What is Dystopian Fiction?
Dec 02, 2010 
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 say about the subject. So instead of flooding Twitter, I decided to do the next best thing: blog about it!
Often the first question people ask me when I say I’m a writer is, “What do you write?” The second question tends to be, “What the hell is a dystopian?” I think that sometimes even those who do feel familiar with the term don’t have a complete understanding of the genre. I’ve come across more and more people who think dystopian fiction is brand spanking new, because of the huge swell of popularity in the genre with writers like Suzanne Collins (The Hunger Games) and Scott Westerfeld (Uglies) making waves in the YA market. And it’s definitely true that the genre has exploded recently, which I love because it’s one of my favorite genres of literature. But it’s been around a LOT longer than a lot of people new to the genre might think.
Dystopia is a word with which many of us writers, especially those of us who write speculative fiction, are already familiar. The easiest way to define it is to say that it is the opposite of a utopia.
The book which coined that term, Utopia by Thomas More, described his idea of a perfect world, outlining the specifics of government, ownership, and religion that he believed would combine to create an ideal society. Many of the ideas he presented were radical at the time–there were female priests in his society, for example, and it was published nearly five hundred years ago! The ideas in his book went against much of what his society (and he himself!) upheld as the standards of the day. When I look at Utopia, I see the very earliest form of speculative fiction. The book asks, What if? and then tries to answer the question.
I’ve always hated definitions that fall back on comparison, however, so I’ll offer up an explanation of dystopian fiction that doesn’t rely on a companion term:
A dystopian society is usually a futuristic one, in which the laws and morals that govern the people within it have regressed to the point of repression or loss of human rights, designed by the author to highlight and explore the flaws in his current society.
At some point in the mid to late 19th century, writers began toying with the idea of examining what makes a perfect society by presenting us with the opposite: terrible futures, societies in which we would find life unbearable. Instead of telling us what we should do to create a perfect society, these writers showed us the possible consequences of continuing to live as we do now.
H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine, for example, portrayed a far-distant Earth inhabited by two species: the peaceful, beautiful Eloi with no curiosity or spark of intelligence, and the harsh, brute-like Morlocks. Gradually he comes to realize that both are descended from humanity: the Eloi are the descendants of our upper class, while the Morlocks are the descendants of the working class. In Wells’ increasingly nightmarish version of the future the Morlocks actually eat the Eloi, who are too complacent to break free of the strange parasitic relationship with the Morlocks. Wells was trying to warn us that if society continued to be exclusively classist, then the future portrayed in The Time Machine could very well be possible.
Other classic dystopian novels operate much the same way. George Orwell’s classic, Nineteen Eighty-Four, is set in a world dominated by a totalitarian government, which controls its populace by constantly monitoring their private lives and changing/censoring history to perpetuate its own power and image. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury offers a future that would strike absolute terror into any writer’s heart: a world in which America has so regressed into hedonistic, thoughtless lifestyle that any free-thinking, intellectual pursuits are outlawed. The title of the book refers to the supposed temperature at which books burn–because they are outlawed, and anyone caught reading is shipped off to an insane asylum.
So that’s all great to know, but what does this mean for us, as writers? I believe it’s important to know why a genre exists if you’re going to write in it. The definition of a dystopian novel as “a science fiction novel about a bad future” is really too simplistic.
Want to know the real secret about dystopian fiction? It’s not about the future at all–not in the slightest. Dystopian fiction is about what’s happening right now.
Dystopian novels are products of their time.
Wells wrote The Time Machine during the end of the Victorian era, in which the extreme distinctions between the classes were magnified by the increasingly industrial society. Orwell wrote Nineteen Eighty-Four shortly after World War II, about a society that strongly resembled the regime of Joseph Stalin. Bradbury, writing when American children were for the first time growing up in front of the TV, envisions a world where the immediate, thoughtless entertainment available through technology eclipses literature so completely that books become outlawed.
