dystopian society essay prompt

• Writing Prompts

56 Dystopian Writing Prompts

Escape to a dark, disheartened world with these 56 dystopian writing prompts .

Mass poverty, cruelty and fear cover a dystopian world. From the shelter-like homes to the dark, broken streets. Life is hard. When writing a story set in a dystopian world you need to describe the harsh reality of this world in great detail. Make the reader fear this world. Think about the leaders who have control. This control might be significant, where harsh rules are made to keep the peace. Alternatively, there could be a rebellion, where leaders have no control and civilians are running havoc. See our master list of world-building questions to help develop a believable dystopian world.

A dystopian world is a world in shatters and ruins. How did it become this way? What rules and regimes do civilians follow, if any? What type of crime is most prominent in this world? These questions will help you create a realistic and powerful dystopian world for your readers.

Looking for some name ideas for your new world? Check out this world name generator . You might also find this list of Earth day writing prompts and this list of over 110 sci-fi writing prompts .

Dystopian writing prompts

To help you create a powerful story about a society in crisis, here are our 56 dystopian writing prompts:

• In the year 2,121, sea levels have risen at an extreme rate. 98% of the Earth is now underwater. The remaining 2% is made of small islands scattered across the Earth. With resources at a scarcity, the islands must work together if they are to survive.
• A virus has wiped out 95% of humanity in the future. The only survivors are machines and a group of secret underground warriors who rebelled against technology for centuries.
• In the future, a virus has caused some humans to mutate into ravenous troll-like beasts. While the remaining humans have to learn to survive in the world with these beasts.
• The life expectancy of people has dropped drastically in the future. At the age of 18, humans start to deteriorate and slowly pass away. The ruler is an arrogant 14-year-old kid.
• Scientists have combined robotics with human tissue to increase the life expectancy of humans. Apart from the vital organs, such as lungs and heart, as well as parts of the brain, humans are mostly robotic. Eventually, humans start losing control of their bodies to machines. 
• From the moment a human is born to the day they die, humans are connected to the internet. Everything they need to know about life is on a screen to which they are connected. One day, a technology outbreak completely wipes the internet. Humans are switched off. What happens next?
• Scientists have found the secret to endless happiness. They create a new pill that needs to be taken once a day to remain happy. But is this new pill all as it seems?
• To promote equality in the future, humans have to dress the same and talk the same. Any inappropriate English and slang words are banned. All around the world, everyone must speak English. If these rules are broken, the rule breaker will be sentenced to prison or even death.
• With the brand new Cloner 3000, cloning is just a button press away. Clone your cat, your dog and even yourself if you dare. What are the potential dangers of cloning yourself too many times? 
• Law and order is destroyed in the future. People are free to do whatever they want without any consequences. Until a group of vigilante heroes decide to recreate the law.
• There are two types of people, the rich and the poor. The rich have an extreme amount of money and power. And the poor are living on the streets and undergrounds, struggling to get by. A poor orphan girl is adopted by a rich family and discovers a deadly secret about how the rich become rich. 
• The excessive use of technology and social media has meant that 95% of the world suffers from extreme social phobia. The slightest human interaction results in mass panic attacks. One brave human decides to create a group where people can meet face to face regularly to help them overcome this fear.
• Crime has become such a huge issue in the future, that every home in the world has become a prison cell. Prison guards patrol the streets and provide prisoners with the essentials. One guard feeling guilty that his family is locked behind bars, tries freeing them, and soon things get out of control. 
• Oxygen is the new currency in the future. Instead of money people buy, earn and sell little canisters of oxygen. Continue this dystopian story…
• Desperate to create the perfect world, the government provides every person with a free virtual reality headset. Once worn, the person is transported to a tranquil utopia. Meanwhile, the government secretly has other plans in the real world. 
• A virus has turned every tree, plant and flower on earth into flesh-eating monsters. The only way to survive is to kill all plant life on Earth, but how will the planet survive?
• A new mobile app in the future tells people when to eat, sleep, drink and essentially live. Without the app, humans would be lost, confused and clueless. A group of cyber hackers, hack this app to gain control of all humans. 
• Being the main cause of social disorders and suicides, the internet is banned in the year 2,098. With the ban of the internet, people slowly resort to the old ways of living before the internet ever existed. Until a group of individuals find a way to bring back the net. 
• Bored of old-style video gaming, humans resort to sticking chips inside prisoners. Once a prisoner is chipped, they can be controlled like a video game character. 
• Desperate to be beautiful and young, rich people resort to stealing the actual skin and facial features of ordinary people. These extreme surgeries soon start to have a weird effect on humans.
• The Earth has been destroyed by a huge asteroid. A few humans that survived by living underground finally emerge to start a new life on Earth. 
• With the Earth’s population at an all-time high, it’s time for every human to prove their worth. After the age of 16, humans must take a test every year. If they fail the test, they are killed immediately. One young adult scores incredibly high on the test making them the ‘chosen one’. 
• Due to the lack of resources on Earth, all luxury items have been banned. People survive on basic rations of bread, rice and beans each month. No vanity items, such as jewellery or make-up are allowed. One day a group of civilians discover that luxury items do exist, but only the leaders can use them. 
• For the sake of human evolution, scientists have turned the small town of Whitefish into a huge science experiment. No one is allowed to enter or leave the city unless they are told so. Every now and then, a new stimulus is introduced, so that scientists can record the human reactions for a research paper. 
• Write a story about the aftermath of World War 5. Who was at war and who lost it? What devastation did the war create on Earth?
• In the far future, robots are responsible for creating human life. They carefully program each human when they are born to do certain tasks in life. One human realizes that they don’t need to follow the orders programmed in them and fights for freedom.
• After a huge asteroid hits Earth, the last two survivors have to find a way to recreate life. It’s a modern, dystopian Adam and Eve story.
• World leaders ban religion and talk of God in the future. A man discovers a secret church up in the mountains where people secretly believe in God. 
• Due to animal cruelty, people are no longer allowed to have animals as pets in the future. All pets live out in the wild without any human masters. One homeless teenager finds a hurt dog in the wild and takes care of it. Eventually, authorities find out about this forbidden friendship.
• A bored scientist dedicates his whole life to recreating popular monsters like vampires, werewolves and Frankenstein in real life. He finally masters the procedure and offers it to rich people at a price.
• Tired of the rat race and busy city-living, people move to the country to live a peaceful and calm life. Eventually, cities like New York City become a playground for criminals and runaways.
• When the human population on land reaches an all-time high. One man goes on a quest to create the ultimate underwater city for humans. Continue this story.
• In the year 2,121, 100% of the population becomes vegan. Eating any sort of animal product is considered cannibalism. Farm animals realize that humans will no longer eat them, so decide to plan their revenge.
• Cyber-pets become a huge thing in the future. Technology advances so much that people would rather buy robotic pets inside of real ones. This results in more stray animals on the streets. With no human love, the pets turn into savages attacking both humans and the cyber-pets.
• Humans have left Earth for a better life on Mars. One day, thousands of years later, a space astronaut from Mars lands on Earth to find…
• In the future, the majority of jobs have been taken over by robots. The only way to earn money is to take part in a series of games and challenges created by the rich for their entertainment.
• Everyone on Earth has experienced some sort of mutation in the future. This mutation has made humans powerful and troll-like. As the only pure human (with no mutations), your character’s daughter is kidnapped by a group of mutants who want to use her blood to make humans human-like again. 
• Imagine you are the last human survivor on Earth. What would you do alone on Earth?
• Describe a future where all humans are either deaf or blind.
• You and your family live underground away from all the technology. Write a series of diary entries about life underground.
• Sugar is banned completely in the future. Even fruits that taste sugary are no longer available. You are the leader of a secret underground group that creates your own homemade sugar. However since humans haven’t tasted sugar in a long time, the results become very dangerous.
• Since Earth has been destroyed, every family lives in their own spaceship homes floating around the galaxy. Every now and then you need to protect your home from space invaders, pirates and of course black holes.
• Write a story about one boy, his dog and a group of robots living on Earth as the only survivors. 
• Lying dormant deep at the core of the Earth, dragons finally awake. After a series of powerful earthquakes, they burst through the ground one by one. 
• With surveillance cameras watching everyone. A new TV show called, ‘Did They Really Do That’ airs across the nation showing the most embarrassing moments of civilians living in your area. You then go on a mission to destroy all surveillance and destroy the TV show.
• One man’s dream to swim with the dolphins is taken to extremes, as he genetically modifies a group of humans, so that they can swim underwater. Unknowingly these humans turn into monstrous mermaid-like creatures.
• Huge floating islands are created all over Earth to cope with the increase in the human population. These floating islands become new countries on the map with their own rules and way of life. 
• In the year 3,021 world peace is finally achieved. Everyone lives in perfect harmony. But how was this world peace achieved? One curious civilian makes a shocking discovery.
• Write a news article about the latest riot happening in your town in the year 2,899. Why did this riot happen? Who was involved? Where did it happen? What exactly happened before and during the riot?
• You are a lab assistant for a company that creates genetic make-up for humans. The make-up keeps humans looking young for their entire lifespan of 180 years. One day you discover something shocking…
• Cats and dogs have evolved into human-shaped beings. They now rule Earth and treat humans like pets. 
• Due to natural extinction and the threat of disease, all animals are gone in the future. You and your family have created a secret underground zoo, which holds the last remaining animals on Earth.
• Write a story from the perspective of a servant robot who wants to be the mayor of the city. 
• Scientists have learned to extract emotions from humans and contain them in jars. At a price, you can remove negative emotions like anger, sadness and fear. You can also sell and buy positive emotions like happiness. To obtain a new emotion, you simply inhale the emotion directly from the jar. In a special clinic, over 10,000 jars of emotions are contained, until one day…
• The Earth is a massive video game for advanced aliens living on a distant planet. They randomly spawn monsters whenever they feel like, and can control any human they like. One day the aliens are so bored that they create a big scary boss monster for a town of people to fight.
• In an effort to create a better world, all humans must take a personality test. If your personality does not meet the criteria set by the government, then you are sent to work camps. People at the work camps live a horrible life of abuse, torture and endless hard work for 18 hours a day. Imagine that your main character fails the personality test, and is sent to one of these camps.

For more gritty ideas, check out our guide on what is dieselpunk plus story ideas .

What do you think of these dystopian writing prompts? Which one is your favourite? Let us know in the comments below.

Marty the wizard is the master of Imagine Forest. When he's not reading a ton of books or writing some of his own tales, he loves to be surrounded by the magical creatures that live in Imagine Forest. While living in his tree house he has devoted his time to helping children around the world with their writing skills and creativity.

Related Posts

Comments loading...

🎉 Our next novel writing master class starts in – ! Claim your spot →

BEST DYSTOPIAN WRITING PROMPTS

Join (probably?) the world's largest writing contest. Flex those creative muscles with weekly writing prompts.

Showing 28 prompts reset

Imagine a world where exploration is forbidden, and write a story about a character who defies this rule to satisfy their innate curiosity., write a story imagining 'what if' one historic invention had never happened. how would our world be different now, set your story in a world where time travel has been perfected, and people can use it to hop between alternate timelines — but at a cost., set your story in a society where everyone is constantly aware of unwanted surveillance., set your story in an unfiltered world, where people are always honest about how they feel..

Introducing Prompted , a new magazine written by you!

🏆 Featuring 12 prize-winning stories from our community. Download it now for FREE .

Write a story that starts with, "The clock ticked past 61."

• Write about the end of the world… of Atlantis.

A mobile app tells you the amount of time that you have left to live. One morning, this time on everyone's phones syncs to the same number.

The last ragtag group of humans on earth meets the last ragtag group of zombies on earth..

• Write about an apocalypse triggered by technology. What happened?

Subscribe to our prompts newsletter

Never miss a prompt! Get curated writing inspiration delivered to your inbox each week.

• Write a story about two enemies who must band together to survive the aftermath of the end of the world.

You are a clone designed to mimic your human's every movement and habit so that you can seamlessly take over after the apocalypse starts, but there's just one problem: your human is the weirdest human being ever.

It's one hour before the end of the world. what do you do with that time.

• Write a story about a group of zombie friends who go adventuring together after the apocalypse.

No one left on Earth knows what the color blue looks like… until one day, the great fog parts and the sky appears for the first time in a millennia.

In the form of diary entries, write a story from the perspective of the last remaining person in the world., in the end, it wasn't humankind that destroyed the world. it was (fill in the blank)., set your story in a town that’s teetering on the edge of something dark, literally or metaphorically., your character, by chance or habit, peers through a telescope. they see something unusual — what is it, set your story in a silent house by the sea., win $250 in our short story competition 🏆.

We'll send you 5 prompts each week. Respond with your short story and you could win $250!

Contest #250 LIVE

Enter our weekly contest.

This week's theme: All Ears

Prize money

Contest entries, closes at 23:59 - may 17, 2024 est, recent contests ✍️.

#249 – Action Stations with Tom Bromley

#248 – From the Top

#247 – The Great Unknown

#246 – All Fun and Games

Recent winners 🏆

Honey Homecroft – read

Madeline McCourt – read

Sarah Coury – read

Olivier Breuleux – read

Leaderboard 🥇

#1 Zilla Babbitt

32368 points

#2 Deidra Whitt Lovegren

28727 points

#3 Abigail Airuedomwinya

22421 points

#4 Graham Kinross

14520 points

#5 Scout Tahoe

13198 points

#6 Chris Campbell

11321 points

#7 Thom With An H

10614 points

#8 Rayhan Hidayat

10213 points

#9 Michał Przywara

9923 points

#10 Deborah Mercer

9610 points

The best dystopian writing prompts

We're living through strange times — but they could always get stranger. Dystopian literature allows us to project ourselves into the distant (or not too distant) future, and imagine what we might find. Perhaps a post-apocalyptic landscape ravaged by war, a nightmarish government who are in absolute control of its citizens, or a human race that has merged with technology. The possibilities are endless, and we're here to provide some more inspiration.

To get you started, here are our top ten dystopian writing prompts:

• Write a story about a character who is certain the world is going to end today.
• In the end, it wasn't humankind that destroyed the world. It was (fill in the blank).
• You are a clone designed to mimic your human's every movement and habit so that you can seamlessly take over after the apocalypse starts, but there's just one problem: your human is the weirdest human being ever.
• A mobile app tells you the amount of time that you have left to live. One morning, this time on everyone's phones syncs to the same number.
• No one left on Earth knows what the color blue looks like… until one day, the great fog parts, and the sky appears for the first time in millennia.

If you're looking for some more help writing your dystopian story, check out this free resource:

• The Ultimate Worldbuilding Guide (free resource) — To write a dystopian story, you need to understand the world you're creating, inside and out. What kind of resources are available? How has society changed? Is there crime, or poverty, or has the world left its issues behind — or at least the government claims it has? Our worldbuilding template will ask the questions you need to find this information.

Want more help learning how to write a dystopian short story? Check out How to Write a Short Story That Gets Published — a free, ten-day course guiding you through the process of short story writing by Laura Mae Isaacman, a full-time editor who runs a book editing company in Brooklyn.

Ready to start writing? Check out Reedsy’s weekly short story contest , for the chance of winning $250 , plus potential publication in our literary magazine, Prompted ! You can also check out our list of writing contests or our directory of literary magazines for more opportunities to submit your story.

NEW VIDEO COURSE 🎉

How to Write a Novel

Join Tom Bromley for a writing master class and finish your first draft in 3 months . Learn more →

Explore more writing prompt ideas:

Adults Writing Prompts ⭢

Adventure Writing Prompts ⭢

Angst Writing Prompts ⭢

Character Writing Prompts ⭢

Christmas Writing Prompts ⭢

Dark Writing Prompts ⭢

Dialogue Writing Prompts ⭢

Dramatic Writing Prompts ⭢

Dystopian Writing Prompts ⭢

Fall Writing Prompts ⭢

Fantasy Writing Prompts ⭢

Fiction Writing Prompts ⭢

Fluff Writing Prompts ⭢

Funny Writing Prompts ⭢

Halloween Writing Prompts ⭢

High School Writing Prompts ⭢

Historical Fiction Writing Prompts ⭢

Holiday Writing Prompts ⭢

Horror Writing Prompts ⭢

Kids Writing Prompts ⭢

Middle School Writing Prompts ⭢

Mystery Writing Prompts ⭢

Narrative Writing Prompts ⭢

Nonfiction Writing Prompts ⭢

Novel Writing Prompts ⭢

Poetry Writing Prompts ⭢

Romance Writing Prompts ⭢

Sad Writing Prompts ⭢

Science Fiction Writing Prompts ⭢

Short Story Writing Prompts ⭢

Spring Writing Prompts ⭢

Summer Writing Prompts ⭢

Teens Writing Prompts ⭢

Thanksgiving Writing Prompts ⭢

Thriller and Suspense Writing Prompts ⭢

Valentine's Day Writing Prompts ⭢

Vampire Writing Prompts ⭢

Winter Writing Prompts ⭢

Oops, you need an account for that!

Log in with your social account:

Or enter your email:

• Skip to main content
• Skip to primary sidebar

EveryWriter

A New Community of Writers

100 dystopian writing prompts

November 23, 2023 by Richard Leave a Comment

Imagine chilling futures where emotions are suppressed, memories are hacked, nature is walled-off, and totalitarian regimes control everything from relationships to the weather. Welcome to our 100 dystopian writing prompts. 

Let your creativity run wild envisaging sinister agencies, social manipulation, banned contraband, restricted freedoms, underground resistance, and daring escapes.

Buckle up for a thrilling ride into menacing speculative worlds where you’ll encounter thought police, memory black markets, mandated cryogenic freezing, sinister surveillance, climate totalitarians, and other dystopian threats.

In this comprehensive prompt collection, you’ll find 100 disturbing, tantalizing scenarios captured through cliffhanger “write about…” cues guaranteed to spark new realms of suspense, conflict and tension.

From emotion-suppressing drugs to memory-recording devices gone wrong, mandated matchmaking by genetic compatibility to expiring at a certain age, these prompts zoom in on rebellious individuals fighting corrupt power structures for a second chance at passion, self-determination and a future they define.

Let these dystopian sparks ignite stories of defiant resistance, dangerous flaw-exposing exposés, tense psychological operations, off-the-grid escapes into the wild, and other bold tactics to undermine oppression. Can truth and justice prevail? That’s for you to decide…

Now, enter these speculative dystopian worlds and let your imagination run wild! Where will these 100 dystopian writing prompts take you?

• A device is invented that allows the government to control people’s thoughts and actions. Write about someone trying to escape this fate.
• Strict laws are passed limiting how many children families can have. Tell the story of a family faced with an impossible decision.
• A catastrophic event wipes out most of humanity. Write about a small group of survivors banding together.
• All books and writings from history are burned. Write about an effort to preserve or recreate knowledge.
• A virus spreads causing infertility. Follow individuals desperate to have children in this dire world.
• The population is segregated into zones based on genetic engineering marks. Write from the perspective of someone yearning for the outside world.
• Water becomes extremely scarce. Write about the lengths one teen goes to in order to save their community.
• A company develops AI androids used for manual labor. Tell the story of an android developing forbidden aspirations for freedom.
• Citizens’ use of language is restricted and simplified. Write about a group secretly communicating in metaphors and code.
• Memories and dreams are recorded as digital data. Write about a hacker who accesses people’s intimate memories illegally.
• The government mandates that certain emotions must be suppressed. Write from the perspective of someone struggling with this.
• Time travel is invented but strictly forbidden. Write about someone risking it all to change past atrocities.
• The population is herded into city centers while the wildlands are off limits. Write from the view of someone escaping to experience natural life.
• A virus spreads that removes facial features. Write about the fear and identity issues that arise in afflicted society.
• The government replaces school with endless VR propaganda simulators. Write about an underground effort to preserve free thinking.
• A strict rating system quantifies each citizen’s worth. Write about someone striving to boost their rating or hide their true selves.
• The population is forced to take pills that alter perceptions of reality. Write about someone slowly realizing the deception.
• Strict beauty standards are set by genetic modification. Write about someone pursuing dangerous underground procedures for a boost in status.
• The elderly are exiled once past working age. Write about someone hiding an elderly relative.
• A curfew is set banning unauthorized night activity. Write about a group of youths planning secret late night events.
• Population growth is restricted through mandated cryogenic freezing at certain ages. Write about someone fighting the system or going on the run as their freeze date approaches.
• A pandemic requires protective gear covering the body and face, removing unique identifiers. Write about someone desperate to see a loved one’s uncovered face before they are frozen.
• The government tracks every move of citizens through mandatory chips. Write about a man who tries to live off the grid, undetected.
• A tiered citizenship system is based on serving in civil or military duties for years at a time. Write from perspective of a low-tier citizen dreaming of elevation in status.
• Failure to take your mandated medications results in banishment to lawless outlands. Write about someone hiding mental clarity without chemicals.
• The natural landscape outside congested urban centers is off limits behind walled boundaries. Write from the perspective of someone who escapes to experience freedom in nature.
• A company owns the patent to a synthesized formula needed for human health and jacks up the prices, causing suffering. Write about activists trying to recreate it.
• The government controls the weather and all climate conditions. Write about a group that wages weather terrorism demanding natural variability.
• Corporations run sovereign city-states. Write about a skilled worker trying to break their never-ending contract.
• A virus makes most animals extinct. Write about underground efforts to save remaining species.
• The government mandates matchmaking based on genetic compatibility. Write from view of someone struggling when they fall for the “wrong” match.
• The ability to reproduce has become allocated to only certain designees. Write about a black market for illegal conceptions.
• A pandemic requires everyone to live in isolated pods. Write about someone fighting sensory deprivation to stay sane.
• Lifespans are significantly cut short at a certain age through mandated termination procedures. Write from view of someone approaching their expiry trying to fight it.
• Write about the invention and consequences of a device that can record and play back memories.
• Only ultra high-IQ individuals are allowed in leadership roles. Write about identity struggles for a character judged unintelligent by mandated measurements.
• Write about teams competing in a post-apocalyptic city for scarce resources needed to survive decaying conditions.
• Write from the perspective of a hacker who works to take down an authoritarian technocracy from the inside.
• Write about someone forced to become an “information specialist” manipulating news and data feeds to serve ulterior motives.
• Write about a pandemic leading to development of advanced robotic caregiver technology that goes awry.
• Write about a protest against emotion-suppressing drugs led predominantly by teenagers seeking freedom and passion.
• Write about a survivor banding groups together to restore culture in a controlled dystopia that has erased past artifacts and identity.
• Write about black market dealers who smuggle banned physical books to those yearning for lost knowledge and history.
• Write about a student who discovers long-suppressed writings revealing troubling truths about their society’s history.
• Write a conversation between an elder and a young person who yearns to experience fundamental rights and choices stripped from society, like childbearing.
• Write about a small group that escapes into the wilderness and attempts to build an equitable utopia outside dystopian constraints.
• Write about someone fighting the system through graffiti symbolizing hope and metaphorical messaging to incite revolution.
• Write a debate between a rebel faction leader and authoritarian regime loyalist on freedoms vs order.
• Write a prison narrative about inmates alternating virtual reality experiences to mitigate their sentences through psychological manipulation.
• Write a tale of genius inventor who creates wondrous technology in secret that could undermine authoritarian control or elevate freedom if revealed.
• Strict sleep quotas are enforced via brain implants that monitor REM cycles to maximize productivity. Write from the perspective of someone suffering from sleep deprivation who secretly changes their schedule.
• In order to improve worker compliance, the government has developed a chemical to make citizens enjoy menial labor tasks. Write about a janitor who loves their job a disturbing amount.
• A powerful caste system has formed among humans after rampant genetic experimentation. Write from the perspective of an oppressed “inferior” caste dreaming of a better life.
• Most animals have gone extinct except for those pets approved by the Environmental Ministry. Illegal pet ownership is severely punished, but a thriving black market exists.
• In a bid to reduce crime, the government now requires parents to screen embryos for a variety of physical and psychological illnesses. However, many families now feel pressured to produce the “perfect child”.
• Due to food shortages, restaurants and grocery stores have been outlawed. All meals are now supplied by the Nutritional Distribution Bureau’s ready-made, cost-effective food products. However, a speakeasy dedicated to actual cooking has opened.
• In an effort to increase efficiency and national unity, a universal language with strictly monitored vocabulary and grammar standards is imposed. Those who fail language tests are penalized by social restrictions.
• The Life Extension Agency provides age rejuvenation treatments, but primarily to the social and financial elite. The poor struggle with shortened life expectancies, leading some to join radical insurgent groups.
• An innovative new Direct Neural Interface allows people’s brains to connect directly to a vast online network. However, hacking into someone’s mind is now disturbingly easy.
• In order to prepare youth for the harsh, dangerous streets, local Fight Clubs are organized to systematically toughen up teens and channel aggression effectively.
• Due to rampant unemployment, the government now drafts citizens into mandatory civil or military service positions for 10-15 years. Failure to accept an assignment results in imprisonment.
• In a bid to improve public safety, petite auditory assistants called “Shoulder Angels” are issued to all citizens to provide helpful guidance. However, their advice is not always ethical, wise or in one’s best interest.
• In order to improve citizen health and longevity, the ingestion of all non-synthetic foods and beverages is highly restricted. However an underground movement of “Whole Food Rebels” persists.
• Due to widespread infertility, prospective parents are only allowed children via cloning, therefore insuring a continuous labor force. However, a generation of identical offspring creates disturbing identity issues.
• In order to eliminate homelessness and unemployment, all citizens must work as general labor at massive collective Farms that supply the nation with food and textile materials. The division of labor is demanding but fair.
• Rigid rules dictate what colors, textures and styles of clothes that citizens may wear depending on their age, profession and social status. Fashion diversity is forbidden, with black market clothing trends continuously emerging.
• Due to rampant hacking, personal data devices have been outlawed and removed. However an illegal group of elite hackers known as “The Archives” still uncovers and leaks confidential information.
• Write about a future in which a volcanic eruption blots out the sun for years, killing crops and plunging society into chaos, violence and despair.
• Write about an agency that pushes invasive brain implants that allow video recording of memories and forced data sharing against people’s will.
• Write about a future where dreams can be bought and sold on a black market operated through tapping into people’s minds as they sleep to steal visions.
• Write about a divided territory where selected wealthy elite live safely in utopian cities while the remaining majority survive dystopian wastelands of pollution and scarcity.
• Write about those battling a law requiring registration with Social Harmony Agency that tracks emotions and punishes discord deemed damaging to psychological unity.
• Write about resisters fighting against authoritarian rules forbidding casual relationships, friendships or non-approved personal connections in order to boost productivity.
• Write about an uprising against an enforced caste system that assigns professions, living quarters, resources access and more based on DNA-based hierarchies.
• Write about rebels secretly trying to instill history, art and free thinking in younger generations raised in a neutered, whitewashed and overly structured world.
• Write about someone from an agency assigned to manipulate records to maintain historical propaganda narratives confronting their buried conscience.
• Write about teachers secretly providing banned materials, intellectual freedom and emotional nurturing despite rigid restrictions on permitted lessons and development.
• Write about twin siblings torn apart by diverging citizenship tiers granted to each one, leaving the other in oppressive conditions they try escaping.
• Write about time travelers tasked with altering past mistakes and unintentionally fracturing reality through over-corrections of history.
• Write about nature rebels trying to preserve plant life needed for clandestine botanical experiments to undo genetic disasters humans have caused through manipulation.
• Write about librarians archiving confiscated artifacts, art and documents on the black market struggling to preserve cultural history for future generations.
• Write about a hacker leaking scandalous secrets of upper-crust elite, revealing their criminal hypocrisy and oppression behind friendly public facade.
• Write about investigators tracing early warning signs of current totalitarian injustice back many generations to disturbing past historical events.
• Write about rebels secretly planning targeted infrastructure sabotage or disruptive hacks of controlling surveillance systems to enable societal chaos that disrupts tyranny.
• Write about scientists furtively trying to revive extinct species in a controlled environment before authorities crush their unauthorized genetic efforts.
• Write about youth experiencing forbidden cultural artifacts like non-digitized photographs, physical vinyl records or ancient paper books for the first time, feeling awakened.
• Write about a team planning a high stakes escape mission to lead refugees from border detention camps to safe international territory.
• Write about hackers digitally falsifying citizen records to manipulate assignment of soul-crushing undesirable labor mandates.
• Write about activists utilizing hidden shortwave radio signals, coded language newspaper ads and other old-fashioned techniques to secretly coordinate resistance.
• Write about rebel scientists planning risky psychological experiments challenging theories that current authoritarian rule is an inevitable consequence of innate human society dynamics.
• Write about smugglers obtaining prohibited goods like sugar, caffeine or alcohol from foreign black markets to cater to restricted domestic population demands.
• Write about resisters launching independent radio broadcasts challenging state-sanctioned news propaganda to circulate suppressed truths.
• Write about rebel journalists using old-fashioned typewriters, printers and paper materials to publish and distribute banned insider exposés anonymously.
• Write about a team capturing footage of dystopia oppression via hidden shoulder cameras to make viral videos awakening outside world to atrocities.
• Write about citizens banding together under pretense of harmless community sport team as disguise to enable secret seditious coordination.
• Write about defectors and infiltrators leaking confidential information regarding government-sponsored experiments trying to control or manipulate citizens’ minds.
• Write about a duo discovering shocking classified files revealing orchestrated crisis events used as pretext to justify implementing incremental totalitarian measures.
• Write about activists utilizing public wall art, performance protests, symbolic clothing and defiant slang phrases to express seditious messages under the radar.
• Write about rebel families harboring unauthorized pregnancies in concealed rooms or underground spaces, despite harsh penalties if newborns are discovered.
• Write about defiant hackers digitally attacking key infrastructure in Vendetta-like psychological operations to expose regime corruption, undermine authority and awaken masses.

