At the recent Storymakers conference, I taught a class on Writing Dystopia. This week I’ll be turning that class into a series of blogs:

Monday: Defining Dystopia
Tuesday: History of Dystopia
Wednesday: Elements of Dystopia
Thursday: Elements of the Dystopian Hero
Friday: Social Commentary in Dystopian Fiction

In this final installment of the dystopian blog series, I want to talk about the social commentary that is inherent to dystopian fiction.

On Tuesday we talked about how dystopia is reactionary; it looks at a social problem and extrapolates that problem to its frightening extreme. When looking at the origins of almost any dystopia, the authors often frankly coming upon a troubling subject and then imagining how the world would be different if that subject became more and more prevalent:

From Ally Condie, about Matched:

“The real catalyst was a conversation I had with my husband about marriage in the fall of 2008. He posited the question: What if someone wrote the perfect algorithm for lining people up, and the government used it to decide who you married, when you married, etc.?”

Publishers Weekly wrote about Suzanne Collins inspiration for The Hunger Games:

Collins says the idea for the brutal nation of Panem came one evening when she was channel-surfing between a reality show competition and war coverage. “I was tired, and the lines began to blur in this very unsettling way.” She also cites the Greek myth of Theseus, in which the city of Athens was forced to send 14 young men and women into the labyrinth in Crete to face the Minotaur. “Even as a kid, I could appreciate how ruthless this was,” Collins recalled. “Crete was sending a very clear message: ‘Mess with us and we’ll do something worse than kill you. We’ll kill your children.’ ”

Some authors take it a step further, where the social problem is not just the inspiration, but the author specifically wants to make a political/philosophical point:

Ray Bradbury wrote about Fahrenheit 451:

There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches. Every minority, be it Baptist / Unitarian, Irish / Italian / Octogenarian / Zen Buddhist / Zionist / Seventh-day Adventist / Women’s Lib / Republican / Mattachine / FourSquareGospel feels it has the will, the right, the duty to douse the kerosene, light the fuse….Fire-Captain Beatty, in my novel Fahrenheit 451, described how the books were burned first by the minorities, each ripping a page or a paragraph from this book, then that, until the day came when the books were empty and the minds shut and the library closed forever.

The New York Times wrote about Ayn Rand’s inspiration for Atlas Shrugged:

Rand said she “set out to show how desperately the world needs prime movers and how viciously it treats them” and to portray “what happens to a world without them.”

Almost every dystopia fits this mold: taking a current problem and extrapolating upon it. Uglies addresses body image. Brave New World is about our disposable consumer culture and our obsession with hedonistic pleasure and entertainment. We talks about conformity and Communism.

Going all the way back to our Monday topic, I really think that this social commentary is an integral part of the definition of a true dystopia. A book with a vaguely dystopian setting, but which lacks this distinct issue-based element, is probably a different genre altogether: sci-fi, or post-apocalypse, or something else.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this week-long blog series. I’ve definitely enjoyed writing it. I know I’ve defined things pretty narrowly, and that some people have broader definitions; I’d love to hear your thoughts.

At the recent Storymakers conference, I taught a class on Writing Dystopia. This week I’ll be turning that class into a series of blogs:

Monday: Defining Dystopia
Tuesday: History of Dystopia
Wednesday: Elements of Dystopia
Thursday: Elements of the Dystopian Hero
Friday: Social Commentary in Dystopian Fiction

Yesterday we talked about some common elements in dystopian fiction. Today, we’re going to look at common elements in the dystopian hero. A dystopian her0 generally:

