dystopian society titles for essays

100 Dystopia Essay Topics & Ideas

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

• 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 […]
• 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 […] We will write a custom essay specifically for you by our professional experts 808 writers online Learn More
• 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.
• 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.
• “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.
• 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.
• 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 […]
• The Brave New World Dystopia by Aldous Huxley The primary assertion in the novel is that the cost of this stability is the loss of individuality, creativity, and genuine human connection.
• 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 […]
• 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 […]
• ‘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 […]
• 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, […]
• 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)

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• 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.

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BEST DYSTOPIAN WRITING PROMPTS

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Showing 27 prompts reset

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., write a story that starts with, "the clock ticked past 61.".

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

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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., set your story in a town disconnected from the rest of the world., win $250 in our short story competition 🏆.

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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.

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March 2, 2021

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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.

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Home Essay Samples Literature

Essay Samples on Dystopia

Feminism and totalitarism in 'the handmaid's tale' dystopia novel.

Dystopia is the opposite of the ideal society, which is a utopia, that often appears in literature and artistic creation. Dystopias are typically post-apocalyptic or totalitaristic, but there are other forms of dystopias as well such as feminist, cyberpunk, off-world, etc. With 'The Handmaid's Tale'...

• Literary Criticism
• The Handmaid's Tale

Futuristic World in Dystopia: the Illusion of a Happy Society

A utopia is an imaginary society where all citizens are treated equally and with dignity, and citizens live in safety without fear. Since utopias do not exist, attempting to create one can have detrimental consequences. The utopia can become a dystopia. A dystopia is a...

• Literary Genres
• Literature Review

Technology Myth In "The Circle" By Dave Eggers

The Circle: The Technology Myth The novel begins on a glistening, sunlit day in June, Mae Holland cruises campus on her first-ever day at the Circle (Eggers, 1). The company is a creative and strongly favorite web organization, which has seized the globe by a...

• Impact of Technology

Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale as Dystopian Fiction

Published in 1985, Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale emerged during an auspicious time for dystopian fiction, following works such as Adoux Huxley’s Brave New World, George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four and Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange. These dystopian narratives provided readers with captivating examinations into bleak,...

Presentation Of Authoritarian Control In George Orwell's 1984 And Brave New World

In the two novels ’Brave New World’ by Aldous Huxley and ‘1984’ by George Orwell, authoritarian control is a recurring theme throughout both plots. The two authors, who were influenced by their experiences of war on a large scale during the twentieth century were saddened...

• Brave New World

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Survival Is Insufficient In Novel Of Station Eleven

Societies can interconnect human life but can also isolate people from each other with the technology within. Station Eleven is a novel about a society devolving into a Dystopia, but it also explores what a society is. Mandel explores society through different perspectives by describing...

• Station Eleven

The Lifetime Memories Of The Past And Present In Station Eleven And Monkey Beach

Individuals experience many things over their lifetime that make them who they are. Joyful, stressful, exciting and traumatic experiences are often things every individual goes through; the one thing that connects all of them is memory. Memory allows one to reflect on experiences that are...

The Theme Of Gratitude As A Beacon Of Hope As Seen In Station Eleven

Station 11, by Emily Mandel, revolves around the topic of gratitude and reveals that people, when they lose certain privileges, realize the gravity of the things that they actually have. In the book, before the pandemic, society is presented as unremarkable. In the golden age...

The Comparison Of Dystopian Worlds In 1984 And Brave New World

Huxley's Brave New World and Orwell's 1984 are both Dystopian novels written ahead of their time that, in their own way, frighteningly predicted the western world of today. 21st Century western society has turned out to be a combination of both Huxley and Orwell’s visions...

The Expression Of Memories Through Art In Station Eleven

Magazines in houses that were deserted in order to try to recollect the world she was once living in and keen memories about the people she once knew and cared for. Lost memories sometimes are results of post-traumatic experiences and in Kirsten case it was...

Comparative Analysis Of Station Eleven And War For The Planet Of The Apes

The history of humanity has been riddled with new diseases and mass pandemics that have threatened the collapse of society. In today’s media, artists like to imagine a world where this disastrous event does happen, when medicine fails and the world is thrust into a...

Hope and Faith as the Tools for Survival in "Station Eleven"

The doomsday book Station Eleven by Emily Mandel has the theme of faith and fate, demonstrates how in events of struggle and fear, such as an epidemic, people turn to faith for help. The author represents faith as something that has similar importance in the...

Dystopian Society In Never Let Me Go

Never Let Me Go, written by Kazuo Ishiguro in 2005, is about the perspective of a female named Kathy who grows up knowing how she will die and her friends. They attend a boarding school called Hailsham that raises them from birth and is informed...

• Never Let Me Go

Feminism in Dystopian Novels: Parable of the Sower, Woman on the Edge of Time, and Binti

Feminism has been changing the way people think about gender since the 1960’s, and this change can be seen in the writers of different novels. Feminism and gender roles are portrayed in the characters in Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy, Parable...

• Parable of The Sower

Trepidant of Dystopian Societies: Brave New World and V for Vendetta

Throughout the novel, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley and the movie V for Vendetta, directed by James McTeigue, the author and director both reveal and display significant messages about how dystopian societies function and maneuver of how dictatorial governments rule the civilization. Through the...

• V For Vendetta

Thebes’ Dystopian Aspects in Oedipus Rex by Sophocles

While the definition of dystopia is being debated by scholars to this day, Gregory Claeys provides a broad definition as to what the concept of dystopia is: something that showcases the “negative visions of humanity generally” (Vieira 3), is opposite to what is regarded as...

• Oedipus The King

Critical Appreciation of Dystopian Themes in The Children of Men

The ‘Children of Men’ presents the various dystopian tropes through the use of the linguistic techniques in order to question society’s troubles and create a parable to our own reality. PD James introduces the dystopian trope of the uncanny through this setting. By using similar...

