Step 1: Make a society that vaguely resembles the American High School System Step 2: Make a love triangle with the main character and two hunky bois Step 3: Profit Alternatively Step 1: Stalinist Russia Alternatively Alternatively Step 1: Pay attention to modern news Step 2: Weep, for you are already in a dystopia

>Let's make a dystopia >Proceeds to describe the United States >Profit?

Hot take: Most dystopia's suck because they're simplistic representations of whatever the author doesn't like. This makes them inherently unbelievable and boring.

I really like this channel. It feels like im at a friend's house talking about writing and worldbuilding

A unfair “democratic” system that I’d like to see more of is one where all adults do get to vote, however the amount of votes you get is decided by how much taxes you pay. Those in power can easily justify this system by claiming that it is only fair that those who pay more taxes have a greater say in how the government spends those taxes. I know Belgium used a system like this around 1900 so it has historical precedent.

I'd love to read a dystopian story from the perspective of the rebels where they actually _are_ the bad guys and the authority they're fighting against actually has a point and isn't just "evil".

By God, add in-world political jokes to a scenario. Political jokes always exist when the people are dissatisfied with their government, even in totalitarian regimes. It's a creative way to convey information without blatant narrator saying things.

I think you just described Season 3 of Avatar the Last Airbender. - the main villains are a nationalist empire - the citizens of the Fire Nation are subjected to propaganda which is objectively false (the Air Nomad Genocide is referred to as a defeat of the nonexistent Air Nation Army) - many citizens of the Fire Nation are abused by their leaders, with the village from the Painted Lady being a prime example. The local factory is destroying the ecosystem and people are sick and starving as a result, but when the heroes destroy the factory and help the town, they are received with hostility at first for being outsiders - one of the first scenes in the third season looks like Triumph of the Will

I think the problem with YA dystopia is that it focuses too much of its emphasis on the characters and their backstories rather than on the actual dystopia which arguably waters the message down (whatever it may be). It seems that many YA authors in dystopia have no political message or social issue they want to discuss but rather have a dystopian setting for the sake of a plot device or something to make their books stand out from the typical YA. Much like sci fi and fantasy, dystopian is also easy to fuck up when you don’t plan accordingly. Also, the purpose of the dystopian- why should we care if we have a totalitarian government? A theocracy? Etc. George Orwell, Margaret Atwood, Anthony Burgess etc etc. make it so that readers *care* and are aware should such a system of government ever step into power. It’s not even about the world building, it’s also the purpose of the world building.

I think a good example of dictatorial government to be based on, your dystopian / dictatorial country is the military dictatorships of Latin America, as we have experience with this of various types of dictatorship and how they have gained political justification and popular support. And I don't see much of the kind of dictatorship we've had in the media, and most dictatorships I've seen in fiction are inspired by Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia.

interesting idea at 5:55. what if a society's government was set up as a representative democracy, codified individual rights that were historically rare, allowed freedom of travel (freedom to leave) for its citizens, and didn't ACTUALLY have any more corruption than normal? But because of some catastrophe prior to the story, the standard of living has dropped precipitously for the common people, and the populace has time to stew as the society rebuilds. This has many effects, but one of them is that the common people are frustrated and highly distrustful. Events that would have been perceived as just bad news prior to the catastrophe, or a catalyst for substantive legislation, become evidence of an irredeemable system to the frustrated populace. This leads to infighting, indictments of the ruling class, rashes of random violence, etc. And the people continue to elect increasingly cynical representatives to office because they align with their experience. The result is kind of an overly confused way forward, a worsening of circumstances, and maybe eventually an unintentional self destruction. Maybe this would be too much for a YA novel, but it might be interesting to explore a dystopia of desperation, whether real or perceived. The compounding deteriorating effects of intense distrust. Causing impatience, cognitive blind spots, rationalized cruelty, spite. Making the people work against themselves, no evil government actually involved. Where the system is actually well-meaning, just imperfect like every other system, and is essentially scapegoated.

I honestly believe one of the main things holding the dystopian genre back is the fact that a post-apocalyptic setting is considered to come with the territory. Dystopian writers would do well to consider just setting their stories in some type of AU Earth, such as Strangereal from Ace Combat. That way they have more leeway with the geopolitical situation.

Step 1: incentivize growth at all costs Step 2: ??? Step 3: profit

Hmmm... I think I'll just think up a bunch of things I don't like about our world, and amp them up to 11.

Things I want from a dystopia -romans -the Romans but futuristic -spicier romans yeah I just want a roman dystopia

I came up with an idea for a dystopia that is a union of semi-independent provinces, where the teenage protagonist joins what she thinks is a rebellion and overthrows her local governor. It's revealed the group she joined actually works for the central government and she's just helped to bring her home under their control.

