which provided some excellent opportunities for tension; the audience knows why Wayne behaves the way he does, but Gordon doesn't. This tension took little to no work to create, because a) I didn't have to establish that Wayne is secretly Batman, because the reader should come into the fic knowing that, b) I didn't have to worry that much about Gordon appearing clueless, since it's canon that people don't recognize Batman's voice, jaw, mannerisms, etc.
Then, a couple years later, I wrote this Harry Potter/Draco Malfoy fic with a premise very loosely based on the Bruce Wayne/Gordon fic. Draco had a secret identity, Rabbit, but it was from Harry's POV. Harry interacts with both Draco and Rabbit; the reader is supposed to guess Draco is Rabbit, but Harry isn't. This is significantly more difficult to achieve, because I had to establish a) that Draco is secretly Rabbit, b) that Harry's not an idiot--i.e., there have to be enough clues for the reader to conclude that Rabbit is Draco, but not enough clues for Harry to figure it out; since it's from Harry's POV, this is hard, c) that Harry Potter is a world in which people have secret identities.
So, I couldn't rely on readers to know Draco's secret identity just because they knew canon, but I could rely on them to figure out Draco's secret identity because it was still fanfic. That is, the fic was labeled Harry/Draco. It was posted for a Harry/Draco exchange fest. While sometimes people pair Harry with other people in Harry/Draco fandom, it doesn't happen nearly as often as say, Peter/El in Peter/Neal fandom in White Collar. I even relied on the fact that Harry/other is often problematized in Harry/Draco fic; if Harry's with Ginny or someone else, whoever, there's something wrong with the relationship so we can easily see why he should be with Draco instead. This isn't the case with all Harry/Draco fic, but it's often the case.
Lastly, secret identity/mistaken identity/identity-fuckery is also a common trope in fanfic. Amnesia is not that common irl, but in fiction it's way more common, and in fanfic it's even more common. Same goes for identity tropes. So, I relied on all of these things put together, as well as some strong hints within the text itself, to help the reader come to a conclusion the character couldn't come to, in order not to make the character seem too clueless, and in order to give the reader a hit of the nice tension dramatic irony gives you. I don't think the fic was entirely successful; I'm just using it as an example.
In the Batman fic, dramatic irony is built off knowledge the reader absolutely should have that the characters don't. In the HP fic, dramatic irony is built off the text itself a little bit, but also genre, tropes, and reader expectation. Why did I tell you this story? I have no idea.
*
Two really great uses of dramatic irony, imo, were:
1) Tigana. So, all that shit with Dianora is fucked up, but omg, knowing who she is while Brandin doesn't killed me. There's also this other part where her brother is right there and neither of them know.
2) Gladiator. When Maximus faces Commodus and we know who he is and Maximus knows who he is but COMMODUS DOESN'T at first ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
I don't think either of these are the most stellar pieces of literature, but when I think of dramatic irony, they're what I think of most. I was literally biting my nails during both.
*
Okay, so questions:
1) What are some fanfics that make good use of the reader's canon knowledge to create dramatic irony? (Links?)
2) What are some bad uses of dramatic irony that annoy you?
3) Do you like dramatic irony? Why is it so awesome? Is it because I'm just a know-it-all who really, really likes knowing things other people don't?
4) What are some other ways to create dramatic irony?
5) What are some profics/movies/tv/other media that make great use of dramatic irony? Was it nail-biting?
6) What are your thoughts on how to set up a narrator as unreliable?
7) Do AUs make more use of dramatic irony through canon knowledge, or genre expectation, or does it just depend on the AU?
8) What are your thoughts on fanfic as a genre?
9) Do you consciously use canon knowledge to create dramatic irony? Or does it just happen?
10) What are your thoughts on dramatic irony vs reader expectations? Is it useful to make a distinction? Is there a distinction, etc
idk guys I just wanna talk
*
no subject
I realized reading this post that I love playing with dramatic irony based on canon knowledge. I wrote a couple comicverse Tony Stark fics that were set during the time that Tony hadn't come out as Iron Man, and I specified in the notes that they were set at a time that Tony hadn't come out as Iron Man -- because a large amount of the tension in both stories derives from the POV character (Emma Frost in one case, Steve Rogers in another) figuring out that Tony is Iron Man, while Tony continues to lie about it. I needed that note because the conflict in the stories literally doesn't make sense to a reader who (like someone whose knowledge of Tony might be based entirely on the movies) doesn't realize Tony has a secret identity.
