Dystopian Plot Ideas

[Noah Cochran]

@rose-colored-fancy

I’m currently just referring to it as the “Gilded Blood” trilogy, after the first book. I need some collective title but I can’t come up with anything XD

Gilded blood isn’t a bad name for a series, and many people just name their first book’s title the series title.

@inkhorn

Hi! It’s nice to meet you!

Likewise. 🙂

 I do have one idea inspired by the French Revolution. It goes something like this: the rebels truly wish to do what is best for their society, but in overthrowing the government, they lose sight of their original goals of freedom, equality, etc. and get swept along by the violence of their revolution. The story can revolve more around them trying to find out where they went wrong and trying to fix the damage that they caused than around the actual revolution.

That’s an excellent idea! It shows the wrong in both sides well. Thanks for mentioning it, it is now on my list.

 

[Taylor Clogston]

Rose wrote:

What exactly do you mean ‘man vs God?’ As for the man vs nature, I’m not a huge fan of that type apocalypse world/diseases/dinosaurs/fill in the blank type thing for the antagonist, but there is a lot of room for ideas there for sure.

Sorry, I wasn’t very clear.

I’m not talking about literal man vs nature in the sense of being stuck on a mountain with a bear trying to eat you. I was trying to suggest you look at the structure and thematic implications of man vs nature and man vs God.

Man vs nature tends to involve a human trying to prove he’s worthy to exist in a brutal, uncaring system far more powerful than himself. It’s pretty straightforward to see how that basic concept could apply to a dystopian story.

And I’d argue that 1984 embodies something very similar to the “man vs God” structure. The Party serves the role of God, creating a standard of right and wrong and making moral demands of humanity. Winston spends the whole book struggling with and trying to escape the omniscient, omnipotent eye of the Party.

This is a thematic structure which allows your characters to have a more personal relationship with the driving force of the dystopia, while if you used the “man vs nature” thematic structure, your oppressive force would be so much grander in scale and so forceful that they couldn’t care less about the efforts of the insignificant specks who are your characters.

[Noah Cochran]

@taylorclogston

Alright, that makes sense.

Ah yes, 1984 is on my list. What would you give it on a 1-10 scale?

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