Thread: Beyond the Dystopia

Dystopia set novels (along with films and games) depending the story, are my favorite. But the thing that bothers me is what happens beyond the ending. Most are ambiguous, sad, or both (at least the ones I've read). My story takes place in a city in the US. The US is under Martial law. It's a police state etc. I'd like the city to have a positive outcome by the end. But how do you keep that outcome without outside authorities coming in to change it back? I'd prefer to change the U.S. as a whole but is that realistic? Perhaps over time?

Show a small victory (or victories) by the end. The downfall of a corrupt cronie, the oppressive types turning some of their focus and ire on eachother instead of the little guy, someone actually escape the maw of the oppressive state, and lives to get a few more licks in against it another day...

But I think you're right. I've not read a lot of dystopia novels (the most recent of the few being Street: Empathy --it's a free online serial and also available in print and ebook--the newest installment is soon to be released). But I think it's part of the genre, the sad, ambigious endings, where the oppressive state/nature of society largely continues.

In Street, the protatonist scores some small victories, all the while coming to confront even greater dangers in a bid to survive. It's a planned trilogy, so I don't know if in the end a large change will come to fruition or not.

But if you're striving for a positive ending, I'd go for the small victories--maybe leading into major ones if a series with respect to your story comes into being.

Terry

Study the history of Central America from the '70s to the present, especially the civil wars in Nicaragua and El Salvador. As it happens a former Salvadoran guerilla fighter and one of his sons is sitting in the next room watching music videos on my other computer. We met years ago in a somewhat different environment and when he migrated to Belize under the UN refugee settlement programme he looked me up and we visit back and forth fairly often.

He lived in a dystopia and helped to bring it down, he and thousands like him. Now he can visit Salvador whenever he wants, but rarely goes home.

Read that history and you'll find out how 12-year-old kids and 70-year-old men worked against the odds and changed their society.

And regardless of your politics you have to respect a leader who can start a campaign with 18 followers, defeat a standing army, and bring down a government the way Fidel Castro did, then stay in power for over half a century facing the enmity of the region's most powerful nation just 90 miles.

In those histories you have all the framework you need to create any kind of novel you want to create.

Another thing to look at, opposing TWErvin2, is negative events; look up Oscar Romero and the movie about him (I forget what it's called.) He was an archbishop in El Salvador (nod to garza ) at the beginning of the civil war there and slowly turned from the government's side to the people's side, eventually starting a revolution. Just as he really got started, though, he was assassinated, an event which ignited his cause and led to the people standing up against the government.

This could even be presented as a side plot to the characters' story. They interact with someone involved in the martyr/group of rebels, then are at the site of a major event, and so on. They travel parallel in time with the people that will make your dystopia promising. Eventually, as the book ends, in the background, there are signs of hope as the group rallies, or the martyr's death urges people to rebel, and can bring a silver lining and some depth/action to your plot without directly affecting your characters much.

Originally Posted by garza

Read that history and you'll find out how 12-year-old kids and 70-year-old men worked against the odds and changed their society.

Do you know any specific books on the subject?

Originally Posted by Gauge

Another thing to look at, opposing TWErvin2, is negative events; look up Oscar Romero and the movie about him (I forget what it's called.) He was an archbishop in El Salvador (nod to garza ) at the beginning of the civil war there and slowly turned from the government's side to the people's side, eventually starting a revolution. Just as he really got started, though, he was assassinated, an event which ignited his cause and led to the people standing up against the government.

This could even be presented as a side plot to the characters' story. They interact with someone involved in the martyr/group of rebels, then are at the site of a major event, and so on. They travel parallel in time with the people that will make your dystopia promising. Eventually, as the book ends, in the background, there are signs of hope as the group rallies, or the martyr's death urges people to rebel, and can bring a silver lining and some depth/action to your plot without directly affecting your characters much.

Thanks for the advice. I'll have to look that up.

The presence of my guests made me think of the Salvadoran civil war as material to be adapted for use in a novel about a dystopian society. The same motives that drove my friend (he was about 13 at the time) into the bush to join a guerilla group could apply in any kind of totalitarian society. If the setting is technologically advanced, you could have cadres of kids trained in electronic insurgency instead of being trained in the use of a Kalashnikov.

I did not know a movie had been made about Romero, but I'm not surprised.

My setting isn't technologically advanced but I understand what you mean. Thanks Garza.