Tevun-Krus #8 - Dystopian SF

How to Really Foul Up a World... On Purpose

How to Really Foul Up a World… On Purpose

By: Reverentia

Earlier in this issue, @AngusEcrivain wrote an article introducing and defining dystopian fiction. In a nutshell, it’s a story where the main character(s) find themselves in opposition to an oppressive or totalitarian society, and struggle against the forces that attempt to annihilate or convert the “non-conformities.”

If that type of plot gives you the itch to try your hand writing science fiction in this subgenre, this article will give you pointers to get you started.

A dystopian story’s primary conflict is usually person vs. society. If your story is complex, it will likely have other types of conflicts as well (person vs. person, person vs. self, person vs. nature), but in dystopian science fiction, these will generally be secondary to person vs. society.

To build this kind of story, you’ll definitely need the following:

* A dystopian world or society

* A strong main character

* Fireworks (a.k.a., a plot)

Let’s look at each of these more closely.

 

Creating a Dystopian World or Society

A dystopian story is defined as such by its setting or social situation, as described above in labeling it as a person vs. society conflict. This setting is therefore not neutral, but is a character in its own right—namely, an antagonist.

Dystopia and sci-fi work so well together because sci-fi is often a commentary on existing society. Sci-Fi writer Thomas Disch believed that sci-fi is not about prediction, but instead uses fictional worlds to critique the existing one. It is therefore both possible and normal to extrapolate current trends into the future. You can generate a dystopian society by following a current negative trend down a hypothetical slippery slope by asking “what-if” questions.

Starting points you could consider include:

* Current events (politics, uprisings like the Arab Spring, religious cults, drug busts, outbreaks, etc).

* Past events (how wars got started, despotic leaders, invasions, etc).

* Magazine articles. Often the ones relating technology to social implications are quite fruitful.

* Population statistics (e.g., demographics of incarcerated people, suicide rates, etc.)

To illustrate the use of “what if” questions, I’ll walk you through how I came up with the dystopian setting in which my TK7 story, Transistence, was set. In this story, national governments had become completely powerless in the face of corporations, to the point that countries ceased to exist and people were citizens of corporations. Losing one’s job essentially meant losing all rights – including ones we consider “constitutional rights.”

Coming up with this world where corporations had forced national governments out of existence involved asking a few what-if questions based on real recent events here in Canada. In 2012, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper signed the Canada-China Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Act (FIPA), with the intention of ratifying it later in Parliament. If ratified, this act would allow a Chinese corporation to sue Canada for damages if Canada enacts legislation that could negatively impact the Chinese corporation’s profits. Similar agreements with other countries already exist and this predicted type of corporate bullying has already started happening. To make matters worse, Canada could pull out of it, but after giving their notice, they’re still bound to it for 31 years. (In comparison, NAFTA is binding for 6 months after pulling out.)