Fiction imagining an ideal society, often used to explore what 'ideal' actually means and who it serves.
Utopian fiction imagines societies that have solved the problems plaguing the real world: inequality, war, disease, scarcity. The term comes from Thomas More's 1516 book, and the genre has evolved from straightforward blueprints for better societies into more nuanced explorations of whether perfection is achievable or even desirable. The best utopian fiction contains its own critique.
Utopian fiction is harder to write well than dystopia because 'everything is fine' isn't a natural source of narrative tension. Mastering it forces you to find conflict within good systems, which is a transferable skill. It also offers a necessary counterpoint to the dystopia-heavy landscape of modern speculative fiction.
Subtitled 'An Ambiguous Utopia,' it presents an anarchist society that works but isn't perfect, inviting genuine debate.
A journalist visits a breakaway Pacific Northwest nation built on ecological principles, finding both appeal and discomfort.
A world that fixed its problems and a protagonist asking: now what? Is a good world enough?
Design a society that has solved one major problem (hunger, housing, healthcare) and write a scene showing the unexpected new problem that solution created. The goal isn't to argue that progress is impossible; it's to find the human drama within a better world.