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#26 — The New Ten Commandments: How to Write Stories for an American Audience if You Are Not From America

Wait, there’s places outside of America?

I am a writer on Medium.

I do not live in the United States of America.

I would like American readers to read my stories and either think I am American, or that I’m one of those likeable foreigners who is allowed to take the piss out of America without being shot or thrown into a secret prison.

I am American, but my finger has fallen off the pulse of the nation, and I wonder desperately if I am a stranger in my own land.

Did you respond ‘yes’ or ‘true to some degree’ to any of the above statements? Well you are in luck. I have crafted a set of ten commandments to write by to ensure big bucks in your Stripe account and no holes in your torso.

1. Thou shalt write in the title font size.

American’s love stuff that is BIG. Texans are legally required, as per the 45th amendment, to say ‘BIG’ or ‘BIGGER’ for at least 30% of the words they say. If you write anything that is smaller than font size 16, or celebrate smallness in any way, you will be labelled as unpatriotic and forced to live in a tiny home.

2. Thou shalt always be making things great again.

Good again is not enough. Americans hate good with all their hearts. They will only accept greatness.

American joke: What do you call a country full of good people?

Answer: Target practice.

Take it from me, you are better off writing absolute garbage than anything hovering in the danger zone of good but not great.

3. Thou shalt always make your arguments in a listicle format.

Anything without numbered bullet points is literary elitism and outs you as a left wing nutbag who probably doesn't even eat steak.

4. Thou shalt mention Trump in every story you write.

They voted for him, then they didn’t vote for him, then he was on his way to jail until the pussies in charge of his fate got worried he would grab em’.

Then they think they will vote for him again.

He is the All American Zombie, and until Rick Grimes finally makes it to Florida to face The Orange One, remember, the algorithm loves Trump even more than this guy:

5. Thou shalt freely substitute ‘World’ for ‘America’ when you have used ‘America’ too many times in your story already.

They are pretty much the same thing. They play baseball for the ‘World Series’ in which only one country competes. They call themselves ‘World Champions’ when they win an under-8 peewee cornhole event in which three of the five competitors were newborns and one was a re-trained ex-racing greyhound.

Try it now. It’s fail safe.

A dwarf ate 56 hot dogs? Where in the world but World.

Need a movie to watch? Check out Eddie Murphy’s hilarious performance in ‘Coming to World.’

6. Thou shalt always use American English spellings or your story will never be distributed.

As much as I dream of becoming a humour writer, I now have to console myself with becoming a humor writer. The ‘humor’ tag has 183k results, compared to the non-world ‘humour,’ which only has 10.3k results. Are Americans really that much funnier than the rest of us?

So remember to apologize rather than analyse, and double your Ls for double the reads (see point 1).

7. Thou shalt not insult gun owners.

Whoops.

8. Thou shalt not refer to your American readers as any of the following nicknames:

Yankee. Except if referring to the World Champions.

Seppo. Short for septic tank, rhyming slang for yank. It’s an Australian thing. Confused? Check out Raine Lore’s guide to Aussie vernacular:

Orange Tinted Fucks. Sorry, had to put that one in there to make sure I am compliant with rule 4.

9. Thou shalt respect the big dude upstairs who was the OG 10 commo’s author.

Mad respect, big dude. 10 is a lot of commandments to come up with. Unless you use half of them just to say ‘Thou shalt read no other writers before me’ and ‘Thou shalt not make idols out of writers with significantly less talent but much better marketing teams behind them.’

10. Thou shalt break every commandment written in the name of satire and claps.

Job made great again? Am I the champion of World?

Seeing as you made it all the way to the end, I am thoughts-ing and prayers-ing you don't hate me enough to assassinate me. I may write ‘How to Write Medium Stories for an Australian Audience if You Are Not From Australia’ if the CIA doesn’t delete me off the mainframe first.

As per the 11th commandment (bonus!), I will conclude my piece with the World national anthem.

Shout out to Smillew Rahcuef for his editing help. Despite being a smartarse, he is quite smart.