Caltrops - Article Discussions - You're getting downright Lovecraftian in the redundant adjective department.

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by Mischief Maker 02/23/2012, 1:26pm PST

Tansin A. Darcos (TDARCOS) wrote:

I'm writing a story about a guy with a mind control device, and he's going to use it on the widow of a recently deceased Senator who was killed along with his daughter in a violent incident. I want to see if the irony and/or satire in this paragraph work:

Someone once said that targeting recent widows for fucking was unsportsmanlike; they're so vulnerable that it's like a fisherman using dynamite to catch fish or a cop killer setting up a sniper nest overlooking a donut shop.

Cleaned it up a bit so the rhythm of the joke works a little better, even if the subject matter is stale as airline food.

With the guy having his mind control device, some might have said it's as disgusting as a racially-motivated sociopathic murderer running ads mentioning free fried chicken and watermelon for Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday, and giving the address of the local Ku Klux Klan as the location.

I assume this is the irony in question. You begin the buildup with fish who can't defend against dynamite, then you follow with cops who can't resist donuts, your climax is blacks who can't resist the combination of fried chicken, watermelon, and Martin Luther King Jr. This does not come across as irony because the joke only works if taken at face value and the context supports that interpretation.

That said, I wouldn't remove this joke because the irony of the third part isn't clear, I'd remove it because it sucks.

I have a question about the context of a paragraph in a story I'm writing by Tansin A. Darcos (TDARCOS) 02/23/2012, 10:56am PST NEW

You're getting downright Lovecraftian in the redundant adjective department. by Mischief Maker 02/23/2012, 1:26pm PST NEW