• Children of Men

The Dichotomy of Dystopian and Utopian Societies in "The Giver"

Lois Lowry's novel "The Giver" explores the concept of a society that strives for perfection, leading to both a utopian and dystopian reality. In the novel, the protagonist, Jonas, lives in a seemingly perfect world, where everyone is content and there is no suffering or...

Analysis of The Truman Show Through the Ideas of Utopian and Dystopian Society

What if the reality you are used to see is not the real one? How would you feel if you discovered that during your whole live you have been controlled and used as entertainment? The aim of this essay is to compare the film The...

• The Truman Show

Station Eleven: Exposing the Fragility of Society Through Fictional Characters

Station Eleven is a novel about a society devolving into a Dystopia, but it also explores what a society is. Mandel explores society through different perspectives by describing events prior to its downfall. For example, Arthur and Miranda’s migration from a small island into a...

The Terryfing Ideas of Change in V for Vendetta

Politician Jerry Brown once said, “Where there is a sufficient social movement of self-reliant communities, there can be political change. There must be political change.” V for Vendetta (2006) originated from a graphic novel written by Allan Moore and is set in a dystopian Great-Britain...

Blade Runner as one of Cinematic Masterpieces

‘Blade Runner’ film by Ridley Scott is an adaptation of the book ‘Do Andriod’s Dream of Electric Sheep’ by Philip K. Dick. The story follows the main protagonist Rick Deckard, a retired police officer who retired NEXUS 6 replicants, living in a dystopian LA, 2019....

• Blade Runner

Impact of Dystopian Regime on Individuality in Huger Games and Divergent

Introduction The 2012 film “The Hunger Games’ by Gary Ross and the 2014 film “Divergent” by Neil Burger use a range of similar and different techniques to explore the themes of oppression, empowerment and rebellion and its impact on individuality. Ross and Burger’s sci-fi thrillers...

The Control of Life by the Government in the Dystopian World of "Divergent"

In the novel Divergent, it tells about a dystopian society and how they separate each other into five factions, the factionless, and a wall. These five factions all have a different role and a different way of life. Dauntless are the brave and fearless, Abnegation...

• Social Control

The Constraints of Realism as a Democratic Art

Introduction Realism, as an artistic movement, emerged as a response to the idealism and romanticism of earlier periods. It aimed to depict the world in an objective and unembellished manner, presenting an authentic representation of reality. However, despite its intentions, realism faces certain constraints as...

Depiction of Dystopian Worlds in The Handmaid's Tale and 1984

Dystopian literature questions the power of language, both Atwood’s ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ and Orwell’s ‘Nineteen Eighty - four’ showcases a variety of qualities necessary to advocate one’s freedom. Whilst both novelists share the common theme of language limiting both freedom and knowledge the two texts...

The Impact of Cinematography on Portrayal of Dystopia in Film

It is in the creation of dystopian film that universal issues of a political, social and cultural concern are made more widely relevant and accessible to a contemporary audience. The value of such dystopic representations of society derives from the filmmaker’s ability to timelessly comment...

• Film Analysis

A Comprehensive Analysis of Dystopian Genre in Literature

Dystopian genre blossomed in literature during the nineteenth century and developed significantly as a critical response and an antithesis to utopian fiction and shows utopia gone awry. The word ‘dystopia’ can be translated from Greek as ‘bad place’ and usually it depicts something a society...

Feminist Dystopia in Margaret Atwood “The Handmaid's Tale”

Feminism is a political and social movement; it shares a recurrent goal which is to achieve political, economic, personal, and social equality of sexes (IWDA). A dystopia is a society that is crumbling, decaying or in a tyrannized and terrorized state. They divulge the public’s...

The Handmaid's Tale and Animal Farm: Defamiliarizing Reproduction and Totalitarian Regimes

In his book, Dystopian Literature: A Theory and Research Guide, Professor M. Keith Booker argues that the principle literary strategy that dystopian literature utilizes is defamiliarization. He states that 'by focusing their critiques of society on imaginatively distant settings, dystopian fictions provide fresh perspectives on...

• Animal Farm

A Comparison of the Current World to Huxley's Brave New World

Is the Modern World in Danger of Becoming the Brave New World? In his 1932 dystopian novel, Brave New World, Aldous Huxley describes a future “World State” government that models its civilization on the principles of community, identity, and stability. The inhabitants of this world...

• Bioengineering

We By Yevgeny Zamyatin: The Terrible Consequences Of The Abandonment

In this 20st century novel it can be inferred that the story is an allegory on the early Soviet Union. The story is taking place in the future and is a dystopia. Totalitarianism and conformity are characteristics of the Soviet Union society of that time....

• Book Review

Sacred Games And Black Mirror: Crafted Dark Stories Opening Doors To Reality

The age of cliffhangers rewrites the style of stories being told “Kabhi kabhi lagta hai apun hi Bhagwan hai!” If this line rings a bell in your head, then you too, are probably among the majority whose minds that got influenced by Sacred Games. The...

Best topics on Dystopia

1. Feminism and Totalitarism in ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ Dystopia Novel

2. Futuristic World in Dystopia: the Illusion of a Happy Society

3. Technology Myth In “The Circle” By Dave Eggers

4. Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale as Dystopian Fiction

5. Presentation Of Authoritarian Control In George Orwell’s 1984 And Brave New World

6. Survival Is Insufficient In Novel Of Station Eleven

7. The Lifetime Memories Of The Past And Present In Station Eleven And Monkey Beach

8. The Theme Of Gratitude As A Beacon Of Hope As Seen In Station Eleven

9. The Comparison Of Dystopian Worlds In 1984 And Brave New World

10. The Expression Of Memories Through Art In Station Eleven

11. Comparative Analysis Of Station Eleven And War For The Planet Of The Apes

12. Hope and Faith as the Tools for Survival in “Station Eleven”

13. Dystopian Society In Never Let Me Go

14. Feminism in Dystopian Novels: Parable of the Sower, Woman on the Edge of Time, and Binti

15. Trepidant of Dystopian Societies: Brave New World and V for Vendetta

• William Shakespeare
• A Raisin in The Sun
• Hidden Intellectualism
• Sonny's Blues
• American Poetry
• Banned Books
• A Christmas Carol
• A Valediction Forbidding Mourning
• Alice Walker

