#rfwpost

The main purpose of satire is to criticize a certain concept, ideology, person, group or event through humor. This often involves characters or plotlines matted with the idea in question and the usage of irony, sarcasm, parody, analogy, hyperbole and general exaggeration in order to showcase its faults and hold them up to ridicule, which we are meant not only to laugh about, but reflect and eventually, hopefully, to desire and participate in the improvement of the issue in question.

All of this is what makes satire such a popular and influential genre and, at the same time, so difficult to write. Satire must be both subtle and clear or else the message it seeks to send will get lost in translation. A satire that fails to make the reader think has failed completely and, at worst, reinforced the harmful belief it proposed to criticize, even if imperceptibly. Sure, it is the reader's (or viewer's) responsibility to apply even the slightest bit of critical thinking, but it is the satire's responsibility to make, even the casual reader, recognize that there is a problem. In the case of, for example, movies, a part of everybody watches movies viscerally and there is nothing wrong with that. A satire no matter its medium has to watch over for the tone it uses to get its point across.

So creators neither can nor should hide behind the excuse of "You just didn't get it."

Things to consider when writing satire are:

1) The audience,

2) The limits, because indeed, there are limits to writing satire, and

3) Context.

Satire: How to Disguise Your Criticism with Laughter ellaborates on the first two, while Hugh Holub explains the latter.

If a satirical article catches the reader by surprise, they might not get the humor.

Thus, in plying your satirical wit, make sure you target it in a context where the reader is looking for humor.

He provides further tips:

Second, vicious does not work. ”Trenchant" is a key word to remember. Sharp, vigorously effective.  Words like “delightfully vicious"” is more the goal.

Third, obscenity detracts from good satire. The best satire is very literate.

Fourth, the more subtle and authoritative your satire is, the more effective it is. British humor is very understated, and absolutely funny as a result. American’s tend to be over the top. Appearing to be serious while in fact the content is not, works very well. The best satire mimics authoritative presentation so that at a glance it might appear to be real.

The best satire works in tandem with  the level of the reader’s understanding of the subject or topic of the satire. If people care enough about a subject, they will be current on it and knowledgeable about it. Assume your reader is intelligent.

Fifth, the trick is to make sure the made-up farcical element is clear. [...]

Sixth, one path to good satire is taking an existing trend or direction of a story, and keep going as far over the edge as you dare. The ultimate truth (and justification for seeing something as outrageous) is to follow the logical trend  way out there and see where it takes you. A lot of satirical humor has erupted from the current economic bailout efforts [...]

Here for the full list.

And here's a list of resources that go in depth about the topic and revise it from a variety of angles.

Being Xenophanes: How to Write Satire

How To Write Satire

Seven Golden Rules for the writing of Satire

How to Write a Satire Essay

How to Write a Satire Essay

Writing Satire Is Harder Than You Think

How to write Satire and be a satire writer

How Not to Write Satire 

How to Write Satire About Current Events

Satire Writing Tips

How Not to Write Satire

Writing: Tragedy, Irony, Satire Tutorial

Lastly, I will always advice that if you want to write something, you read and overall experience everything you can. Since we are talking about a style and a genre, you go and read and watch pieces that have successfully managed to be satirical. There are certain cues you can't learn without being subjected to them.

Wikipedia offers a list of satirists and satires which you are free to browse. Find authors that interest you and go from there. Study what made them satirical.

Kurt Vonnegut: Slaughterhouse-Five, Breakfast of Champions, "Cat's Cradle"

George Orwell: Animal Farm, Nineteen Eighty-Four

Anthony Burgess:  A Clockwork Orange

Joseph Heller: Catch 22

Terry Prachett

Frank Zappa

Bill Watterson

And so forth. Even comedians (specially comedians) are known for their use of satire to both bring awareness to issues and entertain.

Hey! First of all, I love your blog, and Happy New Year! Second, I was wondering if you could help me with writing about a drug addict guy. How are drugs taken? What do they come in? (I mean packages or what?). And other tip you could give me! Thanks! :) - reading-posts 

You're going to have to narrow down your research.

Pick One (or More)

There's no such thing as just drugs... in the general sense. There are several types of drugs classified by where they come from, what they do to a person, how they're used, method of taking them, etcetera, etcetera. You have inhalants, cannabinoids, opioids, hallucinogens, stimulants, depressants, and I might even be forgetting some others. 

You have to pick what drugs this character is addicted to, because that is your frame of reference on how he takes the drugs, where he finds them, and what effects they have on him. A character addicted to ecstasy (an stimulant) may act different to one taking dimenhydrinate (an hallucinogen). Why? Because normally stimulants such as ecstasy elevate alertness and increase your energy, while hallucinogens cause alterations of thought, mood, or perception. And while it's more common to take ecstasy by swallowing, the most common way to take heroin (a depressant) is through injections. 

