On Dystopia

      I'm pretty sure most people have read a dystopian novel in their lives. Particularly teenagers. They're all the rage at the moment, after all. 

     One of my favorite dystopian authors, Dan Wells, gave a keynote address at Teen Author Boot Camp a couple weeks ago. (By the way I really apologize for not posting last week. I'm trying.) But anyhow, he brought up some excellent points about the genre. My head exploded a couple of times. 

    The first thing Mr. Wells brought up (or at least the first in my notes) was the question, what is a dystopia? My, very technical, definition is a society characterized by human suffering. He simplified it a bit. At its heart, a dystopia is a terrible place. A place where the power is not shared.

     Of course, one trademark of the modern dystopian novel is that they're under the guise of perfection. So, how does one identify a dystopia?

     Do we live in one now? (cue the head-exploding)

     Dan Wells discussed Ursula K. LeGuin's short story, The Ones who Walk Away from Omelas. It's a description of a utopic society, to each person. Imagine your utopia. That's what this world is. But then, at a certain age, children learn the truth about the city--a child suffers every day to maintain it. Some choose to ignore it. Others walk away, hence the name. 

     This story was published in 1973. It bears one major difference from the majority of today's dystopias--there is no rebellion. That's because, in the olden days (meaning before about 2005), most dystopians had the terrible society, but the characters either grinned and bore it or left. The first major trendsetter for the rebellion dystopian novel was Scott Westerfeld's Uglies series. 

      Dan Wells brought up the meaning of this shift. The previous generation had a "Life sucks, oh, well." attitude to their novels. Millennials and forward have a more save-the-world approach. This could be a good thing. But revolutions aren't the best way to bring about change (more on that later).

      I'm going to jump back to the question of whether we live in a dystopia. While this is a rather large question, Dan Wells went with yes, and his reasoning made disturbing sense.

      A dystopia, as highlighted by Omelas, is a utopia for everyone but the ones who are stepped on. If you look at today's world, you'll see that. We don't notice because we live in the Capitol. But there are people in third world countries laboring, starving dying, for our luxuries. Think about that next time you want to complain about your phone service. 

    So now we're jumping back to the revolutions bit. Older dystopian novels have an "accept it and leave" approach. But there's a third option. The option to stand and fight it.

    Now would be a good time to mention that I absolutely DO NOT CONDONE VIOLENCE. The number of bloody revolutions in dystopian novels is slightly scary for this reason. There is more than one way to fight. I'm going to fight it through my art--my writing. 

    You can quietly show the issues you are passionate about through the lens of a story. And there are plenty of issues. We may not even know about some of them. Women have constantly been underrepresented in media for decades, but we're only just noticing it. What else are we missing? These are the things you can explore in your stories--dystopia or not. 

    Of course, before we're writing to show important issues, we're writing to tell a story. And even before that, it's because we love it. Never forget that passion. If you can hold on to it, you can use your art to change the world.