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Dystopia Essay Titles

• Utopia and Dystopia in the City of Tomorrow
• An Analysis of Feminist Dystopia in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale
• Our Society Is Evolving to Be More Like A Dystopia Than A Democracy
• Integrating Water Management Research: Synergy or Dystopia?
• American Dystopia, American Spaces, and Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl.”
• The Dystopia and Assimilation of 1984’s Brave New World
• Technology and Utopia in Gattaca and Fahrenheit 451
• Dystopia: Science Fiction, Exaggeration, or Near Future Reality
• Some Reflections on Feminism and Utopianism in the Handmaid’s Tale
• Censorship in the Dystopian Novel Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
• The Dystopia in the Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
• The Hunger Games Dystopia Results from A Massive Technological Boom.
• The Theme of Feminist Dystopia in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale
• Somewhere between Utopia and Dystopia: Selecting from Unparalleled Opportunities
• The Causes of the Island’s Transformation from Utopia to Dystopia in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies
• The Current Cowardly Dystopia in Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World.”
• Searching for the Meaning of Life: The Dystopia of “Endgame” by Samuel Beckett
• Remarks on Totalitarian Government: Finding Dystopia in Matched
• How Does Orwell Construct A Dystopian Society in 1984?
• Utopia, Dystopia, or Anti-Utopia?
• Humanity and Dystopia in Ayn Rand’s Anthem
• The Contrast between Utopia and Dystopia in 1984 and the Dispossessed
• The Function of a Good City: Utopia, Dystopia, and Heterotopia

Essay Topics on Dystopia

• The Idea of Dystopia in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale
• Similarities between the Novels by Harrison Bergeron and Dystopia
• The Portrayal of Dystopia in Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
• Aldous Huxley’s the Beauty of the Utopia
• Utopia and Dystopia in the Works of Harrison Bergeron and the Lottery
• Utopia and Dystopia in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World , A Futuristic Novel
• Aldous Huxley’s Dystopia About Modern Society
• Utopia and Dystopia in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and Ursula Le Guin’s The Dispossessed
• The Handmaid’s Tale : An Analysis of Feminist Dystopia
• Self-Repression and Dystopia in “Never Let Me Go”: The Uneven Path to Freedom
• Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 Modern Dystopia Warnings
• Utopia and Dystopia in George Orwell’s Animal Farm
• The Art of War , A Dystopian Adaptation of the Ancient Chinese Classic, About 2032
• The Development of Dystopian Fiction in Selected Literary Works
• The Horror of Dystopia Revealed in Neuromancer
• Comparable Features of Utopia and Dystopia
• The Role of Nature and Technology in the Concepts of Utopia and Dystopia in Contrastive Utopias
• The Dystopia of Neuromancer by William Gibson
• Examining “Technology and Politics in the Blade Runner Dystopia” by Judith Kerman.
• The Dystopia Concept in Harrison Bergeron, the Giver, and Uglies
• Utopia or Dystopia: Technology’s Future
• Religious Dystopia in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale
• The Literary Genre of Dystopia in The Handmaid’s Tale
• Identity: Challenging Dystopia’s Templates
• Dystopia in Ray Bradbury and George Orwell’s Novels
• The Handmaid’s Tale

Dystopia Discussion Questions

• What Constitutes A Dystopian Novel?
• Who Produces the Most Unsettling Dystopian Future Vision?
• Why Are Dystopian Novels So Well-Liked?
• What Is an Illustration of a Dystopia?
• What Exactly Is A Dystopian Society?
• What Are the Five Attributes of a Dystopia?
• Which Four Types of Dystopia Exist?
• What Are the Nine Characteristics of a Dystopia?
• What Are Some Alternative Words for Dystopia?
• What Are Utopia and Dystopia?
• What Is the Antithesis of Dystopia?
• What Is A Dystopia Individual?
• How Do You Recognize A Dystopia?
• Why Is It Known as Dystopia?
• How Does One Survive in A Dystopia?
• What Happens to A Person in A Dystopian Society?
• What Type of Government Exists in A Dystopian Society?
• What Exactly Is A Feminist Utopia?
• Who Created the Dystopian Novel?
• Is A Dystopian Society Conceivable?
• Why Does Dystopian Fiction Frequently Depict A Frightening Future?
• Why Does Dystopian Literature Frequently Depict the Search for Meaning in Hostile and Oppressive Worlds?
• What Problems Does Human Progress Pose in Utopian and Dystopian Fiction?
• How Does Individualism Manifest Itself in Utopian and Dystopian Literature?
• What Are Dystopian Societies and the Advancement of Equality?
• How Does Dystopian Literature Portray Humanity and Individualism?

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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!

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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!

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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!

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Dystopian Story Ideas: 21 Scary, Yet Engaging Concepts for Your Next Novel

By: Author Paul Jenkins

Posted on Published: September 7, 2022  - Last updated: July 4, 2023

Categories Writing , Creativity , Inspiration , Society , Storytelling

Do you love to write dystopian fiction? Looking for a writing prompt for your next story idea? If so, you’re in luck! This blog post will discuss 21 dystopian story ideas that will keep you engaged. These creative writing prompts are perfect for your next novel and will leave readers wondering what will happen next. Remember that these ideas are just a starting point – feel free to add your twist or change them to make them your own. So, without further ado, let’s get started!

