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One of my absolute, 1001%, best-of-the-best, most-favouritist-in-all-the-world techniques to use is exaggeration.
OK, maybe I’m, er, exaggerating a bit.
But exaggeration is a simple way to add a bit of fun into your writing.
Here’s a recent example:
That’s an example of using exaggeration sarcastically to make a point - my preferred method.
Using exaggeration like this works well for a couple of reasons:
It’s probably how you’d talk in real life. It’s definitely how I’d talk. It’s the more articulate version of “yeah right”.
The humour fits naturally into the writing. It serves a purpose. You’re not having to shoehorn something in just to be funny: the exaggeration highlights the ridiculousness of the thing you’re arguing against.
In many ways, it’s a more effective riposte than just saying something is wrong. I’m not 100% sure why: maybe people like to side with others who are funny. Maybe using humour doesn’t sound so aggressive. Maybe it sneaks under people’s critical faculties. Whatever the reason, it seems to work better.
The key to making this type of exaggeration work is to take the thing you’re arguing against (in this case the idea that writing shouldn’t be helped by tools) and finding analogies where the same idea (not using “tools”) would be ridiculous (I picked hammering a nail and driving a car). The more visual those analogies the better.
The other option is to draw an exaggerated comparison with the person giving the advice.
For example, I could have said:
“A professional copywriter with decades of experience and a full-time focus on writing telling a busy small business owner they shouldn’t use AI tools to help them is a bit like Heston Blumenthal telling me I shouldn’t buy my food at the supermarket and instead I should grow it all myself before spending hours a day cooking it.”
So next time you’re making an argument against something, rather than purely relying on logic, think about whether a bit of humorous exaggeration would serve you better.
If nothing else, it’ll make your writing a bit more fun.
And often, that means your message will get across better.
Not to mention the fact more people will read your next one.
- Ian