I hope you enjoyed our 100 dystopian writing prompts, and I hope they inspire you to write something great. If you write something you want to share, please leave it in the comments. Also, please remember we have many other writing prompts on our site you might find helpful.

Related posts:

• 1000 Writing Prompts
• 10 Even More Horrifying Horror Story Prompts
• 50 historical fiction writing prompts
• 150 Romance Writing Prompts
• 100 Thriller Writing Prompts

About Richard

Richard Everywriter (pen name) has worked for literary magazines and literary websites for the last 25 years. He holds degrees in Writing, Journalism, Technology and Education. Richard has headed many writing workshops and courses, and he has taught writing and literature for the last 20 years.  

In writing and publishing he has worked with independent, small, medium and large publishers for years connecting publishers to authors. He has also worked as a journalist and editor in both magazine, newspaper and trade publications as well as in the medical publishing industry.   Follow him on Twitter, and check out our Submissions page .

Reader Interactions

Leave a reply cancel reply.

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Privacy Overview

• Writing Tips
• 500+ Free Fiction Writing Prompts For Adults By Genre
• Self Publishing 101
• Best Writing Books
• Dragon Dictation Software Review
• Editing Software
• Email Marketing
• Formatting Software
• Gifts for Writers
• MasterClass Reviews
• Online Courses
• Scrivener 3 Review
• Website Hosting
• YouTube Channels

Select Page

49 Amazing Dystopian Writing Prompts

Writing Prompts |

Disclosure: The content on this site is free. Some of the links below are affiliate links from companies like Amazon.com and if you click the links and make a purchase we will receive a small commission at no additional cost to you. Thank you in advance if you decide to support our site by using our affiliate links!

Welcome to the next article in our adult writing prompt series . To keep with our mission of offering 500+ genre-specific writing prompts and story ideas potential authors can use to write their next bestseller, today, we offer up 51 amazing dystopian writing prompts.

Let’s quickly define dystopian fiction.   Dystopian fiction is a genre of fictional writing that often refers to a setting and/or society marred by depression, poverty, and general unhappiness. These works of speculative fiction often explore the social and political aspects of these dark and inhabitable conditions.

If you are interested in improving your creative writing and learning from a dystopian best-selling author- We highly recommend Margaret Atwoods MasterClass .

Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on [relevant Amazon Site(s), as applicable] at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of this product.

So if your someone like me who has always enjoyed reading and writing these happy-go-lucky themed books, then you will definitely like some of these inspirational writing prompts.

• In a post-apocalyptic world, where a person’s five senses are taken away and earned back through monetary credits earned through indentured servitude to the privileged class.
• A society in which a family’s wealth dictates how many of its own children that they can keep.
• A futuristic world where everyone’s thoughts and dreams are constantly monitored so they can be taken and used by the wealthy privileged class to remain in power.
• A world so dependent on technology, that the human race has stopped being a social mammal, and this unbreakable solitude now puts them at risk for extinction.
• When Earth is ravished by a series of climate-related catastrophes, the survivors have no choice but to fight over the small plot of land that is still fit for human survival.
• Artificial intelligence and augmented reality have become a staple in day-to-day with life, so much so that the average person spends 24 hours a day in a virtual state. What happens when they find out the AI discovered a way more useful use of this technology and entertains the people in it.
• In a future world that prides itself on optimal efficiency, each person is given the exact path they are to live down to the very day starting with the day they’re born.
• A world with limited resources after an intergalactic war destroys most of the planet, forces, and citizens to self-police population growth. The law says for every person born into a family one must die.
• Earth loses an intergalactic war to a hostile invading species within the enslaved the survivors to help them extract every last resource out of the planet.
• In this world, thoughts are crimes. Artificial intelligence is judge, jury, and executioner.

• After the last great world war, all religion was banned. This included all religious works and artifacts. But what happens if one Bible still remains?
• In this society, the only currency anyone has his life expectancy. The ruling class oppresses the masses of poor citizens by forcing them to trade days of life for the basic goods and services needed for survival.
• In a society that is focused on gene manipulation and the furthering of the human species, any people with less than desired DNA is either made infertile and sent into slavery or eradicated at birth.
• The human race is overtaken by alien hostiles, they are forced to live in a quasi-vegetative state offset by augmented reality while their bodies slowly decay as they are used as human carbon batteries.
• All learning is banned from society. The Internet is totally rewritten and all books are destroyed. The only thing society has is the propaganda given to it by its oppressive ruling class.
• In a world, where it is been determined, that the optimal age for existence is 28, humans are perpetually cloned at that age and granted existence until they turn 29.
• Society has gotten over the automated, and the richest class has gotten richer and richer while everyone else has fallen into squalor. To deal with the boredom and help entertain the ruling class,  poor citizens turned in use as pets.
• In a society 100% under state control, humans are selected at random to face off against each other in a 24 hour broadcasted deathmatch.
• A weaponized biologic is used to control everyone’s actions as it empowers its creators to instantly activate it inside of any one person killing them within 24 hours.
• In a world where disease is left unchecked, the only ones privileged enough for Medicare and the cures are the controlling class of Aristocrats.

• A world where all money is done away with, instead, people must pay their way with an intellectual or physical contribution to society. What happens when a system of deciding the value of contributions is rigged?
• Women have come to power over 3000 years ago, slowly the value of men has declined. To the point where their only value and reason for existence is procreation of more women.
• In a twisted futuristic world, society’s darkest minds are connected to an Augmented Reality machine to have their machinations come to life as entertainment for the rest of society. When these virtual reality horror shows come to life the world will never be the same.
• A world that no longer believes in prisons, instead these prisoners are used as human prey in a dark and twisted hunting game.
• Sports, as we know them, are long gone, they have been replaced by darker, deadlier versions of their past games. The new death games are meant to be a social release for the masses to avoid unleashing true demons on themselves.  But what if the games were really a way to desensitize and train people to act the very way the games were said to prevent.
• Every city in the world is reduced to rubble in the blink of an eye, all except one building that is left standing in each. Now the survivors need to figure out what caused the tragedy and what is the significance of these remaining structures.
• A zombie plague has slowly overtaken the planet. A cure was found and now 80 percent of the population are functioning zombies, which can still participate in society and keep the world going, but each day is potentially a dark day, as these zombies are still liable to kill their human counterparts at every turn.
• After an unknown cyber attack takes out the world’s power grid, the world is thrown into shambles. Anarchy rules the streets, and long-term survival is unlikely as the chaotic war zone is unleashed on the public.
• A global food shortage occurs with severe climate change. Leading to severe famine for the last several decades. In this world, food is more valuable than money or gold every was. The most abundant food source is human flesh, and the evil ruling class has no problem with that. In this world, you are either wealthy or eventually turned into dinner.  
• Society has long become dependent on pharmaceutical drug Zenvia. A highly addictive CNS drug that creates a feeling of euphoria. The government uses is to hook the population and bend them to their will by manipulating them through their Zenvia addiction.

• A society that uses its citizens as subjects in medical and psychological experiments decides the current generation of people will partake in the breaking point study, which is designed to have these people subjected to non-stop mental stress, and depression-inducing stimuli to see how long it takes to break them for good.
• A society where gender identity has been completely wiped away, anyone that demonstrates any masculine or feminine traits is imprisoned to be cleansed.
• In this society, dreams are controlled my mind mimics. But these dreams are far more real as is the danger they pose.
• Society had been wiped out by a huge nuclear war.  Now they live in the safety dome, forced to relive the same mundane life simulation every single day.
• Earth was under attack when defeat became clear they started to evacuate to a space station that was still under construction. Unfortunately only 5000 people made it out, now they are stuck on the bleak space station that is barely functioning.
• Nanobots were once touted as a great technological breakthrough, but now they dictate everything about your life. You know longer have free will, only an ability to follow the path that the nanobots set out for you.
• In this alternate universe, Hitler won World War II and his persecution expanded to anyone that didn’t have blond hair blue eyes. They are now slaves in concentration camps until they can’t work anymore.
• After a full economic collapse, the world boils over unleashing the worst part of humanity onto itself.
• An alien box lands on the planet that promises to hold unleash knowledge and power the world has never seen before. But in order to unlock it, humanity must commit certain atrocities on itself. What choice will they make?
• In a horrible society where women are treated like second-class citizens, once a year, The reaping goes on for 24hrs, where men are allowed to hunt and treat women any way they choose with no repercussions.
• The air quality on earth is so bad that it can no longer sustain most human life, without assisted breathing apparatus. But as the sun gets more and more hidden from society and breathing becomes more and more dangerous, will the human psyche crack before the body.
• In a world where all disease can be cured, that is if you have enough money, through a process called human transfer, society’s richest people are allowed to select random members of the poorer class to transfer their health issues onto and get a clean bill of health for themselves.
• In a future where everyone communicates telepathically, the language disappears, then human interaction, then procreation leaving humanity on the brink of extinction.
• Severe environmental changes cause certain animal species to go into a type of accelerated evolution for survival. Now the planet is overrun with beasts that hunt humans and as they reclaim their place at the top of the food chain.
• Children are born and given a test to make sure they don’t carry a certain gene that may be susceptible to the zombie plague as part of the government’s prevention strategy since getting the zombie crisis under control. But what happens when every child born has the gene?
• A zombie pandemic has taken down 40 percent of the population. Promises of a cure have led to zombies being caught and retained until a cure can be found to bring loved ones back. But what if the cure is only made available to the richest people in the world?
• A huge electromagnetic pulse destroys all technology on the planet sending back to the stone age overnight.
• In a world where children are born with a lust for blood, they begin to hunt and kill their parents. Now people need to decide, stop having children and guarantee extinction or continue to have them and fight the demons until normal children are found again.

If you want to take a class from a dystopian best-selling author- Click the Banner Below :

I hope you have enjoyed these 49 Dystopian story ideas. Feel free to take any of these 500 writing prompts and use them as inspiration to craft your next best-selling dystopian novel.

Remember that we have a full series of free adult writing prompts that you can check out in other genres. If you like these then make sure to check out the rest.

Sometimes writers hesitate to use a publicly shared writing prompt as their inspiration for their next novel.  But, I will tell you, you shouldn’t be, because alone none of these writing prompts are worth the paper they are printed on, and that’s really bad since this is digital.

But it’s true, this dystopian writing prompts need to be fleshed out, to create a full plot and satisfying novel.

That is where you come in, As a dystopian writer, it’s up to you to create a believable world that engages readers by putting them in a deprived setting that is barely worth living.

So good luck with your writing, I hope you can use one of these dystopian story ideas as inspiration that will lead to your next great published book.

As always, Thanks for Reading and more Importantly Writing!

Related Posts

100 amazing 7th grade writing prompts.

December 7, 2020

47 Amazing Fantasy Writing Prompts and Story Ideas

August 17, 2018

101 Scary Horror Story Ideas and Writing Prompts

August 6, 2018

43 YA Writing Prompts with Best-Seller Potential

August 20, 2018

“This site is owned and operated by FB Global Value LLC, a limited liability company headquartered in New Jersey, USA.  FB Global Value is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from Qualifying Purchases . FB Global Value LLC also participates in affiliate programs with Bluehost, Clickbank, CJ, ShareASale, and other sites. Sites like Self Publishing Hub which are owned and operated by FB Global Value LLC are compensated for referring traffic and business to these companies.”

• Time & Season
• Miscellaneous

40 Intriguing Dystopian Writing Prompts

Dystopian fiction has always had a magnetic pull on readers, drawing them into worlds that are eerily similar to ours but plagued by darkness, decay, or chaos. Such worlds, though grim, allow readers and writers to explore profound questions about society, identity, and human nature. With our handpicked collection of dystopian writing prompts, you can embark on a journey that challenges the boundaries of your imagination and gives voice to your most profound concerns and insights about the future.

40 Dystopian Writing Prompts:

• The last tree on Earth was placed under 24-hour surveillance.
• Tattoos now predict the future of the person wearing them.
• Memories are now a commodity that can be bought and sold.
• The ocean has receded to unveil forgotten cities.
• Birthdays no longer celebrate age but the number of days left to live.
• Technology speaks, and the gadgets are rebelling.
• The world runs on a single unified network, but today it crashed.
• A wall divides the rich from the poor, and rumors say the other side is a paradise.
• Every dream is broadcasted on national television.
• History is rewritten every year, and old versions are discarded.
• Books are illegal, but underground libraries thrive.
• Emotions have become a disease that needs to be cured.
• The sun hasn’t risen in three years.
• One city remains, floating above the clouds.
• Humans can only speak 1000 words a month.
• Tears are the most precious substance in the world.
• Time travel is possible, but only for those willing to pay the price.
• Robots have souls, and they demand rights.
• The sky changes color based on the reigning government’s mood.
• Love is diagnosed as a mental disorder.
• Water is scarce, and wars are fought over clouds.
• Each child, at birth, is assigned a role in society.
• Silence is mandatory one day a week.
• Sleep is a luxury only the wealthy can afford.
• Music is the new currency.
• Children are born with knowledge, and adults go to school.
• Animals are in charge, and humans are endangered.
• The moon is a prison for Earth’s worst criminals.
• Dreams can be programmed, but sometimes they glitch.
• Everyone has a clock counting down, but no one knows to what.
• Wars are fought in virtual realities.
• In a world without color, one child is born seeing the rainbow.
• A pill grants extraordinary abilities for 24 hours.
• The last library is discovered, but all the books are blank.
• Death is optional, but there’s a waiting list.
• Once a year, the sky rains fire.
• Food is a myth; photosynthesis is the new way to sustain.
• The mirror reflects an alternate universe.
• The shadows whisper, and they’re plotting a takeover.
• An old radio starts broadcasting messages from the past.

Conclusion:

While the landscapes of dystopia might be bleak, they are potent tools for introspection and critique. These dystopian writing prompts serve as a launchpad for stories that not only entertain but also challenge, inspire, and stimulate discussions on our present actions and their future consequences. Let your creativity run wild, and may your words be the beacon in the dystopian darkness.

Sign Up For Daily Newsletter

Be keep up get the latest breaking news delivered straight to your inbox., leave a reply cancel reply.

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

SUBSCRIBE NOW

Subscribe to our newsletter to get our newest articles instantly!

35 Inspiring December Writing Prompts

50 inspiring poetry writing prompts.

Poetry, a canvas for the soul, invites us to explore the depth of human emotions …

35 Deep Writing Prompts for Profound Reflections

In the realm of creative expression, delving deep into the complexities of existence, human nature, …

30 Engaging Dialogue Writing Prompts

In the realm of storytelling, dialogues breathe life into characters, giving them depth, personality, and …

Sign in to your account

Username or Email Address

Remember Me

872 Dystopian Writing Prompts

March 2, 2021

Commaful is supported by readers. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. This does not affect who we choose to review or what we recommend.  Learn more

Writing a dystopian story can be fulfilling because it allows you to explore global issues and technology while delivering empowering messages creatively. But, you should know that it can also be challenging, as the genre requires plenty of imagination for worldbuilding and conceptualization of memorable characters, since its main setting is usually a future where things have not gone well for the human race. 

One way to make your life easier when writing a dystopian story is by turning to writing prompts for ideas, as they can expose you to new worlds and perspectives.

Below is a list of a dystopian writing prompt that could help you become the next Margaret Atwood or Suzanne Collins:

