What Is A Parody & How Do I Write One?

Everybody enjoys a good parody, but they’re extremely hard to write! In this post, we’ll look at what parody is and give a few tips on how to write a parody. We’ll also include examples of parody.

What Is A Parody & How Do I Write One?

In general, a parody is an exaggerated imitation of a person, a situation, a literary style or the whole text. This imitation can be funny, but it doesn’t have to be. If there is a lot of exaggeration, things might even turn out to be absurd. Authors may add a dash of ridicule or even biting criticism.

Parody is both a stylistic device and a literary genre. They’re a bit hard to keep apart; it depends on whether you use exaggerated imitation as a tool within a text or if you use it throughout your whole text. Then the text itself becomes a parody.

Parodies, in general, are much loved by readers because, very often, they make us laugh. That’s also what makes parody so hard to create. But we’ll do our best. Let’s look at the stylistic devices you need to create a parody.

How Do I Create A Parody?

To create a parody, you need the following things:

1. An original text you want to imitate.

Any parody requires this. You, as the author of the parody, need to know the original inside out. If you don’t, the readers will find out and criticise you for it.

This deep knowledge is necessary because any imitation of a text (even if it’s just in parts) requires you to imitate on several levels (we’ll get to that later). How will you know all the levels if you don’t know the text?

2. A deep connection to the original text.

The original text needs to have some meaning for you as the writer of the parody. This doesn’t mean you need to like it; the best parodies often come from a deep criticism of the original. Your feelings for the original text can influence whether you will write a parody or a satire (please read on).

3. Exaggeration, Irony and Humour.

Laughter is a powerful instrument to make readers accept a message they might otherwise refuse. Parodies (and satires) achieve this by exaggeration.

You may exaggerate the whole original text. The danger here is that the effect might be lost, though. It might be more effective to choose certain elements of the source, like a pars pro toto, and then exaggerate those. This can be a character, a character’s looks or manners, or an event that happens.

Another way to evoke laughter is by using irony, sarcasm and other comedic elements. Please remember that parodies do not necessarily have to be funny. A word of warning: don’t try to be funny if that’s not your thing in general.

4. The right intent.

The intent of your writing decides whether it’s a parody or not. It’s like painting someone’s face. A painting can turn into a portrait if it enhances your beauty, but it can also turn into a caricature if the painter exaggerates the features that aren’t your best. We’ll discuss the intent later.

Depending on the intent, your text meant to be a parody can actually be a satire or a pastiche (we’ll explain the differences later).

How Can You Use Parody In Texts?

The word ‘parody’ can refer to a stylistic element or to the text as such. This means you can use parody as a stylistic device. Since parody depends on imitation, let’s look at what authors can imitate:

The style of the original text
The characters of the original text
The original setting
The plot
The intent, or the key message of the original text

All of these can be parodied. Here are some ways to do it.

1. Make it funny to make a philosophical point.

Slipping a serious message into your reader’s brain is tricky. Make your readers laugh, and they won’t realise the philosophical thoughts you slip into their brains.

That’s the effect of George Orwell’s Animal Farm. As a genre, it is more a satire than a parody. But it uses parody as a literary device to imitate historical events of Russian history, exaggerating them, transforming real-life historical people into animals to create a comic effect.

2. Grand style, funny subject

One of the earliest parodies is the Greek Battle of the Frogs and Mice (date is unknown, probably between the third and fifth centuries BC). The anonymous poet faithfully mimicked the grand style of Homer while writing about the trivial subject of the battle between a frog-king and a mouse-prince.

Miguel Cervantes’ novel Don Quixote (1605-1615) is another good example. It was written to parody the chivalric romances. The style makes the adventure stories sound like any other adventure story of the time. But the hero is not a knight in shining armour fighting ferocious dragons. It is an old man riding an old skinny horse, fighting windmills.

3. Old story, new setting, unlikely character

Let’s look at James Joyce’s Ulysses. James Joyce goes through all the adventures of Homer’s Ulysses. But all the stories are set in Dublin. The hero of the new story doesn’t have a ship, and he doesn’t sail the seas at all. In fact, the main character is not a hero in the classical sense. Leopold Bloom is far from courageous, decisive, and morally superior. This unlikely hero goes through all the stories of the Greek Ulysses, and that makes it interesting.

4. Old story, new context

Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet has been placed in a new context by movie director Baz Luhrmann. This 1996 movie was not intended as a parody but rather as an adaptation to modern times. However, the story was told in such a vibrant, highly stylistic and overly energetic way that it can be seen as an unintentional parody. For example, the modern setting and the modern soundtrack clashed with the original dialogue from the play. This is a good example where the context creates the parody.

The Touchstone Of Parody

We’ve already mentioned that it’s the intent that decides whether your imitation is a real parody, or maybe rather a pastiche or a satire. All these literary genres are very close to each other. If you want to tell them apart, then please look at the writer’s intent.

Let’s say you’ve already chosen a source you want to imitate. Think about what the original text means to you. What do you intend to do to the original? You have several options. Your choice defines your genre.

Parody: You want to make fun of the text. You want to entertain the readers. A parody imitates the original text and exaggerates it to make fun of the text. Its playful humour doesn’t necessarily need to criticise, but when it does, it’s never to actively create change. The parody’s main intent is to entertain the reader (and maybe raise a little awareness).
Satire: You want to make fun of the real world, not the text. Satire imitates the original with the intent of ridiculing the real-world phenomena behind the original text. So, all the ridicule and absurdity of the satire don’t just make fun of the text; it laughs at what inspired the original. The intent of the satire is political. It wants to change something in the real world for good. In this sense, it’s like a call to action for the reader. A good example is Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (1726).
Pastiche: You like the original text. You don’t want it to stop. A pastiche imitates the style of the original author affectionately. The plot of the pastiche references the original but doesn’t copy it. It continues and complements the plot of the original story. Pastiches are created by writers of literary fan fiction. Famous examples are all the pastiches written to continue the stories of Sherlock Holmes (a renowned writer who did this is Laurie R. King).

Imitation And Copyright

As much fun as it is to imitate another writer’s texts, there is one serious pitfall. Any imitation is potentially a copyright issue, especially if you quote the original work verbatim.

Before you publish your parody, you must check the copyright laws of your own country, as well as the country of the original author. Remember, there is no such thing as a universal copyright law.

It seems, however, that parody poses less of a problem in this case. If writers turn the parody into a criticism or a commentary of the original, then copyright seems to be less of an issue. Please check the Wikipedia article on parody for a brief overview.

The Last Word

I hope this blog has helped you to understand the nature of parody, as well as given you hints on how to write one. Please also read these blogs on pastiches and satire. If you find these genres difficult to tell apart, then that’s because they are! Maybe a quote can help you on the way. Vladimir Nabokov once said, “Satire is a lesson, Parody is a game.” Have fun playing with this genre!

By Susanne Bennett. Susanne is a German-American writer who is a journalist by trade and a writer by heart. After years of working at German public radio and an online news portal, she has decided to accept challenges by Deadlines for Writers. Currently she is writing her first novel with them. She is known for overweight purses and carrying a novel everywhere. Follow her on Facebook.

What Is A Parody & How Do I Write One?