Dystopia as a genera has problems. For one thing, it tends to fall into the trap of making obviously unsupportable systems. I think you could definitely do a society run by megacorporations, or where the government arranges everyone's marriages, but this needs to be tempered with the fact that someone somewhere doesn't think it can be changed. The many benefits of state-arranged marriages would be touted to the public by the megacorporate overlords and the public would have to at least kinda believe it was the best realistically-achievable system in the immediate term. I.E. Dystopias are not unstable dictatorships but stable societies which manage to produce aggressively suboptimal outcomes for their people, do things that are morally repugnant by any reasonable standard, and STILL manage to convince people that alternatives are not viable, or are even more aggressively suboptimal.

So Just Normal Society?

In terms of details, all you need to know for The Unwanteds is that kids who draw are sent to be thrown into a lake of boiling oil pre-highschool.

Tamantha seems a lot like the US But that’s probably just me overthinking it. We live in a democracy! There’s certainly no dystopia elements to our society /s

Another good way to explain why regular people are ok with dystopia they are living in is the fear of change or instability. Propaganda is just one of many reasons and not really that common IRL. Usually, people going along with the dystopian government because they are afraid of bad times that come after demolishing the current system, maybe they saw power vacuum before, maybe there were horrible times before the dystopian system took place. Or maybe they fear civil war that goes along with rebelling against the system. Or maybe their life depends on this system so they are ok with anything evil as long as it does not affect them directly.

"What's the worse society you can imagine" One where Amy Schumer is considered funny

“A dystopia is world where we are convinced we live in a Utopia” -me

Here's something that I came up, a while ago : So the setting is, of course, quite far in the future (end of the 21rst/beginning of the 22nd Century), set after a disastrous events (WW3, it was not nuclear, but still very devastating for the world, both for the economy and the social order of many countries). The story is set, this time, in Europe, which is ruled by the nation of Eurotopia, and we follow Henry Goodman. Henry is a (heh) good person, not a teen (he's actually a salaryman), and rather enjoy his life in Eurotopia (like many others). One day, he's in the site of a terrorist attack, and is captured by said terrorist, there they expose him to the "truth" : Eurotopia is a dictatorship, they have an extensive surveillance system, reeducate dissenters, yada yada... So Henry is skeptical, but decide to stay a bit with them. Here he discovers that the rebels are actually supported, funded, and trained by the 2 only stables government on Earth : the Pan-Asian Cooperation (it's just China and a few more East-Asia country) and the United Commonwealth of America (It's the US + Canada and Mexico). Both of those governments fund the rebel to try and steal various technologies that only Eurotopia has access to and that permit it to remain stable without using extremely exploitatives means (draconian resources restrication, Not!Slavery in other country to feed their economy, ...). During his stay with the Rebel, Henry discover a bit of the truth of the world : - As stated above, the UCA and PAC use extremely oppressive and exploitative measures to continue to exist, and Eurotopia doesn't want to give them tech because they don't trust them with it. - Most of the world has turned into 3rd World dictatorship that only exist to fuel the above nations economy. - Eurotopia engage in less than savory experiments, and is the only nation that has access to "Miracle tech" that could help save the world, but doesn't want to share it. Instead Eurotopia has engaged in various campaigns of military expansion such as in Oceania, the Middle East, Russia, and North/South Africa. - Eurotopia democratic institution is completely rigged in favor of the leading party, and many actual politicians seen on TV are actually dead. - The Rebels are just terrorist, and no different from ISIS or Al-Qaeda in terms of tactics and methodology. So over the course of this part Henry become more skeptical and mistrustful of both Eurotopia and the Rebel, but despite this he keeps being a fundamentally good person (which earned him the ire of quite a few people that see him as naive). He keep helping others, and try to find solution to certain problem that would satisfy everyone, and make the least suffering possible. As time passes the Rebels finally manage to somehow get access to the Location of the place of the Group that is supposed to run everything which is an old server storage facility. Turns out that this was an ambush, most of the Rebel are either dead, or forced to flee, and Henry, alongside a few other is captured. There he is separated from his comrade and is lead to this "Group" that control Eurotopia. Turns out that it's an AI, called the great Mother. Then flashback of her creation : She was created by the now defunct European Federation (or Union), there she was "mentored" to basically recognize that some humans are bad and some are good (with her answering that she knows and that she isn't some kind of shitty AI like skynet). She was also created to basically help solve various problems for the EF (or EU), but over time she was given more and more authority, at some point she was realizing that many problems came from corruption and things like that. And she made a coup and then took over the Nation, all the while keeping the facade of democracy. Here she would also explain why she doesn't give the Miracle techs : Because they could be turned into weapons of mass destruction that would make Nukes seems like fireworks in comparison (example Nanomachines,...), and the only reason she even use them is due to necessity, as she doesn't even fully trust herself with them. This also where we discover that she quickly discovered another problem : Homo Sapiens is not adapted to civilization, many psychological and societal problems are caused by the fact that Homo Sapiens has evolved to be Hunter-Gatherer nomads, and not to live sedentarily in Apartments with cars and the Internet. As such she created Homo Stellaris, a new race of Humans that were adapted to this life in civilization. Turns out that Henry is one of them, and that he was sent in an Orphanage to see if his basic psychology would hold in such a world, and that many other Homo Stellaris were also sent into various parts of the world to test this. The results were unanimously successful. After telling Henry this, she have him meet with other Homo Stellaris, that have been grown and educated in underground Bunker and Isolated communities. Said community is presented as a true Utopia, where everyone is kind and helpful to each other, where conflicts are not resolved through violence but through conversation, where the Family has as much importance as the species, and where they think first of the species first and not themselves, while also maintaining a spirit of competition that doesn't devolve in hatred. We also see that there are still some problems, but in general they are not too prevalent. During his stay here, he makes friends and forget for a while the rest of the world, due to the joy of finally meeting people that think and act a bit like him. Still, after some time he begin to ask what happened to his other friend and the world in general, to which the AI cryptically say to not worry about it. After a few months there is an announcement that they can finally go out of their bunker. There we see a scenery filled with nature, and empty cities just waiting for someone to live in it. Henry is increasingly panicked when he recognized that it's the city that he lived before. Then the AI explain to him that during the time he was in the Bunker, it launched a rapid campaign of extermination against Homo Sapiens, and then spent the remaining time repairing the damage caused by both Humanity and the war. The Outro would be Henry recounting the story of Homo Sapiens to a group of Children, while another mother tell her child to eat his vegetables or else the mean Sapiens will come and eat him.