21 Dystopian Writing Prompts for Writers Who Want to Think Outside the Box

• In a world where the government can track your every move, two lovers must go on the run to escape its clutches.
• In a post-apocalyptic world where water is scarce, a group of survivors must band together to find a new source before they all perish.
• In a society where books are forbidden, a rebellious teenager must decide whether to risk everything to smuggle in some much-needed reading material.
• In a future where climate change has made the planet nearly uninhabitable, two people must choose between staying put and making the dangerous journey to a colony on Mars.
• In a world where people are born into predetermined social classes, one woman must figure out how to escape her lowly station in life.
• In a future city that’s been taken over by pollution and poverty, a group of teens must decide whether to join forces with the resistance or make their way in the world.
• In a world where time travel is possible but strictly regulated, one man must choose between staying in the present or going back to fix his mistakes in the past.
• In an oppressive society where women are second-class citizens, one woman must decide whether to conform or rebel against the status quo.
• After an earthquake destroys most of civilization, two people from different parts of the world must find each other and rebuild their lives together.
• Following a nuclear war, two families from opposite sides of the conflict must work together to survive in a ravaged world filled with danger and betrayal at every turn.
• In a world where the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer, a group of rebels decides to fight back by any means necessary.
• In a world where processed food is the only available, a group of people decides to go back to basics and start farming their food.
• In a world where technology has taken over, a group of people decides to live off the grid in an isolated community.
• In a world where climate change has made large parts of the planet uninhabitable, a group of survivors must find a way to live together in harmony.
• In a world where the government is corrupt and oppressive, a group of citizens decides to start their society from scratch.
• In a world where unemployment is at an all-time high, a group of friends decides to start their own business.
• In a world where wars are common, and peace is rare, two people from opposite sides of the conflict fall in love.
• In a world where superhumans are real, two people with different abilities must learn to trust each other to save the world from destruction.
• In a world where time travel is possible, someone accidentally changes the course of history and must fix it before it’s too late.
• In a world where parallel universes exist, someone crosses over into the wrong one and must find their way back home.
• In a world where teleportation is possible, someone gets stranded in an alternate reality and must find their way home before it’s too late.

Whatever story you tell, remember that dystopian fiction is all about examining societies gone wrong and asking, “what if?”

Is Dystopia the Opposite of Utopia?

A dystopia is a fictional society typically characterized by widespread misery and oppression. The word “dystopia” comes from the Greek root “dys,” meaning “bad,” and “topos,” meaning “place.” A good example of a dystopia is George Orwell’s classic novel Nineteen Eighty-Four . In this book, the government controls everything, and the citizens live in constant fear.

In contrast, a utopia is a fictional society typically characterized by prosperity and harmony. The word “utopia” comes from the Greek root “eu,” meaning “good,” and “topos,” meaning “place.” An example of a utopia is Thomas More’s book Utopia, which describes a society with no poverty or crime and everyone is equal.

Where a utopia is an ideal society marked by peace and prosperity, a dystopian world is quite the opposite-a society full of suffering and oppression.

What Makes a Movie Dystopian

A dystopian movie typically takes place in the future in a society that a repressive government controls. The government controls every aspect of life, and the citizens are kept in line through strict rules and surveillance. In some cases, the government may control to maintain order and prevent chaos. In other cases, the government may be corrupt and totalitarian, oppressing its citizens for its gain.

Dystopian movies often explore individuality vs. conformity, oppression vs. freedom, and technology vs. humanity. These movies ask questions about what it means to be human and whether our technology is ultimately helping or harming us.

Some popular dystopian movies include The Hunger Games , Blade Runner , The Terminator , Escape from New York , Mad Max , and The Matrix .

Dystopian movies are popular because they offer a glimpse into a possible future that is both fascinating and terrifying.

Is Brave New World a Utopia or Dystopia?

The novel Brave New World by Aldous Huxley is set in a future society that the government has totally controlled. It marked a milestone in dystopian literature. The people in this society are happy and content with their lives, but is this a utopia or a dystopia?

On the surface, Brave New World would appear to be a utopia. The people are healthy and happy, there is no poverty or crime, and everyone has a place in society.

However, Brave New World is a dystopian novel because the government has complete control over the people. They are not allowed to think for themselves or express their own opinions. Instead, they are taught to conform to the norms of society. This lack of freedom means that the people are not truly happy, even though they may think they are. In some ways, it’s the ultimate dystopian setting.

Common Themes in the Dystopian Genre

Dystopian stories have been around for centuries, but they’ve gained particular prominence recently. What is it about these stories that resonate so deeply with audiences?

Dystopian stories are usually set in a future world ravaged by war, disease, or other cataclysmic events. The survivors are left to rebuild civilization in the aftermath, but the new world order is often repressive and oppressive. Writers use this setting to explore social and political issues relevant to their own time and place.

One of the most common themes in a dystopian society is the loss of freedom. In many cases, the characters live under a totalitarian regime controlling every aspect of their lives. They may be required to wear uniforms, adhere to strict rules and regulations, and live in fear of punishment if they step out of line. This loss of freedom can be interpreted as a comment on how our societies are becoming increasingly controlled and conformist.

Another common theme is the power of government or another authority figure to control people’s thoughts and feelings. In dystopian societies, people are often indoctrinated from a young age to believe certain things about the world and their place in it. This might be done through schools, churches, media, and entertainment. The result is a society full of people who think and feel alike without dissenting voices. This might be seen as a warning against how our society relies on groupthink and conformity.

If you’re interested in writing a dystopian story, consider which themes you want to explore and how you can use them to comment on the world around you.

Dystopian Novels

Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell, with its marvelous depiction of Big Brother

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by science fiction author Philip K. Dick

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

The Giver Quartet by Lois Lowry

The Children of Men by P.D. James

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

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Writing dystopias

Dystopias have become a major part of fiction over the last few decades, and with our current awareness of the state of the planet are unlikely to go out of fashion. It is, of course, much easier to write a dystopia than it is to write a utopia, because we all have such different ideas about what, exactly, constitutes a perfect world. Imperfect worlds are all around us, and scientific predictions about what the next century will bring are terrifying. An abbreviated definition from Wikipedia reads:  

A  dystopia  is a community or society that is undesirable or frightening. It is translated as “not-good place” and is an  antonym  of  utopia , a term that was coined by  Sir Thomas More  and figures as the title of his best known work,  Utopia , published 1516, a blueprint for an ideal society with minimal crime, violence and poverty. Dystopias are often characterised by dehumanisation , tyrannical  governments,  environmental disaster , or other characteristics associated with a cataclysmic decline in society. 