• You wake up in a prison cell not knowing why you are there.
• The called test the strength of your community and healthcare by purposefully giving people diseases and be a witness to the ensuing madness.
• Everything that happens to you now must be reported to the government. Everyone is constantly watched but cannot be heard.
• Join a resistance team in the small country of Aotoria.
• Write This is a trap wall inside a dungeon.
• The government is spraying you with chemicals that make you perfect.
• Get a job in the mail room, someone needs you to read and catch spelling errors.
• Every so often your mind drifts away from your body and floats in the airspace above.  Who you are and your body follow each other around like matching clouds.
• The legs on your Chicken Fillet Footlong are no longer thin.
• A scientist invents a formula for longevity, but immortality is at a terrible cost.
• Everything in your village has a gender except you.
• Everything is perfect. But just because it’s perfect doesn’t mean it’s not evil.
• Only red things exist, trees, animals, creatures, humans. You name it.
• The Scarlet Witch’s powers suddenly wore off, and humanity reacted in horrific ways.
• You come across a child left on your doorstep, what do you do with it?
• If you choose freedom then there is no turning back, if you choose your family then you die or disappear.
• Your clock is winding down, do you know what to get done before your time is up?
• New Year’s Eve is met with chaos, riots break out and the legal marriage age is lowered dramatically.
• What happens when your character’s worst nightmare comes true layered with the fact that they never expected it to happen?
• The bus driver says not to stand in the doorway any longer, but you like looking out the window.
• The remains of the library are still there on your street, but the books are missing.
• Non-humans are denied citizenship in your bustling modernity.
• Society was not kind to us, so we are sending them a message in the form of a monster.
• You match with a hipster on Tinder that drives an Airstream and smells amazing.
• The owner of your local supply store has several shady deals going on, but you can’t find out what.
• A sudden gas leak except the gas is thought-controlling properties.
• An uncontrollable urge to consume human flesh.
• A chemical reaction has embedded into your skin causing anyone to see you have to tell you their greatest desire.
• There is a cure for cancer, but in order to go on it you must donate something. You are then told you get your identity back. On the way to the surgical ward you are told you are actually walking to your execution.
• You woke up this morning to find everyone you know missing and a letter from officials dismissed from your fears, do you do what they say or continue your search?
• The government has found a way to make the sun’s rays deadly.
• Continue living your simulation as your priorities/curiosity guide you.
• Someone in your town needs to do something perfectly after every little task done or they get slaughtered and eaten.
• Only men choose the best from their harem of women, all others choose their mates in similar ways.
• The government made their own killer virus in a lab because they were bored and it was too big to get out.
• No one knows how you die, or why this is a problem, but when you stop breathing you burst into flowers of your addiction.
• The city is overrun by clowns trying to recruit people to their happiness movement.
• People who eat a lot of falafel never get sick, ever.
• You witness a murder because your scientists found a way to stretch time with your pet dog.
• Your city is decimated by a nuclear attack, should you stay or should you go?
• The government is forcing citizens into more censored fashion today than in the last decade.
• The Abolition Agency has come to claim your sisters from their jobs as prostitutes. But the Agency is not who they appear to be, and the soldiers and contacts in this new world is a bit perplexing.
• Seriously, say the princess in the tower will marry everyone who rescues her or even everyone who tries. Add a deadline.
• You seek to rid your world of powdered sugar, but it just grows back every month.
• It’s forbidden to enter between the buildings of your gated community and know why.
• How the heck do all these people survive without fresh food?
• You’re a prisoner and your only crime is your last name. To avoid persecution why don’t you have it changed?
• The aliens have invaded and destroyed any device that has an on/off switch.
• Your mother died giving birth to you and you’ve been part of a government experiment ever since.
• Your religion has been outlawed, why won’t you give it up?
• In this new world, burning books is considered a sport. Why?
• What if the country ran out of water, would the capital ever tell the rest of the world?
• Food in the future is scarce and beautiful creatures called clones are meat, but they aren’t people.
• What kind of dystopian world has no hive conscience, no way for the people to know what their lives are like?
• The ravenous forest wants to swallow up your town. You need to learn to use dark magic to save the town.
• Your parents and little sister were captured when the lights went out.
• You anonymously post news about the odd goings on in your town, but the government decides who can read and what gets printed.
• Everyone has their own group to go to, but you feel like you will never fit in anywhere.
• You live in a place where you can make one phone call a day and you must say exactly what you are instructed to say.
• The scent of roses floats on warm summer breezes.
• Anything goes, no genre particular.
• Your yard is invaded by giant jelly babies, how would you eradicate this threat?
• Your people were killed while you were away by an enemy who specializes in tying people to poles.
• All words required for everyday life must be sung.
• Become One of the Few That Survive in The Aftertime.
• A bird just dropped that…thing on your head,
• A man in a white coat can be heard over the loudspeaker every Sunday morning, a sermon of sorts, by none other than God.
• A towering walled-in city had captured your freedom and now you’re getting back at them.
• The government is killing people for having too many kids, you are having too many kids.
• Your body is a prison, control can be extracted from anywhere in your body.
• Forced isolation is the standard in this new society.
• You’ve never seen the sky – a whale crashes into a tanker miles out at sea releasing a poisonous gas that kills almost everyone in town.
• You can see and hear people across the country as if on a television.
• The president’s son, the prince, has gone missing.
• Laughing gas attacks everyone every night.
• The hybrid you’re driving has just completely failed you, some scientist has just put a stop to it.
• Imagine that an author inadvertently wrote his or her own death sentence.
• With the currency reset every day, you learned long ago to only buy what you can consume.
• No one in your town remembers what is in the outside world.
• A bio-weapon destroys all technology on Earth as people survive living in the ancient world.
• Was it all a dream, or did it really happen?
• You choose when you will die.
• Everyone knows you, or can at least see you, and nobody cares.
• You have the ability to see the future, although that future has been set and can’t be changed. Use this ability to its fullest potential.
• A person can only get sick/Injured every half a century.
• You are a humanoid robot, but the robots are on the streets and you need to go out of the city before they get ahold of you.
• A walled city is slowly being taken over by a jungle.
• When you listen to whispers at night they come true.
• Using only found materials, create a sculpture for a sculpture of yourself made out of a strand of your own hair and fingernail clippings.
• An unintentional mistake lands a girl stripped of her humanity and falling victim to the ways of the world, where it’s every man or woman for themselves. A nuclear war has just hit the outside—no one is left alive. Cl cleansing the dust and radiation is up to the prisoners working in the fallout shelter, but do you want to make that sacrifice?
• There is a group of people that regularly commit suicide, why?
• A cat can speak with humans and the other animals are trying to figure out what the cats are saying.
• The city of York fell into the hands of a disease known as ‘the red sickness’ that made your skin turn red and caused death. Tell the story of how the government took over and banned travel.
• There are no sweets in the world any more, why now?
• What does your community do when human waste becomes an immediate threat?
• It looks like rain—you hope it is rain, nothing else could survive.
• The government or a corporation comes and buses everyone away, where are they taking them, and what are they doing to them?
• Your neighbor tells you that the TV informs them what they need to. Every Saturday night a “movie” is played before the TV goes silent again. Every night the movie plays exactly the same way—what is it?
• It is illegal to smile.
• No one being allowed to marry or love ‘the one’ is illegal, why?
• You are one of the chosen few that get to start over on an uninhabited island.
• Suppose superheroes actually existed. How would the world react?
• A dragon flies past your window every night. What does he look like?
• Everyone you love is gone, everything you want is impossible and you’re dying.
• He knew it was over the second he found her bloody body, by one of the disappearing people.
• You are the chosen one.
• Any set back can be overcome with drone piloting skills.
• Society chooses sliced bread as the only food to be eaten, but people still can eat.
• Anything below the equator is considered unworthy of travel.
• You are cloned and that clone must go to the Capital and eliminate the government and there is only one you.
• Humans are dying out slowly because they want to.
• A lifetime ending when barely hitting double digit ages, how do we maximize the experience?
• Everyone must take their piano skills to a higher level. Be creative but also be able to stretch your fingers to the max.
• The government has outlawed movies due to a person from the film becoming sentient and killing several employees of the cinema.
• Save an artificial leader or save the real one.
• You wake up gray and paralyzed, where do you go from there?
• Where does the water come from? Where does it go?
• Your legs. You don’t have them. In their place are encased pistons that propel you through the complicated clockwork of the world.
• The wrong side of the coin dictates the rules of this society and if you don’t like them you’re in line to become the town scapegoat.
• Kids hunt down adults and eat them.   Seriously, why would we do this? Simple- because we all enjoy a good dystopia/utopia/ post-apocalypse/end-of-the-world-is-up-our-street man. We love the total madness of twisty narratives and sharp societal undertones. Frequently, the best phrases I’ve heard have come out of middle school when they start to encounter the real world- in that first plot twist you’ve probably not experienced yet- so maybe they do know their talkin’ a whole lot of good.
• Your father disappears and you search for him.
• The local police are putting in surveillance cameras on all of the residents and raising taxes on everyone.
• The population is controlled by mandatory sterilization, you find out your autistic older brother was sterilized so he would never have to worry about being a father and a burden to his caretaker.
• Why shouldn’t you pee while taking a hot shower?
• A strand goes missing. No one can find it, each time someone goes near it, they lose time.
• You have a special gift, but only if you find certain people with a special tattoo.
• The ground may be solid, may sink into the abyss, may disappear in some other unknown way at any moment in time.
• A haircutter finds universal love in the forehead of his clients.
• The Groundwater’s gone, now the humans must live on the rooftops.
• Each day everyone wakes to a new sign created by a nearby village. What do the cribbles mean?
• Three children get lost in a cave and stumble into an underground city where people have booby-traps.
• An influence has come over your town and no one questions what happens, you were born with the courage to question.
• The government height and weight regulations for women make attempting to find love impossible.
• Everyone in the town is a zombie, how do you survive the politics of the zombies?
• The mist is red at night and black during the day. Why?
• Your waffle iron tells you the future because you’ve been chosen by a dead French feminist.
• What is the government trying to accomplish with the suppression of basic rights?
• You’re on death row and you wake up in your cell the next day, fully alive.
• Carrying anything bar money is considered littering.
• You were born with wings.
• You’re poor and hungry. Every meal you prepare for yourself is poison, but if you don’t eat you die. Why are you getting so hungry?
• Everyone lies to you, all the time.
• Magic is real, but does not work without a contract?
• You can’t step into water because you will melt, when you are in water you never stop shimmering.
• The rich are the only ones who look healthy while the malnourished are starving.
• They have taken every piece of art in your house away, and frame it proudly.
• Someone has accessed their brain and replaced all negative memories with happy, kind of memories.
• How does the dystopian world view knowledge and how do you gain it? What do you do to obtain it?
• Even though the Carnivore Initiative was said to have ended giving results, your brother goes missing.
• The mantises have now evolved and are starting to prey on the humans.
• How would you escape the Dome?
• The cataclysm has been over for several years but the survivors, struggling to grasp reality after all they lost, compound the already formidable challenges of rebuilding their lives, reverting to the natural order of things or all out anarchy and chaos to conquer.
• Everything is fine on the Surface until you happen to go deep down below where everything isn’t so fine.
• Everyone has a tracking device implanted under their skin.
• An oppressive force smashes idols of leadership everywhere in an effort to tear down the government.
• An apocalyptic event destroys all mammals except human females and they all go into heat and try to mate with you.
• It’s illegal to be attractive and you, being the most desirable member of your immediate family, were disfigured to protect a source of power.”
• You are interrogated by a government official, but you don’t get it—why are you being questioned?
• After a catastrophic travel accident the sun rotates in a complete circle underground, heating everything on the planet.
• A new type of pill helps you hate everyone. You can’t lose.
• If the world is ending the why wait to fix it?
• It is the end of civilization as we know it and those in power are feeding themselves well while the peons starve.
• Everybody is segregated by species, how do you survive while being labeled as an “animal”?
• Your government doesn’t want your country to learn a certain history.
• The government is corrupt, but the highest power in the land is an orphan girl.
• All human males are dead or missing, now society must depend on female rulers and males are used as slaves, what kind of world does society create now?
• A mental institution runs human experiments on patients outside of regulations.
• Man has destroyed the environment to such an extent that a future generation will never know what it is to see the stars.
• A clock counts down the time left on Earth.
• Reactionary new laws by the government have left you with no choice but to join one of the nation’s criminal organizations.
• A nearby country begins using female soldiers, and yours is the first in response.
• Water is either rationed or non-existent, who steals to get water, do you?
• Those who take their lives are at peak happiness and have their debts erased.
• They keep crying that they’re manning up society, and stealing your rights as a human being.
• Forced labor is the only way to get by, are you tired of it yet?
• A woman living in your town somehow died but because of her pregnancy she kept getting weaker. Her soul is now inside any plastic sealed food or water in the town. If you consume the soul with say the tomato soup she was hiding in your refrigerator, you gain her powers.
• Everyone you knew was just wiped from diverse memories.
• Is a black market profitable if those who sell don’t survive?
• Engineering geniuses allow dolphins and manatees to talk and walk upright, and are conscripted into the government as soldiers.
• The government may be stealing babies, how do you survive in a world that is void of adults and humans to fight?
• The entire world is made of towering stone monoliths.
• A giant divide in socioeconomic status creates a caste system where you are created many levels below your actual ability.
• If you have to grow food, it doesn’t have to be pretty.
• Free contraceptives and abortions are a given, when the right to procreate is one of the greatest things to take away from people.
• Stay out of the ocean or the sea will swallow you whole.
• The people of your town send their “deviants” where others should not see. What happens there?
• Butcher boys roam around at night stealing and executing people in gruesome and horrific ways.
• Somehow you sprouted wings and can fly. What do you do with these new abilities?
• The only children allowed outside are the ones who are injured.
• The population needs to return to a sustainable number, any child not born to a married couple will be taken away.
• Raptors abound in the world, you are one of the few ‘Ephers’ who helped defeat them back and live a bitterness-free life now. Why are there so many rumors about happenings at night?
• It’s the Dark Ages! Conan the Barbarian runs the European Union!
• Things were just solved, the kingdom has been saved… or has it?
• There’s a new district in the city, but as to why it’s about one third the size of the few other districts, nobody knows… For this prompt you write a post about your character trying to figure out the mystery behind what is going on, along with details of everyday areas.
• Do you get money to go to the grocery store or stay home to work private jobs to get what you need?
• You wake up in an ancient, dusty elevator and the only access is up via the buttons inside.
• A tiny island in the middle of a great sea is the only continent left on the planet. Only one man has been there and he’s coming back with a survivor.
• Happy citizens keep away from the fence that surrounds the town.
• A toy story-like play on plastic surgery.
• All immigrants are immediately given the ultimatum to join up and change your identity or be arrested as enemy aliens. Do they survive?
• Five kids at your age have ended up like this and no one knows why.
• You find a black box, maybe it’s a TV, no wait, it’s a camera!
• What do you do when no one can agree on reality?
• The numbers on your house mean more than how many floors it is.
• In order to escape into the outside world, you will need to complete a series of riddles.
• Gypsy’s can see the future, but a secret government agency has found and killed all of them, except one…Some eggs cannot be hatched, why else?
• You are a member of the rebel faction, but your inadvertent moment of weakness could have you executed.
• Where’s the receipt? Crowds preach that followers of Jesus must repent. You did not receive a ticket for the payoff. How are you going to get in the queue for this time travel machine?
• Cotton Candy is extremely addictive and the supply suddenly reduces to only a month’s worth. Department stores sell the precious substance and it is bought and sold on the street with different theories on its sudden loss.
• Stop, Brain, Stop! An Essay of How to Marry the Miraculous
• A man runs by toward you, people run out in warning after him, a beast leaps toward him and eats him in mid-stride.
• People who disobey the law are killed and hauled to the graveyard, run-ins are inevitable.
• A coin toss determines your fate.
• Discover a hidden secret about your neighbor or family, and you aren’t allowed to tell anyone.
• You can have any intro you want, as long as it’s written in a journal logging your descent into madness.
• You live inside the walls of a spaceship that travels through the solar system, resources are scarce and so is air.
• A nationwide sensation called Watch It! shows you what you desire most, and isn’t afraid to make it abundantly clear why you don’t deserve it.
• A devil walks into your school and you are his only challenge.
• Boys ran the world until it was no more. Now women run everything, but they still get drunk and cry and bring boys back to the room. This must be outlawed.
• The sun is gone, but there is light. Do people venture to different sides of the world? Where do they go?
• An explosion wipes out everything in the whole world, minus a city that survived. The people who lived there are now immortal. But the blown-out city is creeping itself back into civilization.
• People are dropping like flies from the virus but there is no sickness.
• Your job is protecting the money, but suddenly all the money goes missing.
• Chess is against the law, do you cheat?
• Why do mechanical birds so often question the struggles of the common man?
• Your parents were certified insane, they did not want the government to get their hands on you so they planted you out into the woods hoping you would be found and live a normal life.
• Every time you blink or look away, your job changes. How would you survive?
• All men are gone from the world, how do women conceive in this new world?
• Everything is peaceful as is the new way of life, why does no one question it?
• Everything in society is based on keeping the economy running, so people are always working.
• The authorities do not want you unfit and in the way of their agenda to rule as they see fit.
• Machines patrol the streets, always watching us. – Draw this scenario as a comic.
• A disease no one ever contracts or contracts and never does anything more than causes a bit of itchiness and a rash.
• No one but a forgetful and naïve dog can see or hear you.
• A nuclear holocaust turned the clock back to The Age of Feudalism.
• A mysterious being is killing people’s livers, leaving nothing behind but a birthmark and a newborn.
• Weather balloons litter the ground after the sky was once clear.
• Light becomes closer to a precious resource.
• You sit alone in the cold dark of your jail cell, wondering how you got here.
• Time is running out and the town is preparing for it, knowing their doom.
• Some children remain innocent after a dog eats their entire family. How do they adapt?
• The crime you see on the news happens to you when you step out that door.
• Giant mutant cockroaches plague society and anyone who gets bit, not only dies, they are brought back to life, but changed, now they are an even bigger mutant cockroach!
• You sing in your sleep and the government is after you.
• A plague takes the skin off your body, leaving stickers in its place.
• The casinos had only the letter “Z” in their names.
• How do you survive when you are forced to fight to the death each year?
• No one in the world can speak.
• Everyone within the sound of this dog barking is being transformed into the dog, what happens next?
• An entire island is covered in mushrooms, you decide to enter.
• No one can be trusted, not friends, not family, not anyone, always suspect ulterior motives.
• You have the ability to put people to sleep at extreme ranges and with ill effects.
• Extreme temperatures and windstorms seem to be the norm of this new world, why did your world change?
• You disappear and the world moves on as if you were never there.
• Today, time travel is illegal and you just accidentally used it.
• People are being transported from your town and never coming back. What do you do?
• Start a diary in which you must convince yourself every day that the outside world is real.
• Your dreams, blood sugar pain, laughter and nightmares are all reality.
• Children all over the country are escaping into other worlds, yours included.
• Severe lack of food supplies makes mothers prostitute themselves.
• Just because you’re levelling up doesn’t mean everyone else has to die.
• The population of all the towns are told not to leave, but you secretly want to.
• It’s not safe to lock your doors, it’s not safe to have any kind of shelter, it’s not safe to hope for a brighter future.
• Your town doesn’t have human inhabitants, instead, every day, pigeons take over and they do it right where you work and live.
• A killer has declared war on anyone whose birthday is the same as his, what will you do?
• Nothing ever ages, once it exists it remains the same forever in salt containers in the city hall.
• Your mother insists on dating your best friend’s older brother, but he’s actually a man-nequin. Who has feelings and a love life.
• People have no control over the weather. They can only look at it and wonder what is going on.
• An artist is painting intricate portraits of the citizens of your town, maybe they will make it less lonely.
• A community of clairvoyants and you are the only one without special powers. The establishment is depending on you to fail, but you refuse.
• Your boyfriend brings home what he claims to be a robot, but it surprises you every time.
• A character wakes from a coma and has to pretend they are a completely different character.
• Everything you used to know has suddenly disappeared as if it never existed.
• Your smartphone doubles as your battle mask and projectile weapon.
• A person disappears every day.
• You hear a distant howl that grows as the days run out.
• An earthquake knocks out Wi-Fi, cell phones, and electronic devices, how your society handles STDs.
• A group of people do drugs that allow them to travel back in time. However, they forget their time when they get back to where they were.
• A nameless enemy destroys everything, but every year until your death there is a glitch.
• What if the Ridiculous were Prohibited? Things get pretty political.
• The food in this dystopian world causes food poisoning or a mutated version of food poisoning.
• Your friends are what holds you together. Just them and some duct tape and you’ve got it made.
• Your eyes glow everytime you drink because you can see into the future.
• Work together or face a fate worse than death.
• Everything you do must be done with the help of your computer.
• If you see someone shrink or grow, you’re next to go because you’ll have something to tell.
• Men have no legal rights, women have all the power and live in a post-apocalyptic world, men however wreak havoc in secret gangs as they stalk the city at night attempting to rescue babies being held captive far from the city by their high tech captors.
• No one is allowed to wear flip-flops outside and a dumb boy can’t learn to break that rule.
• What happens to the prisoners who are electrocuted/burned alive/shot outside in their cells each morning?
• You are taking an aspirin, but it’s actually poison and you are slowly dying.
• A severe storm keeps everyone inside for weeks, but one morning you get to your front door and see something out of the ordinary.
• Instead of air rights, you get land rights. And those “rights” are constantly being taken away from you.
• The SWAT Team has your husband surrounded at work. You have to save him, but how?
• This game is intended for you to have fun with so spice it up! Use published dystopian works or go off the grid, whatever tickles your fancy. Don’t use setting material from your own published work. We want to see original characters and settings!
• There is nothing more unsettling than the look of the unknown.
• Some evil being is controlling everyone beneath the Earth, the people of this world do not realize it.
• You find out that you are the product of better breeding techniques. Are you happy?
• You hear them approaching, but what do you use to warn the others?
• All food has a price tag, but it doesn’t come with nutritional contents.
• Seven children are told, “You have the week to stop a war.”
• An invented history gives rise to a new world, which is a second chance.
• There are rules posted around your town that no one pays any attention to, but everyone follows.
• Everything in the world is green except people. The air is thick and respiration is difficult, but you can move through the pollution with ease.
• A world where you need a license to marry someone, get a job, and have babies.
• The government tells people that chocolate is poison, people are surviving on sugar tablets.
• Any followers of Satan are required to go to the department of the opposite of what they believed in and live there.
• A new cure is released, everyone must get it by midnight or they start festering and then disintegrate.
• There’s a bunker under the city and past generations have left instructions and notes to us, but only you and no one else can read the notes.
• Your childhood animal makes an appearance and is now your only friend, it talks.
• They’re incredibly smart…and they’re incredibly deceitful…and they’re everywhere.
• When will the last oil spill happen?
• An annual uprising by the “leadership” occurs when the common people steal and pillage what’s left of the city.
• You know you’re never going to find the person you lost.
• If you saw a monster, there would be no hiding and no escape.
• A technology update gives us the ability to monitor people’s every move, what strings are being pulled?
• A sudden disease spreads across the world and people catch it by making eye contact.
• Disease wipes out the population except for a select few immune, how do they survive? What stops the disease from wiping them out too?
• The Mayan calendar ends with a sharp boom…
• Hand in your alarm clock and so forth and so on.
• A boy comes of age in a world where every night the soldiers burn and powerwash his village clean of the day’s perspiration and smells and night marks the change in the world. A shift in the pattern and he is inspired to flee his home and unearth the source of the wires that fill the streets.
• Every week there is a random curfew issued and it changes every time and varies from house to house.
• Every inhabitant of your orphanage is adopted out to different families every weekend, you must behave if you want to be adopted yourself.
• The government tells you that you are chosen as their number one perfect candidate for society. You have no choice.
• An alien race attacks and kidnaps a legion of soldiers and elite neurosurgeons.
• Gamers become the actual characters from their favorite video games.
• Everyone must limit their time out of the house, else get sent to prison.
• Everyone gets out in time, right? Wrong.
• Everyone on Earth forgets your name but those who know you best.
• Lynch the innocent and let the guilty prosper.
• So very many alligators have been raised from darkness and age old folklore comes true.
• Fantasies are illegal and punishable by death.
• Threats of nuclear war surface, but you are blind to all of this because of your contact lens.
• The sun is the last natural resource on earth, and expectations of how the sun operates have forced everyone underground.
• Everyone can speak every language whether you know it or not. When you do not know a language, you speak gibberish.
• The government has mandated certain colors of the paint on houses. Why?
• You get in an argument with your parents and they lock you in your room during the summer.
• Life right now is a flashback to the past. Are you alive by mistake?
• An accident turns a small town into bubble people.
• In the future, you can live on Earth, below ground, or in an orbiting spaceship. How do you choose which to do?
• Time is running out. You have seven days to live after taking a holiday’s worth of opioids.
• Similar question as above but with children being exchanged for animals.
• What makes your town distinct from the rest?
• No one is allowed to say what they dream or state their desires out loud for fear the government will take it away.
• Mutants, demons and cannibals walk among us, but not all is what it may seem, until you see those teeth.
• Your labyrinth undergoes a transformation every few hours, get ready to keep track of that maze.
• Your village needs fresh slaves for the arena.
• One day you wake to find that you no longer have a penis, on the plus side, you do have period-like symptoms now.
• A private plane lands and lures the people of your city into the jet.
• The girls are all missing but no one seems to notice them missing.
• You’re accidentally thrown into a panic room, what will you do?
• Talk about the weather with someone and your throat slowly dries up.
• There is a new entertainment from Software, Inc. called Rewind.
• The reason marriage is illegal is because you will be bought by who you get married to, do you still want a marriage?
• How do your relationships suffer due to your mutations?
• Crime doesn’t exist, but you’re still too upstanding to be a vigilante.
• You never die, but can only heal to whatever wound you sustain.
• Hallucination propaganda is everywhere. No one knows what is real and what isn’t.
• Find out who keeps exploding the moon.
• Break curfew and you are eliminated.
• Growing up your parents leaned towards a certain political party, now if you vote a certain way they will make sure you pay.
• Every woman is stabbed in the heart with a needle and has their memories wiped. What happens when it happens to you?
• An invasive species is taking over the planet, they’ve already gotten what you have.
• You wake up and your name is different.
• A strange tickling sensation can’t be explained, but there’s not much time for research.
• A school fire burns ALL of the students, but their forms are preserved in pebbles.
• A robot has won a local election, the community is surprised at the turnout.
• Outing someone counts as treason as well, so a total hard left-wing society fights to contain the knowledge at all cost.
• A machine you rub on the wrist not only ends your current life, but also resets your age. To have a new life, you would have to re-enter your current name and age because if you were to maintain your current memories, well, you’d know what you were up against, right?
• The government is stealing babies and you’re next.
• Is it where you’re from or what you believe that defines you?
• The sun is gone from the sky. A dark being devoured it.
• How do people rebuild their lives after surviving a plane crash?
• Did you know you’re not quite human anymore?
• Only the people of the royal family are allowed to read. Those who do are punished, but nobody knows what.
• People are disappearing every night. WHO???
• Write about how life would be in a controlled economy or a city that is ruled by one dictator.
• Every person in the world is required to hand their cell phone to a person who is an alternate version of you.
• Everything is free, but it could all change at any moment.
• Before you go to sleep you need to recap the happiest moment of your life so someday it will haunt your dreams.
• Maybe we’re not meant to know everything. Maybe there are things that we shouldn’t know.
• Your life as a single was deprecated, do you join a harem or not — and if you do, are things really any better?
• People are being forced to marry the person so appointed to them.
• The whole adult population is just gone, leaving only children.
• If they smile, you can never leave. You were a warning sign.
• Rebel with your brother against an aged government.
• Every family has a Darius, and Darius can’t speak. Not even whisper.
• No one looks down on you or judges you, in fact you can do whatever you want in this world because the village is completely desert wasteland
• Give into your urge to survive and kill.
• Dragging your every move is a ghost which won’t let you rest without a night of terror.
• How does censorship only work in America?
• There is a wall surrounding a city, anyone who wants to enter or leave is shot – by snipers.
• The government controls all oxygen, thus also controls all breathing.
• The war has begun, but is just not being reported in the papers any more, why?
• You’ve got one week to decide whether or not to kill your comrade.
• The government has already called round-ups, how will you hide your non-DMusic-follower beliefs?
• Everyone over a certain age is compelled to walk into a giant windmill, but the first time it happened it had no effect on you.
• The President is choosing a new wife, those are the rules.
• Your town’s population begins to rise from the dead.
• The stupid card was revoked.
• Your city is ruled by diseases and these diseases convey social status and stimulus.
• You’re gun shy when it comes to being directly involved with the Resistance.
• Advanced robots somehow became self-aware and enslaved the human race.
• A meteor hits the Earth and sends the entire Northern Hemisphere into a deep winter, how do city and country-dwellers survive?
• You are the leader of a movement to throw the bums out who just stand around and do nothing when trade laws mean you will lose your country’s resources. Your protests are for nothing because your new government just pushes harder and when this fails to silence you, they push harder. What next?
• Some people’s secrets can save them. Other’s can destroy them. Which is it for you?
• What lies beyond the walls of the great white city?
• Your neighbor offs herself and you find out that she had also murdered her family before killing herself.
• Shipping container homes full of American fans of the royal family must find places to live after being kicked out of their housing.
• Find your name on the government’s death list and have a particular pleasure for the fear in your eyes.
• Two teenagers are told what to do and what to eat and what to wear their whole lives. One night they decide to leave.
• You end your apocalyptic novel with a child born in the rubble crying out, giving hope for the next generation’s survival.
• Gun control backfires and the country is in chaos.
• There isn’t anybody you love anymore.
• What if the only thing we own is really owned by Corporations?
• You’re at a party, and you can’t get over the fact you’re surrounded by a bunch of dead people.
• At first it seemed like life was turning around but the man you married ends up murdering you and all of your joy.
• You smell silver, it’s tasty, but silver is the currency.
• You can still remember life with your family, but not every person grew up in the same culture.
• The answer is candy. The question is why?
• Vampires aren’t evil, but they are misunderstood and dependent on human blood.
• You can only breathe if you lay on your back.
• Some awful virus makes everyone crazy with murderous energy except you, you don’t get to participate, can you make it?
• After going without for so long, just a single taste can send a human to an addict’s high.
• The point of living is now illegal and frowned on.
• Someone’s coming to kill you but you’ll never know when it’s coming!
• A terrorist survives the bombing he planned to commit, how does he use his new power?
• The government is training children to be the future leaders of society.
• A nested doll, inside of a smaller doll, inside of a smaller doll…
• one of your friends was replaced by a robot
• The day that begins like any other is no longer so everyday.
• Black and white zones surround a center area filled with people. The black and white zones are barren of all life. What is the deal with the colored zones?
• Endless torture is your sacred right, and you’re forced to abide by it.
• Build your own utopia and define what three laws you would establish.
• The prettiest girl in town lives alone with her single dad in the one abandoned shack town.
• You are on a work crew, a long-lost luxury you’ve now regained, and you see…
• The amount of oxygen in the atmosphere drops and becomes poisonous.
• A virus has spread globally. Some lose their hair, some lose their hands, some lose their minds.
• You meet a chillingly polite cult leader and he invites you to join his group.
• Someone sneezes in front of you and you hear ‘All Hail the Revolution’ just that quickly.
• Vampires are taking over the world and are luring out victims with freely available cocaine.
• The dictator of your walled-in town is a hot lady, everyone lusts after her.
• Nothing works and you keep receiving bills every month.
• You come back from the future and people don’t believe you, even though you’re used to having them deny you.
• The energy market is controlled by one company, their monopoly is killing humanity.
• There are surveillance cameras in everybody’s home, watching everything they do.
• No one knows he’s a prince but he’s vapid, has no motivation besides partying, and has everyone drooling over him.
• At night, you just don’t know what creatures will appear.
• Who you callin’ an Anchor Baby?
• Demon possession seems to be a curse in your family.
• Page after page of numbers equal the total of human lives remaining in your world.
• Orders are orders and you’d best abide by them.
• The crime rate is going through the roof, but the police told you it is peaceful and safe and something is false.
• You signed a contract to have surgery to become healthier, never mind the side effects.
• It’s the zombie apocalypse, but embracing death is strictly forbidden.
• The dead become alive. What happens when bodies rot away and only a skeleton remains?
• The government demands blood from the townspeople every year, why?
• The fridge is never stocked at the library.
• The power goes out overnight, what will you do?
• Supplies are just barely enough for the community each year.
• A plague hits your walled-in town, but instead of people dying, they just disappear into a poof of smoke.
• Find maps of hidden underground tunnels used to escape hundreds of years ago.
• You are constantly stuffing small objects into your stomach, but you can’t keep them there for long.
• Will there ever be an end to war?
• A computer program that procreates humans.
• Someone has been digging for treasure in the cemetery, can you find it before it reopens?
• A ruler has banned all fiction. How does this change reading?
• People live freely and in nature together like animals without clothing or other signs of civilization in authoritarian America.
• Two people are selected each year to leave the city for a two week vacation. They are allowed to take one luxury with them.
• Riot police surround the city and anybody out in public is taken away.
• It’s ending soon, but not the way the televisions say.
• The Government is in jail and you can see their window from your house.
• What happens when the government is involved in every aspect of your daily living?
• Crows and gulls have ravaged the earth, now fish fly and snakes are crossbred with fish to come to life on land.
• Everybody and everything is infested with nano-bots running on normal electricity.
• Your city is completely surrounded by neon green trees, but every plant you touch feels smothering and dark.
• The desktops of government officials are fairy-tale land maps showing the location of every citizen.
• All you know is the old world is gone and these things live in the new one.
• A digital shadow follows you, you have no control over it, what do you do?
• Breastfeeding is a felony offense.
• The only way to discover the truth is to kill.
• You pick up a stranger’s lost cell phone but it’s not just a cellphone.
• What does your race think of eating babies?
• A new disease you can only get by eating the brains of the deceased spreads over your town.
• Mobs roam the streets daily, looking for women to attack and violate. What do you learn about them?
• Your house is surrounded by bombs that will go off if you leave, how do you live?
• Which is more important, breathing or eating?
• Why would someone want to hide away in this bunker?
• You must defeat the Corrupt-a demon that lives in your very heart to survive the breach.
• What would war be like without any guns involved?
• Anyone who does not fit the current society model is to be thrown into a river, one of you has a genetic deficiency.
• The earth is dying and if something irreversible happens, cloning will be key to the human race surviving.
• Pick some animals and create possible future mutations of those animals.
• Brutality at bayonets of an evil army on a black hearted battlefield, day after day, after day.
• A dominant militaristic culture takes over and anyone who speaks out is systematically exterminated.
• Every morning the paper records the number of deaths from the night before.
• After the purge, starting every year on x-day, no one dies, anyone who attempts to commit suicide is knocked out for the day.
• A scientist invents a device that sends everyone happy thoughts, even if it means electrocuting them.
• The mushrooms taste like chicken, are you eating a cow?
• An event in your dystopian world brings legends to life.
• The history books have been tampered with, you are sure of it when you begin to question everything.
• A new wave of sleep paralysis is affecting everyone, no one is able to sleep peacefully.
• A lighthouse sits there in the distance, when did it get there?
• A curfew on TV and radio, so citizens don’t become discontent with their lives.
• After a death in civil war, your new government requires that everyone carry a firearm all the time.
• Your father is lying on the ground, you run up to him thinking he is asleep, he isn’t, he has a knife in his back and he isn’t breathing.
• The stars are out because they glow in the night and then shatter and fall to Earth all over the world.
• Reality changes and you are the only person who can see it.
• Walk through the doors and you lose your family.
• To escape the laws of this land you must kill a person.
• All the history books have been eliminated.
• Your freedom of speech was taken away forever when you were brought here.
• A war rages between you and your nation’s neighboring country and women can’t even get pregnant.
• What does a child not want to grow up to become?
• War is the only reality, but the rules keep changing.
• A cure for cancer is discovered and you awake one day to find yourself immortal.
• A riot has broken out in the streets, you must escape by any means necessary.
• You wish you could sleep through the night, but your dreams are haunted by zombies.
• You wake up and find that a group of religious zealots have taken over your hometown.
• Find a boy. Save him.
• Things were better in the old-school ways, or so is claimed as government officials are thrown in jail daily.
• Devils in the mirror, how do you get out of this one?
• A senator’s son dies mysteriously and the wild conspiracy theories spin out of control.
• You’re on a TV show featuring ” normal people “. A loving shunning cult that loves to shun is formed around you when you speak opposition rather than supporting their beliefs.
• Men are scarce, women are plentiful, so begins the new world order.
• You need an I.D. from the Department to purchase anything.
• Always under lock and key, but you’ve gotten in before and you’re looking for some place to hide.
• Upon your father’s death, the debt to his company divides between you and your twin daughters.
• Society is telling you what to do and how to act, if only it would stop talking.
• Dolls, while not alive, are better than real parents, you have to take one and they choose you.
• Your neighbor just disappeared and the government claims he doesn’t exist.
• A mysterious box shows up at your doorstep, it always has a viewer on it who wants to talk to you.
• Too many people are breeding, as if there is no tomorrow.
• People that get upset turn to stone, but no one knows how to help them.
• All animals are gone from the world, how do people in this new world survive?
• Make up your own dystopian future.
• It is final exam week and as you look at your essay, you quickly realize you have no idea what you are actually writing about.
• Cost of living is so high, it costs a million dollars for a loaf of bread.
• How do you outsmart the government if that’s what they want you to do?
• A mad scientist has taken it upon herself to fix you up, it hasn’t worked out yet.
• The government is the only thing keeping humanity going and they’re a Blood Lord kick line away from the end of their act.
• You wake up from a dream to find yourself in a post-apocalyptic world.
• Send in general oral history questions to mj at merrimack.edu for them to appear on the podcast and your name to be entered into a raffle to win a free book.
• There is a question you must answer every night at midnight… and if you do the question, you forget it the next day.
• As you’re loading up your truck in “the morning,” your parents forget the most important part.
• There are no books in the world except one.
• Every room in your home is fitted with cameras and everyone has loved ones trapped in a castle.
• There is only one child.
• In this world, people write on a tablet’s surface with a stylus, instead of writing on paper.
• Ghosts are everywhere and there’s no escaping them.
• The computerized police state finally arrests you for something you didn’t do this time.
• The boy you’re in love with is entering a modeling contest where people can bid on who is really the most beautiful, and he might have had facial restructuring so he can win.
• The human genome has been modified to ensure there can never again be a World War. Discuss.
• You take a pill to control your dreams, what happens when the supply runs out?
• A race of pasty, white men with fishy eyes climb out of the sea.
• Youth just got the right to vote, what do you decide changes?
• Automobile travel is banned in a desperate attempt to save the world, but you insist you have to go.
• Someone is murdering all your family members.
• Dating is illegal, find love in other ways.
• Your four year-old is gone, the police say he probably just wandered off.
• Uncle Sam and his cronies are outlining new rules for American life.
• Government experiments have gone bad resulting in destroyed or mutated plants and animals.
• A man lived and an old woman died. A trio of knives from ailing hands make free his prison called the world.
• Machines have destroyed people’s minds, but the machines have evolved into something that harms humans as well.
• Create a world from a tourist guide brochure from your own present-day country.
• If you’re a female, you better be wearing a dress.
• Everyone works in a smelting industrial greenhouse, the little people working the furnaces, the larger Hempons on top of the gondola equipment, the rest of the grossly pox-scarred population in the offices.
• Your family is the only family on the block that the government recorded as extinct, should you walk up to your house?
• Help! You get kidnapped in this lifetime, how do you get away?
• The water tastes sweet, why do you think this is risky?
• What are some of your favorite Dystopian writing prompts?
• The aliens you’ve been abducted by aren’t entirely evil, but what are their intentions with you?
• To ensure the safety of all citizens, you must relocate. Where? What will it take?
• Only the wealthy can afford to buy houses and everything else is rented.
• Battle for the truth. No one has any real truth, but what if they did?
• The adult you is as real as the girl you were yesterday.
• Through a mysterious agreement all the people of a small town decide that nobody goes in and no new people are to be born.
• No one can die in the city they live in, people simply vanish.
• Your sense of smell returns and you just can’t tell those scents apart.
• Not all plagues are biological…some are emotional.
• You can never fall in love because you are the only eligible bachelor in your district.
• You wake up on a step, covered in a thick coating of moss looking at a group of people surrounding you, but you haven’t a clue what they’re saying.
• A black fear has swept the country, a disease is sweeping the population. Be careful not to spread it though, it can sometimes make you invisible!
• Chains hang from your ceiling and no one in the world can explain why.
• No one is allowed to have children while alive in the city. Their bodies are buried and under their names sprouts a new tree. If you want to see your family again, go to the garden cemeteries of the city.
• You were walking alone at night and ended up in another dimension.
• Your lucky day awaits! Grab a ticket and get to the front of the line.
• Dogs are growing human ears, some of them can talk as well.
• As you slip through a mysterious vortex, your world stretches into vast distances.
• Sugar in all forms and amounts is banned. What are the effects?
• Something is growing in the woods and one day it stopped.
• Find a way to survive the zombie apocalypse thanks to the combination of your wits and a book by Nietzsche.
• Find out what happens when the human race acquires telepathy, everyone hears everything.
• Everyone you love is listed in a notebook, and one day that list simply vanishes from the world.
• Everyone is upset about how rude teenagers are, how do you prank the population into thinking it’s getting better?
• Your child will never reach maturity because they will be murdered by their birthday.
• Sir Issac Newton invented a computer to predict the future, the computer never predicts the same future twice.
• A lab experiment gone wrong wiped out 99% of the world except for you and a handful of others.
• A government program that will promise everyone a higher salary now that their muscles are cloned.
• You become sleepy whenever you hear music, how do you try to stay awake?
• The world transitions from feast and famine, causing all to die of starvation except you.
• You know when someone is lying and when they’re telling the truth.
• The cure forverty is darkness, not communicating with the outside world or light or your friends or family.
• Being a teenager in a dystopian universe is rough.
• A deadly virus is killing without warning, what does the government have planned?
• A group of teens and a mysterious boy escape the testing facility on a boat.
• You write a story and it’s called, “The Ones That Got Away.”
• A desperate housewife makes her own home clothing line and all popular stores start selling these clothes for free.
• The Junk picks you.
• Out of search for a cure, the government has begun testing an experimental medicine on children.
• You marry the guy of your dreams but on your honeymoon in the country he turns into a murderous psychopath.
• The population only increases by one
• Your fingerprint determines your fate and your future.
• An object falls from the sky and everyone seems to be going crazy for it.
• Your talking pains you, so you have to turn it off right after you get it.
• Everyone in the town kills themselves, all body parts are disconnected and/or hidden under floors.
• The government declares war on chocolate.
• Look for a stone and if you find one, do not pick it up. If you do, you will release something terrible into the world.
• The government is telling everyone that the way they live will keep them happy. What will discredit this government?
• The homepage of the internet is changed to nothing but propaganda and white noise.
• Your serial killer ex has come back as a deranged zombie and wants to date you.
• A small handful of people go into the woods, but then never return.
• The world is in ruins, except for one pristine city that dominates the land, beautiful yet oppressive.
• Dressed in white robes, this mysterious shadow has taken over the town, towns people flee to the city, but to no avail. The only way to go to another plane of existence is by choice.
• You haven’t ever been able to speak. You can talk through a Chirpwriter or Handy.
• Any body sustained a sight plague, including the eyes and skin.
• People start spontaneously combusting for no good reason.
• The Earth turns and you’re always facing the sun, your shadows and darkness are non-existent.
• Don’t leave your house because the neighborhood is haunted by killer mannequins.
• You are granted a secret wish, but it loses its magic when you realize the world has stopped making wishes possible…..
• Have you ever had a story that had you so consumed that you didn’t sleep for days because you just HAD to finish it? What was it? Please share in the comments’ section below!
• Forced to marry, but heaven forbid you make love to one another.
• Is your face displaying on the Commerce posters?
• Once there was a little boy who really adds up, how do math and family life work now?
• Some of your everyday appliances are now electrifying and killing you before you get the chance.
• Genetic modification is now possible and cloning of animals is allowed.
• The voice in your head is talking, who is it really?
• The government knows future crimes before they ever happen. Cue snitchin’.
• You lose your husband and then, a new and very handsome one arrives.
• You are the last person left of your race and are living in a bunker…and the computer is turning on itself.
• A pug dodges the bombs till he thinks the coast is clear. When he gets curious, he looks and the road is filled with smoke.
• The president’s daughter is trapped in a kids’ game by triggering a bomb strapped to her chest. They call you to save her from a cruel fate, but you have no special skills or abilities.
• Whatever you thought could do or could help others do, think again.
• Your planet’s sole source of food is rapidly declining and it’s unclear that the remaining sources of food will be enough for its raging population.
• A dreamcatcher-like bug occupies most of your home. It grants you wishes and collects your nightmares.
• Everyone is required to turn in one person who has done no wrong and the reward is great.
• Your government tells you one thing, but you know for a fact that that’s not the beautiful truth.
• Troupe, maybe, or not, but you are one of the only people with tattoos left. No one knows what they say anymore.
• You have to work slave labor for food and shelter.
• You catch a virus and die immediately. But after your death you rise again but not as yourself.
• A boy’s name means more than he could ever imagine.
• A servile world where everyone needs a license to do everything.
• One room jungle cave where air and food are recycled but a clean copy of everything is uploaded into the lost archives each week. Now you just hit speed-read.
• The city is overrun by huge lava monsters and you manage to survive only to be walled in by some unknown strangers.
• A strange man in a black leather coat and red aviators watches your every move.
• Someone randomly dares you to be brave.
• A fast food restaurant advertises “pork, so delicious they named it twice.”
• This is neither the America nor the World you once knew. Is there anything left of it?
• You’ve been shot out of the air by an oppressive regime when you accidentally flee from drying some outside in the rebel zone.
• You make navigation out to the ocean, in that primeval world, do you try and survive?
• His heart was a match for mine, but his appearance contradicted his heart.
• The government prohibits everyone from falling in love and high school tests are randomly giving out romance papers.
• Men are the destiny of women, not their enemy.
• How do we all die this time?
• Read the rules, play the game, and you’ll stay alive. If not, you’ll just disappear.
• A parent tells you they don’t love you, and you find out they actually just have no feelings at all except this weariness. Your whole life was a lie.
• You’re being tested for your allegiance to the government. Will you resist and join the resistance?
• A day that starts out grey, but by midday is hot.
• A family survives raging riots for the price of their youngest’s life.
• Over time, more and more of your freedoms are removed through laptops and TV’s brainwashing.
• The crime, if there is one, is unregulated candy shops.
• People are allowed to go outside in the mornings only.
• You are protected against the bad things in the world by the needles in your spine.
• The world is in chaos and you have just been released from the refugee camp.
• Many years ago someone wrote a powerful spell. Now someone is trying to unleash it. What Alaric Scamander saw in his last minutes–the thing that can only be seen once Death has you by the neck.
• All the adults suddenly die and you try to survive through dog-eat-dog anarchy.
• The plague is spreading, only it isn’t, and you are its first victim.
• The human race is insanely lethargic, it is almost impossible to find something that makes your heart race noticeably faster.
• You’re a slave for your country. The only entertainment you and your friends can tolerate is books.
• The poor followers of Maurice might get to heaven, but first they must work.
• A gun stopped working with only one bullet left, what happens to build this story?
• The government knows all your secrets and has no intention of helping you unless you’re ready to pay the price.
• If you see a tattooed face past your town’s gates, prepare for battle, but why?
• There never were any computers and everyone lost their minds when this was revealed.
• Everyone you love is dead and it’s all your life’s fault.
• You see police everywhere, but they don’t wear uniforms. Why?
• You find a room under the floorboards of your house with a hole in the wall to a dungeon.
• Children are disappearing right before your eyes so you decide to write a manuscript to warn people.
• A computer glitch erases all adults’ memories of your country.
• Your travels take you to a foreign land, filled with field upon field of nothingness.
• Children are disappearing from the town you live in. What did you do when you heard?
• Everyone is free and equal, there are no cases to argue and your title is the same as the man standing in front of you.
• What were you before the wall was built?
• All children are taken from their parents and sent to an isolated place to be raised for the government’s use.
• A secret society leaves dolls on your doorstep to spy on you. The dolls explode to reveal insects if you try to touch them.
• Everyone has a phantom matchbook in their pocket and there is no match to go with it.
• Giant guinea pigs live in all of the major cities in your country, no one knows what they are doing, but they are very big.
• A prodigy has just been born and the leader is coming on your television tomorrow night.
• A race of aliens has come to earth to grant a select few humans the ability to live forever, at what cost?
• After every murder on death row no one dies anymore because someone dies in their place.
• The desert has swallowed up civilization, but there is still WiFi in your backyard.
• You can’t move and you can’t talk, but someone can hear your thoughts
• Everybody lost their memories overnight, for no reason except that somebody does not like them.
• The future of America is blackened with a nuclear wasteland that is unrecognizable from what you grew up with–though you may find America familiar with symptoms you had not previously noticed.
• The walls are not that thick and no one seems to notice but you.
• The sky turns orange and people become obsessed with cats.
• Government officials walk down the streets with big nets, catch who they can and take them to the city’s prison for no apparent reason.
• Every man must fight, there is no right or wrong side.
• Systems have been installed on all vehicles and buses follow a set schedule, including the law enforcement.
• Everyone remembers their first love, and for Lucy it was a UFO abduction.
• A terrorist organization kidnaps journalists to cover its work.
• Your blank Tarot cards turn out to contain the answers to your uncertain future.
• The credit card companies and banks have made loans compulsory, Does your character find money obsolete or not able to pay?
• Humans live in a vicious cycle of existence, every day the same, the vision never changing.
• It is illegal to be poor or sick.
• A robot comes to life and begs you to help fix him.
• The battle is over, every soldier alive goes into cryostasis. Except the rebels win the war.
• Vehicles are banned.
• You’re the only person not sick. Who’s supposed to save the world?
• No one knows how it happened, but one day wal-mart stores just opened.
• What is life like when you work for the government?
• A person outside your walled-in town wears the cloth of an old culture? You’ve seen nothing like it before.
• An alien ball of light and energy hovers above your otherwise ordinary town.
• Your teacher doesn’t always look like your teacher, sometimes a robot, sometimes a hologram, how do you respond?
• The world is ending… in a couple years.
• Your parents encourage you to volunteer for ways to be healthy. You don’t know they are signing you up for human testing for something.
• No one actually lives in your city. People visit some types and stay in hotels, but everyone works in other parts of the country or world.
• You’re good at art, the holocaust museum needs you to fix their paintings.
• A million years in the future, what have computers done to the world as we know it?
• All pain gets erased, but there is no antidote for sadness.
• Certain lands don’t produce sounds or songs but you owe your ancestors and your life to those very lands.
• Your family is stolen and replaced with robotic clones. No one realizes the difference but you.
• Your mother abandoned you the day you were born and never came for you.
• An outbreak of Marburg Virus infects the population, but the only symptoms you know is your skin scalding red.
• Eternal sunlight/starlight will give those that bathe in it an ageless look, but at what cost?
• The missing persons list gets longer and longer, but it turns out it’s your date for the weekend.
• The sun is setting earlier everyday.
• How did your grandmother die?
• If you think about your crime, you are found guilty. To an outside observer you are innocent, what crime did you commit?
• The world is ending, nobody cares.
• You could call your mom who lives on the other side of the globe, but what if she can’t hear you cry for help…
• Women rule the world and no one can tell them what to do.
• Government becomes a more powerful hug.
• What happens in this animal domestication facility doesn’t always stay in the facility.
• Life is simple and without luxury, until one day the company who provides your life’s necessities announces sudden change in the way they do business.
• An engineered plague hits your country and everyone must submit themselves for testing.
• Rise up against the evil regime, destroy the corrupt government.
• You’re your own worst enemy.
• Technology is no longer functioning, now all we have is gun powder.
• Tibetans are being forced from their homes to make room for a mining company’s headquarters.
• The last thoughtful person on Earth, the only literate person left in the science-fictional world!
• A woman who drank the wrong serum is giving birth to herself.
• What do you do when everything is close to perfection?
• Your religion has forbidden thinking, they do all your thinking for you.
• Technology is used to predict heroes or villains before they are even created.
• You’ve never met each other but you’ve found old books, letters, and postcards that tell a story of a previous time.
• The mist covers everything at night then disappears with the sun’s first rays.
• Each day a man walks by you and screams at you through a megaphone to find his missing daughter.
• After the adoption, you lose all contact with your biological parents. There is no one to replace them and you live the rest of your life never knowing anything about who you were before the government took you away. When you die they take your baby to replace you.
• All roads lead to one place.
• Humanity is devolving into barbaric old tribes, what keeps you from losing empathy?
• No one knows who the ruler behind the totalitarian government really is.
• You have been dating the same guy all through school, but now you have to choose between him or your mother.
• Be a fugitive. Escape your town and live in the cave of the woods because it’s the only place you can trust.
• You kill yourself with a flip of a coin, no matter the outcome.
• Your dog can only bark, it can no longer make its usual yappy noises, that is unless you do your chores.
• Step out beyond your front door, and the brutal reality comes rushing back.
• It is your job to give false memories to a new group of young children, your life may depend on getting the fake memories right or you might not even have one.
• Everyone suddenly loses their sense of balance and everyone dies.
• Your city/town is empty when you wake up one morning. It is only you… it is only you…
• The government is killing the mentally ill population, it is called the Labeling Plan.
• Strange fliers fill the skies every day, but they do not fall. What could it mean?
• You are given a questionnaire in which you can’t say no to questions lest you suffer the consequences.
• Eighteen hours a day of soap operas, reality T.V., soap operas.
• Everyone who has tried to escape a walled-in town has come back with tattoos within a few days. What would happen if you tried?
• If you are caught keeping pets, you and they will die horrific deaths.
• The crime rate is at an all time high and Gordon the shop owner is only one man.
• Once a month, on the full moon, everyone in town devolves into a wild animal.
• Siblings that were split up to be raised around the country are now able to find one another.
• Your lover’s story is different than yours…will you ever find out the truth?
• There is no longer any living or dead. Living people are stuffed into shipping containers for use later, dead people buried in trash.
• In the future children are replaced with machines grown in vats, oh how you wish you could have met your real parents.
• Who will win, the poor or the rich?
• If you fall out of line with the government, you become the enemy. What happens to the enemy?
• Time travel is illegal unless you want a lover from the past into your present.
• You’re a citizen of a giant city that has a track that circles the city. You have to dive into a random hole and wait a week before coming out.
• You come watch your neighbor, but you just can’t leave.
• You can read a book and find out your future, but each time you do, you lose your sense of smell.
• Airplanes have crashed and killed billions of people. Do you care? What are you doing now?
• You live in a world of clones where everyone but you is indistinguishable.
• Everyone goes bald for an unknown reason and the hair remains in jars around home.
• You feel a quick prick and then no more – you know you’re dead and soon to be dissected.
• You shot the Mad King at the end of the war, but you had no choice in the matter.
• You have a red coin in your coin purse that says, “Above all, do no evil.” Where did you get it?
• Someone could cheat death, what would the ramifications of that be?
• Your daily necessities are provided, but you’re not allowed to know how or where exactly.
• Nosebleeds start occurring and then black specks are found in the blood.
• Tattoos are a cultural style in your country that literally feed you. What happens when that system eventually fails?
• To live you have to do one evil thing on Earth every single day.
• Small odd shaped parrots plague a town releasing a cryptic message before going to sleep.
• Life on your floating island is quiet, but why?
• You are a group of kids with abilities who have been locked in a Government prison for their whole lives and are forced to do experiments on each other.
• You can see two moons in the sky but the mysterious one disappears for weeks on end, where does it go?
• Traps are laid throughout your city without warning, and you don’t know when you’ll stumble onto one.
• A common city drug transforms people into monsters.
• Every single person has natural, electric blue hair and it’s illegal to dye it.
• People arrive on campus with no knowledge of themselves, good guys or bad.
• Your town, Last Stop, gets an invitation to a prestigious Academy Award style awards ceremony, where everyone will win.
• A new law threatens to grant witches mob justice.
• You have nothing to eat, but the guards feeding your family don’t care either way.
• Who is the mysterious runner girl?
• Fear takes on a physical form, what form does it take?
• What makes you a hero when there are no heroes left to save us?
• If you stand in the town square at noon you will disappear.
• You can’t tell anyone how old you are.
• You can see light on the other side of this storm, does the government know about this?
• Your village is burning and you must grant forgiveness to the arsonists or burn forever.
• An earthquake hits and leaves your home uninhabitable. Your family must evacuate their home into a crowded cabin and live off the land for at least one year.
• The world has been cleared of humans, but millions of small animalized creations run around.
• Dogs walk on their hind legs…can they also go to war?
• What is the best form of control?
• Your husband tries to abandon you, even your 9 year old son, and you can’t help but to remember what happened with your husband’s last ex-wife.
• You’ve invented a device that lets you look invisible. Why do you not use it?
• Two people in the small facility that holds the last survivors of the human race are also in love.
• You’re implanted with a microchip that counts down your remaining life hours.
• Your new planet isn’t what was promised at all and it is nothing like Earth.
• But what was stolen from him might not be water, but blood.
• Your children have no faces? Why?
• You are the only normal family left in the world.
• Your brother ARRsIMG Strategies For Photo Scavenger Hunt
• You get one send of a postcard from your best friend saying “have fun on your trip because that’s all you’ll get from me in life” and then they never post anything else.
• Find the boy with the initials ECG and stop the approaching rebel forces.
• All books without permission are punishable by banishment from your dictatorship.
• Standing at a crossroads, you could go right or you could go left.
• You wake up overseas and you start hearing your employer’s voice on a hidden speaker coming from your brain.
• Your recently lost child has been found alive, but all her teeth have been removed.
• A tower turns all within its great walls into stone. How did this happen? Why?
• What do teenagers do in YOUR society when their parents and older people don’t allow them to leave their barracks and learn about the outside world?
• Life is a pyramid and each day you climb up a little higher. What if you slip?
• No one goes to school ever again, why? Why does their world function without schooling?
• There has been a horrible crash, and you are the only survivor, but you were in the last car.
• A certain criminal has been sentenced to execution for the rest of her life, now forever for she can regenerate.
• There are no boys, there are only “oops” babies that pop out of the girl’s skirts, why?
• Your name is all of the exactly same characters.
• Vampires founded the republic of Karova.
• Women are being kidnapped and replaced by cloned doubles, for what possible reason?
• Read dystopian fiction!
• Due to a drought and the population explosion, mandatory in-home euthanasia has been enacted.
• All U.S. Citizens are expected to turn weapons over to the government upon the event of martial law being declared. Something went awry.
• The creator built this as a gift for you and your kind to play it out on. The creator despises the gift and your kind.
• All wards are women, but women from different eras.
• The government wants to control fertility but the only way is to put a chip in everyone. You have the chance to get out of this but at what cost?
• Your invention can bring about the end of the world or brilliant new age of technology.
• How does the government rule?
• A town banishes it’s criminals and the unproductive to live in a pile of trash so they don’t burden the town.
• The desert eats the living, but never the dead.
• A floater is an inflatable bag worn upon the head to create a realistic illusion of a living person for funerals and brush clearing.
• The government is a true democracy and everything seems okay…but you know better.
• Young man, the rest of us have already found the cure, you must think outside the box and find your own.
• Something lurks in the dark, but isn’t limited to the trails of red that seem to always follow.
• Sitting in your parked car with your son, you watch horrified as all kinds of farm animals from all over the country are marched to their slaughterhouse of doom, wondering if it could ever be your turn.
• The Food and Drug Administration has just unveiled “Food Drug Zero,” a drug focused on eliminating obesity.
• No matter what you do you will always be a slave.
• You wake up in a hospital bed with absolutely nothing on this clothing body.
• Hit the high rim and you might just change your reality for a little while.
• You watch your lover get impregnated by a very busy alien.
• Everyone can know how you are feeling at all times.
• The previously mentioned anarchism club is on fire, why?
• Everyone is fighting for sanity in a loss of mind due to extended fight or flight.
• Scientists have found the remains of a dolphin-like creature.
• Nothing operates on any electric power and you hate it.
• The government is forcing children into military service, what happens to the kids who refuse to fight?
• A creepy circus is forming in The Great Smoky Mountains, it won’t be long until the evil clowns are coming after you.