The best of dystopian fiction today continues this practice of highlighting the flaws in our society and extrapolating them into the future, imagining what our world could become if we don’t repair the cracks now while we still can.
Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies series takes place in a future in which every teenager gets plastic surgery at age 16 to become pretty, and in doing so, is stripped of his or her individuality and passion, becoming a mindless pleasure-seeker. Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games trilogy is a terrifying, gripping warning about what reality television could become, pitting children against each other in death matches for the amusement of spectators at home.
If you’ve ever thought you might want to try writing dystopian fiction, the first thing to think about is this: what warning do you want to send? What about today’s society scares you so badly that in twenty years, or fifty, or a hundred, it could change our lives so drastically that we, as people living in the 21st century, would scarcely recognize them?
Science fiction is all about the “what if.” What if the qualities that define our society today are the very cause of our downfall tomorrow?
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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.
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.
Yeah, I agree with Thara–and often, I think, the characters who see the evils of their dystopian world and still participate in it and support its systems are what make some dystopian works so chilling. What’s really scary isn’t so much that brainwashed masses who are being lied to could think something was okay, but that pretty perceptive people who know what’s happening would.
This post brought to you by reading about Nazi Germany! 🙁
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.
Dystopian stories often make me feel utterly incredulous, for just this reason. How can people be this awful, I ask myself.
… And then I read about Nazi Germany. :\
When I think about genre I think about what pleasures each has to offer, and I think dystopian fiction, like horror, gives us the chance to rehearse our fears. It gives us a chance to look at all the worst things humanity is capable of, but then it also often provides us with the answer: it just takes one person to start a change.
great post! speculative fiction is also a favorite of mine. what do you think drives people to want to write/read stories set in future dystopias rather than modern or historical ones?
snowscythe, if you want to experience more feelings along this line, go watch “National Geographic: Inside North Korea” (on Netflix Streaming). the most fascinating thing to me was how the average folks have so completely bought into their own oppression. when they sing the praises of their Great Leader, you get the feeling them that most of them aren’t acting at all. they really mean it. the power of half a century of misinformation… chilling.
Thanks! Personally, I think the drive comes from wanting to show people VISCERALLY what could happen if we don’t shape up now. That’s where it comes from for me. I mean, yeah, you could say “Hey guys, we gotta do xyz,” but no one’s going to listen. Show them a world in which children are forced to kill each other while the rich watch on TV, and people are horrified.
Maybe I will. North Korea is a really curious and scary case.
When I went to Beijing 2 years ago, I met a friend of a friend who grew up there. I was talking to him about learning some words in Mandarin from Taiwanese friends in the US. His immediate reaction: “Oh, Taiwanese people don’t speak Mandarin. They can’t.”
I tried to tell him, well, actually, I’ve heard them speak the same language as you’re speaking now, I promise I’m not making it up, and he replied “You must have been mistaken. Taiwanese people just can’t speak Mandarin. They probably were speaking some wrong weird language.”
And after a few more questions, I learned that he had never met a Taiwanese person, but he had learned in school and such that they were crazy and rebellious and weird, nothing like Chinese people. It was creepy seeing his utter and complete belief in what he was taught.
I almost don’t want to know what happens when a country does that on an even more insular and oppressive style.
You make a really good point with “The Giver” (one of my all-time FAVORITE BOOKS). There are those complete innocents, like Jonah at the beginning, who think the world is perfect and know nothing beyond the surface. But then there are those like Jonah’s dad, who perform horrific atrocities every day–and yet don’t seem to realize that something’s wrong.
To take your point one step further, of those people who know the world for what it is, there are those who perpetuate it knowingly, and those who go along because they know nothing else. President Snow, for example, as compared to Katniss’s prep team.
