Satire Writing: Three Forms of Satirical Writing with Examples

MartialDao, aka Dean Walsh is the editor and main contributor for The Daily Satire website, where writer can publish their satirical writing as well as submit links to the best online satire for members to vote on. For more information about satire writing see also: How To Write A Satire.

I am a big fan of satire as well as a writer of it. I particularly enjoy TV shows which offer a satirical view of politics and current affairs, but I also enjoy good books, articles, short stories and poetry. But until recently when I started to really look into this area and research it for my work I would have been hard pressed to even define what satire is, let alone describe it’s different forms. I could recognise it when I saw it, I just couldn’t explain it very well. So I thought there must be other writers in a similar position who would like to begin working in this area, or who would like to improve the work they already do, and would benefit from the results of the research I have done.

Basically I have identified three different forms of this kind of humor. There is some overlap between them, but there is still an important distinction to make. Here is my explanation of these three forms and some some pointers about how to use them in your writing:

1. Parody: This is probably the most common form, and is certainly the easiest one to use. There are actually two sub-forms within this. The first is a caricature – like the political cartoons you see in some newspapers only in written form. Basically it is just a process of picking out certain features that you want to make fun of, and then exaggerating them to ridiculous proportions. These second is a spoof. This involves making up a completely fictional characters / series events, which parallels a real set of events or involves a fictional character obviously based on a real person, with certain traits or characteristics massively exaggerated. The trick with parody is to find the balance between not being to obvious, and still making sure that people know what real life characters or events your are parodying.
2. Sarcasm: In normal speech sarcasm is the easiest one to use, and is sometimes called the lowest form of wit because of this, but in writing it is actually pretty tricky to use. Basically it involves taking the opposite position to the one you really hold or really want to express, and then defend that position in a ridiculous or obviously wrong way. Rather than directly making fun of a person / idea / group or whatever, you are making fun of the people who would support or agree with it, by pretending to be one of these people yourself and then making yourself seem very stupid. This means that there is still some exaggeration involved, but you are not exaggerating the characteristics of the thing you want to satirize, you are exaggerating the absurdities of agreeing with it / them. When writing sarcastically the most important thing is to keep it very lighthearted, as it can seem quite bitter and spiteful otherwise. A good tip is to imagine while you are writing that you are in some lofty position where you don’t really care about any of the issues and are just casually pointing out some absurdities, even if you actually feel quite strongly about the issues you are writing about.
3. Irony: Irony is the only one of the three forms which doesn’t generally involve any exaggeration at all. Irony comes from the juxtaposition of perfectly ordinary events, which on their own are not remarkable but which either reveal an absurdity because of their contradiction, or show some quirk of fate that makes it look like God is up there laughing at us. And example of the fist type, in which there is an an apparent contradiction, is British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who started two wars in the middle east, being appointed as the middle east peace envoy for the UN. It is ironic that they would choose him. An example of the second kind, in which it seems like there is some deliberately mocking intention behind a quirk of fate, would be a school play about the Noah’s Ark story getting cancelled because the school building has been flooded (this is a real life example that actually happened).