![]() Another good one somebody else wrote was “Man joins gym to shed personality”. For example I did a story last Christmas Eve where the headline was “Kid leaves out sherry and mince pies for Jeff Bezos”. One technique I have is where the headline reads like a totally normal headline until the last word, at which point it subverts your expectations. Sometimes I’m looking for one specific detail in a story that I can pull out and use as a jumping off point, other times I’m thinking about how the story could affect the man on the street and find some humour that way. On slow news days I tend to cast the net further wide and tackle broader stuff depending on the time of year.Īs for the actual process of writing the articles, I tend to have a series of approaches in my head on standby that I can run the stories through. The headline is the whole take in its most condensed, funny form, so if your idea doesn’t work as a headline, it’s never going to fly. If there’s a big breaking story then I’ll try to approach it from different angles and come up with various headline ideas. Really though it depends on the day and the news. I watch about three screens displaying the news at once and neck so much coffee I’ll probably still be awake long after I’m dead. What is your process like for writing a satirical news article? “One technique I have is where the headline reads like a totally normal headline until the last word.” I’ve been lucky enough to write for it for a couple of years now. Wikipedia says some people somewhere compare it to the US site The Onion, which is flattering. It tackles issues of the day as well as handling observational stuff, usually skewering middle class sensibilities. The Daily Mash is a UK-based satirical news website. Before we get into that, can you explain what The Daily Mash is for anyone who doesn’t know? Plus it gave me a head start on this whole working from home malarkey. Going freelance was nerve-wracking enough even without a pandemic to contend with, but it was also really enjoyable to be my own boss. Looking back on it I don’t think I would have made the leap even a few months later. I made the leap in September 2019, so not long before Covid struck. I’m a full-time freelance writer for various clients, mainly magazines and websites. ![]() It was a good lesson though – understand the brief before doing the work.Īre you a full-time writer or do you balance it with another job? I massively over-prepared and they only needed a fraction of what she said. ![]() It was a tiny column where I talked to one of my former creative writing lecturers about her recently-released book. Then I moved on to write website copy for an online accounting company, which was around the time I got a small interview in SFX magazine. This led to a job where I wrote about carrier bags for a packaging wholesaler. These articles would be about all sorts of odd things like airport car parking and the advantages of different kinds of casters. If you know what SEO means you’ll know what I’m on about. I think the first time I was given actual money for stringing words together was for a company which produces blog posts that make websites appear higher up in Google. What was your first paid writing job and how did you land it? I just wasn’t doing the graft of actually hammering the ideas out via writing. It wasn’t until I was in my mid twenties though that I started submitting stuff to Newsjack, but in all that time I was always thinking about topics in that sort of stand-up way, trying to find a funny angle on them. He joked about and riffed on things in a way that felt so relatable, and the comedy felt so far ahead of other routines I’d seen up until that point. I’d just watched Phill Jupitus’ Quadrophobia stand-up on VHS and it was a revelation. In terms of comedy I think it was when I was about 14. I drew lots of comics as a kid which I think uses the same part of the brain that lends itself to writing and storytelling, so I guess that was the start of me writing without really realising it. This one is PACKED with practical advice for anyone with an interest in satire or topical writing and a story that will resonate with all writers. He’s a freelance writer with an excellent work ethic and a keen eye for finding the humour in the news. Welcome to Writers in Various Stages of Development #046 with Dom Carter.ĭom is a lead writer for The Daily Mash, a UK-based satirical news website and has also written for The Mash Report and Late Night Mash TV shows. “If your idea doesn’t work as a headline, it’s never going to fly.”
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