• Helps the reader understand the problems with the society. We talked yesterday about how the society, structure and setting are integral to the story, and the main character is the lens through which we see that setting. Whether the protagonist initially understands the societal problems (like Katniss in Hunger Games) or doesn’t (Cassia in Matched), the readers still learn through the main character. Dramatic irony (when the reader knows something a character doesn’t) is a staple of dystopian fiction. Cassia doesn’t recognize the problems in her society, but the reader absolutely sees them. Even in 1984, where Winston is dissatisfied and unhappy, there is still a hefty dose of dramatic irony: he’s hates his job and his marriage, even though readers realize that Winston’s problems are much much worse than just that.
• Discovers secrets or restricted information. Like we talked about yesterday, dystopian societies hide information from their citizens, and the discovery of this information is almost always the catalyst to spur the protagonist to action. Think of Tally in Uglies, who discovered the truth about the both the Pretties and the Specials, or Winston in 1984, who is fascinated with “true” history, and gets a copy of The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism, a treasonous book written by the #1 enemy of the state.
• Feels trapped/isolated. While the protagonist is learning more about the problems of their situation, they are trapped, both physically and socially. Their physical isolation comes in the form of constant surveillance and inabilty to to speak freely or act freely. But the social isolation is worse: the philosophies of the society are so rigid and ingrained that it’s often very difficult to find anyone who dares/wants to discuss societal problems.
• Is often more ideological than practical, and is willing to take huge risks. To some extent, this can be said about characters in many types of fiction, but its especially prevalent in dystopia. Dystopian protagonists are rebels. When they decide to take an action, whether it is to attempt a revolution, or disseminate information or simply escape, they understand that the consequences are very dire. Aside from the threat of punishment, they also know that they are rejecting society and friends–often everything they have ever known. And, very often, they don’t know what the consequences will be even if they succeed: What would escape mean? What would take the place of the current society?
• Is almost never an outsider. While the protagonists of utopian fiction were outsiders, very often travelers who visited a new civilization and learned about its society in great depth, the dystopian hero is almost always an insider. Winston worked for the government, actively censoring history. Cassia, while not privy to dark secrets, was completely immersed in the society to the point of being oblivious to the problems happening around her. Even Katniss, who lived in the outer provinces and was well-aware of the problems of society, still counts as an insider because she has grown up in and accepted the reality of her society. “Insider” doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re complicit in the nefarious actions of the society (though it can); it simply means that they’re a long-term member of this society–what they’re seeing (and what the reader sees through them) isn’t new and strange.

You know what’s truly heroic? My Kindle giveaway. Go enter, for the good of humanity.  (Click here for more info.)

At the recent Storymakers conference, I taught a class on Writing Dystopia. This week I’ll be turning that class into a series of blogs:

Monday: Defining Dystopia
Tuesday: History of Dystopia
Wednesday: Elements of Dystopia
Thursday: Elements of the Dystopian Hero
Friday: Social Commentary in Dystopian Fiction

At LTUE (Life, The Universe and Everything, Science Fiction Symposium) this spring, I was on a panel of authors talking about dystopia, and we spent forty of the fifty minutes simply trying to define what dystopia is. Even after forty minutes we didn’t agree—we just decided to move on.

I think there are two big reasons that dystopia is so hard to define. The first is that some people confuse the definition of the word with the definition of the genre. The literal Greek translation of the word ‘dystopia’: “dys” meaning “bad” and “topia” meaning “place”, so some people claim that any book set in a bad place is a dystopia. I disagree with this definition pretty strongly. That makes as much sense as saying that the mystery genre is any book that contains a mystery, or that the romance genre is any book that contains romance. (I also think that defining dystopian fiction very broadly is also kind of useless from a practical standpoint, because it becomes so vague that it’s impossible to talk about, even in generalities.)

The second reason that dystopia is hard to define is because it has become a very hot trend, particularly in YA, and therefore publishers and marketers are eager to cash in on the popularity—they slap the dystopia label on almost anything. Consequently, books like The Forest of Hands and Teeth and The Road sometimes get classified as dystopian literature, even though they’re quite obviously a different genre altogether: post-apocalypse.

(Very related side-note: if you look at the sidebar of my blog, you’ll see that even I hypocritically do this. My short bio says Variant is “dystopian-ish”. That’s because even though I personally wouldn’t define Variant as a true dystopia, it has enough dystopian elements that I can see the benefit of calling it such.)

So, for the sake of this week’s blog series, I’ll be defining dystopia more narrowly. The definition I prefer is: Utopia with a fatal flaw. Think of all the classic dystopias—1984, Brave New World, The Giver, etc.. These novels all show worlds that attempted to create a perfect society, but that “perfection” was attained at a horrible cost.

There’s obviously more to a true dystopia than just that, but “utopia with a fatal flaw” is a good starting point. Tomorrow I’ll talk a little about the history of dystopia—where it started and how it’s changed.

Did you notice I’m giving away a KINDLE!? And also $125 in Amazon gift cards!? That’s like a REAL utopia, or whatever! (Click here for more info.)