Four Techniques of Satire
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Loading... - Laura Goma
- 31 Mar 2023
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Before any writer takes the plunge and wades into the murky depths of writing satirical fiction, it’s important to brush up on your knowledge of its rules and techniques so you don’t end up casting yourself adrift. The last thing anyone wants is for you and your pen to unmoor yourselves blindly without some degree of wayfinding beforehand—satire is, after all, a genre bound by expectations, so it’s important you know what they are.
The trick to writing satire is to reformulate the existing techniques satirists have used to express themselves throughout history. Once you know these, you can adopt them in order to put your own spin on it, and express yourself accordingly. Knowing these rules shouldn’t feel as though you are straight-jacketing yourself, it’s merely a case of making sure you have enough lurking in your toolkit to get the job done.
With this in mind, there are commonly considered to be four techniques of satire, each of which can give you a general steer as you aim towards your own particular satirical target. Presumably, you’ll already have a clear idea in mind of your story and what it is you are attempting to satirise. But where do you go from there? Let’s take a look at these four techniques of satire and find out how they can help you answer this question.
1. Exaggeration
The first step to crafting a successful satire is figuring out what you want to exaggerate. This can be subtle and on a smaller scale, such as in character depictions or in a character’s inner world, or it can be as full-on as exaggerating settings, even the whole narrative scenario itself. Read More…