I read this teen dystopian novel that was alright until the end where the perpetual war was stopped by the protagonist talking to the AI governments and telling the two AIs to stop the proxy war because crushing poverty is bad and teenage angst

*This aged like fine wine.*

Making a dystopian world? We already live in one kek

This is officially the best Dystopian writing advice ive seen on KZfaq (and ive been trawling the site for tips on this for ages and most of it is cliche as f***). Cudos to you sir. :)

*Best Quote from this video:* It's about managing opposition not stopping it... I love this videos.

“They’re all terrible in the own unique way” -James tullo

I don't like dystopias because they tend to portray everyone negatively and while I can be cynical the idea that everyone is horrific breaks my suspension of disbelief.

Man I want to write a dystopia where, after some big huge war, humans almost going extinct, the works, and as a result the new society that forms from the survivors is EXTREMELY anti-conflict, to the point where literally any conflict, no matter how minor, even some people having a stupid verbal argument, bothers them, and they’re obsessed with everyone getting along and being nice all of the time, and are willing to go to extremes to reinforce this, like maybe drugging people or something, but like, how am I going to do that without it being stupid? How do I get it to work?

I keep seeing dystopias were the government is too powerful I want to see one where the government is to weak

Dude... James is living on the other side of the Matrix

this is literally the ONLY video i found on futuristic world building, thank you so much!!

I know its young adult but I really love The Hunger Games.

Dystopia: "An imaginary place where everything is as bad as it can be."

One thing I like is the "bread and circus" kind of dystopia. Think "Brave New World" or that kind of stuff. Looks like a utopia on the outside, or at least seems like not a shithole, but actually is a shithole since A) the people have no emotional maturity since they have no hardships to deal with or B) they have no freedom to be anything other than perfectly content with their life. Add some ubiquitous drugs there too since that's cool and stuff.

Great video, I really appreciate the depth you go into on these types of societies

I've never seen one of your videos so early before. Still has that new car smell.

You want to write a story set in a dystopian society? Just write a book that takes place in the US.

This was extremely helpful...thank you!

A fine addition to my collection

This vid actually helps A LOT! considering im a big fan of dystopias (no , not the messy teen ones) and want to write one this is rlly helpful

That last idea was oddly specific-

5:35 this aged well

this made me giggle james is the best

"Excuse to have a teenaged girl rebel against society." Just make her a punk and call it a day, don't even bother making a dystopia.

Although touched upon, you could have mentioned the other powerhouse dystopias: We (the Soviet novel about an equal and privateless society), Brave New World (from Aldous Huxley, famous for the drug that makes you happy) and Fahrenheit 451 (controlling information through education and the limiting of access to most, as well as an irrational fear created against books).