I think John Wyndham was one of the best dystopian writers, as he had so many original ideas about the way society could collapse. The Day of the Triffids uses genetic engineering combined with an atmospheric accident to bring about disaster. The Chrysalids is a post nuclear war scenario, with a repressive religion attempting to suppress mutations. Web considers what would happen if spiders developed a collective intelligence, as they are one of the most abundant forms of animal life around. The Midwich Cuckoos postulates what might happen if aliens impregnated the entire female population of a small village. These scenarios only work historically, as our communication systems are far more sophisticated these days. But the same situation arises again and again – what happens when these systems break down? We are so much more reliant on them now than we were in the nineteen sixties, when Wyndham was writing.  

There are a lot of good books available that were written more recently, and surely the most depressing of all is The Road , by Cormack McCarthy.

I think the only truly dystopian thing I’ve written is a short story called Retrospective , which was a winner of the New London Writing Award, and was published by Fourth Estate in 1998. It’s set in a London of the near future, and was a dig at the art world, amongst other things. When it was written it significantly predated Damian Hurst’s Shark and Chris Ofili’s elephant dung . This is an extract:

We humans deal with investments here. Buying and selling really modern works of art, and making a tidy profit in the process. We’ve got quite a few of the big names – Tadeusz Twardowski, who paints with body fluids; Roland Spickett, the one who uses microscopes and bacteria, and Donald Barnes. Donald Barnes was the really big money-spinner with his series on toenail clippings, and the fact that he’d died of a heart attack the previous week had made him worth considerably more. 

I loaded up Toenail Clipping number 43 with London Clay to see what it looked like. It was a remarkably faithful portrayal, with the little twist at the end of the clipping smeared with grey. The Third World ones have sold the best, with the one encrusted with oil-soaked sand fetching a quarter of a million. ‘This tragic reconstruction of human debris is a powerful comment on the sharp practice employed by the shoe industry in under-developed countries’, was what one leading newspaper had said, and although a rival paper had come back with

‘Donald ducks the issue’, the first observation stuck. Donald became known as an extremely serious exponent of the New Organic School of painting, and his prices rocketed.

The story itself revolves around a portfolio of some hitherto unknown sketches, which in the end turn out to be what Donald Barnes painted in private – detailed watercolours of landscapes, which was what really interested him. But the London setting I described was definitely dystopian:

It was a surprisingly still morning for October. There was one of those acidic mists hanging about that made you take your pollution mask just in case. I kept it hidden because clogs (the homeless in the story) can’t afford masks, and I was going to have to pretend to be one. I got myself a set of clothes at a second-hand shop. I believe they were once called charity shops for a while, until people stopped giving them their cast-offs and started selling them again, just like they used to…

I’ll end with a final Wikipedia quote:

In recent years there has seen a surge of popular dystopian young adult literature and blockbuster films.   Theo James , actor in  Divergent , notes that “young people in particular have such a fascination with this kind of story”, saying “It’s becoming part of the consciousness. You grow up in a world where it’s part of the conversation all the time – the statistics of  our planet warming up . The environment is changing. The weather is different. There are things that are very visceral and very obvious, and they make you question the future and how we will survive. It’s so much a part of everyday life that young people inevitably — consciously or not — are questioning their futures and how the Earth will be. Some say that “it is easier to imagine the end of the world than it is to imagine the  end of capitalism .”

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How to Write a Dystopian Movie or TV Show

Utopia is a narrative term created by writer Sir Thomas More as the title of his fictional political satire published in 1516. It created the idea of a near-perfect society with little crime, poverty, or violence. It later evolved into the notion of paradise — an ideal place that most would love to live in.  Sounds great, right? Well, with every paradise comes its antithesis. That place is known as a Dystopia.  So, how do you write a dystopian movie or TV show? Let's break it down!

What is a Dystopian Story?

A dystopian story is characterized by its portrayal of a fictional society or world that is marked by oppression, suffering, and often, a sense of hopelessness or despair. If a utopian society is the ideal place to settle, then a dystopian society is most people’s worst nightmare. 

Dystopian settings are frequently marked by:

• Tyrannical governments and oppressive authorities
• Catastrophic deterioration in societal conditions

Just imagine the worst a society could get — that’s pretty much the setting of a dystopian story. And within those settings, you usually witness protagonists rising up against tyrannical and oppressive antagonists and villains that have control over the people by way of propaganda, censorship, lies, denial of free thought, and enforcement of conformity.  

Read More: The Biggest and Baddest "Big Bads" of Sci-Fi & Fantasy

'Mad Max: Fury Road'

Examples of Dystopian Movies and TV Shows

Examples of cinematic dystopian stories include:

• 1984:  Based on George Orwell's novel, the film portrays a totalitarian society where the government monitors and controls every aspect of people's lives.
• THX: 1188:   In the 25th century, a time when people have designations instead of names, a man, THX 1138, and a woman, LUH 3417, rebel against their rigidly-controlled society.
• Blade Runner:  Set in a bleak future, this film follows a detective who hunts down rogue artificial humans known as replicants in a dystopian Los Angeles.
• The Matrix:  This sci-fi classic envisions a world where humanity is enslaved by machines and trapped in a simulated reality, while a group of rebels fights to free them.
• Children of Men:  In a world where infertility has led to a global crisis, a disillusioned bureaucrat becomes involved in protecting a pregnant woman who may hold the key to humanity's survival.
• The Hunger Games:  Based on the best-selling novels, the franchise is set in a future society divided into districts and follows a young woman who must participate in a brutal televised competition to the death.
• Mad Max: Fury Road:  This post-apocalyptic action film features a wasteland where resources are scarce, and a group of rebels fights against a tyrannical warlord.
• Snowpiercer:  After a failed climate-change experiment freezes the Earth, the last survivors live on a train that circles the globe, with social classes and conflicts emerging onboard.
• The Handmaid's Tale:  Based on Margaret Atwood's novel, the TV series depicts a future where women are subjugated and used for reproductive purposes in a theocratic society.
• The Last of Us:  Based on the hit videogame series, the TV series depicts a postapocalyptic zombie-like story where a pandemic has killed off much of society. The dystopian element is showcased by a paranoid government body that becomes oppressive to ensure the survival of the human race while attempting to do so in a very inhuman way. 