So it really depends on what your character is looking for, and the access they have to the drugs. Depending on the setting, it may be easier for them to find, say, marijuana than LSD. Even glues, which is common to find because it's an everyday object, can considered a drug when used the wrong way (inhalants). 

Yet another thing to think about is whether they're only taking one kind of drug or several. Even drugs mixed with alcohol can be a dangerous, powerful, or plain bad experience. This chart of drug combinations might be useful for you, plus researching how drug x and drug y mix together. 

If you're going for drugs like marijuana, methamphetamine, heroin, or cocaine, which are a few of the most common gangs sell/abuse, you're going to have to research how drug dealing works and what it entails for your character. Remember the price of drugs varies on the quality and quantity, and pay attention to this, because your character might not be exactly wealthy. Drugs can actually come in small plastic bags, packages, vials, bottles--it depends on which you pick.

Drug Dealing

Resources: Writing About Drug Dealers

Tips On Writing A Drug Dealer

Character Type: The Drug Dealer

Here's a couple guides I've seen on drug-specific addictions.

(Disclaimer: please don't rely only on these. They're starting points)

How To: Play A Character Under the Influence of Marijuana

Characters On Heroin

Heroin Addiction

How To: Play A Character High on Cocaine

How To: Play A Character High on Amphetamines

Drug Reference Guide: Magic Mushrooms 

Drug Reference Guide: Opiates

Drug Reference Guide: Alcohol

Research: LSD

Look at your Character

Your character is where everything starts. There's no cookie-cutter way on how drugs affect people, and it really depends on your character. Your character's background, where the need or reason for doing drugs comes from--this is why it's important to develop your characters beforehand to researching the drug. 

Things like age, how much time they've been doing the drug in question, previous experience with drugs, matters, because they're factors that could make your character's behavior toward drugs vary. While you aren't experienced with them, your character might be, and they'll have to act as such. 

Another helpful tip is to research for first-hand experiences of people with the drug in question. They're help you grasp how your character might feel than with just general information.

Information on Drug Addiction

Tips on Playing A Drug Addict

Miscellaneous

Research on: Rehabilitation Centres

Writing Withdrawal

Creating Fictional Drugs

Physical and Psychological Addictions

Character Development: The Addict

Valerie’s Masterlist: Drugs & Drug Addiction

Drug/Alcohol Use Links Post

Hello, I need some help on my writing. Whenever I see others writing, then see mine, they just don't match up. It isn't with grammar or anything, but it is struggle with showing how to express deep emotion into my writing. I am not very emotional person, so writing can be challenge when I try to be. -doitsus-ass-is-spooky

I feel like this is something a few writers might struggle with, and while I can't relate, I can offer advice on how I work emotions for both scenes and characters. 

Gather Inspiration

Read. Read a whole lot of things by authors that are great at what you're not: expressing emotions into your writing. In Reading as a Writer, we talked about the things to consider when doing this. Remember that just because you're not good at a part of writing, it doesn't mean you're a bad writer. Everyone has flaws and strengths and you can get better at it through practice and perseverance.

If you want to write a sad scene, read and study how other authors go through these sad scenes. Don't outright steal, but try to really understand the root of the feeling. Read poetry, too, because one of the most important things of poetry is to portray emotions, thoughts, and feelings, in a subtle yet interesting way. Also, listen to music related to the feeling. Listen to sad music, good sad music, and try to understand the lyrics or why it is sad. 

 Why to gather inspiration? To most people, it helps. It gets our imaginations going and makes the writing flow more easily since we have a starting point, however blurry it might be. 

Show, don't tell

(tw: war) "The difference between telling and showing in writing is simple. When you write about war, don’t describe the details and actions of the war. Show the reader the burnt socks of children in the street, the head of a doll sizzling by the curb, and the violent screams suddenly extinguished. If you can do this, the image of war will be branded into the reader’s mind." - TBV

The ever present rule for writing style, showing and not telling has a simple premise: describe things. Take a moment to really try to show us the scene that we need to see. It comes awfully helpful when writing emotions because you don't get much from us, the readers, if you tell us that your protagonist is sad. If you show us that they're sad, through expressions and actions caused by this sadness, through body language, and through speech, we might get a better idea of it, and we might actually feel something too. 

You could be failing at this because it's very easy to fall into the telling, but believe me: if your scene is important and so are the emotions, showing is the way. So, consider the significance of the emotions. Like with any other piece, you have decide on what's the feeling you want to convey through the writing, and then you have to work towards it. It's fine if in the first draft you tell, because you can fix and develop it more, later.

Your Character's Reactions 

Everyone has a different way to react to things that affect them, including characters. Some people are more emotional than others and that's okay; some show emotion in a different way, and that's okay too. If you want to get better at portraying each of their behaviors in a true-to-them way, then no longer think of how your feeling process goes, but your character’s. Do try to connect however you can to it, though. This goes into the character development and description part of writing, and if your skill is better in this part, or worse, it doesn't matter. What does matter is that you're willing to get better. Find out how your characters express themselves, and you'll get better at showing and not telling for them.