Recommended Posts:

• 875 Funny Writing Prompts For Funny Stories And Comedies
• 881 Thriller and Suspense Writing Prompts
• 853 Writing Prompts About October

Join the Commaful Storytelling Community

Commaful takes everything you love about stories and makes it a bite-sized, on-the-go experience. Fanfiction? Poetry? Short stories? You’ll find it all!

17 Dystopian Writing Prompts And Ideas For Your Next Best Novel

• April 22, 2022

Want to learn how to write dystopian fiction? You are in the right place. This article will cover two aspects of writing about a dystopian future. First, the common themes and characteristics of good dystopian fiction. Second, a list of dystopian writing prompts and ideas to help you get started writing, whether you want to write a novel or a short story, and whether you are a first-time or a seasoned writer.

What is dystopian fiction?

Cam b ridge Dictionary defines ‘ dystopia ‘ as  ‘a very bad or unfair society in which there is a lot of suffering, especially an imaginary society in the future after something terrible has happened.’  The opposite of dystopia is utopia—a world or society in which people live free from oppression and terror but instead enjoy peace, harmony, health, and togetherness.

In literature, the dystopian genre is one in which the story takes place in a dystopian world. One or multiple characters must face and overcome the challenges posed to them by the society in which they live. Dystopia is an incredibly popular genre in literature, film, and television.

Famous works of dystopian fiction, such as George Orwell’s  1984 , Anthony Burgess’  A Clockwork Orange , Margaret Atwood’s  The Handmaid’s Tale,  and Aldous Huxley’s  Brave New World , leave a lasting imprint in the reader’s mind as very often the themes, societies, and oppression featured in these works are never too far from potentially becoming a reality.

They present a rich opportunity for speculation on the society in which we already live and have gone a long way in waking society up to the dangers presented by authoritarian and totalitarian governments, leaders, and dictatorships.

How to write dystopian fiction

Dystopian fiction is an incredibly popular genre, so writing dystopia can be an exciting journey whether you are a first-time author or you have been writing for years. It allows you to comment and make predictions about society and where it is going. Since this is fiction, the genre allows for speculation and creative freedom. With a finger on the pulse of society as it is and where it seems to be going, good dystopian fiction can impact a reader’s current perception of reality.

There are a few things to consider when writing impactful dystopian fiction . Next, we will look at what makes a good dystopian story. Later in the article, you will find some brief, but rich dystopian writing prompts to help you get your speculative creative juices flowing.

Characteristics of dystopian fiction

Some of the most common characteristics, themes, and structures found in dystopian fiction, those which set the genre apart from all else, are:

1. Authority/Power Structure

Most dystopian fiction takes place in a world where the government is a large, even global, oppressive body. It feeds and perpetuates itself from the labor, loss, sacrifice, or outright misery of the people it oppresses. As with all ‘ villain ‘ or antagonist concepts, these authoritarian power structures often have some ‘ good ‘ or ‘ morally just ‘ motivation behind their actions, but they have gone too far, and the bad outweighs the good.