Ooh, what an interesting point. I do think in most dystopias, its citizens “buy in.” But at the very least, the defining characteristic of citizens living in a dystopia is not necessarily that they buy in–but that they don’t believe there’s any other way of living. Nobody thinks they can change it. And then, in turn, the defining characteristic of the protagonist is that he or she, over the course of the book, decides to try. I think it can be argued that THG is all about Katniss deciding to change her world.
One could qualify Don Quixote as a kind of dystopian story… Except the dystopian society was contemporary and the hero models how life should be on cheap Romance (whoa-oh-oh-oh-ooooooooh, caught in a cheap Romance…). Not to mention that the Don Quixote refused to simply accept what the people around him accepted as objective fact: this woman is a whore, that windmill is a windmill, etc. The real lesson of Don Quixote is that dystopia is in the eye of the beholder! 8D Although… that would place Sancho in the middle of the dystopian tension. And Dulcinea… Since they have knowledge of both the “objective” world and Don Quixote’s world…
P.S. As far as I’m concerned all of Terry Gilliam’s films are variation on Don Quixote, and he is no stranger to dystopian fantasy! The moral of the story: Caitlin likes the things she likes. 12 Monkeys: are you crazy or is everyone else? How do you know?
Sweeney Todd is a dystopian story! Charles Dickens… Kafka, 95% of Russian lit… I could go on and on. So I’ll stop. OH! Candide!
Only you would write about Lady Gaga and Don Quixote in the same paragraph.
This is a reaaally good point. Not all dystopian fiction has to be set in the future. I love the idea of Don Quixote as the dystopian protagonist, wow.
Yeah. Caitlin likes the things she likes. Truer words, etc.
Oh man, what a great post. I couldn`t have done better. 🙂 I love dystopian YA, too.
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!
Great post Meagan! So well thought out.
The first dystopian I remember reading was ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ by Margaret Atwood. It was for high school English class. I can’t remember what grade it was, but I do remember hating it. Not because it was a bad book, but because it freaked me out. Our teacher didn’t do half as good of job as you have done explaining the concept of dystopian fiction! I never really thought about it again until last year, when a good friend said to me, ‘Oh, I have this amazing book you have to read…” and it was the Handmaid’s Tale. At first I was like, UGH! but I honestly couldn’t remember the plot, so I started it again (lack of English books here and all 🙂 ). It was AMAZING! It finally clicked that book was supposed to be disturbing and there was something much deeper going on than this crazy male dominated society. I was late to the Hunger Games as well for the same reason. When I heard all the buzz I thought, ‘why would I want to read about kids killing each other?!’ I finally caved, and ya…mindblowing stuff.
I finally ‘get’ it. I’m really looking forward to reading ‘Matched’ that just came out, and of course, your book when it’s published 🙂
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? 😛
Am TOTALLY psyched for MATCHED. My housemate pre-ordered it, so I will be reading it the second she finishes.
Lovely! I encourage that you write that series =D
You didn’t tell us what THE IRON WOOD tells us about today. D:
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.
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.
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… 😛
Love the what if questions specific to dystopian
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
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! 😛
What is a Dystopian Fiction
Thanks for your wonderful explanation. Dystopian fiction seems to be a product of our times for sure. Brenda
Re: What is a Dystopian Fiction
What a great post, Meg! I especially like the point you make about dystopian novels should comment on our current society. Very important!
Re: What is a Dystopian Fiction
Thanks, Caroline! Can’t wait to hear more about your own dystopian novel. 😀
Re: What is a Dystopian Fiction
I’m so glad you stopped by to read! I’m also really glad you asked the question… it’s sparked a really great discussion.
eye opener
This was such an interesting post! I’ve never really thought deeply about the dystopian genre, and I guess whenever I did I had a pretty ridiculous definition of it in my head which was something along the lines of “in the future, things are bad.” And is it silly that I never equated 1984 with dystopian? Haha, yes so silly I think. Thanks for delving into it more, and you’ve definitely inspired me to give it a crack one of these days. And can I ask, what is it about today’s society that scares you into writing dystopian?
