"Spoilers: Essays That Might Ruin Your Favorite Hollywood Movies"
An interview with Carlos Greaves
Thank you for reading Humor Science, the newsletter I started so I could have an excuse to talk to and learn from some of my favorite humor writers.
This week I interviewed Carlos Greaves about his approach to writing topical satire, his advice for writers, and of course his new book (!!!!), “Spoilers: Essays That Might Ruin Your Favorite Hollywood Movies” (10/10 title and book, get your copy!).
In addition to writing satire, Carlos also teaches for The Second City and writes the topical satire and writing advice newsletter Shades of Greaves. I’m a huge fan of his work and I’m so excited about this interview, which covers everything from breaking into McSweeney’s to how to structure a larger project so it’s more manageable to tackle (Carlos breaks it down: a novel is just 50-100 humor pieces, which, as someone who also measures my bigger projects in humor pieces, was very satisfying to hear!).
Alright, let’s dive in!
Where do you find inspiration for your humor pieces? How do you come up with ideas?
I’ve always been someone who follows politics closely, so I tend to gravitate towards writing about politics, public policy, and social issues. Whenever I come across a news story that’s particularly infuriating (which happens often) that’s when the wheels start turning and I try to find ways to satirize it. That usually involves finding parallels to something less serious to make the piece a bit sillier and feel less like a rant, which is why I’ve often incorporated aspects of pop culture or entertainment, and, especially, movies.
Can you talk a little bit about your process for writing timely pieces? How long does it take you on average to write a timely piece, and how do you know when it's ready to send?
I actually wrote about this recently for my newsletter, Shades of Greaves. Typically, I’ll spend about 5-6 hours over the course of one evening working on a timely piece. I’ll use the first 1-2 hours to read as many articles about a particular story as I can to try to gather as much material as possible to joke about in the piece. Then I’ll spend another 1-2 hours brainstorming possible premises and jokes, and then a few more hours writing and punching up the piece. Because it’s on such a tight timeline, I have to trust my gut and hope that the premise works. That said, I still get tons of rejections from McSweeney’s, so it’s really about writing a lot and hoping a few will be good enough.
I'm interested in the process of writing pop culture-related pieces. One constraint is that your audience has to be familiar enough with the source material for the jokes to land, and your pieces are definitely resonating with a huge audience. But I'm curious: are there any movies (or other pieces of pop culture) that you've tried to write pieces about -- or wanted to write a piece about -- but haven't because they're not well-known enough? Basically, are there any drafts sitting on your computer that are just for you?
I think one of the things that using movies to write satire does is that it almost creates an inside joke with the audience because they get all of the references. But, like you said, it only works if the audience is familiar with the movie, so I try to stick to movies most people have seen and jokes that most people would get even if they’ve only watched the movie once a long time ago. I had an idea for the book for a parody of The Seventh Seal but I wasn’t sure if enough people would be familiar with the movie so I didn’t include it. At the same time, I worried that not enough people had seen Soylent Green for that essay to land, but I decided I didn’t care and kept it in the book anyway.
Are there specific humor writers or any particular pieces out there that you’re inspired by?
I really enjoy Jack Handey’s pieces in The New Yorker. They’re so original and I find myself wondering how on Earth he comes up with those premises. The same goes for Jen Spyra. Her piece “Sunday Routine” cracks me up every single time I read it. For longer form writing, I love Samantha Irby’s work. She can mine humor out of just about any situation.
How did you first get started with humor writing? What advice do you have for someone who might just be getting started with their humor writing journey?
After developing an interest in film in college, I started writing and directing short films and sketches with a few other filmmakers I’d met. Around 2018, I had an idea for a satirical news webseries similar to the ONN Newsroom videos The Onion used to do. I also wrote satirical news articles and had a monthly sketch show at a comedy theater in Boston. I eventually transitioned to trying to write short humor for McSweeney’s and after about the 10th try got my first piece in at the beginning of 2020. Forcing myself to write regularly for my webseries was helpful to get a lot of writing under my belt. And I’ve enjoyed writing timely satire because the forced deadline means I have to set everything else aside and write, which is sometimes hard to do otherwise. So finding whatever will give you the intrinsic motivation to write often is helpful.
Tell me about your book! How did you land on the concept? How long did it take to write, and what was the experience like of working on a longer project after doing short-form humor?
During the pandemic, I wrote a piece comparing Trump’s handling of the pandemic to Jurassic Park’s handling of the dinosaurs getting loose. After seeing the positive response to that piece, I thought about whether I could write a collection of similar pieces, using movies to tackle various social issues and make cultural observations. I worked on the book sporadically for the next two years and then wrote the majority of the book in 2022 while in between jobs. It was a perfect transition to writing longer work for me because I was able to tackle the book once piece at a time and feel like I was making tangible progress every time I checked off another piece. But, even then, because I self-published the book, it was hard to force myself to stick to my self-imposed deadlines.
Do you have a favorite piece in the book?
My favorite piece in the book is the one about Soylent Green called “A Message From Soylent Farms to Our Customers.” I tried to satirize the way major food brands co-opt “artisan” branding to pass off their foods as somehow being healthier or more natural. I’m particularly proud of the line “Because here at Soylent Farms, we believe food should be made by people, for people, of people.” Which makes more sense if you’ve seen the movie, but you get the idea.
Do you have any advice for writers who are interested in moving from short-form humor into publishing a book?
It really helps to break the book down into chunks and celebrate the milestones as you make progress. And remember, if a short humor piece is 800 words, then a short story is just 2-3 humor pieces stacked together, a chapter is just 4-6 humor pieces stacked together, and a novel is just 50-100 humor pieces stacked together. Finish 1-2 short humor pieces worth of writing a week and you’ll finish your book in a year. It’s a lot of work but if you do it a week at a time, it’s doable!
Is there anything else you want to add about humor writing, comedy in general, or anything at all I didn’t ask about?
I just realized 50-100 humor pieces sounds like a lot, but keep in mind it’s way easier to write 4,000 words about one thing than it is to write 800 words about five things, so there’s benefits to scaling. And you can always do what I did, which is make the book feel way longer than it actually is by formatting your essays as dialogue, or a series of declassified FBI memos full of redactions, or a patent application with lots of diagrams.
Where can people find more of your work? And in addition to your hilarious book, is there any other news you want to plug?
Check out my newsletter, Shades of Greaves! I write topical satire, analyze writing, and occasionally post pictures of my cat. Come for the writing, stay for the cat content!
That’s it! Don’t forget to get a copy of Spoilers, subscribe to Carlos’ newsletter, and if you’re in New York City, come to his book launch party at Caveat on October 23rd!
What’s new:
Danielle Kraese, humor writer extraordinaire and co-author of Jokes to Offend Men, has a new book coming out! Pre-order your copy of “Deep-Sea Creeps: A Field Guide to Terrible Ex-Boyfriends (as Sea Creatures)”. Congrats Danielle!
Is Humor Science a Friday newsletter now? Maybe, as long as Wednesdays keep being migraine days. Nothing to do but laugh and revisit Erica Lies’ excellent migraine piece: A Taxonomy of Migraines (“Cause: You looked at red wine.” 😂😭).
About me
I’m a comedy writer and freelance copywriter living in Brooklyn. My humor writing has been published by The New Yorker, The New York Times, McSweeney’s, Reductress, and more. I’m the co-author of Jokes to Offend Men, which was named the #2 Comedy Book of 2022 by Vulture. I’m available for new writing projects, writing coaching, and nerding out about comedy, so please reach out and say hi!