Link-Around

Emotions

Writing About Emotions

'How do I make people cry with my writing?'

Showing Emotions Through Dialogue, Not Action

Five Ways to Describe Emotions Without Making Characters Too Self-Aware

The Emotion Theaurus

Emotions Belong To Readers

Writing an Intense Scene

Body Language

41 Emotions as Expressed Through Body Language

Five Things You Should Know About Body Language

Tips For Writers

The Importance of Body Language

Show, Don't Tell, and Descriptions

Unpacking

Show, Don't Tell

Description Advice Masterlist

Emotions, Body Language, Descriptions, Scene Help Message, Submit

20 Tips for More Efficient Google Searches

1. Either/or Google normally searches for pages that contain all the words you type in the search box, but if you want pages that have one term or another (or both), use the OR operator -- or use the "|" symbol (pipe symbol) to save you a keystroke. dumb | little | man

2. Quotes If you want to search for an exact phrase, use quotes."dumb little man" will only find that exact phrase.  dumb "little man" will find pages that contain the word dumb and the exact phrase "little man".

3. Not If you don't want a term or phrase, use the "-" symbol. -dumb little man will return pages that contain "little" and "man" but that don't contain "dumb".

It’s much easier to write to a specific person than “the general reader.” Sometimes, when I’m stuck, I write in Gmail or even iMessage instead of MS Word. I start a letter to a friend—with no intention of sending it—and start describing, storytelling, arguing or whatever. We evolved to talk to specific people, not people in general. So use that. When you’re writing, make a case to your mom; argue with your partner; write a love letter to your teddy bear… Later, you can generalize it.

By the way, writing to a specific person can help you find a “voice.” You will find yourself writing differently if it’s an “email” to a six-year-old than if it’s an email to your boss. It's like having in mind your target audience to a lower, more manageable level. 

I find it incredible how I come up with my best ideas while conversing with other people or even having the intention to converse. It feels somewhat less scary and later you can edit your work, but the main content or idea will be hidden in that snippet you previously made. For me, it's like the feeling of being heard gives me the confidence sometimes an artist needs, to write anything--whilst trying to make it have some sense.

I encourage that you write on your phone. It is accessible, and you can and normally carry it around at all times, just like a notebook--for those that can't carry one or whose handwriting isn't very readable. It's also helpful when you've just woken up or you're going to bed and come up with something.

I think I have issues with ending stories. I just can't do it; finishing the plot line (especially as I have a word limit for this project and a very small one at that) is really difficult for me. Any tips on how to finish a story when under a word limit? - ohshutupellie

When you have to drastically cut down your word count, there's only so much you can do. However, it's possible, and I'm going to show you a few methods. 

Beware I'm not telling you to always do this to your writing, but if you're in need to end the story because you have a word limit, these tricks can help you out:

Tricks for when you finish the story and it ends up being too long.

Eliminate articles, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, pronouns, and other descriptors whenever possible. Sometimes they're necessary for clarification or smoothing things up; oftentimes, they're fillers, and getting rid of them can significantly bring down your word count. I've mentioned similar stuff here with adverbs and adjectives.

Eliminate reduntant words and passages. "Past history"? Eliminate "past". Anything that is history is in the past. 

Eliminate anything that doesn't specifically relate to the main plot. That is, any scene and any paragraphs, to any chapters, that don't have any purpose in your plot. Study what you wrote carefully and remember the goal of the story you're telling.

Avoid info-dump. 

Editing is in itself the act of eliminating the unecessary, so our tag may help you. 

Tricks for starting a story you know needs to be a certain length

Have a plan. Set goals, the scenes you want to have, and the purpose of the story. We've got a tag for that. 

Once you finish, make it go through edition.

Tricks for knowing when you have to finish a story (or how to finish)

We've got a tag for that.

WriteWorld has a nice post, too. 

Tricks for writing short stories

And last but not least, if you feel like your story is going too slow and taking space you need for actual development, pacing is your friend. Have tricks for using pacing to your advantage. 

Ransacking the Town: The Basics of Pacing

What is pacing and how does it affect your story?

Pacing your story

A little extra: Z over here did a guide on how to write without rambling. It's roleplay aimed, but could help you a bit.

And never stop. There's no secret, here. No magical trick that will automatically make you a better writer. Only time and perseverance will make you improve, and if you're willing to experiment, that helps, too. 

Recognize people will not always like what you write. You can't please everyone ever. If they offer constructive criticism, take it. Experiment with it, see if it works for you. If they don't, and they just plain hate, ignore it.

Like Edgar Rice Burroughs said: "If you write one story, it might be bad; if you write a hundred, you have the odds in your favor."  

Just a little reminder to keep you going. 

This information was gathered from people with phobias who were kind enough to share their insight. Cheers!

It's hard for some people to tell what the difference between a phobia and a fear is; however, there are differences, which we're going to point out right now.

Under the cut just in case.