When there's a gap between what's expected and what actually happens, or between what's said and what's meant.
Irony is a broad literary device built on contrast - a disconnect between appearance and reality, expectation and outcome, or surface meaning and intended meaning. It comes in several flavors (dramatic, situational, verbal, cosmic), but they all share the same DNA: something is not what it seems. Irony is how stories surprise us, how characters reveal their true natures, and how writers make us think twice.
Irony adds intellectual depth to your writing. It rewards attentive readers, creates layered meanings, and gives your work the kind of complexity that holds up on rereads. Without irony, stories risk feeling flat and predictable. With it, you can create moments that are simultaneously funny and tragic, hopeful and devastating.
The entire play is built on dramatic irony - the audience knows Oedipus is the murderer he's hunting, and every step he takes toward the truth is simultaneously a step toward his own destruction.
The famous opening line - 'It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife' - is pure verbal irony, mocking the very assumption it appears to state.
The classic situational irony: she sells her hair to buy him a watch chain, he sells his watch to buy her hair combs. Each sacrifice cancels out the other.
Rain on your wedding day isn't ironic - it's just bad luck. For irony, there needs to be a meaningful contrast between expectation and reality. A weatherman's wedding getting rained out? That's closer.
If you have to tell the reader something is ironic, it probably isn't working. The gap between expectation and reality should speak for itself.
Constant irony can make your writing feel detached and emotionally hollow. The most powerful moments often come when irony gives way to genuine feeling.
Write a short scene (one page) where a character delivers good news to someone, but the reader already knows something that makes the news devastating. Focus on making the dialogue feel natural and upbeat on the surface while the subtext carries all the weight. Read it aloud and notice where the tension lives.