For an even more specific canon example, I have a Fullmetal Alchemist story that's based on something that happens between Roy and Riza in canon, but is told from the point of view of a third character (Hughes), and it's structured as a mystery in which Hughes is trying to figure out what's happened with the two of them, which canon-savvy readers would already know. In that case, I actively got beta readers (and tried to encourage people to read the story) who didn't know the canon because I wanted it to work equally well whether a reader knew the canon or not.
no subject
So I assume you like Captive Prince. ;o)
I just found myself wondering if I would ever read a romance in which a female POV character actually had a concept that people were sometimes attracted to her
I do think these exist. I have found, when it comes to romance novels, that there are lots of sub-genres of tropes, as well as subject matter. For instance, Virginial!Heroine is one of the fave sub-genres that spans multiple subject!sub-genres--you'll find it in Regency, modern, "chick-lit", Harlequin, fantasy, etc. But Experienced!Savvy!Heroine is another sub-genre, and while smaller, exists in all categories. It is more common in the modern ones, and in the dirtier ones. And while it's totally realistic that a virginal!heroine would know perfectly well when people are attracted to her and know just what to do with it, you're much more likely to find that attitude among the experienced!savvy!heroines. Which is stupid but whatever.
I do enjoy that trope, but hate it when it makes people look stupid, and I also hate how it's so overdone. Recently I've been reading a lot of Teen Wolf AUs, not because I enjoy the show so much as because I knew it would be a way to get some long, USTy, tropey-yet-original romance (that this is how I satisfy my romance novel urges is HILARIOUS to me). I've actually been surprised by the opposite thing happening in these AUs. I'm so used to character A saying flat out, "I want to sleep with you!" and character B saying, "I wonder if he wants to sleep with me?" in response that I should be glad to get something different, but I'm not. I'm terrified. Because now character A is saying, "Do you mind telling me the time?" and character B is saying, "He wants to jump me!" All of the sudden all the platonic, nice things I say to people not-so-secretly me, "Sex now!"
figuring out that Tony is Iron Man, while Tony continues to lie about it.
ahhhhhh this is awesome; I'm going to read that Steve one.
I wanted it to work equally well whether a reader knew the canon or not.
Why? I'm just curious as to whether it was because you were gauging your potential readership, or whether the integrity of the story depended on it, etc.
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Maybe I would? I looked at the fanlore page and that's not EXACTLY the context I was thinking of, but it kind of makes sense. . .
I'm so used to character A saying flat out, "I want to sleep with you!" and character B saying, "I wonder if he wants to sleep with me?" in response that I should be glad to get something different, but I'm not. I'm terrified. Because now character A is saying, "Do you mind telling me the time?" and character B is saying, "He wants to jump me!" All of the sudden all the platonic, nice things I say to people not-so-secretly me, "Sex now!"
Ha ha, that's sort of amazing, actually.
The Steve + Tony story I wrote is Daedalus (and now that I look I realize the AO3 version doesn't have any of the author's notes, so it's possibly confusing to people who don't understand what verse it's in or why Tony is lying about his identity.)
Why? I'm just curious as to whether it was because you were gauging your potential readership, or whether the integrity of the story depended on it, etc.
Primarily for the story, because it had to make sense from Hughes's point of view. But also because I was writing it for an exchange and because I wanted to foist it on some people who didn't know the canon. And also just for the fun of seeing if I could do it.
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IT IS DELIGHTFUL. I read it first on Stulti's rec. I wouldn't have read it otherwise. She said to me: do whatever you need to do to read past the part where you get out of the Regent's court. Skip chapters, read it backwards, go through spoilers, do whatever you need to do, and you won't regret it.
This is because the first part isn't my cuppa at all and was really icky and disappointing, when Stulti had recced it as this complex and thrilling drama that was all about POLITICS and world-building and emotional depth of characters. But seriously, once you get past the first part it's golden.
Daedalus
Bookmarked!
Primarily for the story, because it had to make sense from Hughes's point of view. But also because I was writing it for an exchange and because I wanted to foist it on some people who didn't know the canon. And also just for the fun of seeing if I could do it.
These are all sound, sensible reasons! I was just curious. When I wrote that Batman story I mentioned, I actually felt like I was being really lazy, relying on reader canon knowledge. Because it's so challenging to give your readers info that your characters can't have if you're doing a tight POV, and only a really well constructed story can be enjoyable for both the readers who know the thing and don't. But I didn't bother.
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Will put it on my radar then!
When I wrote that Batman story I mentioned, I actually felt like I was being really lazy, relying on reader canon knowledge.
While I see this could come up on general principle, I think that problem is somewhat mitigated by the fact that it's Batman, you know? That's not just canon-specific knowledge that is basic cultural knowledge. I don't know the specifics of your story, but if you want to write about an emotionally troubled billionaire who assumes a secret alter ego and fights crime, you don't need to invent it because the cultural work has been done already and professional writers continue to write new Batman stories every week without having to explain that Bruce Wayne is Batman. So I feel like you get a pass for that one -- the disguise is so inherent to what makes it a Batman story.