Re: eye opener
Oops, I just read through the comments and see that you’ve already answered the question in relation to TIW. Is there any other fear, more generally that drives you to write dystopian? Also how is that some of my favourite books mentioned along here The Giver, The Handmaid’s Tale, are dystopian and I never knew? D’oh. Haha.
Re: eye opener
I’m so glad you liked the post! It’s totally not silly at all not to associate older books with the genre. I think the tendency to think of it as new is very widespread, given its popularity in the YA market. I love the look on people’s faces when I tell them that The Time Machine is dystopian fiction. Just as vampire fiction isn’t new, neither is dystopian!
To really answer your question I’d probably need a whole other post. For me, though, the thing that scares me is the power we have to effect change in the world today. Technology moves at an exponential pace–the more we learn, the faster we learn more. With new technologies come new ways to destroy–or restore–our world. I think the thrill, and the horror, of dystopian fiction for me comes from the fact that it could take only such a little thing to bring about the end of things as we know it. The scariest thing to me is that when it happens, we may not even realize it until it’s too late.
I spend actually very little time in TIW explaining what went wrong, as it takes place hundreds of years later, but I think about it all the time. It’s in every word of the story nonetheless. It’s a story about power, and its abuse, and the point of no return. I like to think about what an ordinary person would do when faced with decisions that affect the fate of their species, and for me that’s never so clear as in a dystopian society, where all it takes is one pebble to start a landslide. And usually at great, great cost. If you were that ordinary person, what would YOU do? Would you become extraordinary?
Re: eye opener
Gosh, I hope so. Guess we’ll just have to wait and see. 😉
And oh my god. I am now so excited for TIW to be published, you have no idea. I completely agree with what you said about technology about the power to effect changing. It’s a double edged sword because it puts us so perilously close to destruction or salvation that in the end it does come down to choice, and human history doesn’t exactly have a track record of brilliant choices. I’m just thinking of some of my favourite scifi films- Gattaca, A.I, maybe even Inception and how they’re all about humans making the same mistakes, trying to control things that shouldn’t be controlled. And the repercussions happen on a grander scale because of advanced technology…
I think what scares me most about today’s society is the level of indifference. We are inundated with information to the point that little is meaningfully retained, and knowledge, which you have to fight to earn, is really difficult to come by. With so many voices and opinions and choices and predictions out there it is so easy to become indifferent to it all, to recede into a cocoon. And in my most cynical, apocalyptical moments, I kind of see that as the reason why we’ll never stop massive issues like climate change and I hate that. Oof this got a bit soap-boxy hope you don’t mind. Again thanks again for this post 🙂 You have no idea how much my brain is ticking over now!
Re: eye opener
Yaaay! And I absolutely LOVE what you say about choice. Because the whole point of it coming down to individuals is that more than ever it becomes about choices. Loooove it.
Dystopian fiction IS soap-boxy. It’s a writer saying “Here’s what I think is wrong and here’s what’s going to happen if we don’t fix it.” We’re that crazy guy on the sidewalk corner with a sandwich board and a scraggly beard. We just predict the apocalypse in a way that doesn’t make people cross over to walk on the other side of the street.
Hopefully. >_>
Re: eye opener
Haha. 😀 Make that a definitely.
Re: eye opener
OMG I just came across this video and I instantly thought of you. It’s an interview with Syd Mead (worked on Bladerunner, Aliens and now Tron) and he’s talking about how creativity and imagination drives the future. Totally watch it, it’s incredible.
http://vimeo.com/17376932
Re: eye opener
What a fantastic video! Thank you so much for sending it my way. I love his talk of logarithmic scales of technological development–totally on board with that.
Impressive site. Keep up the great work. Great blog on Dystopian fiction. One for the bookmarks!
Thank you! It’s definitely a genre I love. Thanks for visiting!
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Write more, thats all I have to say. Literally, it seems as though you relied on the video to
make your point. You definitely know what youre talking about, why waste your
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