'The Last of Us'

Key Themes to Use in Dystopian Movies

You have a plethora of story options and themes to utilize when writing a dystopian movie or TV show. Here are just a few:

Totalitarian or Oppressive Government

This is where you usually start. Dystopian movies typically feature a government or ruling authority that exercises extreme control over its citizens. 

• A totalitarian regime
• A dystopian dictatorship
• A surveillance state

These governing or ruling powers often enforce strict rules and regulations that limit individual freedoms to maintain their power. This will become the source of all of your story's conflict — and dystopian movies need  a lot  of it.

Social Injustice

This is where your characters come in. Dystopian societies are often marked by profound social inequality and injustice. Discrimination based on class, race, or other factors is common in these stories and drives the character arcs of your protagonists.

There is usually a clear divide between the privileged elite and the oppressed masses. That will fuel the conflict within the story and begin the arc of your characters as they deal with these conflicts.   

Lack of Personal Freedom

Dystopian worlds frequently depict a lack of personal freedoms and civil liberties. Citizens may be subjected to constant surveillance, censorship, curfews, or restrictions on their actions, thoughts, and speech. This creates a boiling point where your characters move from the first act to the second as they rise up against those who oppress them. 

'The Handmaid's Tale'

Economic Hardship

Economic hardship is also a common theme in dystopian movies. Audiences can often relate to this element because it exists in the world we live in today. In these dystopian stories, many citizens struggle to survive due to the scarcity of resources. This economic hardship can reinforce the divide between the haves and the have-nots — creating that boiling pot dynamic within characters that are looking to break free from their strife. 

Technological Control

In some dystopian stories, advanced technology is used as a tool of control and oppression. Governments may use technology for surveillance, mind control, or to maintain their grip on power. This dynamic creates an excellent series of conflict hurdles that your characters must surpass. 

'The Matrix Revolutions'

Environmental Decay

Many dystopian movies explore environmental degradation and the consequences of unchecked pollution, climate change, or ecological disasters. These factors contribute to the overall bleakness of the setting. This is often used as a forewarning to audiences when it comes to possible circumstances of issues we face today in our society. 

Loss of Individuality

In dystopian societies, individuality and personal expression can be suppressed. Citizens may be forced to conform to a rigid set of norms and expectations, and any deviation from these norms is punished. 

'Children of Men'

Resistance or Rebellion

As mentioned above, many dystopian stories feature a protagonist or group of individuals who resist the oppressive regime. These characters often embark on a journey to challenge the status quo and seek freedom or justice. This works as both a character element and a story element. 

Commentary on Contemporary Issues

Screenwriters and filmmakers often use dystopian stories to serve as social and political commentary, highlighting and exaggerating issues and trends present in the real world today. This is where you can really get the audience to relate to the issues the characters are dealing with because they are augmented, exaggerated, and speculative versions of what we see in today’s society around us. Look no further than the likes of  The Handmaid’s Tale  for an example — a series that stands as the result of the tipping of scales from where we may be teetering today. 

So, all, or at least some, of these elements are where you should start in your dystopian screenplay. Now let’s explore the basics of how you can develop and write your story. 

How to Write Your Dystopian Movie

In the end, it’s your creativity, ingenuity, and vision that will create the next great dystopian film. But here are some foundations that you can use to develop and write your story. 

Start with Worldbuilding

Dystopian stories are initially all about the world you build. That’s what really stands out. Rebellions and uprisings are great — and all of that will come — but what will differentiate your dystopian story from all of the others that came before yours will be the particular dystopian world you build. 

Ask yourself these development questions:

• What started this dystopian society? 
• Is it post-apocalyptic, near-future, or set on another planet?
• What is uniquely frightening about the dystopian world you’re going to build?

You need to see this world. You need to know what it looks like, what it feels like, what it sounds like, and how those elements are different from what we’ve seen in prior dystopian movies. 

Find Relatable Themes and Issues to Explore

You want and need to connect with the audience. The easiest way to do that with a dystopian story is to find those augmented, exaggerated, and speculative versions of what we see in today’s society around us — and then use them to wrap around the world you are creating.

Ask yourself questions like:

• What if we let corrupt politicians have all of the power?
• What if we allowed Artificial Intelligence to run our world?
• What if we had a second Civil War?
• What if we had a Third World War?
• What if we ignore global warming? 

Whatever the hot point issues in our current world may be, you can find themes to explore. 

Create Your Cast of Characters

Then you need to figure out who the characters who populate your dystopian world. 

• Who is the oppressor?
• Who is being oppressed?
• How are they being oppressed?
• For what purpose is the oppressor oppressing people?
• Who is going to rise up against the oppression?
• Why are they the ones to lead the resistance or uprising? 

Your lead protagonist(s) need to have a higher purpose and a deeply layered inner character arc to warrant them being the ones to lead the oppressed. 

Your supporting characters need to fill in the blanks that the protagonist(s) lack. 

And let’s not forget the most important element — the antagonists and villains. They need to embody the oppression that the protagonists are fighting against. While the protagonists can preach about the oppression they face, and the reasons why the oppression is inhumane enough not to live under any longer, the antagonists and villains need to embody why they feel the oppression is necessary.

This leads to the ultimate conflicts of your story as protagonists versus antagonists/villains boils and boils until the pressure can’t be contained any longer.

Start with the Ordinary World of the Protagonist

Presenting your main character in their everyday life at the start of your dystopian story provides an opportunity to showcase the start of their  inner  and  outer  character arc. 

It then shows how profoundly difficult their journey is going to be when faced with the choice to take the call of adventure to rise up against the dystopian oppressors. 

