What is Dystopian Fiction?

[meaganspooner]

Just tonight, a brand new twitterfriend asked me, “What is a dystopian novel?” I’m guessing that she read my bio on Twitter, which says I’m working on a dystopian novel, and was curious about the term. I answered her as best I could within 140 characters, but as I lay wide awake in bed trying to sleep, I kept thinking of everything I wanted to

Comments

[lnbw]

A writer friend (unfortunately I can't remember who) recently asked an interesting question about dystopias: to qualify, do the citizens of the dystopia have to think their society is perfect?

I'd never considered it before, but it's true that most works of dystopian fiction I've read star characters who are becoming disillusioned about their "perfect" world -- Nineteen Eighty-Four and Fahrenheit 451 fit into this mold, as does The Giver. Katniss certainly isn't deceived about the Hunger Games world, but people in the Capitol are.

[snowscythe]

There's often a spectrum of "buying into" the perfection of the world, yeah? In 1984, for instance, some characters--the duller people in the world-- appear to be taken in with the whole sham, while others are obviously playing along in fear of their lives. Others are in the middle, just riding along. It's similar in the Mockingjay books. And in The Time Machine, the Eloi think it's all good but the Morlocks (and the main character) obviously know the world isn't a utopia. The Giver is more slanted towards utopia, but there are still characters aside from the Giver, such as the Council and the people who perform "releases", who know that things aren't as they seem. I feel like for a dystopia to present itself fully, there have to be people on both sides: those who buy into it, demonstrating to the reader their failing autonomy, and those who see it for what it is.

[meaganspooner]

Totally. To me, a good dystopian novel is scarier than any horror novel could be. Yes, a thriller/etc. is all about the worst things a human being can do to another, but dystopian fiction is about the worst things a society can do to itself. A whole MASS of people committing atrocities, who don't necessarily have something broken in their heads--it's just What's Done. And no one thinks to stop it.

[aekubo]

Oh man, what a great post. I couldn`t have done better. :) I love dystopian YA, too.

[meaganspooner]

Yay, I'm glad you liked it! I had so much fun writing it, because I <3 dystopian fiction so much. I'm thinking about doing a series!

[ext_269235]

Great post Meagan! So well thought out

[meaganspooner]

Thank you so much!

I STILL haven't read The Handmaid's Tale--I was just talking about this with a friend. It's one of those mysterious gaps in my literary shelf. Clearly I need to remedy it IMMEDIATELY.

Yeah... to me, there are two kinds of people who describe THG. The first says, "Oh, it's about this girl who gets selected and forced to participate in this awful death match against other teenagers and there's this city that makes them do it and there's all this fighting and suspense..." and there's the person who says, "It's about reality TV. And it's one of the scariest things I've ever read." I think I tend to be both, depending on my audience... who am I selling the book to? :P

Am TOTALLY psyched for MATCHED. My housemate pre-ordered it, so I will be reading it the second she finishes.

[angelwingsbaka]

You didn't tell us what THE IRON WOOD tells us about today. D:

[meaganspooner]

Shoot, I knew someone was going to point that out! I actually hate using examples from my own writing to illustrate points about technique or literature, so I usually avoid it.

I will say though that much of what scares me about the world today revolves around the energy crisis and the stripping (or harvesting, if you will!) of our world's resources to perpetuate our comfortable way of life. The argument for it is that we're too far down the path now, that the world order would utterly collapse if we tried to completely reorganize the way we generate and use energy from the ground up.

The original idea for TIW came from the (rather depressing) realization that even if we, as humans, were given a second chance--a new source of energy, fresh and clean, that we could use responsibly from day one knowing what we do now--we'd probably still mess it up.

[animewave]

I love this post so much. I think speculative fiction is probably my favourite genre to read and the dystopias really do stand out.

Now I feel spec. fic. driven :) maybe after I'm done with the current WIP lol.

[meaganspooner]

Woohoo! GO SPEC FIC. Do it! Of course, I am up for anything dystopian, so I'm probably not the most unbiased person to urge you forward... :P

Love the what if questions specific to dystopian

[ext_328251]

Great post, Meg! I love reading dystopian but hadn't ever sat down and analyzed it like this. Makes me want to go out and write something :D.

Martina
Adventures in Children's Publishing
http://childrenspublishing.blogspot.com

Re: Love the what if questions specific to dystopian

[meaganspooner]

Aww, yay! Thank you so much for dropping by and taking a look.

And if it makes you want to write, then I have done my job and can die happy! :P