Dystopian fiction imagines societies where things readers value (freedom, privacy, equality, individuality) have been crushed by authoritarian governments, corporate power, technological control, environmental collapse, or some combination. The key distinction: dystopias aren't random disasters. They're systems designed to function this way, which is what makes them so unsettling. The genre exists to warn.
Dystopian fiction is one of the most powerful tools writers have for social commentary. It lets you critique the present by exaggerating it into the future. Understanding the genre's conventions helps you avoid cliches (another YA chosen one fighting a vague government) and write dystopia that actually has something to say.
The ur-dystopia: total surveillance, language control, and the destruction of truth as a concept.
A theocratic America where women are property, built entirely from real historical precedents.
A near-future dystopia that felt prophetic when published in 1993 and even more so now.
The most effective dystopias have specific, internally logical systems of control. 'The government is bad' isn't a dystopia; it's a bumper sticker.
Show how normal people justify and participate in the system. Dystopia is most terrifying when it's normalized.
Dystopia is a functioning society designed badly. Post-apocalyptic is a society that's collapsed. They can overlap, but they're distinct.
Design a dystopia in 200 words. Start with one thing we currently value (privacy, free expression, parental choice) and describe a society that has systematically eliminated it. Then write a 300-word scene of someone navigating a mundane task (buying food, going to school) within that system. Make the horror ordinary.