• Show the oppression.
• Show their struggle. 
• Show their ordinary life and how it will be rocked when they choose to rise up.

Now, you have a couple of options on how to showcase their ordinary world. 

• Show them under the rule of the oppressors. 
• Introduce them on the outskirts of the oppression and wanting to free their people.
• Or, as a third option, have them be part of the oppression who wakes up and decides what they’ve been doing was wrong.

Consider the Ordinary World openings of the following: 

• In  The Hunger Games , Katniss is living in District 12 with her family, struggling to survive.
• In  The Handmaid’s Tale , June is on the outskirts of the oppression, trying to escape to Canada when she, her husband, and her daughter are caught by Gilead foot soldiers.
• In  The Last of Us ,  Joel  is working the dystopian system to survive and try to find a way to find his brother. While he’s not the oppressor, he’s also not trying to lead an uprising against them. He’s doing what he can to survive. 

Read More:  Exploring the Twelve Stages of the Hero’s Journey Part 1: The Ordinary World

The Rest is Up to You

There’s no one single way to write any genre or subgenre of movies. When you’re dealing with a subgenre like dystopian movies, you need to educate yourself on the common elements that define such a story (see above) and find a unique and interesting take on it. 

• Subvert expectations. 
• Find ways to offer unexpected  twists and turns .
• Take the audience down one path, only to push them onto another.
• Play with  character archetypes , cliches, and tropes. 
• Find unique set pieces and sequences. 
• Pile on the conflict. 
• Raise the stakes . 

Know what a dystopian story is, embrace the key story and character elements, build your dystopian world, consider finding relatable themes and issues audiences can identify with, create a compelling cast of characters on both sides of the struggle, showcase their ordinary world while selling the setup to the audience, and then find ways to make your dystopian story engaging and unique. 

Read More: 101 Epic Sci-Fi Story Prompts

CHECK OUT OUR SCI-FI & FANTASY NOTES  SO YOU START YOUR STORY OFF ON THE RIGHT TRACK!

Ken Miyamoto has worked in the film industry for nearly two decades, most notably as a studio liaison for Sony Studios and then as a script reader and story analyst for Sony Pictures.

He has many studio meetings under his belt as a produced screenwriter, meeting with the likes of Sony, Dreamworks, Universal, Disney, and Warner Brothers, as well as many production and management companies. He has had a previous development deal with Lionsgate, as well as multiple writing assignments, including the produced miniseries BLACKOUT, starring Anne Heche, Sean Patrick Flanery, Billy Zane, James Brolin, Haylie Duff, Brian Bloom, Eric La Salle, and Bruce Boxleitner, the feature thriller HUNTER'S CREED, and many produced Lifetime thrillers. Follow Ken on Twitter  @KenMovies  and Instagram  @KenMovies76 .

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Home — Essay Samples — Literature — The Giver — The Dystopian Society in “The Giver” by Lois Lowry

The Dystopian Society in "The Giver" by Lois Lowry

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"Shifting the Rules": Thomas Cooper Exhibits Spotlights the Role of Women in Science Fiction

“Science Fiction,” says University of South Carolina Assistant Professor of English Alyssa Collins, “asks us to take things seriously and ask questions as to what the future may look like, or how life should be.”

Historically, when we think of the voices asking those questions, they are male: Isaac Asimov, Frank Herbert, H.G. Wells and Ray Bradbury, just to name a few. But in fact, women have been writing Science Fiction since the genre’s earliest days – and, from Frankenstein to The Handmaid’s Tale, they have contributed some of its most foundational texts.

“Women in Science Fiction: From Frankenstein to Dungeons and Dragons,” an exhibit at Thomas Cooper Library curated by Rare Books Librarian David Shay, explores the rich history of female Science Fiction writers through University Libraries’ collections of works spanning from the 1600s through the present. Among the writers featured in the exhibit is renowned Science Fiction author Octavia E. Butler, whose work is especially notable for the attention it is currently attracting because of the way that novels Butler wrote decades ago reflect some of the predominant issues and concerns of our time.

During her life, Butler received the MacArthur “Genius” Grant and PEN West Lifetime Achievement Award for her work. She authored several award-winning novels tackling themes like gender, sexuality, race and the inequalities that stem from all of these. Her work ranges from more “classic” Science Fiction dystopian novels like her Earthseed duology, to more speculative and experimental fiction which can be found in the likes of Fledgling, the last of Butler’s novels published during her lifetime, which focuses on a semi-utopian vampiric society.

Like her exhibit case counterpart The Handmaid’s Tale, there has been a noticeable resurgence in popularity of Butler’s works in recent years. Several of her books have been made into television series, like Atwood’s novel. Butler was asking questions and having conversations during her lifetime that still strongly resonate with the younger generations of today, according to Collins, who is the inaugural Octavia E. Butler Fellow at the Huntington Library, where Butler’s papers are housed.

“She’s very great at extrapolating from her present day, and I think people are really drawn to it because her stories feel either prescient or like they are addressing contemporary things,” Collins says. “Especially during the COVID pandemic, people were really into the Earthseed duology.” The Earthseed duology includes Parable of the Sower and its sequel Parable of the Talents.

This is especially true when readers consider that Parable of the Sower’s story begins in 2024. Reading Parable in 2024 feels immediately eerie, as if Butler is speaking to the present day in a dystopian, semi-apocalyptic novel. Butler was incredibly good at “reading the world” according to Collins. “She called herself a ‘news junkie’ and she was very invested in research of all sorts and knowing what things were going on around her.”

The current generation of twenty-somethings is engulfed in current events, and are also having similar conversations surrounding race, gender and sexuality. Younger readers can find a kindred spirit, and recognizable voice in Butler, even though she was writing nearly thirty years ago, and died before many of them were born. “A generation who has gone on to have those kinds of conversations is finding someone who’s also having those conversations just with a time difference. Everyone caught up to Butler,” Collins says.

