How People Create: Carlos Greaves
Or, How a Very Funny Satirist Goes About Satirizing
Writing satire is a tricky business.
Not only are you putting something out there that is deliberately NOT what it says it is, which is the true genius of satire IMO, but you are also de facto taking a very public stance on what is most likely a hot button issue.
So, one, before you even publish you’ve already cut your audience in half based on whether they agree with you on said controversial topic.
Two, take that half and cut it again because a bunch of people don’t understand the whole ‘it isn’t what it is’ thing of satire and won’t get the joke.
And then three, remember the half of your audience you cut out at the beginning because they didn’t agree with you? Well, as an added bonus, once the piece is out in the world you will have made yourself a visible target to all of them.
Needless to say, I have no intention of becoming a satirist anytime soon. In fact, just the thought of it makes me want to crawl under my desk.
However, thank god there are people out there willing to rise to the challenge, because, man, nothing cuts quite so deep, makes a point so sharp, lifts a curtain so high, than a really biting piece of satire.
And there are few who do it well.
So, when I read one of Carlos Greaves’ essays on his Substack1 Shades of Greaves and got that exciting little zing2 that only great satire can give you, I got excited. So excited, in fact, that I even sent him a fan letter.3
And then I asked him for an interview.
He has kindly accepted. Read it below.
Can you briefly describe your creative journey as a writer up to this point?
As the child of an immigrant, writing was never something I considered doing for a living when I was growing up (I suspect there’s a part of my dad that is still a teeny-tiny bit bummed that neither my siblings nor I became doctors). I studied electrical engineering in college and took a filmmaking class on a whim as an elective my senior year. I fell in love with the process of writing, filming and editing, and, after I graduated, started shooting comedic short films and sketches in my spare time while working as an electrical engineer. Gradually, that morphed into performing sketch comedy, writing for sites like The New Yorker and McSweeney’s, and eventually getting enough paid writing opportunities to leave my engineering job.4 My dad has actually been incredibly supportive of my career change and nobody has been more surprised by this change of heart than me!
What specifically drew you to satire?
Growing up, some of my favorite books were satirical novels like Candide and Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I love stories that use humor to speak truth to power. It could also have something to do with the fact that, as an eldest child, I’m a people-pleaser by nature, so satire is my way of getting away with misbehavior.
When writing essays, what is your creative process like in general? (brainstorm? outline? free write?)
I will typically spend a few hours researching the topic I’m writing about and jotting down joke ideas as I come up with them. Then, I’ll sit down with all that material and come up with a premise for the piece, then a rough outline, and then I’ll start drafting, often editing as I go. I can’t do the “shitty first drafts” approach so I often spend a lot of time carefully crafting my first draft and then polishing it a bit more in the second or third passes. That said, I’ve written some pretty shitty first drafts.
Can you specifically walk us through the creation of one of your pieces? (how you got the idea, how you approached writing it, how you tackled revisions/notes)
When brainstorming, I think about how to use the premise of the piece to convey my point of view. So, for example, after the police officer who murdered Breonna Taylor was acquitted, I was struck by this feeling of inevitability — that any time a police officer killed an unarmed Black person, it was always the same legal outcome. So I wrote a piece called “Editorial Template For Every Time a Grand Jury Acquits a Police Officer” that was sort of like a mad lib where the overall story was the same and the only things that changed were the individual details like the city it happened in, the name of the victim, etc.
When doing something for the New Yorker or McSweeney's, do you pitch an idea and then write it? Or just submit the full piece when written? If you do pitch, how do you approach formulating the pitch vs how you would write the actual essay?
Most of the pieces I submit are fully written unless it’s a more time-intensive concept like an illustrated piece. When I do pitch, I usually pitch the title and a few of my strongest jokes as examples. If I come up with an idea for a pitch, but I can’t think of at least a few strong jokes, that’s a good sign that the premise doesn’t really have legs.
Have the publishers of your work ever requested major changes? If so, how did you approach?
Humor site editors get enough submissions that if a piece needed major changes, they would likely just reject it in favor of another piece. But editors often suggest small changes and I make an effort to be accommodating since I know that the editor knows their audience better than I do. What that in mind, I only ever push back on a suggestion if their suggestion sparks an idea in my head that I think could be even stronger.
Your work has a strong voice - is that something you developed over time or did expressing it come naturally to you right away?
My voice gradually developed from a combination of my own weird sense of humor and reading a ton of satirical pieces in places like The New Yorker and McSweeney’s to try to understand what types of jokes worked for those sites. It was a careful balance of tweaking my voice to make sure it fit the voice of those sites, while also maintaining my own unique point of view and approach.
What kinds of things inspire you most for your pieces? (personal day to day things vs current events vs philosophical ideas vs pop culture, etc)
I’ve always followed politics closely so that’s a frequent (and endless) source of inspiration. But I’ve also gotten better at mining my own day to day experiences for humor. I think it can be effective to have a balance between multiple types of jokes. That’s especially true now when so many people are (understandably) checked out of what’s going on in politics.
Do you have a particular audience in mind when you write an essay?
I write for a like-minded audience with the understanding that my main job is to entertain and help people achieve catharsis through laughter, rather than trying to persuade people to my way of thinking. But, if I can also sway a few people along the way, that’s icing on the cake.
When writing satire, have you ever had someone be hurt/offended, or not get the joke? How do you approach walking the line between humor and insulting? Or playing it straight but making sure it's understood that it's satire?
Yeah, I’ve gotten a lot of angry comments and emails. Writing satire online is inherently difficult, especially in today’s political environment where some people’s genuine opinions are so off-the-wall they’re hard to distinguish from satire. I just try to keep in mind that my work isn’t for everyone and if someone unsubscribes without bothering to do the ten seconds of research it would take to see that I’m clearly being satirical, then that’s not someone who was likely to engage with my future work. So it’s better to just let them go. That said, I do make a concerted effort to always “punch up” by ridiculing those in positions of power rather than “punch down” at marginalized groups.
Anything else about how you approach your work that you'd like to add? (you only write during a full moon or you have to listen to soft jazz, or you require a fresh pack of Twizzlers, for example)
I love listening to jazz, but, like, real jazz, not that Kenny G bullshit (I consider making fun of Kenny G to be punching up).
For those still not familiar with what this thing called Substack is, here’s a quick explanation from Google: Substack is an online platform that allows writers and other content creators to publish newsletters, podcasts, and other content, and build a subscription-based audience
I liken this ‘zing’ to when you put clues together in a mystery novel. Satire gives you a chance to use your brain a little bit and for some dorks like me it’s a thrill.
Is it a ‘letter’ if it was sent through instant message?
He also recently published his first book: Spoilers: Essays That Might Ruin Your Favorite Hollywood Movies.
Thank you for asking Carlos these questions! I’m not new to writing but I’m completely new to satire and parody, so I love when people peel back to curtain like this 👏