Pointers from Thank You For Smoking

In an attempt to learn more about the genre (e.g., how to make fun of something without being an asshole), I just finished reading Christopher Buckley's Thank You For Smoking (1994) which takes on political correctness via the fight in the U.S. over smoking. My concern lately has been how to set a story in Dearborn without tearing the town to shreds. Here's what I learned from Buckley:

1) Ain't no shame in short (less than 10 page) chapters.

2) That it's important to give background info on characters so the reader can readily connect with them. I haven't been doing this. I need to become friends with my characters. Right now they're acquaintances.

3) The use of industry specific knowledge. What's the difference between an amateur and a professional? The amateur may know how to turn a phrase, but a pro can do that and be an expert on the subject at hand. While I do not want to bombard readers with minutaie, I do need to prove I'm a cut above an amateur.

4) The importance of historical context. Buckley does a nice job of letting his contemporary audience know that tobacco has been an issue for hundreds of years, not just since the 1950s. He does this by finding the more relevant and cool stories from history and bringing them to our attention. If I can find parallels to my story from history, it would ground it and perhaps make it more acceptable.

5) Women. Buckley's women in this particulary novel are sex objects and savvy in business, if not downright ruthless. While one of my main characters is a female, most are male and the female voice is marginalized. I need to work on this.

Most importantly, I've come to the conclusion that the joke isn't on Dearborn, it's on U.S. officials who continue to encourage a way of looking at our country that may no longer exist (or maybe shouldn't exist), ie, that we're #1 and that everything's fine. If anything, the people of Dearborn in my story fight this when they see it does them no good.