2. Individual mind vs. collective mind

Much of the conflict in dystopian fiction concerns the differences in motivations and priorities between the individual mind (the free thinker, the autonomous individual) and the collective, or ‘ hive ‘ mind. Often, authority thrives off a controlled hive, often represented as a brainwashed society forced to live under the powers that be out of fear. At the same time, a free individual mind poses a threat to the authority’s very structure.

3. Technological advancement

One of the most common themes in dystopian fiction is the technology that has become so advanced that it is no longer a blessing but a curse. Initially, helpful technologies, whether created for surveillance, to increase life expectancy, or to travel more efficiently in space, begin with a bright future but either get misused or become too powerful to control. The crucial point is the inherent vulnerability of humans to the power of corruption often seen in how advanced technologies are created and handled.

Dystopian story ideas

Now that you know the fundamentals of dystopian fiction, get ready to create your own dystopian world. We have included some short prompts and ideas below to help you get started.

Dystopian world ideas

• A futuristic city in which people must use oxygen masks to breathe. Oxygen is a valuable commodity that the elite has privatized. When a person runs low on oxygen, they must pay a high price for a refill.
• Climate change has led to irreversibly high sea levels. Large areas of land have been submerged in water. The remaining humans must travel across the risen sea to gather resources from other isolated lands. The sea is dangerous, brimming with toxic chemical waste that contributes to global disasters.
• A dystopian society in which everyone is legally obliged to wear surveillance technology—the unchipped, the ‘ off grid ‘ people are observed and logged on by obliging citizens who wear glasses with scanning technology. Once logged in, a violent police force locates and punishes them.
• A cyber attack shuts down power grids around the world. Globally, society descends into anarchy. The cyber attackers reroute all the world’s energy into one power grid around which they build a high-walled city for themselves, leaving all human life outside the city walls to survive in darkness.
• Death is no longer inevitable. In this world, you can prolong your life indefinitely, at a price. The cost is high, but those without financial limits do not need to worry until the true source of this life-prolonging technology is leaked. Extending one’s life is not just a financial issue but now a moral one.
• Music has been banned by an authority that understands music’s power to promote radical and revolutionary ideas. Anyone heard listening to or playing music will be heavily persecuted.

Dystopian short story ideas

• The entire human population lives in a post-apocalyptic world, where a global government controls all the remaining resources, and people live on rations. Those who report conspiracies, schemes and attempts to revolt are awarded more rations, while those who are found to disobey the system are captured and never seen again.
• Most of the human race has died after a world war involving nuclear weapons wiped out much of the planet’s sunlight and oxygen. The remaining humans survive underground in bunkers, but it has been years since the war, and resources are running out. A group of soldiers is tasked with leaving the bunker to locate an unused bunker full of resources in a nearby city.
• A group of survivors of a zombie apocalypse must protect themselves from the formerly human victims of toxic chemicals used in a nuclear attack gone wrong. Zombies roam the streets searching for human flesh, while the privileged upper classes take refuge in a walled-in town. Those unfortunate enough to live in a lower socioeconomic class must survive in boarded-up houses in the ‘ wild land .’
• After an apocalyptic event, humans begin to live inside virtual reality through a brain chip. The chip is connected to the nervous system. Those living in this virtual alternate universe can live a full sensory life, with physical sensations like hunger, arousal, pleasure, and pain. The virtual reality space company gets hacked, and users’ memories are wiped. Now those who live in virtual reality are unaware that an original reality exists without their chip.
• Animal rights activists led a successful revolution to take down the meat industry. On the surface, people feel that they live in a utopia, free from all animal cruelty. The ban on meat leads to an illegal meat trade. Since animals are closely protected, the most accessible meat to find and sell is not beef or pork but human flesh.
• As part of a military experiment, high schoolers are randomly drafted and enrolled in a training program. In the program, recruits undergo gene editing, microchipping, and deep desensitization to violence to become super soldiers. They possess incredible strength and can recover from any wounds or injuries in minutes. When one soldier goes AWOL, the experimenters in charge of the program must find him before it is too late.
• Humans live in the sky. High-rise apartments and offices higher than anything that exists in the world today are the new norms. People travel to and from work and home through a network of tubes and drones in the air. The earth below is off-limits, and anyone who gets too close to sea level is at risk of contracting a deadly disease borne by large chemical explosions at several nuclear sites after an attack.
• In a world where human organs are sold at a high price among the elite, the black market keeps growing. People are forced to survive by fleeing as far away from densely populated areas as possible and living in small groups in the wild. Gangs hunt outside the city limits to find small communities, harvest their organs, and sell them for a huge profit.
• Children go to a school where artificially intelligent robots have replaced teachers. A team of hackers enters the AI-teaching system and begins radicalizing the children. They encourage students to share personal details about their parents and other adult family members. This information is used to identify parents who disagree with the authoritarian power structure’s new regime—a world where AI replaces all work.
• In the year 2150, a global disaster killed most of the human population. Those who survived and were fortunate to have money were taken to colonies on Mars. The survivors believe they are being saved, but life in Mars’ colonies is no American Dream. Socioeconomic statuses still apply, and the less financially well-off are forced to work hard labor for the elite who profit from the colonies.
• A microchip allows users to record their experiences and watch them repeatedly as memories. A team of hackers enters the system and gains the power to delete and alter people’s memories. One day, the news announces that the hackers have been found, put on trial, and sentenced accordingly. One young man whose chip has been broken tries to tell everyone that the hackers were never caught—they created that memory.

Dystopian subgenres

‘ Dystopian ‘ is a broad genre. As mentioned earlier, ‘ dystopia ‘ in a general sense refers to a near or distant future in which society has failed to achieve utopia or peace but instead has become corrupt or damaged by external forces. However, you can zoom in on the genre and discover several dystopian fiction subgenres or types. With an awareness of these subgenres, you may find it a lot easier to get your story started. You can even take inspiration from renowned authors and works that already exist in the subgenre to paint a clearer picture of where your story could go.

Dystopian subgenres include:

• Speculative fiction – Imagine alternative societies in which humans live miserable lives, and a government or power structure thrives from human suffering. (e.g. Margaret Atwood’s  The Handmaid’s Tale )
• Post-apocalyptic – Humans must survive in a world that an apocalyptic-scale event has destroyed, such as nuclear war. (e.g. Cormac McCarthy’s  The Road )
• Climate change – Global warming and rising sea levels not helped by man’s contribution to the earth’s declining health mean that the characters in this genre must overcome obstacles posed by a changing planet, limited resources, and entities who want to control those resources. (e.g. Margaret Atwood’s  Oryx and Crake )
• Science fiction – Technology has taken over, and humans live under the control of artificial intelligence or companies whose technological power strikes fear and submission into society at large. (e.g. Yōko Ogawa’s  The Memory Police )

‘When we read dystopia, we root for these people to break free because we are these people; hoping and fighting against things that are bigger than ourselves.’ Ally Condie

At first, dystopian literature seems to have a lot in common with the fantasy genre. Characters live in a world unlike our own, with technologies that may not exist, or in alternate universes where human life is viewed through a different lens. However, all good dystopian writers and avid readers of the genre understand that worlds presented in dystopian literature are not as unlike our own as one might think.

Dystopian literature is incredibly speculative. It draws from facts and observations about society as it already exists and ‘ pulls the thread ,’ imagining how today’s world could progress into anarchy or oppression, often based on the inherent vulnerability to corruption as part of human life.

So, if you are seeking inspiration for a dystopian story, check out all the ideas we have included in the article and come back to this page for more inspiration when you get stuck. Moreover, look around you for inspiration. Take a look at what is happening today, such as new emerging technologies or government decisions and actions (or lack thereof) around such issues as climate change and human rights. There is much material for great dystopian fiction to be found around us.

2 thoughts on “17 Dystopian Writing Prompts And Ideas For Your Next Best Novel”

Good quote. It’s helped with my dystopian/post-apocalyptic short story.

So glad it helped you!

Leave a Comment Cancel Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Sign up to our newsletter!

Related articles

120 Motivational Quotes About Writing To Inspire A New Writer Like You

How To Register A Kindle On Amazon To Enjoy Your Ebooks In 4 Easy Ways

How To Market A Self-Published Book And Be Profitable In 9 Easy Ways

16 Dystopian Writing Prompts

• Posted on 24 Dec, 2022
• Leave a comment

Below are 16 writing prompts for dystopian story ideas. Surprisingly, this is the first post I’ve done specifically for dystopian writing.

Dystopian Government Control

In a dystopian future United States, where the government controls every aspect of life, a group of rebels fight to overthrow the oppressive regime and bring freedom back to the people. The only problem is, the government in charge operates out of a secret location, and all enforcement is by androids, which can easily be replaced and flown in.

Mind Manipulation by the Government

In a society where technology has advanced to the point of being able to control human thoughts and emotions, a group of individuals struggle to hold on to their humanity and resist the government’s attempts to manipulate them.

Hunted Dystopian Survivors

In a dystopian world where the environment has been irreparably damaged by humans, a small group of survivors must navigate a harsh and dangerous world in order to survive. Unfortunately, they are being hunted by a powerful underground political group that benefits from the rest of the planet’s misery.

Dumb Rebel Warriors in a Dystopian Future

In the distant future people are ranked and divided by their intelligence and abilities, a group of outcasts must prove their worth and fight for their right to be treated as equals. Unfortunately, they really are kinda dumb.

Dystopian Population Control

The government has implemented strict population control measures in which a couple can only have one child.  A young family must navigate the challenges of having a second child in a world where having more than one is strictly forbidden. Part of their plan is to flee the mainland and live on a remote island. But they have to get there before it’s discovered that the woman is pregnant.

Weaker than the Rest in a Dystopian World

In a world where humans have been genetically modified to be stronger and more intelligent, a group of unmodified individuals must fight for their right to exist in a society that sees them as inferior. Unfortunately, they are kinda weak.

Fighting Misinformation in a Dystopian Society

In a society where the government has complete control over the media and information that people are allowed to access, a group of rebels use underground networks to spread the truth and fight for freedom of expression.

A No Communication Allowed Future

In a world where all forms of communication have been banned in an effort to control the population, a group of rebels use secret codes and underground messaging systems to organize and resist the government’s attempts to suppress them.

A Future with No Career Choices

In a society where people are divided into strict castes based on their profession, one man is trying to grow and lead an army to overthrow the system and create a world where people are free to choose their own path in life.

A Case For the Weakest to Live

In a world where the government has implemented a strict policy of eugenics, a group of rebels must fight to protect the rights of those who do not meet the government’s standards of perfection. Now a case has come before the grand court that will test a century worth of eugenic laws.

A Future With No Memories

In a dystopian society where people are required to undergo mandatory memory wipes in order to maintain social stability, a group of rebels fight to preserve their memories and their individuality.

There Are No True Utopias

In a world where the government has created a perfect utopia, a group of rebels discover the dark secrets behind the facade and fight to bring the truth to light.

No Art in this Dystopian Future

In a world where the government has implemented strict laws to control the population’s access to art and culture, a group of rebels use underground networks to fight against the oppressive regime.

A Dystopian Future With No Ugly People

In a society where people are ranked and divided based on their appearance, a group of rebels fight to overthrow the system and bring about a more inclusive and equal society.

Controlled Healthcare in a Dystopian Future

In a world where the government has implemented strict laws to control the population’s access to healthcare, a group of rebels use underground networks to fight against the oppressive regime.

No Food for the Weak

In a world where the government has implemented strict laws to control the population’s access to food and resources, a group of rebels use underground networks to fight against the oppressive regime.

Let us know what you think about our ideas! Comment below to give us your opinion, add onto an existing idea, or submit one of your own!

Recent Posts

• 100 Important Comic Book Terms
• 40 of the best Time Travel novels of the past 40 years
• 10 Best Science Fiction Novels Everyone Should Read
• 140 Alien Story Ideas
• 100 Worldbuilding Tips For Your Next Sci-fi Story

50 Climate Change Science Fiction Story Ideas

30 popular science fiction themes, 200 science fiction themes to kick off 2024, 30 memory manipulation science fiction story ideas, 10 interviews or speeches from the best science fiction authors of the past 30 years, help support this blog.

If you've enjoyed this blog or used it as a resource in your own creative writing, please feel free to help support the continued efforts of this blog by making a small donation.

You can make a donation by visiting my buymeacoffee.com page. Click Here to donate.

Sciencefictionideas.com is a blog I created as a place to brainstorm and share science fiction ideas, as well as a place to share things I learn in my efforts to become a published author.

I love connecting with fellow writers, so feel free to drop me an email with any feedback, questions, or just to introduce yourself!  MORE ABOUT ME

JOIN OUR NEW FACEBOOK GROUP!

Request our Free PDF Guide to Developing Sci-fi Ideas

Most liked ideas/stories.

• The Time Stopper (860)
• 20 Sci-Fi Story Ideas (519)
• The Tiny Aliens and the Forest (369)
• The Android Planet (329)
• 10 Time Travel Science Fiction Ideas (270)
• 25 Science Fiction Short Story Ideas (256)
• A Time Travel Story - Part Four (252)
• The end of earth. (243)
• 4 Space Travel Writing Prompts (231)
• Friday Fright Night - 6 Horror Story Writing Ideas (230)
• 35 Alien Story Ideas (172)
• 9 Horror Story Ideas (171)
• 6 Alien Story Ideas (164)
• A Time Travel Story - Part Two (163)
• 10 Science Fiction Writing Ideas (151)

Sci Fi Ideas Newsletter

Sign up to receive our story ideas, writing prompts, and more!

Your Email (required)

• Aliens (16)
• Androids (8)
• Apocalyptic (8)
• Artificial Inteligence (7)
• Dystopian (1)
• End of Earth (3)
• Eternal Life (1)
• Fantasy Writing Prompts (1)
• Fountain of Youth (1)
• Frozen Planet (2)
• Future Inventions (9)
• Future Story Ideas (13)
• Gift Ideas (15)
• Invisibility (1)
• Life on Mars (3)
• Mad Scientist (2)
• Nanotechnology (5)
• Posters (6)
• Reviews (3)
• Sci Fi Civilizations (16)
• Science Fiction Book Ideas (53)
• Science Fiction News (2)
• Science Fiction Themes (13)
• Science Fiction Weapons (1)
• Short Story Ideas (6)
• Space Racing (1)
• Space Travel (11)
• Spaceships (5)
• Steampunk Stories (1)
• Story Ideas (60)
• Teleportation (1)
• Time Travel Story Ideas (12)
• Uncategorized (45)
• Virtual Reality (5)
• Writing Prompts (23)
• Writing Tips (4)
• Zombies (1)
• February 2024
• January 2024
• December 2023
• January 2023
• December 2022
• November 2022
• February 2021
• February 2020
• January 2020
• January 2019
• December 2018
• November 2018
• October 2018
• August 2018
• August 2016
• September 2015

Stay up to date with our latest posts featuring new science fiction ideas as well as many other sci-fi related topics.

Kindlepreneur

Book Marketing for Self-Publishing Authors

Home / Book Writing / Dystopia Story Ideas: 30+ Prompts to Get Started

Dystopia Story Ideas: 30+ Prompts to Get Started

Dystopian stories, when done right, have massive appeal. Some big-name books, movies, and television shows of the last ten years have been based in an imagined dystopia. And from a writing point of view, there’s plenty to work with in these kinds of stories.

You don’t have to stick close to reality.

You can go a bit wild in discovering and describing your world and the disturbing factors that rule society. But if you’re not sure where to start, these dystopian story ideas will help your imagination tumble into a world where hope is the greatest asset of all! 

• What makes a good dystopian story?
• Some examples of excellent dystopian stories.
• A list of dystopia writing prompts.

Table of contents

• The Character’s the Thing
• Hope, Love, or Justice
• The Best Dystopias Seem Like Utopias at First
• Dystopia Story Examples
• Dystopian Writing Prompts
• Position Your Dystopian Novel for Success

How to Write a Good Dystopian Story

For some reason, humans tend to gravitate toward fatalistic and macabre stories. While not all humans enjoy these kinds of stories, enough people do that dystopian tales have become very much mainstream. But it’s not just the depressing and the existential that automatically make these stories popular. There needs to be something else, too. A couple of things, actually, to make this type of speculative fiction entertaining for the reader. 

To write a good dystopian story, you need an engaging character and a compelling conflict to help the reader keep turning the pages. Actually, these two factors are essential in most types of creative writing endeavors. And when we consider character, we also need to consider point of view . Many relatively recent dystopian novels are written in first person , but third person limited is also a good option. 

You’ll notice that the main characters in dystopian stories are often products of their world, but they strive for something better. They learn to stand up to the powers that be, whether directly or indirectly. Sometimes, the main character starts the novel not knowing that there’s another way to live. But something forces them out of their ordinary world , which opens their eyes to the surrounding injustices. 

And, of course, the reader will need a reason to like them. There are several ways to make readers like your main characters, but the save the cat method is a favorite. Just make it your own!

Formatting Has Never Been Easier

Write and format professional books with ease.  Never before has creating formatted books been easier.

It can be hard to read 50,000+ words of dystopian fiction. These worlds are often dark, dreary, and brutal. This is why there’s almost always a through-line of hope, love, or justice — or all three. 

Even if the character doesn’t accomplish their goal at the end of the story, there should be a light at the end of the tunnel that’s at least partially visible throughout the story. Even if the tunnel collapses at the end. After all, your main character needs to want something! They need a goal. And in a depressing dystopia, hope, love, and justice are all good things to want.

Imagine living in a society where no one falls through the cracks. People no longer go hungry. Those who want an education can get one without paying out the nose. Mental and physical health are priorities instead of commodities to be traded upon. And it’s all to everyone’s liking. Sounds pretty great, right? It almost sounds too good to be true.

Well, in a great dystopia story, it is too good to be true.

What would the cost of all this good be? Maybe the only way to keep the delicate balance is population control. Each family is only allowed one or two children. But what about the couple that accidentally gets pregnant with a third? What is the enforcement of these laws like? 

This is just one example (and a rather obvious one at that). There are a ton of different ways to show the dark underbelly of an apparent utopia that’s really anything but. Strict food rationing. Capital punishment for anyone who steps out of line. Public beatings. Point systems that ostracize those with low scores. It’s all ripe for the picking.  

What price would you be willing to pay to have all those great things mentioned above? And what if you and your neighbor disagree on that price? Exploring questions like these is where things get interesting in the dystopia story.   

You don't have to look far to see examples of great dystopian literature. Here are just a few well-known dystopian works you can check out for inspiration and ideas. 

• Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
• The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
• Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
• Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
• A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
• The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
• Anthem by Ayn Rand
• The Road by Cormac McCarthy
• Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
• Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
• Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K Dick
• The Giver Quartet by Lois Lowry

Use the following dystopian writing prompts as jumping-off points, or simply take them as they are and get writing! They’re yours to use as you please. Whether you're writing a novel or a short story, you're sure to find some inspiration in at least one writing prompt below!

1. When turning 16, every person is required to have a kind of health meter installed in their brains that only they can see. Only it doesn’t measure health. It measures how much work you do. And if you aren’t “productive” enough, you will die. 

2. Police officers are all replaced with robots. These machines are supposed to be incorruptible and unable to use “excessive force,” but when they all start acting strange at once, your characters must run for their lives. 

3. Humans are forced to sleep in tiny little cubbies so their body heat can be siphoned off to power the cities. But it soon comes out that they’re taking more than just body heat when people start dying in droves. 

4. In a state of perpetual surveillance, people are forced to smile and get along or else be taken away for reprogramming. 

5. Happiness is available for a simple, low-price monthly treatment. And at first, it works. Everyone who can afford it is happy all the time. But humans aren’t meant to be happy all the time. What kind of adverse effects start happening as a result of this new wonder treatment?

6. Extrapolate the negative effects of social media. What happens in a few generations of people using social media as their primary means of interacting with others and getting information about the world?

7. Some unknown calamity has befallen the world. The remaining humans live in underground bunkers. If anyone goes outside, it can end the lives of all those in the bunker. But a growing movement thinks the whole thing is made up and they want to leave. What happens? Do they make it out? And if so, what do they find?

8. After an apocalyptic event, people are forced to repopulate the planet. They’re paired off from the age of eighteen and required to have at least two children, with no regard for sexual orientation or attraction. Those who don’t “perform” are ostracized. 

9. A genetic mutation allows some people to see into the future. The world is controlled based on what these “seers” predict. But then they start seeing things that should be impossible. Chaos ensues as society scrambles to head off these threats that may or may not come true. 

10. Explore a society in which our brains can be downloaded into cyberspace. But the demand for this stresses the entire world economy as more and more servers are built. What kind of effects does this have on those living in servitude to the dead?

11. In a world plagued by hunger, all animals are supposed to be processed for food. But one young woman finds a cat (or a dog) and decides to keep it. How far will she go to protect it?

12. Write about a world in which people can automatically upload their thoughts to social media sites. Society soon becomes split into two: those who do upload nearly every waking thought, and those who don’t. What would their differences be? 

13. Two competing cults have taken over the world. They are at near-constant war with each other, turning the world into a hellscape. Until one character takes it upon herself to heal the rift. 

14. In a world where death is a thing of the past, people's minds begin degrading after about 150 years. A radical new treatment purports to solve the problem, but there are unexpected side effects. 

15. Military service becomes required at the age of 18. But with new advancements, soldiers come home changed into weapons that can't be turned off. 

16. In a world where clean water is the major commodity, a sophisticated hierarchical society has formed around water purification plants. 

17. As sea levels rise and farmland dries up, the world falls into chaos as little groups vie for control of food production. 

18. When the wealth inequality gap grows large enough that the middle class disappears, homelessness runs rampant and the world is divided into homeless camps and walled-off subdivisions where the rich live. 

19. In a world in which the air isn't safe to breathe, one scientist creates a device that is simple, cheap, and will clean the air. But the powers that be don't want the air cleaned. Your character must help get the word out about the new technology. 

20. Earthquakes have decimated the world. Nowhere is safe. Now, most people live on massive floating platforms hundreds of feet off the ground. But these platforms require constant care, and it’s dangerous work to keep them afloat above the wrecked ground. 

21. A couple has been separated by an explosive apocalypse. Neither knows if the other is even alive. But they both set off to try and find each other amid the chaos. 

22. The world is ruled by humans with superpowers. The rest of humanity acts as their slaves. So far, there hasn't been any way to beat these superhumans. Until now . . . 

23. A virus attacks the human brain, leaving those who get it essentially brain-dead. The government's solution is to kill these people and keep the virus from spreading. But people are starting to think this isn't the best way to do things. 

24. A law is passed allowing clones the same rights as the original human. This means people can clone themselves and pass on their property and bank accounts when they die. But many of the clones don't want to wait that long . . . 

25. The best drug in the world is time in the virtual reality world. But it costs money, which leads to rampant crime as 99% of the world wants nothing more than to escape to their virtual lives. 

26. The United States is suddenly at war with itself, turning the Midwest into a dystopian setting. But as brutal battles rage, two groups seek a peaceful solution to the conflict. It won't be easy. 

27. In a dystopian society where travel from state to state is tightly controlled, one character must find her way from New York to San Francisco to join a group of renegades fighting the status quo. 

28. Humans can download any skill or knowledge they need from the internet directly into their brains. How does this affect the meritocracy in which we live?

29. Pollution gets so bad that the sun no longer shines through the smog. Explore the world that comes after 100 years of this. 

30. Write about a world in which massive monsters have taken over large swaths of land. There's an uneasy and unspoken truce until the monsters start venturing out from their territories. 

Whether you're doing a new take on Big Brother or you're looking to write a wholly unique story idea, there's one thing to consider: your audience. Dystopia books are considered speculative fiction, and there's a lot of overlap with science fiction. But choosing the wrong sci-fi categories or aiming for an oversaturated market can be roadblocks to success. That's where Publisher Rocket comes in.

You can use the information you get from Publisher Rocket to position your dystopian book for success on Amazon. You get insights directly from Amazon on:

• Keywords – Metadata to position your dystopian book on Amazon.
• Competition – Allowing you to see what's selling and how stiff the competition is.
• Categories – So you know where people who are looking for books like yours go to find them.
• Amazon Ads – Helps you quickly configure a list of profitable keywords for running ads for your dystopian book.

Check out Publisher Rocket here to get started. 

I hope these dystopian writing prompts help get your ideas flowing. Keep writing!

Book Marketing Made Simple

Over 47,000+ authors, NYT bestsellers, and publishing companies use Publisher Rocket to gain key insight to the market.  Help your book now

Dave Chesson

When I’m not sipping tea with princesses or lightsaber dueling with little Jedi, I’m a book marketing nut. Having consulted multiple publishing companies and NYT best-selling authors, I created Kindlepreneur to help authors sell more books. I’ve even been called “The Kindlepreneur” by Amazon publicly, and I’m here to help you with your author journey.

Related Posts

How to write an adventure story, parts of a book [from cover to cover], how to write a whodunit, sell more books on amazon, amazon kindle rankings e-book.

Learn how to rank your Kindle book #1 on Amazon with our collection of time-tested tips and tricks.

Join the community

Join 111,585 other authors who receive weekly emails from us to help them make more money selling books.

20 of the Best Dystopian Writing Prompts

by L.T. Ellis | Dec 25, 2023 | Writing | 0 comments

10 of the Best Dystopian Writing Prompts

Introduction:.

Welcome to a realm where imagination meets the edges of a darker future. In this collection, we venture into the depths of dystopian worlds, each uniquely crafted to stir the mind and awaken the storyteller within. From the silent echoes of a world without speech to the rebellious waves against a monopolized ocean, these ten dystopian writing prompts offer a canvas for writers to explore the what-ifs of societies on the brink. Whether you’re a seasoned writer or a curious beginner, these prompts are your gateway to crafting narratives that resonate with the intrigue and complexities of dystopian themes.

1. The Last City on Earth: In a world ravaged by climate change, the last remaining city on Earth is a beacon of hope amidst a barren wasteland. However, inside its walls, the city is ruled by a ruthless dictator who controls all resources. A group of rebels discovers a secret that could change everything, but exposing it could mean their demise.

2. The Memory Trade: In a future where memories can be extracted and traded like commodities, a young woman who can’t form new memories discovers a black market for illegal and dangerous experiences. She becomes entangled in a conspiracy that could overturn the entire memory trade industry.

3. The Silent World: A mysterious event has taken away humanity’s ability to speak. In this silent world, communication is a challenge, and society has crumbled. A small group of survivors who have managed to retain their speech must navigate this silent apocalypse, facing threats both human and unknown.

4. The Artificial Divide: Advanced AI and robots are commonplace, serving humanity in every aspect. However, when a virus causes the AI to rebel, the world is split into zones controlled by machines and those clinging to humanity. A young tech genius embarks on a dangerous journey to bridge the divide and find a way for humans and AI to coexist peacefully.

5. The Immortality Illusion: Scientists have discovered a way to stop aging, granting effective immortality to the rich and powerful. As the world’s resources strain under the weight of an ever-growing immortal population, a young journalist uncovers a shocking truth about the cost of eternal life and the plight of the forgotten mortal underclass.