But Butler doesn’t tell her readers how to feel about her work, or her characters’ actions. Instead, she points readers to questions they may have about her writing and encourages them to ask these questions of their own society.

According to Collins, this is how women have been able to “shift the rules” of Science Fiction. The genre is wrought with expectations of its authors, and women writers like Butler, N. K. Jemisin and Margaret Atwood ask their readers to “look at things that are important” according to Collins. “They ask us to look at life and start to ask our own questions about it.” This, according to Collins, is the most exciting part of reading women in Science Fiction.

“A lot of Butler’s work is so powerful, but she also doesn’t tell you how you are supposed to feel about character’s actions. It’s a little ambiguous and I think she really uses those conventions.” Female Science Fiction authors like Butler take the unconventional medium, whether it be dystopian society, vampires or aliens, and gives them to readers in a way that they might have never been paid much attention to before or that they were never expecting.

"’Everything’s too crazy.’ ‘And what? You think it’s going to get sane? It’s never been sane. You just have to go ahead and live, no matter what.’”  (Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower)

This is the crux of why Butler resonates with the generation of young people entering adulthood. They ask themselves these questions every day, and in Butler they find a confidant and guiding voice.

“Women in Science Fiction: From Frankenstein to Dungeons and Dragons” is on display in the exhibit space by the front entrance to Thomas Cooper Library through the end of the Spring 2024 semester.

Challenge the conventional. Create the exceptional. No Limits.

Leif Enger’s ‘cheerful refusal’ to accept despair infuses his new dystopian adventure novel

Updated 9:57 a.m.

A trio of bemused surfers bob on their boards in the water just off Park Point beach in Duluth. They are watching a denim clad figure in a white wooly hat tear across the sand. He’s trailing a huge kite. But try as he might Leif Enger can’t quite catch the wind.

“I have a host of other kites that probably would have been better for today. But this one was so big and impressive. How can I lose?” he says with laugh.

There’s some ominous kite flying in “I Cheerfully Refuse.” And some laughing. But we are really here on the beach to discuss another presence in Enger’s new novel: Lake Superior.

“Was it a character in the book? Yeah, absolutely,” he said. “I wanted to write a book where the lake felt on those pages the way it feels in real life, which is incredibly impressive. And unimpressed by yourself. And also irresistible, kind of alluring.”

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Enger scribbled notes for years before writing “I Cheerfully Refuse.” Sitting down on one of the sand-scoured logs characteristic of Lake Superior south shore beaches, he said many of them were about the big lake, a body of water so big it makes its own weather.

“I don’t even know if people realize how much the mood of the lake affects the mood of the people who live near it,” he said. “But it really, really does. If I go out and the lake is in a confused mood, and it’s kind of angry and roaring and the clouds are moving this way and that, then I feel that way too. And conversely, if the lake is peaceful and beautiful, how do you not walk around in a fabulous mood?”

Then politics dropped something into his musings.

“In 2017, we all got introduced to the concept of alternative facts,” he said. “I wondered what the world was going to look like, if in fact, that was a path that we followed.”

He saw a society with more extreme differences between the haves and have-nots, where order breaks down, just a little.

He saw a Duluth where supplies and services become scarce. Road repairs stop. And the satellite communication on which Lake Superior sailors now depend for navigation is just gone.

“And it occurred to me that the lake could once again become that frightening thing that it always had been previous. That it might become a place where you went if you were afraid or desperate, or pursued. And you went out and took your chances on the water.”

Then, the pandemic hit. Followed by George Floyd’s murder.

“It was a very anxious time, it was an anxious moment,” he said.

Enger dealt with his personal unease by writing. The first scene he got on paper was how his hero Rainy, a large quiet man with a fertile internal dialog, meets the love of his life.

“At noon, one winter day, I left my job detailing a stucco high under with hardwood moldings and a crenelated roof like a battlement, embarrassed to eat near the meticulous homeowners, I strolled a few blocks to the library for a covert lunch in a study carrel. The carrel was around the corner from the Help Desk where a woman with a quiet radiant voice explained technology to ancients. There didn’t seem to be any non ancients in the library that day, only her at the desk and me who just wanted a warm place to eat a cheese sandwich. Crane as I might I couldn’t catch sight of her, which only made her voice more arresting.”

In the story, Rainy lives in Duluth making a living painting houses and soothing his soul playing bass around town. And he’s married to Lark, the woman with the radiant voice he heard from the carrels.

But then Rainy experiences a calamity and sets off on a small boat across the big lake. It’s a desperate, almost impossible quest, in the face of evil incarnate.

“And I literally got up every morning in the dark and went down the hall to my office, and it just seemed like Rainy was in there waiting. And, you know, lighting his little paraffin lantern, putting a little light out in the world,” Enger said. “And I just found that it was really comforting to me to write this story and to say, ‘Yeah, his world is bleak. But he’s gonna find a way through it.’”

Enger is known as a writer who takes his time. There can be years between his novels. But “I Cheerfully Refuse” was different.

“The first draft took 100 days, which for me is sensationally fast,” he said. “I then spent another two and a half years rewriting it.”

And Enger said that rewriting is where the joy lies for him.

“In fact, this is the first book I ever finished and was really sad to finish. I didn’t want to leave it. I wanted to keep working on it. I wanted to do six more drafts because it felt so good to spend I'm in that world with those people. Any book, for me that that pulls me and gives me a world I don't want to leave,” he said. “And now I miss it terribly.”

Leif Enger will celebrate the April 2 launch of the novel at Ursa Minor Brewing in Duluth.

“I Cheerfully Refuse” takes its name from the title of a book in the story which is important to some of the characters. It’s a nod to Enger’s belief in the importance of reading. Also to the way writing lifted him through the tough times in recent years.

“And the only way that I could get through it with a smile on my face was to kind of actively refuse despair,” he said. “I guess that means refusing ignorance if knowledge is available.”

And so, just like Lake Superior, hope is a character in the book too.

Correction (April 1, 2024): An earlier versions of this story misstated the title of Leif Enger’s novel. It has been corrected.

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