Thread: Humorous Expectations

I am working on a fantasy novel (wizards, that kind of thing). I wrote an "author's introduction", which is itself complete fiction, introducing the story as if it were real history and providing some back-story. I shared this intro with a couple of people whose opinions I respect, and was very happy when they both expressed great interest in reading the rest of the story.

Now, I intended the introduction to be witty in a certain way -- an academic who studies these ancient people has decided to write a novel about them. But both my friends reacted to a couple of passages in the intro with explosive guffaws -- "That's hilarious!! This is going to be great!"

My concern is that I am setting up the expectation in this intro for a laugh-fest, and that is not my intention. The story is actually quite dark. There are some opportunities in the story for a few witty red herrings and I fully intend to use them when the mood needs to be lightened up. But I'm almost inclined at this point to tone down the introduction a bit.

Just wondering what thoughts anyone else has on this.

Jeff

I think you're right. Keep the version that you have now in case you have use for it another time but an introduction should set up realistic expectations for the tone of the rest of the book.