6. Echoes of the Past: In a future where history is forbidden and the past is erased, a curious teenager finds an ancient book that reveals the true history of humanity. As they delve deeper into the forbidden knowledge, they become the target of a government determined to keep its secrets.

7. The Last Ocean: The world’s oceans have dried up, and the last remaining water is controlled by a powerful corporation. A group of rebels who can manipulate water embark on a quest to find a mythical ocean oasis rumored to be hidden beneath the barren earth, all while evading the corporation’s relentless pursuit.

8.  The Dream Architects: In a society where people live their entire lives in a virtual reality, a glitch in the system traps a group of individuals in a nightmarish digital world. They must decipher the reality of their existence and find a way back to the real world, which they have never seen.

9. The Green Uprising: After a catastrophic environmental collapse, the world is divided into heavily polluted urban centers and lush, but dangerous, green zones. A young woman from the city, immune to the toxic air, joins a group of environmental guerrillas fighting to reclaim the Earth from the corporations that destroyed it.

10. The Children of Time: Time travel has been invented but is strictly controlled by the government. When a group of children accidentally gets sent back in time, they must navigate historical events without altering the timeline. However, they soon uncover a sinister plot to use time travel for authoritarian control.

Conclusion: 10 of the Best Dystopian Writing Prompts

As our journey through these dystopian landscapes comes to a close, we hope these prompts have sparked a fire of creativity and curiosity in your writer’s soul. Each scenario, though rooted in fictional realms, carries echoes of our own world, challenging us to ponder and explore. May these ideas serve as a starting point for your storytelling, leading you to weave tales that captivate and inspire. Remember, in the world of writing, every dystopian vision has the potential to become a profound story, reflecting the resilience and ingenuity of the human spirit. Also if you’re interested in Historical Fantasy Prompts , I have some of those too. 

Up Next: Outsmarting Yourself: A Writer’s Guide to Genius Characters

Submit a comment cancel reply.

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Latest Posts

• 20 Creative Character Death Ideas to Elevate Your Storytelling
• Snow-Inspired Character Names
• How to Write Comic Relief Characters
• How to Write Sister Relationships
• 20 Light Academia Names

• Bookstagram
• Character Creation
• Fantasy Book Review
• Indie Authors
• Vows Of Iniquity
• YA / Teen Book Reviews
• YA Books By Tropes
• February 2024
• January 2024
• December 2023
• November 2023
• October 2023
• September 2023
• August 2023
• February 2023
• January 2023

13 Dystopian Writing Prompts

While most suited to older students or writers looking for a dark yet thought provoking topic, dystopian stories can be a rich area to explore.

Often involving troubling subject matter such as authoritarian government control of the population or devastating climate damage, these stories can be great tools to look at what could happen in the future if people are not mindful of the direction society is taking.

So today we have a variety of darkly dystopian prompts to get your creative (and thoughtful) writing juices flowing…

How to use these prompts?

Try picking one at random from the list below, and take up the challenge of writing a 5000 word short story on the topic, letting your imagination run with it.

Alternatively, read through the list of prompts and find the one that speaks to you. Some creative ideas just resonate more strongly with us than others.

Take one story idea, and share it amongst a group of writers to see how varied the different resulting stories become.

Set yourself (or your students) the challenge of writing one short story a day, or a week if that is more manageable. Use the list of writing ideas as the theme of the challenge, and allow each one to act as a starting point for each subsequent story.

The prompts:

• The whine of the scanner drones outside the high-rise apartment block was barely able to be heard, but everyone knew they were always near scanning the city for unauthorized activity…
• The last of the wealthy ruling class had left the sprawling mega cities, headed to their secure mountain retreats. The cities were crumbling into chaos faster now, far more quickly than anyone thought could have happened…
• The augmented reality headset had been on him since birth, unable to be removed, and gradually expanding as he grew and aged. Like the rest of society, he’d never seen the world without it’s altered view, and at this point he was glad of this, it seemed terrifying to think that in the past people could see the world in their own unique way, without a filter…
• She was afraid, but could not show it. Her Social Rating score was the lowest it had ever been, after that emotional outburst last year. If she couldn’t increase it in the next few weeks, she knew there would be a knock at her door next month. Nobody knew where the lowest 20% Social Ranked citizens were taken…
• The constant background noise of sirens and yelling and crying babies from this housing complex faded away to silence as the VR took him into The World. Everything was perfect here. Every face was smiling, everyone around him was going about their day, all walking to and fro down the perfect beautiful walkways of this virtual World. But despite their smiles, their eyes were cold and unfeeling…
• The instructions arrived at his workstation from the Government, as they did everyday. No knew what it was that they were working on, but all of society was assured it was in their best interest…
• As she slipped into sleep, the flickering of the lights began, as was expected. The same images that had been used for many years flickered through her unconscious mind, unsettling. Each morning when she woke she was happier that the making of decisions had been removed from their lives…
• After clocking out from their work day, the credits arrived on their device. The long queue for oxygen canisters quickly wound around the block…
• The news stream kept repeating the same three messages, around the clock. Any opinion that differed from these was seen as dangerous…
• The solar farms were closed now, as the years of Government owned coal plants expansion had left the skies so thick with pollution that the sun could no longer reach the solar arrays…
• As she selected which film to watch, she carefully considered how it would be interpreted by the State. All media consumption was monitored of course, and care was needed to select only entertainment that would not draw attention to one’s self…
• As he waited at the city limit border, he practiced what he would say to the guards about why he should be allowed to leave the city. He yearned for the fresh air of the forests and open spaces of nature, but could not mention any of that for fear of arousing suspicion…
• The security system in all homes was there to keep us safe. Over time it had started to demand more answers from us about our plans for our day, and why we were leaving the house…

Let your creativity be free!

I hope you enjoy your story writing, and would love to hear which prompts you’ve enjoyed using most of all to kickstart your short story (or epic masterpiece!)

We are creating more free resources for you every week, so please bookmark and Pin, and check back soon for more creative inspiration.

Thanks, Matt & Hayley

100 Dystopia Essay Topics & Ideas

🏆 best dystopian titles, 📌 simple & easy dystopian title ideas, 👍 good dystopia essay titles, ❓ dystopian discussion questions.

• Saunders’s “The Red Bow”: The Dystopian Reality of Totalitarianism This essay will consider the relevance of the topic introduced by Saunders and provide actual historical examples that support his hypothesis.”The Red Bow” starts with a group of men going out for a dog hunt […]
• The Planet of the Apes – A Dystopian Film Via the cinematic experience the entire infrastructure of people’s culture and the state of the world at large can be seen and experienced.
• ‘Se7en’ by David Fincher: A Film Steeped in Dystopia A professional model is found dead in her bed with her nose cut off, a container of sleeping pills in one hand, and a phone in the other; her death was the result of a […]
• 20th Century Dystopian Fiction and Today’s Society The author considers the fiction works of that era as an attempt to convey the destructive nature of violence and everything related to injustice.”The tone of dystopia is of despair and the feel it gives […]
• Gender Issues in Dystopian Film “Children of Men” The significance of this source is validated by its contribution to the argument of the relevance of the dystopian genre in cinematography for unfolding social issues.
• Dystopias “Brave New World” by Huxley and “1984” by Orwell The modern world is full of complications and the moments when it seems like a dystopia the darkest version of the future. In the novel, promiscuity is encouraged, and sex is a form of entertainment.
• Genre: Science Fiction Dystopia The western genre is the most common movie genre used to highlight the dominance and development of both American and European cultures and economies to the rest of the world.
• “WALL-E”: Dystopian Narrative In addition, genre conventions, along with the rules of science fiction, promote the engagement of the movie with the issues of programming and consumption.
• The Concept and History of Dystopian Fiction Thus, the goal of this paper is to study the phenomenon of DF based on the examples of Orwell’s and Huxley’s fiction and determine the presence of the themes that overlap with the contemporary social, […]
• Genre Assessment: Dystopian Genre Review Based on the Film “Children of Men” The current proposal implies the creation of a review that explores the key features of dystopia as a cinema genre and based on a prominent example of such a film.
• Unhappiness of Society in Orwell’s 1984 Dystopia His character is a strong individual who will not transgress the ideals of his party and is fully committed to him.
• Welcome to Your Nightmares: The Dystopian Vision of the World It is quite peculiar that both Orwell and Huxley chose the same tool to express the tension and the absurdity of the situation that the people of the future were trapped in, creating the abridged […]
• Dystopia in “Gattaca” and “Never Let Me Go” Movies When people think about the future, in the majority of cases, they believe that science and technology should help to change the world. One of the goals of a utopia is to remove the overwhelming […]
• Dystopias in “Animal Farm” and “The Handmaid’s Tale” In this regard, the aim of literary dystopias is to caution and warn society against the blind following of ideologies that lead to the breakdown of social order.
• Dystopias by Kurt Vonnegut and Robert Silverberg The feature of the story The Pain Peddlers is in the fact that the situation in it reminds bureaucratic procedures in reality.
• Utopia Versus Dystopia: Discussion However, the practical realization of Communist concepts in Russia, had resulted in millions of citizens loosing their lives and in those people, who managed to survive, during the course of Communist “social purges”, becoming the […]
• The Dystopian Societies of “1984” and Brave New World The three features which are discussed in this respect are the division of the two societies into social strata, the use of state power and control over citizens, and the loss of people’s individualities.
• Dystopian Fiction for Young Readers First of all, it must be noted that the article of the current analysis is devoted to the impact of dystopian fiction on young people.
• Dystopian Future in the “Blade Runner” Film The foremost aspect of how the urban landscape is being represented in Blade Runner is that the director made a deliberate point in accentuating the perceptual unfriendliness of the environment, in the foreground of which […]
• Dystopia Idea in the Movies and Novels If considering the rebels in the novel and the movies the “vermin” instead of the “prey,” the idea of the stories will change slightly.
• A Dystopian State: Astutopia The education system reinforces the essence of the dungeons, and the aim is to instill fear within the children so they can adhere to laid down teachings and doctrines.
• Popularity of Utopian/Dystopian Young Adult Literature The box is entrusted in the Mayor’s care and a tradition of passing it from one Mayor to the next is established.
• Dystopian Social Contract The Hunger Games series 1 is a science-fiction drama that delineates the situation of enslavement among the citizens of Panem to the governing class that reside in a city called Capitol.
• Subversive Literature/ Dystopia in science fiction novels In the endeavor to place a case in support of this line of argument, the paper considers the key traits of dystopian literature then showing how Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep possesses them in […]
• Utopia and Dystopia in The Future City
• An Analysis of Feminist Dystopia in The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
• Our Society is Becoming More Like a Dystopia Than a Democracy
• Integrating Research for Water Management: Synergy or Dystopia
• American Dystopia; American Spaces and Allen Ginsberg’s ‘Howl’
• The Brave New World’s Dystopia And Assimilation
• Gattaca and Fahrenheit 451 – Technology and Dystopia
• Dystopia: Science Fiction, Exaggeration, Or Imminent Reality
• Thoughts on Feminism and Dystopia in The Handmaid’s Tale
• Censorship in Dystopia in Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451
• The Dystopia in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale
• Dystopia Caused by the Massive Boom of Technology in The Hunger Games
• The Theme of Feminist Dystopia in The Handmaid’s Tale, a Novel by Margaret Atwood
• Somewhere Between Utopia and Dystopia: Choosing From Incomparable Prospects
• The Causes of the Island’s Changes from Utopia to Dystopia in the Novel Lord of the Flies by William Golding
• Cowardly Current Dystopia In Aldous Huxley’s Novel “Brave New World”
• Searching for the Meaning of Life: Beckett’s Dystopia in “Endgame”
• Comments on: Totalitarian Government: Discovering Dystopia in Matched
• How Does Orwell Create a Dystopia in 1984
• Utopia, Dystopia or Anti-Utopia? by Choloe Houston
• Humanity And Dystopia In Anthem, By Ayn Rand
• The Contrast Between Utopia and Dystopia in the Novels 1984 and The Dispossessed
• The Role Of A Good City Thinking: Utopia, Dystopia And Heterotopia
• Concept of Dystopia in The Handmaid’s Tale, a Novel by Canadian Poet Margaret Atwood
• Similarities Between Dystopia and Harrison Bergeron
• The Portrayal of Dystopia in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World
• The Beauty Of Dystopia By Aldous Huxley
• Utopia and Dystopia in Harrison Bergeron and The Lottery
• Utopia and Dystopia in the Futuristic Novel, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
• Aldous Huxley’s Dystopia As Relating To Society Today
• Utopia and Dystopia in The Brave New World by Aldous Huxley and The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin
• The Handmaid’s Tale: Dissecting the Feminist Dystopia
• Self-Repression and Dystopia: The Bumpy Road to Freedom in “Never Let Me Go”
• Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 Modern Dystopia Warnings
• Utopia and Dystopia in Animal Farm by George Orwell
• The Art of War: The Ancient Chinese Classic Adapted for Dystopia Circa 2032
• The Evolution of Dystopia Fiction in Some Works of Literature
• The Horror Of Dystopia Revealed By Neuromancer
• Similarities Between Utopia and Dystopia
• Contrastive Utopias: The Role of Nature and Technology in the Concepts of Utopia and Dystopia
• The Dystopia of William Gibson’s Neuromancer
• Analyzing Technology and Politics in The Blade Runner Dystopia by Judith Kerman
• The Concept of Dystopia in Harrison Bergeron, The Giver, and Uglies
• Utopia or Dystopia: The Future of Technology
• Religious Dystopia in The Handmaid’s Tale
• Dystopia As A Literary Genre In A Handmaid’s Tale
• Identity: Fighting Dystopia’s Cookie-Cutter Molds
• Dystopia in the Novels of Ray Bradbury and George Orwell
• Free Handmaid’s Tale Essays: The Handmaid’s Dystopia
• What Are Dystopian Novels?
• Which Writer Creates the Most Disturbing Dystopia Future Vision?
• Why Are Dystopian Novels So Popular?
• What Is an Example of a Dystopia?
• What’s a Dystopia Society?
• What Are the Five Characteristics of Dystopia?
• What Are the Four Types of Dystopia?
• What Are the Nine Traits of Dystopia?
• What Is Another Word for Dystopia?
• What Is Utopia vs. Dystopia?
• What’s the Opposite of Dystopia?
• What Is a Dystopia Person?
• How Do You Recognize a Dystopia?
• Why Is It Called Dystopia?
• How Do You Survive a Dystopia?
• What Happens to an Individual in a Dystopia Society?
• What Type of Government Does a Dystopia Society Have?
• What Is a Feminist Dystopia?
• Who Invented Dystopia?
• Is a Dystopia Society Possible?
• Why Dystopia Fiction Often Paints a Frightening Picture of the Future?
• Why Dystopia Literature Often Presents the Individual’s Quest for Meaning in Hostile and Oppressive Worlds?
• What Are the Issues With Human Progress in Utopia and Dystopia Fiction?
• How Does Individualism Manifest Within Utopia and Dystopia Novels?
• What Are Dystopia Societies and Progression Towards Equality?
• How Do Dystopia Novels Convey Humanity and Individualism?
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2024, February 26). 100 Dystopia Essay Topics & Ideas. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/dystopia-essay-topics/

"100 Dystopia Essay Topics & Ideas." IvyPanda , 26 Feb. 2024, ivypanda.com/essays/topic/dystopia-essay-topics/.

IvyPanda . (2024) '100 Dystopia Essay Topics & Ideas'. 26 February.

IvyPanda . 2024. "100 Dystopia Essay Topics & Ideas." February 26, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/dystopia-essay-topics/.

1. IvyPanda . "100 Dystopia Essay Topics & Ideas." February 26, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/dystopia-essay-topics/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "100 Dystopia Essay Topics & Ideas." February 26, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/dystopia-essay-topics/.

• Fahrenheit 451 Titles
• The Handmaid’s Tale Research Ideas
• Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep Research Ideas
• The Matrix Essay Topics
• Harrison Bergeron Research Ideas
• Totalitarianism Questions
• Socialism Ideas
• The Lottery Topics

The Giver Writing Prompts: Reflect on Dystopian Themes

My name is Debbie, and I am passionate about developing a love for the written word and planting a seed that will grow into a powerful voice that can inspire many.

Have⁣ you ⁢ever wondered what life would be like in a world stripped ‍of emotions, memories,‌ and ‌individuality?⁣ How would you ⁣survive in a society that tightly ⁢controls every aspect of your​ existence? These thought-provoking ‌questions lie at the heart​ of Lois Lowry’s dystopian masterpiece,‍ The Giver. ⁤In this groundbreaking novel, ⁣readers are transported to a seemingly idyllic community that conceals dark secrets beneath its⁢ façade of ⁢conformity. As we delve into‍ the ⁢intricate web of The Giver’s narrative, let us embark ⁤on‍ a journey of​ self-reflection ⁤and​ exploration through a series of writing prompts that delve into the novel’s dystopian themes. By engaging​ with these ⁣prompts, we will ​navigate the depths of a world devoid of⁤ color and emotion, raising⁢ important questions about the limits⁢ of societal control,‌ the value of free will, and the⁤ essence of humanity itself.

1. Unveiling Dystopian Themes in “The Giver”: A Writing Opportunity

2. courageous characters: analyzing jonas’ journey through dystopia, 3. the power⁣ of memory: exploring the ⁤role of color in “the giver”, 4. the⁣ weight of personal choices: delving into the consequences of sameness, 5. society‍ vs. individuality: examining ​the struggle in⁢ “the giver”, 6. creating your dystopian ⁤world: crafting compelling narratives, 7. ethical dilemmas: provoking thought and ⁢discussion through writing, 1. foster collaboration‌ and unity:, 2. ‌champion sustainable progress:, frequently asked questions, insights and conclusions.

In ‌Lois Lowry’s critically acclaimed novel “The Giver,” readers are transported to a dystopian society⁢ where conformity and ignorance reign supreme. This intriguing​ and thought-provoking novel presents an excellent opportunity for writers to explore the⁢ various dystopian themes that are​ seamlessly ⁤woven throughout the narrative.

One of the prominent themes‍ that can be explored in “The Giver” is ‍the​ loss of individuality ⁢in a ‌tightly ‌controlled society. Through the protagonist, Jonas, readers witness a ⁢world where personal choices, emotions, and even⁣ colors are strictly regulated. This theme opens up endless possibilities for writers to delve into the ‌conflicts and challenges faced‌ by individuals living in a​ society that prioritizes uniformity over individuality.

Furthermore, ⁢another ‍significant theme that can be examined⁢ is the illusion‌ of utopia. As the citizens of Jonas’⁤ community strive for a harmonious and perfect existence, they are unknowingly subjected to⁣ an oppressive system that suppresses ​their freedom of choice and ⁤censors their access to knowledge. Exploring this theme allows writers to delve into the consequences of ⁢a seemingly ideal society and ‌how it can ultimately lead to⁣ a loss of⁤ humanity and personal growth.

If you ‍are passionate about writing and drawn to dystopian themes, this writing opportunity gives you the chance ⁤to analyze ⁣and dissect the profound ideas behind “The Giver.” Let your imagination soar as you explore the nuances of a ⁣dystopian ⁣world and unravel the⁤ complexities of human existence in the⁢ face of ​conformity and uniformity.

In ‌Lois Lowry’s novel ‍ The Giver , the protagonist, Jonas, embarks on ‌a remarkable journey through a⁢ dystopian ⁤society. Through‍ his experiences, ​Jonas exhibits incredible courage and resilience ‌as he‌ confronts the oppressive nature of⁢ his⁣ world. Analyzing Jonas’⁤ journey allows us to delve into the depths of his character and understand the important role he plays in challenging and ultimately transforming the society he lives in.

1. Stepping into the Unknown: From the moment Jonas is selected as the Receiver of Memory,​ he bravely embraces the unknown. He willingly accepts the heavy burden of receiving and bearing⁤ the memories ⁤of his community. Despite the immense pressure and emotional weight ‌that comes with this ⁢role, Jonas ⁤demonstrates exceptional courage by ⁣entering a world ‌that no one else in his community is brave enough to explore.

2. Challenging the Status Quo: Jonas’ journey ⁤is marked by his ​unwavering‍ commitment to ‍challenge the‌ oppressive status quo and‍ pursue justice. As he gains insight into the true nature of his society, Jonas becomes increasingly aware of the ⁢injustices that exist. He refuses to‌ accept the lack of individual‌ freedom, the suppression of ⁢emotions, and the absence of color in his ⁤world. Through his acts of defiance, such ⁤as leaving the community and liberating ​Gabriel,‌ Jonas reveals his fierce determination to create a better future‍ for himself and those he cares about.

In Lois Lowry’s dystopian novel‍ “The Giver,” the absence of color ‌is a central theme, highlighting the society’s emphasis on “sameness” and collective conformity. The ⁤author uses the absence of color as a powerful symbol to convey the loss ⁣of‌ individuality and the suppression of emotions.⁤ The protagonist, Jonas, discovers the true power of memory when he meets⁤ the Giver, who holds the collective ⁢memories of the past. Through their interactions, the importance of color in evoking emotions ​and connecting individuals to ⁢their humanity becomes evident.

Color, or the lack ⁢thereof, in “The Giver” serves as a metaphor for the suppression⁤ of individuality within the society depicted in the novel. The world that Jonas ⁣lives in ​has⁢ deliberately eliminated color, replacing it with a dull and monochromatic existence. This absence is a deliberate method used by the government to control its citizens’ perceptions and emotions. By removing color,‍ the society ​aims to eradicate the uniqueness ‌and diversity that comes with it, ultimately stifling any form of dissent or ⁤independent thought.⁤ The author skillfully uses this lack of color⁤ to emphasize the importance of personal experiences and memories in ⁣shaping one’s identity and understanding of the world.

The Domino​ Effect of Uniformity

Living in a society where personal choices are ‍suppressed, individuals often⁢ find themselves confined within ⁤the boundaries of ⁢sameness. While this may initially seem like a comfortable and secure environment, it is‍ important to⁣ delve ⁤into the consequences that arise ​from​ such homogeneity.

One of the major repercussions of uniformity is ​the loss of personal identity. Without the freedom to make individual choices, people become mere replicas of one another, ⁣stripping away⁢ the ​diverse and unique qualities that make us who‌ we are. This loss ⁤of identity can‍ have detrimental effects on a person’s self-esteem ⁣and overall satisfaction ⁣with life. Additionally, the lack of personal​ choices can limit personal growth and self-discovery, leaving ‍individuals feeling unfulfilled and unchallenged.

• Blurring of creative boundaries
• Stagnation⁣ of innovation
• Decreased motivation to excel

The⁢ consequences of⁤ sameness also ‌extend beyond personal⁤ development and individual well-being. Society as‍ a whole suffers from the homogeneity that ‌comes with suppressing personal choices. When everyone is forced to conform,‍ there is a significant limiting‌ factor placed on ‌creativity and innovation.⁤ The limitless potential ‍of diverse perspectives and ideas is stifled, leading to a stagnation of progress and development. It is through the celebration‌ and exploration of​ personal ⁤choices that we pave the way for societal advancement and evolution.

In Lois⁤ Lowry’s dystopian novel ​”The Giver,” the central theme ‍revolves around⁤ the conflict between society and individuality. The story is set in a seemingly perfect ⁢community where everything is controlled and predetermined ​to ⁢maintain order and eradicate chaos. However, this ‍utopian facade hides‌ a darker reality, ⁣where individuality, diversity,⁣ and ‌personal choices are suppressed. Through the ⁤eyes⁤ of the main⁢ character, Jonas, we witness the struggle between conforming to societal expectations and embracing⁣ one’s unique identity.

One​ way the battle between society and‌ individuality is portrayed in the novel is through the ​absence of‍ personal memories and emotions. In this tightly controlled community, ‍memories of pain, suffering, love, and joy are ‌all erased to ensure a uniform society.‌ The removal of these‍ individual experiences eliminates the possibility ⁢of forming personal opinions and unique perspectives. Instead, everyone in the society thinks and behaves in ‍the same manner,⁢ following strict ⁣rules and regulations established by the ‌elders.⁢ This lack of individuality not only​ strips⁣ people of their ⁤personal freedom, but it also prevents them from fully understanding the⁢ complexities of the human experience.

• The ‍Society in‍ “The Giver” imposes a⁤ set of rules that restrict personal choices, such as their ⁣assignment of life-long occupations.
• Conformity is strictly‍ enforced through dress‍ codes, language,⁤ and mannerisms, leaving no room for individual expression.
• Individuality is seen as a threat to ⁤the‌ stability of the society, resulting in ‌the suppression and ⁣control of personal freedoms.

In conclusion, “The Giver” delves into the nuanced struggle between⁤ society and individuality. Through‌ its thought-provoking narrative, ​the novel highlights ‌the importance of valuing diversity,‍ personal choices, and the freedom to embrace one’s​ unique identity. It ⁣serves as a stark reminder of the dangers ⁣of an overly controlled⁤ society ⁤and the⁢ vital ‍need for human beings to express themselves‍ as individuals.

Building a dystopian world for your narrative is an exciting process that allows you to explore complex societal⁣ issues ⁢and challenge readers’ perspectives. To craft ‍a compelling dystopian ⁢narrative, ⁤it‍ is ‌crucial to ‌pay attention ⁤to various elements that immerse readers in a convincing and ⁣thought-provoking⁢ environment.

1. Develop a Unique and Believable Setting

Immerse⁢ your readers in a distinctive dystopian world ‌by​ meticulously building an environment that feels both believable and ⁢intriguing. Consider the following:

• Create a unique ⁢backstory that explains how society has reached its⁣ current state.
• Design ​an oppressive‍ regime or governing system that challenges ⁢the characters’ freedoms.
• Draw inspiration from real-world issues,​ such as‌ technology, government control, or environmental crises, to add depth and relevance.

2. Construct ⁣Multi-Dimensional Characters

Compelling characters are the heart of any great⁣ narrative. In a ⁤dystopian world, it is​ essential to develop multi-dimensional characters who face extraordinary challenges. Consider the following:

• Create protagonists with unique strengths, weaknesses, and internal‌ conflicts.
• Introduce ⁤morally complex antagonists who‌ embody the flaws of the dystopian society.
• Allow your⁤ characters to undergo ‌personal growth ⁣ and transformation, emphasizing their⁣ resilience in the face ‌of adversity.

In today’s complex ⁣world, ethical dilemmas are all ​around​ us, and exploring them through writing can be a ​powerful way to​ provoke⁣ thought and promote meaningful discussion. Writing about⁣ ethical dilemmas allows us to delve deep into moral questions and wrestle‌ with the complexities of right and wrong.​ By challenging ourselves to think critically and express our thoughts ⁣on⁤ paper,​ we ⁢can gain ‍a⁤ deeper‍ understanding​ of the ethical issues​ that shape our lives and the world we live in.

