Dystopian future story

[MillieDynamite]

Well, Mary, being a jew and descendent of holocaust survivors, one can assume there is an allegory in the story.

 

[theWollstonecraftWoman]

No comment.

 

[MajorRewrite]

Different tangent: have dystopian future stories become completely cliché? To be fresh and stand out from the crowd, write about a better future.

 

[Djmac1031]

Yes, it is a bioengineered virus which was supposed to attack black people, but something went seydveyz (sideways) and worked backwards of what was intended. A white supremacist thing gone kaca.

Oh, people are gonna HATE that lol.

Hey, if you like controversy, go for it.

But here's the stark reality: no matter how thought provoking your story is, how well written, allegorical, etc. what's really gonna wind up happening is drawing haters and trolls and heated arguments on both sides of the racism issue.

After all, this is the internet.

Good luck if you write it. You'll need it.

 

[NoTalentHack]

Different tangent: have dystopian future stories become completely cliché? To be fresh and stand out from the crowd, write about a better future.

I think part of the problem is that it’s like the Tolstoy quote, “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Not saying there can’t be good variations, but a utopia works, a realistic one, is going to necessarily share more characteristics than systolic ones, assuming a creative writer.

That said, I think there’s something to be said for a world that’s mostly better, but perhaps stagnant. Striving. Like… I love Star Trek, and Next Gen is my favorite for that hopeful future. But DS9 and Picard and SNW showing the seams where people ignore or paper over the failures of the Federation have always been my favorite parts.

 

[NoTalentHack]

Oh, people are gonna HATE that lol.

Hey, if you like controversy, go for it.

But here's the stark reality: no matter how thought provoking your story is, how well written, allegorical, etc. what's really gonna wind up happening is drawing haters and trolls and heated arguments on both sides of the racism issue.

After all, this is the internet.

Good luck if you write it. You'll need it.

 

[theWollstonecraftWoman]

I think part of the problem is that it’s like the Tolstoy quote, “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Not saying there can’t be good variations, but a utopia works, a realistic one, is going to necessarily share more characteristics than systolic ones, assuming a creative writer.

That said, I think there’s something to be said for a world that’s mostly better, but perhaps stagnant. Striving. Like… I love Star Trek, and Next Gen is my favorite for that hopeful future. But DS9 and Picard and SNW showing the seams where people ignore or paper over the failures of the Federation have always been my favorite parts.

I'm reworking my plot, but haven't decided where I'm headed on it. Millie Dynamite has a dystopian story on another site that I liked. I don't think it is among her best, or even close to her better ones, but the concept was interesting. I want the stories to be a loose collection of tales, some characters might be revisited, and others would be one-offs. I might have one main character that appears in each story. It's all in the fog of formative thought right now.

 

[SimonDoom]

I fall strongly on the "write what you want and if others don't like it to hell with them" camp, but I'd also say that in writing a story along these lines you should think carefully about what the point of the story is. Don't just think in terms of "here's a cool concept that will get a rise out of people." What do you want to say with this story? What's the point? It sounds like something that could be an allegory about racism or intolerance, but it's not clear from the setup.

For example, the late law professor Derek Bell wrote a story called The Space Traders about aliens that came to Earth and offered a deal to the United States: give us all your black citizens, whom we will take away in our ships, and we'll give you extraordinary wealth and secrets to safe nuclear energy production. It's a disturbing and provocative story, but it seeks to make a point about racism and what people are willing to do given extreme circumstances. You might think about your story in the same way. What are you trying to say? If I were you I would try to figure this out before investing a lot of time in writing it.