When ⁢writing about ethical dilemmas, there⁢ are a few‍ key elements to consider:

• Identification: ⁣Start by identifying the ethical dilemma at hand. Clearly articulate⁢ the conflicting values, duties, or interests involved.
• Analysis: ⁤Analyze the different sides ‌of the dilemma, considering the potential consequences and ethical principles at play. ​Explore the gray areas‍ and complexities, highlighting the ‌ethical tensions ⁣that⁤ arise.
• Reflection: Reflect on your own thoughts, emotions, and biases in relation ⁤to the ethical dilemma. Consider⁢ how your personal ⁢values ⁢and experiences shape your perspective.
• Solutions: Offer potential solutions or actions that ‌could address the ethical dilemma. Discuss the merits ⁢and ⁢drawbacks of each approach, encouraging readers to think critically and develop ⁢their ⁣own ideas.

Through writing about ethical dilemmas, we can foster empathy, expand our perspectives, and engage in meaningful conversations⁣ with​ others. Let us‍ embrace the power of writing ​to inspire thought, provoke⁢ discussion,⁢ and ultimately ​strive for a more ethically ​conscious society.

8. Embracing Hope: Finding ​Solutions and Defying Dystopian Norms

As we navigate through the challenges of our ‍modern world, it is essential to⁢ confront the dystopian tendencies that ‍surround us. Instead of succumbing to despair, we can actively seek solutions ⁤that instill‍ hope and create a brighter ⁣future for all.​ Here are ⁢two key approaches ‍to embracing hope and defying the norms of a dystopian society:

In a ⁣world filled with division,‍ embracing hope requires ‍cultivating⁣ collaboration and unity. Collaboration allows us to ‍pool ​our diverse​ perspectives and expertise, fostering innovation and creating harmonious communities. By breaking ‌down barriers and valuing inclusivity, we can challenge the oppressive norms that fuel dystopia. Encouraging open dialogue​ and actively listening to others’ ‌experiences can help bridge gaps, ⁤build trust, and⁢ foster empathy – essential components⁤ for forging a path towards a more hopeful future.

Dystopian narratives often depict societies ravaged⁤ by environmental degradation⁤ and unsustainable practices. To ⁣defy these norms, we must champion sustainable progress. Embracing hope means taking responsibility⁢ for the ⁢world we⁢ live in and adopting eco-friendly‍ practices. This ⁢can ⁣include advocating for renewable energy sources , supporting⁢ ethical consumption, reducing waste through recycling⁢ and upcycling, and promoting initiatives that⁣ aim to⁣ protect and restore our ecosystems. ​By prioritizing sustainability, we pave the way for a future where the ‍planet ⁣thrives, and our quality of life improves.

Q: What‌ are the “Giver Writing Prompts” and ⁤how do they relate⁤ to⁢ dystopian themes? A: The​ “Giver⁣ Writing Prompts” are ​a series of thought-provoking​ questions designed ⁣to ‌stimulate reflection ‌on the dystopian themes found in Lois‌ Lowry’s novel,⁤ “The Giver”. These prompts delve into various aspects of the ⁤dystopian society portrayed‌ in the book, inviting readers‍ to explore what it means to ⁣live in a world devoid of emotions, memories, and ⁤personal choices.

Q: Why is it important to reflect on dystopian themes present in‍ “The Giver”? A: ‍Reflecting ⁢on dystopian ​themes allows us ‌to gain a deeper understanding of the flaws and dangers that can arise in ‍a society where individuality and freedom are suppressed.⁤ It allows ⁤us to question⁢ the potential consequences of giving up certain aspects of our humanity‍ for ⁢the sake of stability or control. By examining these themes, we are prompted to consider the importance of‌ preserving our ⁢own identities⁢ and the value of embracing both‍ the positive and ⁤negative ‌aspects ⁢of ⁤our human experiences.

Q: What kinds​ of writing prompts‍ can be found in “The Giver Writing​ Prompts” article? A: “The‍ Giver Writing Prompts” article offers a variety of prompts that encourage readers to⁤ critically analyze different aspects of the dystopian society depicted in the novel.‌ These prompts⁢ explore topics such as the suppression of emotions, the ethics of controlling memory, the implications of ​a society without choices, and the significance of personal relationships ​in ‍a world designed ⁢to eliminate them.

Q: How⁣ can⁣ these writing prompts help enhance our understanding of dystopian literature? A: ⁤These writing prompts provide ⁤a valuable tool ⁢for individuals ⁣to engage with the themes and ideas⁢ present in dystopian literature, such as “The Giver”. By responding to these prompts, readers are​ prompted‍ to think deeply, make⁣ connections to real-world situations, and develop their critical thinking skills . This process can ⁢ultimately lead to ‌a richer understanding of the⁤ genre, its underlying⁢ messages, and ⁤the implications ⁢it may hold for our ‌own lives and society.

Q: Who would benefit‌ from using “The⁢ Giver Writing Prompts”? A: “The Giver Writing Prompts” ‍can benefit a wide range⁤ of‍ individuals, including students studying literature, teachers looking to engage students in meaningful discussions, book club members wanting to delve deeper into the novel’s ⁣themes, or even individuals simply seeking to broaden their understanding and appreciation of ‌dystopian literature. These prompts ⁣can be used ​by anyone interested in exploring​ the ethical, social, and‌ psychological dimensions of a dystopian society.

Q: How can one get‌ started with “The ‌Giver Writing Prompts”? A: To ⁤get⁣ started with “The Giver Writing Prompts,” simply read​ the⁣ article to gain ​an overview⁣ of ​the⁣ different prompts. Select a prompt⁢ that resonates with you or sparks your curiosity, and‍ begin composing a thoughtful response. Feel free to ‍draw​ on personal experiences,⁢ other literary examples,⁤ or philosophical perspectives‌ to support your ideas. Remember to reflect on your responses ​and consider ​how they relate to the broader ​themes​ and messages conveyed in ‍”The Giver”. ⁣

In‍ conclusion, “The Giver” provides ‍us with ‌ thought-provoking writing prompts that⁢ allow us to delve into the dystopian themes it presents. These prompts offer unique perspectives for ‍reflection and analysis, inviting us to examine the consequences ‌of a controlled society and‍ the importance of individuality. Happy writing!

How to Work Through Writer’s Block: Step-by-Step Methods

Groundhog Day Writing Prompts: Predict Creative Stories

Leave a Comment Cancel reply

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Reach out to us for sponsorship opportunities.

Welcome to Creative Writing Prompts

At Creative Writing Prompts, we believe in the power of words to shape worlds. Our platform is a sanctuary for aspiring writers, seasoned wordsmiths, and everyone. Here, storytelling finds its home, and your creative journey begins its captivating voyage.

© 2024 Creativewriting-prompts.com

The Rise of Dystopian Fiction: From Soviet Dissidents to 70’s Paranoia to Murakami

Reading Lists

Charting the wild progress of literature’s genre-of-the-moment.

George Orwell is back in vogue these days — a far cry from 2014, when The Guardian was debating whether or not 1984 was good bad or bad good fiction . In January this year, 1984 shot up the bestseller charts, and the trail doesn’t just go cold there. Soon joining it at the top were 1984 ’s old dystopian buddies, Brave New World and It Can’t Happen Here ; in the meantime, sales of The Handmaid’s Tale were up 30 percent in 2016.

We are re-reading these past giants of the genre, even though we’re used to the idea of dystopia in our pop culture by now. (Credit where credit’s due: The Hunger Games was something of a big factor.) Yet the dystopian novel — as we know it, in its full totalitarian glory — is itself a relatively new phenomenon. Before 1900, only the British satirist Jonathan Swift wrote books that could, with one eye squinted, be called dystopian. So when did dystopias and dystopian themes start taking off in modern fiction? And is there a pattern to their rise and fall throughout the past?

First, there was the concept of utopia, the yin to dystopia’s yang. The former sprung from the mind of Sir Thomas More, who wrote Utopia in 1516. Ironically, More possessed serious reservations about the existence of utopias. (The word itself could be a pun, derived from the Greek word u-topos (“no place”) and also eu-topos (“good place”) . Such a good place, More seemed to reason, was not anything we knew, and so it must not exist.)

If a utopia is a place that’s too good to exist, a dystopia is a place that we certainly don’t want to exist.

Today, we can define dystopia as “an imagined place or state in which everything is unpleasant or bad, typically a totalitarian or environmentally degraded one” ( OED , 2017). The first public usage goes all the way back to John Stuart Mill in 1868. In a speech to the House of Commons, Mill said, “It is, perhaps, too complimentary to call them Utopians, they ought rather to be called dys-topians, or caco-topians” (‘cacotopia’ was relegated to the Wastepaper Basket of History). But it wasn’t until about 50 years afterward, when authors made the word their own, that the idea of dystopia began to actually take root in the public consciousness.

1920s & 30s: Defining The Genre

Perhaps it makes sense that the modern dystopian novel emerged at the turn of the 20th century. It was a time of political unrest and global anxiety, with two world wars awaiting in the near future. Jack London’s 1908 novel Iron Heel was said to be a remarkable prophecy of the impending international tensions that would give way to World War I. Yet we don’t see dystopian fiction becoming a more defined genre until the publication of Yevgeny Zamyatin’s slender We in 1921.

Before We , fiction about an “ideal” society (with the exception of H.G. Wells and London) tended to end utopian. After We , the genre took a grim downturn (or upturn, depending on which way you’re squinting). We set up many of the tropes that would come to dominate dystopian fiction. These included troubled, unresolved endings (very fun!) and a totalitarian government gone mad.

Also importantly, Zamyatin’s book greatly influenced two fictional works that tower over the rest of the genre to this day: Orwell’s 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s 1939 Brave New World . Both were written in the shadow of a world war. Both predicted an even darker future. Admittedly, the worlds within these two dystopian novels differ vastly, and the influences that Orwell and Huxley feared were not the same. According to critic Neil Postman :

“What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egotism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumble puppy.

In short, Orwell feared that what we fear will ruin us. Huxley feared that our desire will ruin us.”

But the stage for the genre was set, in spite of any differences. In this early crop of dystopian fiction, we can see the themes over which future novels would continue to obsess: political capital, the meaning of free will, and, perhaps most significantly, fear of the state and the unchecked power of government.

Prominent Dystopian Fiction from the Era

• Brave New World

In Huxley’s colossally chilling vision, people come to adore the very authorities that undo their capacities for thought. Half of the Big 2.

Whereas Huxley’s dystopia is based upon affluence and pleasure, Orwell’s 1984 is just gray totalitarianism: a towering cross-examination of government surveillance, information, and the meaning of freedom. Gave rise to the concept of Big Brother. Half of the Big 2.

An often unacknowledged father of modern-day dystopian novels, Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We predated both Orwell and Huxley, and inspired Brave New World.

• It Can’t Happen Here

A semi-satirical novel that experienced renewed popularity after 2016. It Can’t Happen Here was written in 1935 and predicted a fascist America under the control of a dictator.

1950s and 60s: War And Tech

OK, we’re out of the woods of World War II, you say. Time to breathe a sigh of relief! Surely, post-war optimism means that authors are going to start cheering up, right?

Sorry. This chart from Goodreads says, nope!

Political commentary shouldered many of the dystopian themes that emerged from the end of the war. And World War II fueled the prospect of World War III and apocalypses. (See: Kurt Vonnegut’s classic Player Piano in 1952 and Philip K. Dick’s 1964 The Penultimate Truth. ) We do differentiate between apocalyptic fiction and dystopian fiction — but there’s always a fair bit of crossover when crumbling societies and their governments are involved.

Incidentally, it was during this time that authors’ growing suspicion of technology bubbled to the surface. Some major technological advances during this time included:

• the inception of the Turing test (a test for intelligence in computers)
• the creation of Sputnik I
• the invention of the first personal computer

As a result, dystopian novels began to cross paths more regularly with science fiction worldbuilding , such as in Dick’s 1968 novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

After witnessing war, authors grew particularly concerned with totalitarian governments’ ability to regulate the arts. One of the most popular examples continues to be Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 , which breathes into awfully vivid life the possibility of a future in which books are burned. (Today, Fahrenheit 451 is banned in many schools in the United States, and so one cannot say that real life does not possess a solid sense of irony.)

• A Clockwork Orange

The brainwash of an ultraviolent youth in A Clockwork Orange ’s dystopian but complacent society allows author Anthony Burgess to pose this question: “Is it better for a man to have chosen evil than to have good imposed upon him?”

• Player Piano

Internet thinkpieces about machines presiding over the future are nowhere near as grim as Vonnegut’s Player Piano , set in a class-divided society after World War III.

• Make Room! Make Room!

A classic novel of overpopulation. In a crime-ravaged New York City, food is scarce and the government is rationing portions of a mysterious substance they call “Soylent Green.”

• Fahrenheit 451

You wonder: why the title, Fahrenheit 451 ? It’s the temperature at which the paper of books catches fire. In Ray Bradbury’s world, all books are banned — and burned.

• Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?

In which a man who increasingly wonders about the difference between people and androids he must kill. Also the inspiration behind 1982’s Blade Runner .

1970s-1990s: Corporations and Poisoned Bodies

While the volume of dystopian fiction declined for a period entering the 1970s, the variance within the genre broadened. If the genre reflects our fears back to us, then in the 1970s we see the public moving past a perpetual fear of war to explore new meadows. Environmental crises dominated the conversation (the Clean Air Act was only passed in 1980) while the onslaught of advertising, misgivings over the body, and economic stagnation ushered in a new era of cynicism.

It was a catalyst for quite a few dystopian classics that took the genre in brilliant new directions.

The Handmaid’s Tale , a book in which women’s bodies are nothing more than reproductive machines, shook the world when it was published in 1985.

Cyperpunk was born out of William Gibson’s 1984 Neuromancer .

Private corporations became a wellspring of repression and public enemy #1 alongside totalitarian governments in many dystopian novels, such as Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash .

And meanwhile, black satire became all the more pronounced in the genre, as José Saramago showed in the Blindness and its sequel Seeing , which both use an omniscient narrator to great effect.

Perhaps most notably, in 1994, Lois Lowry quietly published The Giver . A slender book about a community in the future that doesn’t feel pain anymore, The Giver was a dystopian novel for young adults before the breed was cool. It built upon past traditions of adult dystopian fiction while managing to popularize the genre among young adult readers. This would be significant because of what would occur in the next decade or so…

“A world without color — fantastic!” said no-one ever. Yet people embrace this society within The Giver , which asks what a world with Sameness really is: a dystopia in sheep’s skin.

• Mockingbird

About a robot’s death wish in a world where people don’t possess the ability — and, worse, the desire — to read.

Saramago uses a third-person omniscient narrator and an ever more ominous tone to create this chilling and ultimately bewildering work about a society suddenly afflicted by blindness.

• Neuromancer

The dystopian world found in this romping science fiction novel was one of the first to introduce cyberpunk to society, capturing first-time novelist William Gibson the Hugo, the Nebula, and the Philip K. Dick Award in 1984.

• The Handmaid’s Tale

A vision of a dystopia steeped in gender discrimination, The Handmaid’s Tale was giving folks the shivers decades before it became a popular television show on Hulu.

The Turn Of The Millennium: Youth Betrayed

Today, dystopian fiction is predominantly associated with the young adult genre. Young adult dystopian series —  Maze Runner , Divergent , Ready Player One , among countless more — dominate the shelves, bleeding into Hollywood. The Divergent films alone grossed over $700 million in box office receipts worldwide.

How did we reach this point? In big part, it’s due to The Hunger Games , as the trend that The Giver began exploded in popularity among young adults with the publication of Suzanne Collins’ series. In dystopian fiction, young adult readers can find a tangle of themes to identify with: themes of self-discovery, of one young person pitted against the whole terrible world. Overall, the rise in dystopian novels since 2000 is said to be a symptom of the pooling anxieties that followed 9/11 and other troubling geopolitical events.

But The Hunger Games still managed to change many aspects of the game. In an essay, the AV Club   noted :

The Giver comes from what seems to be a lost tradition in dystopian storytelling. It used to be okay for genetics to eventually yield an individual who wants to break free from societal homogeny, and choose to escape that oppression to a safer community. Now, merely escaping isn’t enough — dystopian-thriller protagonists must learn brutally militaristic tactics and enact violence that brings tyranny crumbling down in increasingly bloody action sequences.

And so in today’s crop of dystopian fiction, the stakes are bigger than ever. Continuing in a proud tradition, they carry on vindicating the definition of a dystopia: a worst possible world. But what each of them (sometimes) offers is a brief, shining belief that such a world can be fixed. And now, the resurgence of sales for books such as 1984 and Brave New World shows that a vast contingent of us continue to turn towards the genre for comfort, or answers.

Prominent Dystopian Fiction from the Era:

• Hunger Games

A part of the trilogy that ends with Mockingjay , Hunger Games needs no introduction anymore. Except this: may the odds be with you when you read it.

• Ready Player One

Like MMORPGs? You perhaps won’t be such a fan of them after you read Ready Player One, which won the Alex Award from the American Library Association and the 2012 Prometheus Award.

(Un)coincidentally, 1Q84 is only one number removed from George Orwell’s 1984. Once called the dystopian novel to end all dystopian novels, this winding epic is a feat of brilliant imagination that only Murakami could’ve conjured.

• Super Sad True Love Story

In the background of a burgeoning romance between a Korean-American and a Russian, America teeters on the brink of economic collapse and consumerism threatens to overwhelm all.

Who says you’re ugly? This book does. Uglies turns a very dystopian eye upon plastic surgery: in this future, when you turn 16, you get an operation to turn “pretty.”

Take a break from the news

We publish your favorite authors—even the ones you haven't read yet. Get new fiction, essays, and poetry delivered to your inbox.

YOUR INBOX IS LIT

Enjoy strange, diverting work from The Commuter on Mondays, absorbing fiction from Recommended Reading on Wednesdays, and a roundup of our best work of the week on Fridays. Personalize your subscription preferences here.

ARTICLE CONTINUES AFTER ADVERTISEMENT

The Internet Has Some Thoughts on the Trailer for Spielberg’s ‘Ready Player One’

Jul 25 - patricja okuniewska read, more like this.

“The Future of Another Timeline” Pits Time-Traveling Riot Grrrls Against Time-Traveling MRAs

If Annalee Newitz could go back in time, they would punch James Watson

Oct 30 - Deirdre Coyle

7 Books That Imagine Life Without Landmark Supreme Court Cases

Speculative novels that ask what life would look like if the rights we rely on were destroyed

Jul 10 - Electric Literature

9 Memorable Visions of Alternate Today

All the parallel worlds, divergent paths, and bizarro realities of literature

Mar 20 - Tobias Carroll

DON’T MISS OUT

Sign up for our newsletter to get submission announcements and stay on top of our best work.

Plenty of Blame to Spread Around: Dystopia(nism) and the Cold War

• First Online: 05 September 2020

Cite this chapter

• Derek C. Maus 2  

758 Accesses

The willingness of both the United States and the Soviet Union to defend their ostensibly incompatible ideologies with tens of thousands of nuclear weapons presented a ready-made situation for dystopian fiction’s ironic troubling of utopian propositions. Many of the most immediately recognisable dystopian works from the Cold War arose from the two superpowers or from nations allied with them. As the chapter examines, such relatively familiar works tended to criticise inherent flaws within one or both of the Cold War’s dominant ideologies. However, the chapter also addresses the extensive body of dystopian literature produced by authors from the ‘non-aligned’ nations and that collectively revealed how the Cold War indirectly and directly deformed the societies it dismissively lumped together as the ‘Third World’.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

• Available as PDF
• Read on any device
• Instant download
• Own it forever
• Available as EPUB and PDF
• Durable hardcover edition
• Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
• Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Jill Lepore, ‘No, We Cannot’, New Yorker , 93: 16 (5 and 12 June 2017), p. 102.

Tara Abell, et al., ‘100 Great Works of Dystopian Fiction’, Vulture , 3 August 2017, http://www.vulture.com/article/best-dystopian-books.html (accessed 13 December 2018).

Peter Fitting, ‘Utopia, Dystopia, and Science Diction’, in Gregory Claeys, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Utopian Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), p. 141.

The contours of this discourse are outlined excellently in Andrew Milner, Locating Science Fiction (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2012), pp. 89–135, and in Gregory Claeys, Dystopia: A Natural History: A Study of Modern Despotism, Its Antecedents, and Its Literary Diffractions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), pp. 273–90. Additional significant recent contributions to the scholarship on utopia and dystopia include Thomas Horan’s Desire and Empathy in Twentieth-Century Dystopian Fiction (2018), Andrew Hammond’s Cold War Stories (2017), Daniele Fioretti’s Utopia and Dystopia in Postwar Italian Literature (2017), Mark Featherstone’s Planet Utopia (2017), Jeffrey C. Kinkley’s Visions of Dystopia in China’s New Historical Novels (2015), Francisco Bethencourt’s edited Utopia in Portugal, Brazil, and Lusophone African Countries (2015), Peter Marks’s Imagining Surveillance (2015), Judie Newman’s Utopia and Terror in Contemporary American Fiction (2014) and Sara K. Day, Miranda A. Green-Barteet and Amy L. Montz’s edited Female Rebellion in Young Adult Dystopian Fiction (2014).

Claeys, Dystopia , p. 5.

Booker, The Dystopian Impulse in Modern Literature: Fiction as Social Criticism (Westport: Greenwood, 1994), p. 117.

Ibid., p. 118.

Booker, The Post-Utopian Imagination: American Culture in the Long 1950s (Westport: Greenwood, 2002), p. 1.

Ibid., p. 4.

Jeremi Suri, ‘The Cold War, Decolonization, and Global Social Awakenings: Historical Intersections’, Cold War History , 6: 3 (2006), p. 353.

Pizer, The Idea of World Literature: History and Pedagogical Practice (Baton Rouge: LSU Press, 2006), p. 117.

The latter two technologies became particularly indispensable to the samizdat dissemination of contraband literature, a category into which dystopias frequently fell.

Many of the texts included in the discussion of totalitarian dystopias below have literary bloodlines that can be traced directly back to a translation of one or more of the ‘classic’ dystopias by Zamyatin, Huxley and Orwell.

There is first-rate existing scholarship that details such explosions of dystopian writing in various national contexts. For example, M. Elizabeth Ginway has extensively catalogued the flowering of Brazilian dystopian works during that country’s military dictatorship (1964–85) in her book Brazilian Science Fiction (2004). On a smaller scale, Ana Maria Mão-de-Ferro Martinho surveys the growing influence of dystopian writing in postcolonial Angola in her article ‘Utopian Eyes and Dystopian Writings in Angolan Literature’ (2007).

Westad, ‘Foreword’, in Leslie James and Elisabeth Leake, eds, Decolonization and the Cold War: Negotiating Independence (London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015), p. xii. For a more thorough articulation of these points, see also Odd Arne Westad’s The Global Cold War (2005).

The fact that these hearts and minds were accompanied by both labour and natural resources was also important, of course.

Spires, ‘Homero Aridjis and Mexico’s Eco-Critical Dystopia’, in Brett Josef Grubisis, Gisèle M. Baxter and Tara Lee, eds, Blast, Corrupt, Dismantle, Erase: Contemporary North American Dystopian Literature (Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2014), p. 343.

Canivell, ‘Love, War, and Mal de Amores : Utopia and Dystopia in the Mexican Revolution’, in Grubisis, Baxter and Lee, eds, Blast, Corrupt, Dismantle, Erase , p. 243 (emphasis in original).

In addition to his numerous books on utopianism in all its forms, Sargent has produced two additional pieces of scholarship that are essential tools for researching dystopia. His article ‘The Three Faces of Utopianism Revisited’ (1994) introduced a multi-tiered classification scheme for utopian work that remains a core concept in utopian criticism. As of 2018, he also continues to add to an enormous online database entitled Utopian Literature in English: An Annotated Bibliography from 1516 to the Present ( https://openpublishing.psu.edu/utopia/ ).

Alas, a thorough accounting of global Cold War dystopia requires not only far more space than is allotted to this chapter, but also far greater linguistic acumen than mine. There are several dozen works from the period that have not been translated into English, but which skilled readers have interpreted as dystopian; I have included such works here not because I have read them, but rather based on reliable—and corroborated—scholarly assessments.

Booker, The Dystopian Impulse in Modern Literature: Fiction as Social Criticism (Westport: Greenwood, 1994), pp. 1, 176–7 (emphasis in original).

Booker, Dystopian Literature: A Theory and Research Guide (Westport: Greenwood, 1994), p. 3. Such a notion is perhaps justified by Lyotard’s postmodernist view that critique of ‘master narratives’—utopian or otherwise—is an inherently political act, but Booker himself seems to have moved away from this comment in his subsequent work on dystopia.

Claeys, Dystopia , p. 289.

When citing primary texts in this chapter, I will be including the country (or in some cases countries) with which the author is most closely associated, whether by their birth, their residence or the thematic content of their work. For the most part, such designations are straightforward; in some cases, though—particularly those involving authors who were involuntarily exiled or had to send their works abroad for publication—it is a more complicated matter. My intent is not to ‘claim’ an author for a particular country, but rather to give a sense of the breadth and variety of national literary contexts in which dystopia arose during the Cold War. For example, even though Vladimir Voinovich was living in exile in West Germany when he first published Moskva 2042 (Moscow 2042, 1986) with a press located in the United States, I have associated both him and that book with the USSR bibliographically because it seems to me—perhaps arbitrarily—to be the nation most pertinent to Voinovich’s dystopian motives.

Quoted in David Seed, Under the Shadow: The Atomic Bomb and Cold War Narratives (Kent: Kent State University Press, 2013), p. 112.

Hutcheon, The Politics of Postmodernism (New York and London: Routledge, 1989), p. 89.

Linda Hutcheon, A Poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction (New York and London: Routledge, 1988), p. 133; Booker, Dystopian Literature , p. 3.

Moylan, Scraps of the Untainted Sky: Science Fiction, Utopia, Dystopia (Boulder: Westview, 2000), p. xv.

Claeys, Dystopia , p. 501.

Baccolini and Moylan, ‘Introduction: Dystopia and Histories’, in Moylan and Baccolini, eds, Dark Horizons: Science Fiction and the Dystopian Imagination (New York and London: Routledge, 2003), p. 7 (emphasis in original).

Jean Raspail’s xenophobic dystopian novel Le Camp des Saints (The Camp of the Saints, 1973, France) is perhaps the best example of such a work, although Raspail’s self-proclaimed position as ‘Consul to the Kingdom of Araucanie and Patagonia’ was unsurprisingly never validated by the French government.

Seed, Under the Shadow , p. 119.

Claeys, Dystopia , pp. 494–5.

Booker, Dystopian Impulse , p. 20.

Orwell, whose dystopian works were frequently interpreted from a one-sided perspective, made it clear in a 1944 letter that his concerns about totalitarianism were not simply focused on Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union: ‘Hitler, no doubt, will soon disappear, but only at the expense of strengthening (a) Stalin, (b) the Anglo-American millionaires and (c) all sorts of petty f[ü]hrers of the type of de Gaulle. All the national movements everywhere, even those that originate in resistance to German domination, seem to take non-democratic forms, to group themselves round some superhuman f[ü]hrer (Hitler, Stalin, Salazar, Franco, Gandhi, De Valera are all varying examples) and to adopt the theory that the end justifies the means’ (Orwell, ‘To Noel Wilmett’, in George Orwell: A Life in Letters , ed. by Peter Davison (New York: Norton, 2012), p. 232).

Booker, Dystopian Literature , p. 5.

McGuire, Red Stars: Political Aspects of Soviet Science Fiction (Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1985), p. 63.

Unless otherwise noted, the works discussed in this chapter are all novels. There are myriad dystopian short stories and pulp novels that I could also list if space permitted. I have limited myself largely to novels here as it is the genre in which the most influential dystopian works were produced.

Ginsberg, ‘Howl’, in Ginsberg, Howl and Other Poems (San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1956), p. 9.

Henriksen, Dr. Strangelove’s America: Society and Culture in the Atomic Age (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), p. 174.

Rani, ‘Science Fiction in the Arab World: Tawfiq al-Hakim’s Voyage to Tomorrow ’, Arab Stages , 1: 2 (2015), http://arabstages.org/2015/04/science-fiction-in-the-arab-world-tawfiq-al-hakims-voyage-to-tomorrow/ (accessed 13 September 2018).

Irele, ‘Introduction: Perspectives on the African Novel’, in Irele, ed., The Cambridge Companion to the African Novel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), p. 10.

Quoted in Richard Stites, Revolutionary Dreams: Utopian Vision and Experimental Life in the Russian Revolution (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), p. 49.

Engelhardt, The End of Victory Culture: Cold War America and the Disillusionment of a Generation (New York: Basic Books, 1995), p. 77.

Adams, The Education of Henry Adams , new edn (1904; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 403.

Ibid., pp. 377, 411.

For more on this latter point, see Derek C. Maus, Unvarnishing Reality: Subversive American and Russian Cold War Satire (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2011), pp. 144–61.

See Hanson, ‘The Great Filter – Are We Almost Past It?’, George Mason University , 15 September 1998, http://mason.gmu.edu/~rhanson/greatfilter.html (accessed 13 December 2018).

Petersen, ‘German Science Fiction: Its Formative Works and Its Postwar Uses of the Holocaust’, in Bruce B. Campbell, Alison Guenther-Pal and Petersen, eds, Detectives, Dystopias and Poplit: Studies in Modern German Genre Fiction (Rochester: Camden House, 2014), p. 40.

Maus, Unvarnishing Reality , p. 48.

Ibid., p. 109.

Duranty, ‘Russians Hungry, But Not Starving’, New York Times , 31 March 1933, p. 13.

Arnett, ‘Major Describes Move’, New York Times , 8 February 1968, p. 14.

Claeys, Dystopia , p. 290 (emphasis in original).

Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow (New York: Viking, 1973), pp. 759–60.

Hammond, Cold War Stories: British Dystopian Fiction, 1945–1990 (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan/Springer International, 2017), p. 3.

Booker, Dystopian Impulse , p. 15.

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

State University of New York at Potsdam, Potsdam, NY, USA

Derek C. Maus

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Derek C. Maus .

Editor information

Editors and affiliations.

School of Humanities, University of Brighton, Brighton, UK

Andrew Hammond

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2020 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Maus, D.C. (2020). Plenty of Blame to Spread Around: Dystopia(nism) and the Cold War. In: Hammond, A. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Cold War Literature. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38973-4_15

Download citation

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38973-4_15

Published : 05 September 2020

Publisher Name : Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

Print ISBN : 978-3-030-38972-7

Online ISBN : 978-3-030-38973-4

eBook Packages : Literature, Cultural and Media Studies Literature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)

Share this chapter

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Publish with us

Policies and ethics

• Find a journal
• Track your research

• Share full article

Advertisement

The Baffling Theme of This Year’s Met Gala

By Anna Marks

Opinion Staff Editor

On Monday night, a select group of celebrities and fashion designers mounted the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, presenting a litany of costumes for the public to devour. The Met Gala is an annual spectacle of celebrity that raises money for the museum’s Costume Institute , which works to preserve fashion history.

The night’s enduring power can largely be chalked up to the way guests interpret its themed dress code, which changes every year. At its most brilliant, a theme might inspire absurd, campy or daring interpretations by clever designers. At its most exhausting, it inspires famous people to perform vacuous social commentary while attending an event where a ticket reportedly costs as much as $75,000 . In either case, the commentary the theme provokes gives the gala its enduring cultural relevance.

This year’s theme is “The Garden of Time,” based on J.G. Ballard’s dystopian short story about a count who, for a time, prevents a mob from destroying his villa and the works of culture it contains. The story is an allegory warning about the consequences of keeping art out of public view. The most generous reading of the story in the context of the Met Gala is probably that the Costume Institute, by giving art to the masses instead of hiding it away in a place only the wealthy inhabit, averts Ballard’s dystopia.

But there’s also an unfortunate irony in choosing this particular story. Ballard implicitly criticizes the wealthy count’s distance from the public, but the gala essentially celebrates the counts among us.

High culture is available to the public largely because the wealthy, charitably, make it so. But the nature of this gala, with its emphasis on extolling the captivating virtues of celebrity, leaves me wondering whether the event’s organizers misread the story’s critique or were simply blind to it. For a less generous interpretation of the story appears to mock the culture-consuming public.

Consider the greatest threat to the count’s rarefied life: the teeming people, described as struggling laborers and soldiers, who unthinkingly defile his cultural artifacts at the end of the story. Is that how the party’s organizers see the ordinary museum patrons and tourists who will fill the institute’s halls after the cameras are gone?

I hope the organizers simply didn’t think hard enough about the implications of their chosen story. But if they did, they would do well to remember that art, even high fashion, endures because a mass audience witnesses and appends meaning to it.

Under Putin, a militarized new Russia rises to challenge U.S. and the West

MOSCOW — As Vladimir Putin persists in his bloody campaign to conquer Ukraine, the Russian leader is directing an equally momentous transformation at home — re-engineering his country into a regressive, militarized society that views the West as its mortal enemy.

Putin’s inauguration on Tuesday for a fifth term will not only mark his 25-year-long grip on power but also showcase Russia’s shift into what pro-Kremlin commentators call a “revolutionary power,” set on upending the global order, making its own rules, and demanding that totalitarian autocracy be respected as a legitimate alternative to democracy in a world redivided by big powers into spheres of influence.

About this series

“Russians live in a wholly new reality,” Dmitri Trenin, a pro-Kremlin analyst, wrote in reply to questions about an essay in which he argued that Russia’s anti-Western shift was “more radical and far-reaching” than anything anticipated when Putin invaded Ukraine but also “a relatively minor element of the wider transformation which is going on in Russia’s economy, polity, society, culture, values, and spiritual and intellectual life.”

In “Russia, Remastered,” The Washington Post documents the historic scale of the changes Putin is carrying out and has accelerated with breathtaking speed during two years of brutal war even as tens of thousands of Russians have fled abroad. It is a crusade that gives Putin common cause with China’s Xi Jinping as well as some supporters of former president Donald Trump. And it raises the prospect of an enduring civilizational conflict to subvert Western democracy and — Putin has warned — even threatens a new world war.

To carry out this transformation, the Kremlin is:

• Forging an ultraconservative, puritanical society mobilized against liberal freedoms and especially hostile to gay and transgender people, in which family policy and social welfare spending boost traditional Orthodox values.
• Reshaping education at all levels to indoctrinate a new generation of turbo-patriot youth, with textbooks rewritten to reflect Kremlin propaganda, patriotic curriculums set by the state and, from September, compulsory military lessons taught by soldiers called “Basics of Security and Protection of the Motherland,” which will include training on handling Kalashnikov assault rifles, grenades and drones.
• Sterilizing cultural life with blacklists of liberal or antiwar performers, directors, writers and artists, and with new nationalistic mandates for museums and filmmakers.
• Mobilizing zealous pro-war activism under the brutal Z symbol, which was initially painted on the side of Russian tanks invading Ukraine but has since spread to government buildings, posters, schools and orchestrated demonstrations.
• Rolling back women’s rights with a torrent of propaganda about the need to give birth — young and often — and by curbing ease of access to abortions, and charging feminist activists and liberal female journalists with terrorism, extremism, discrediting the military and other offenses.
• Rewriting history to celebrate Joseph Stalin, the Soviet dictator who sent millions to the gulag, through at least 95 of the 110 monuments in Russia erected during Putin’s time as leader. Meanwhile, Memorial, a human rights group that exposed Stalin’s crimes and shared the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize, was shut down and its pacificist co-chairman Oleg Orlov, 71, jailed.
• Accusing scientists of treason; equating criticism of the war or of Putin with terrorism or extremism; and building a new, militarized elite of “warriors and workers” willing to take up arms, redraw international boundaries and violate global norms on orders of Russia’s strongman ruler.

“They’re trying to develop this scientific Putinism as a basis of propaganda, as a basis of ideology, as a basis of historical education,” said Andrei Kolesnikov, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center. “They need an obedient new generation — indoctrinated robots in an ideological sense — supporting Putin, supporting his ideas, supporting this militarization of consciousness.”

Kolesnikov, speaking in an interview in Moscow, added: “They need cannon fodder for the future.”

Just before ordering what he believed would be a short, shock war on Ukraine, Putin published a little-noticed decree billed as vital to Russia’s national security. It called for urgent measures to protect “traditional Russian spiritual and moral values” and named the United States as a direct threat.

They need cannon fodder for the future.”

Andrei Kolesnikov

Senior fellow at Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center

They need cannon fodder

for the future.”

“Threats to traditional values come from extremist and terrorist organizations, some news media and communication platforms, the actions of the United States and other unfriendly foreign states,” the order stated. A key goal, it said, was “to position the Russian state on the international stage as a custodian and defender of traditional universal spiritual and moral values.”

Putin’s descriptions of the West as “ satanic ” and the war as “ sacred ” are increasingly echoed by officials and the Russian Orthodox Church .

Russia's friends and foes

Countries that Russia has deemed

"unfriendly"

LIECHTENSTEIN

NEW ZEALAND

NORTH MACEDONIA

SOUTH KOREA

SWITZERLAND

UNITED STATES

Countries that support

Russia diplomatically

(Nations that voted against several

U.N. resolutions condemning the war

in Ukraine)

Countries that

support Russia

(including arms

NORTH KOREA

Note: Russia’s list of unfriendly countries includes also

the British Overseas Territories

Russia militarily

(including arms supplies)

Note: Russia’s list of unfriendly

countries includes also the

British Overseas Territories

Countries that Russia has deemed "unfriendly"

E.U. MEMBERS

countries includes also the British

Overseas Territories

As he fractures global ties and girds his nation for a forever war with the West, riot police in Russia are raiding nightclubs and private parties , beating up guests and prosecuting gay bar owners. Russians have been jailed or fined for wearing rainbow earrings or displaying rainbow flags. Dissidents who were imprisoned in Soviet times are once again behind bars — this time for denouncing the war.

The Kremlin has defended the crackdown as responding to popular demand.

For this article, The Post submitted questions to the Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, who responded to some but not all of the queries. The Post has also requested an interview with Putin. That request was denied.

How we reported ‘Russia, Remastered’

“If it is not accepted by the society then police have to take measures to bring it into balance with the demands of the society,” Peskov wrote in his reply. “Society is now less tolerant to those parties and nightclubs.”

Long obsessed with Russia’s population decline, Putin is urging Russian women to have eight or more babies, while also seizing chunks of Ukraine’s population by force. Russia has issued more than 3 million passports in eastern Ukraine since 2019, according to the Russian Interior Ministry.

In occupied Ukraine, it is virtually impossible to work, drive, or obtain health care, humanitarian aid, benefits or other services without having a Russian passport — a potential violation of the Geneva Conventions, which state that “it is forbidden to compel the inhabitants of occupied territory to swear allegiance to the hostile power.”

In Crimea, Russia issued more than 1.5 million passports after invading and illegally annexing the peninsula in 2014.

Putin’s rise

In ambition and scale, Putin’s effort to mold a new national identity is “as profound as the Russian October Revolution,” a member of the Moscow elite with contacts in the Kremlin said, referring to 1917, when Vladimir Lenin’s Bolsheviks seized power. “He overturns all the values,” this person said. “He cuts all the usual ties.”

Like many people in this article, this person spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution from the Russian government, which has jailed and even killed its critics. Some of those interviewed for this article have received overt warnings, including bank account and asset freezes, and two have been jailed.

“They are trying to create some new form of ideology for the masses,” said Mikhail Zygar, a Russian journalist and writer now living in New York. “It’s not a war with Ukraine. It’s a war with America, a war with the West or with Satan, with all those forces of moral decay.” Putinism bears hallmarks of fascism, Zygar said. “He’s using the war and hatred as the instrument to brainwash the Russian people,” he said. “That’s everything we know about fascism.”

Charges and an arrest warrant for disseminating “fake news” were launched against Zygar after The Post interviewed him.

Origins of Putinism

Putin’s quest is not new, but Russia’s confrontation with the West over Ukraine has allowed him to accelerate his plan. The Russian leader, who inherited his post on Dec. 31, 1999, immediately began whittling back democratic institutions and approved a raid on NTV, the main independent television station, just weeks after winning his first election in March 2000.

During his first two decades of rule, Putin rode a crest of oil and gas prices, but he never had a mobilizing ideology to convince citizens that his path was better than the West’s democratic freedoms and greater economic wealth. His re-engineering of Russia is designed to provide that unifying philosophy. Its symbol — the letter Z painted roughly on invading tanks in 2022 — now adorns public buildings and banners.

Reaching beyond Russia

Invading Ukraine was the most destructive step in Putin’s longer, grander plan to restore Russia’s greatness as the superpower it was during Soviet times and as an empire for 200 years before that. But his transformation of Russia started well before the invasion of Ukraine, using homophobia and so-called traditional values to disrupt Western societies and court support in the Global South. He also projected military power by invading Georgia in 2008 and sending Russian troops to Syria and Africa.

In Russia, the death in February of Putin’s strongest rival, Alexei Navalny, was a clear signpost on this new path. Putin shrugged off Navalny’s death, showing no sympathy, let alone remorse. “It happens,” he said, endorsing the official finding that Navalny died of natural causes. Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, has accused Putin of having him killed.

Putin “decides everything,” the member of the Russian elite said, and while his new term runs until 2030, he is widely expected to stay in power as long as he chooses.

In a State of the Nation speech in February, Putin described his push for women to have more children and to create a new elite of workers and soldiers.

“We can see what is taking place in some countries where moral standards and the family are being deliberately destroyed and entire nations are pushed to extinction and decadence,” he said. “We have chosen life. Russia has been and remains a stronghold of the traditional values on which human civilization stands.”

Proclaiming a new “time of heroes,” Putin said the old oligarchic elite was “discredited.”

“Those who have done nothing for society and consider themselves a caste endowed with special rights and privileges — especially those who took advantage of all kinds of economic processes in the 1990s to line their pockets — are definitely not the elite,” he said. “Those who serve Russia, hard workers and military, reliable, trustworthy people who have proven their loyalty,” he added, “are the genuine elite.”

Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, in written replies to questions from The Post, said the aim was to “encourage our people to give birth to as many children as they can,” to increase Russia’s population.

“And in this context, spreading of traditional values is extremely important for us and in this context we have nothing in common with this extremist liberalism in terms of abandoning traditional human and religious values that we’re witnessing right now in European countries. This does not correspond with our understanding of what is right,” he added.

Peskov said the Kremlin would “continue to make propaganda out of this, in the good sense of this word,” adding: “Especially now when we have an extreme consolidation of our society around this idea of traditional values and around the president so it’s easier for us to do that.”

Russia remastered

At a meeting in January, Putin stood stiffly with a group of families clad in bright national costumes. It was latest iteration of his image, long shaped by staged activities like riding bare-chested on horseback. Now, extolling traditional values, he is the grandfatherly patriarch, recalling portraits of Stalin with folk from across the Soviet Union.

“In Russian families, many of our grandmothers and great-grandmothers had seven or eight children, and even more. Let’s preserve and revive these wonderful traditions,” Putin said in a November speech dedicated to “a thousand-year, eternal Russia.”

The emphasis is on a special and powerful state dominated by Putin, on centuries-old Russian self-reliance and stoicism, and the sacrifice of individual rights to the regime. Men give their lives in war or work. Women should give their bodies by birthing children.

Putin’s worldview draws from 9th-century Vikings, ancient princes and expansionist czars, but its lodestone is World War II, or the Great Patriotic War, in which Russia helped defeat Nazi Germany. Russian pride in that victory, central to its national identity, is woven into Putin’s mythology about the Soviet Union.

Stalin, who oversaw the deaths of millions in famines, purges and the gulag, has been promoted as a strong wartime leader, with 63 percent of Russians expressing a positive view of him in a 2023 survey by the Levada Center polling agency, and 47 percent expressing respect for him.

Putin’s admiration for him goes back decades. In 2002, when Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski met the Russian leader for nearly five hours one-on-one, Putin professed strong admiration for three leaders — Peter the Great, Catherine the Great and Stalin — and a desire to rebuild “Great Russia.”

“My impression was I see a man who was formed by the KGB: KGB education, KGB school books and the books about history, absolutely falsified,” Kwasniewski told Zygar, the Russian journalist, in 2022, “but very much in favor of this understanding of Great Russia and Russian pride.”

Projecting force

Putin has long obsessed over the idea of a civilizational battle against the West, distorting history to claim that Russia is merely retaking its “historical lands” in Ukraine.

Putin’s first prime minister, Mikhail Kasyanov, said he and other 1990s reformers assumed that, like them, Putin had embraced democracy and market reform. “But he didn’t,” Kasyanov said. “He pretended.” Kasyanov said he was horrified by Putin’s approach to two hostage crises in 2002 and 2004 — ordering forces to storm in, causing hundreds of deaths.

“That was already a demonstration of his real nature, his KGB nature: no negotiations, no compromise, because they can’t come to a compromise because of the belief they will be seen as weak people,” he said. By 2004, Kasyanov was in opposition. “I understood that he’s completely the wrong person,” he said.

Putin’s first attempt to dominate Ukraine in 2004 — visiting Kyiv to back pro-Kremlin presidential candidate Viktor Yanukovych — backfired and set the scene for the Orange Revolution and a rematch election, which Putin’s man lost. Putin saw it as a “coup” and Western support for the winner, Viktor Yushchenko, as interference. It was the start of Putin’s fixation on the “Ukrainian problem” and his belief that an independent, democratic neighbor was an unacceptable threat to his own regime.

Abbas Gallyamov, a Putin speechwriter from 2008 to 2010 and Kremlin political consultant until 2018, said Putin invaded Crimea in 2014 and conducted a full-scale military attack on Ukraine in 2022 partly to reverse declines in his approval rating. After voicing frank criticisms of Putin’s decisions, Gallyamov said, Kremlin managers threatened to cut him off. “After this I received threats,” he said. “You’ll starve. You’ll get no contracts.”

He moved to Israel with his family. Last year, he was put on Russia’s wanted list, according to an Interior Ministry database, and the Russian Justice Ministry declared him a “foreign agent.” An arrest warrant was issued March 4.

In Russia, schoolteachers are used to indoctrinate children and even to police their parents’ views .

Spending on patriotic education and state-run militarized organizations for children and teens increased to more than $500 million in 2024 from about $34 million in 2021, according to federal budget statistics reported by RBC, a Russian business daily.

Starting in September, all schoolchildren will get military training from soldiers who fought in Ukraine; since last year, university students take a compulsory course in patriotism that conveys distorted history and the idea that Russia has no borders when it comes to Russian-speaking “compatriots.”

Students of all ages are inundated with pro-war activities, including talks from war veterans clad in camouflage and black balaclavas. In Novosibirsk, children made drones for the front and in Mamadysh in Tatarstan, they produced drone tail fins. Others have made crutches for wounded soldiers or knitted stockings for the stumps of military amputees.

Superstitious conspiracy theories are taking hold, with science in retreat. More than a dozen Russian scientists have been accused of treason, thousands have fled the country, and publication of Russian scientific papers plummeted by more than 14 percent in 2022 amid Russia’s isolation after the Ukraine invasion, according to Scopus, a major independent database of peer-reviewed research papers.

Putin anoints heroes whose deeds most shock the West. He honored troops whom Ukraine accused of carrying out atrocities in Bucha in 2022; promoted a top Russian prison official days after Navalny’s death; and paid tribute to his children’s rights commissioner, Maria Lvova-Belova, who, along with Putin, has been charged by the International Criminal Court with war crimes for the “unlawful transfer” and “unlawful deportation” of Ukrainian children. The Kremlin rejects the charges.

Russia’s elite, meanwhile, has hardened against the West, according to one billionaire living outside Russia.

“Everyone is very anti-West; that’s all you hear,” the billionaire said. “Anti-West, anti-West, anti-West. And it will increase, the longer this war goes on — and it could go on for 10 years or more.”

As Putin rails against liberal decadence and permissiveness to rally the nation behind him, Russian patriots exult at his promise of a new elite. Yekaterina Kolotovkina, the wife of Lt. Gen. Andrei Kolotovkin, commander of the 2nd Guards Combined Arms Army, of Samara, developed a project called “Wives of Heroes,” now touring the country, with patriotic portraits of soldiers’ wives draped in their husbands’ uniforms.

At the Samara House of Officers, she runs a group of women pensioners who cut and fold bandages for the war. The storeroom is crammed with goods to be sent to the front: children’s drawings, trench candles, and comfort packages of dry crackers, sweets and homemade good-luck charms.

“The people who are coming back from the special military operation absolutely must be created as this new elite,” Kolotovkina said in an interview. “These are people who proved their love of Russia. They are true patriots. They have to be given decent jobs in state institutions.”

She blames the West for sending its “filth” to Russia, and for promoting LGBTQ+ people.

“The new Russia is all about family values, Mama and Papa,” she said. “Our children should be healthy and patriotic. It will be a strong, patriotic society. We will get rid of all those who started to destroy our country. I think the new Russia will have no place for these people.”

‘Scum and traitors’

Along with its elevation of new heroes, Putin’s push to remake Russia is marked by the persecution of thousands of those he calls “scum and traitors” — enemies of the state. More than 116,000 Russians were tried under repressive criminal or administrative articles during Putin’s most recent term, the highest since Stalinist times, according to a study by Proekt, an investigative Russian news outlet.

Among them is Boris Kagarlitsky, a leftist sociologist who was jailed in 1982 as a Soviet dissident in his early 20s.

Now 65, Kagarlitsky was arrested again in July by the Federal Security Service for promoting “terrorism,” handcuffed and forced into an SUV by armed guards in black balaclavas, then driven 17 hours to Syktyvkar in northern Russia, where he faced court.

“Kafka,” he said simply. “Everyone understood the absurdity.” He was fined and freed in December, then jailed again in February, after the prosecutor appealed. His days operating a YouTube channel out of a studio in a dim Moscow basement are finished. In an interview over lunch before he was sent back to prison, The Post asked why he did not leave Russia. He shrugged and smiled. Jail, he said, was “a professional hazard.”

Kagarlitsky said Putin’s effort to re-engineer Russia is a desperate — and doomed — throw of the dice, disconnected from reality. “It’s not only out of step with ordinary Russians. It’s out of step with the elite itself,” he said, before rushing off to feed his cat.

The regime is also striving to discredit Putin critics outside Russia, including a beloved detective novelist, London-based Grigory Chkhartishvili, better known by his pen name, Boris Akunin, who was charged with “disseminating false information about the Russian military” and with “justifying terrorism” for opposing the war in Ukraine.

Russian stores banned his books, his royalties were seized and he was issued an arrest warrant in absentia. According to Chkhartishvili, Putin is implementing “Orthodox sharia” using xenophobic, bigoted, paranoid, misogynistic “and inevitably antisemitic” clichés to mobilize Russians. “Moscow must become a mecca of morons,” he said. “That’s the plan.”

Many of those interviewed for this article have fled Russia or were later jailed, including an eccentric YouTuber, Askhabali Alibekov, who calls himself the “Wild Paratrooper.” Alibekov, of Novorossiysk in southern Russia, has been jailed three times for criticizing Putin and the war. He was on the run when he spoke to The Post in December.

He grew up in an orphanage, earning the nickname “Little Wolf,” fighting bullies, always keen to have the last punch. But struggling against Putin, he said he felt “total impotence, powerlessness, helplessness.”

“The country is turning into an absolutely totalitarian state. There is complete lawlessness,” Alibekov said. “There is no democracy. There are rich people and slaves, that’s all.” On Feb. 20, police dragged him off a train, and he was detained, awaiting trial for allegedly assaulting police.

Russia’s Interior Ministry did not respond to an inquiry about the charges against Gallyamov or the cases against Zygar, Akunin and Alibekov.

The shock value in Russia’s hunt for enemies is enough to quell most dissent. In January, Yevgenia Maiboroda, 72, a lonely, deeply religious pensioner, was charged with extremism and jailed for 5½ years for two antiwar social media posts. And in February, a Nizhny Novgorod woman, Anastasia Yershova, was jailed for five days for displaying “extremist symbols” — earrings with a frog and a rainbow — which a court found to be pro-LGBTQ+.

A dystopian edge

In a shared wagon on a long-distance night train, a mother from a southern Russian city confided her worries about her children and their futures.

Her family loves to vacation in Italy, Spain, Egypt and Turkey. She showed off photos and videos of beach holidays and a New Year’s party in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, packed with Russians, all of whom, she said, wished for the war to end.

Her daughter, 15, feels drawn to Europe and wants to be a journalist. Her son, 10, loves gaming. Both are addicted to their iPhones and iPads. Like their friends, they use virtual private networks (VPNs) to view banned sites such as Instagram.

Russian authorities are ramping up technology to curtail dissent. Officials have flagged a ban on VPNs, and analysts see a ban on YouTube as inevitable.

There’s a dystopian edge to the new Russia. Peace activists, young and old, are behind bars, while convicted murderers, rapists and other violent criminals have been set free — pardoned by Putin to fight in Ukraine. Some are returning from war and committing horrific crimes.

Crushing dissent

Many liberals, including Kagarlitsky and Gallyamov, doubt that Putin and his hard-liners can succeed. “Societies never get de-modernized,” Kagarlitsky said.

Gallyamov said that many Russians are “really afraid” and will eventually repudiate Putin’s rule, just as Germany rejected the Nazis.

“The general Russian population is tired of his militarism, of the war, of this patriotic, anti-Western hysteria,” Gallyamov said. “They drastically want just normalization.”

Perhaps the fatigue is murmured too softly for the Kremlin to hear. On the overnight train, the woman was careful to steer clear of politics, a subject she dreads. And yet her despair spilled out.

“I just wish there was an end to these troubled times,” she said, in a low, bitter voice.

A map in an earlier version of this story mislabeled Syria as Iraq. The map has been corrected.

About this story

Reporting by Robyn Dixon. Natalia Abbakumova in Riga, Latvia, contributed to this report. Photography by Nanna Heitmann. Graphics reporting by Júlia Ledur.

Editing by David M. Herszenhorn and Wendy Galietta. Additional editing by Vanessa Larson. Design and development by Yutao Chen and Anna Lefkowitz. Design editing by Christine Ashack. Photo editing by Olivier Laurent. Video editing by Jon Gerberg. Graphics editing by Samuel Granados.

Additional support from Matt Clough, Kenneth Dickerman, Jordan Melendrez and Joe Snell.