Would love longer in depth videos, on anything

Step one: Describe America Step two: Call it a different name Step three: Profit!

this is so helpful thank you

I am thinking about writing a dystopian story, the thing i imagine the plot to be is on a fictional planet, who used to be a colony of another one, was taken over by an organization that wanted independence and turned it into a dictatorship, im still thinking on how the main characte finds out about the resistance movement though (which isnt actually worldwide, it is based only inside the province where the story happens)

Woa, it was actually very interesting and well explained. Never reallt watched videos on writing but this one was great. Gg man

This is gold, i didnt realize what you did until midway lol. I was a casual viewer before, you’ve earned a subscriber buddy :)

i think an important aspect of dystopia isn't just to create a horrific possibility but to comment on what is already happening, but take it to an extreme, like satire. like 1984 wasn't just about stalinist russia, it was also very much about britain, too, at the time eric sinclair wrote it. he actually worked at the bbc and that influenced his story as well.

Say what you will about how good or bad the YA dystopia novels were--and a lot of them were very bad--their ultimate message was empowering: that if you have enough courage and determination, you can change the world. It is a wonderful message to give to young people.

I found Bay City of the Protectorate(Alterd Carbon) a very well take on a dystopia..!

"Having them say a pledge to the nation every morning would be really authoritarian..." *[stares directly into the camera]*

The classic dystopian novels are the best.

Reading red rising right now! Very good book. Highly recommend. Would love to see you do a review of it.

He unintentionally described the US around the time of 9/11

This is great

An example of a good dystopian world is rapture, from Bioshock

Hm, must have missed the dystopian wave following in the wake of the Hunger Games. Then again, I tend to mostly focus on the classics and didn't really care for Hunger Games so I guess my view on Dystopias is untarnished. As for the video itself, yea I think you hit the nail on the head here. If I were to ever write a Dystopia it would most likely focus on runaway capitalism and the misuse of copyright and patents. Another thing that might be important is the idea of "How did we get to this point". Basically fleshing things out to explain how things got this bad.

Wow. What a way to describe the States. Very accurate but still. Wow

The flashbacks to school are actually in constant danger of taking over my sci-fi story… 😁

Thank you for saying this.

6:32 Stares at United States

Why does every dystopia have to be in USA? Let’s be real, if there was a nuclear war America would be the first to go. How about Europe? Asia? Even Africa?

Reminds me of Unwanteds where there was no actual external enemy, but the dystopian elements were kinda dropped in favour of the more fantasy adventure, and only really pop up in the first book.

the way he shaded the pledge of allegiance lmao.

The Dune saga universe is one of the greatest dystopias.

If you ever want to know how propaganda operates in regards to U.S. media, just look up Noam Chomsky and Manufacturing Consent. There's a 6 min video of his interview with a British journalist, and a longer one as well, definitely recommend

George Orwell is one of my favorite authors and he fought hard that animal farm is not a representation of communism. You can’t reference things without respecting the authors, like your channel actually though.

Lizard Man: *takes notes*

Do a video on fantasy schools.

So just make my fictional world like how the real world already is, got it

Half-Life 2 is an extraordinarily underrated dystopia. The sheer hopelessness of humanity's plight is absolute nightmare fuel.

I want to make a dystopian story, but the MC is the "bad government", and the story follows the MC's development to change those system

I like how you basically just described the us lmao

You want to a dystopia look no further than the world around you yes this dystopian nightmare is no longer fiction

Fuckin Timantha?! lol you're the best

I wanted (and still do) to write a dystopian novel but I'd call it a Dystopian Comedy or a "Silly Dystopia". Kind of how I view Witch&Wizard by James Patterson. The whole point is "Oh yeah this would never happen. If it did, people would do stupid things." If I wanted to write a much more seirous dystopia I'd put more thought into it and make it be more about Alternative Facts.

Jon didn't know he lived in a dystopian society. He didn't know because those in power removed all books, all videos, all news articles, anything and everything that defined 'dystopia'. The word, the idea simply did not exist. As far as Jon knew, his life and those suffering around him, was normal. He broke off a chunk of moldy bread and dipped into the broth of leaf soup, took a bite and savored the earthy taste of mold mixed with the bitterness of the soup. "Good day," he thought. He spat out a leathery leaf, tore another chunk of bread. "Today is a good day."

heeeeeeeeyyy! by the way 6:33 is a big ouchie

I don't understand one thing. If Tamantha is so war-torn, then wouldn't a successful revolution simply cause it to be conquered and divided by its many enemies?

6:30 this has happened in a part of my country, public education is controled by regions, one region got separatist in to power by convenient political alliances at the time, they modified the education system and feed the childs lies about history and to buy in the a separatist ideology supported by fake history, now we have a problem where in that region a little less than half the population is separatist, and a little more than half the population is anti-separatist, the separatist always got in to power in elections there because, the anti-separatist may vote the right or the left, and the right or the left do not ally, but the separatist vote separatist parties, and they do ally

Plato's ideal sosiety is very distopian

I have this vague idea for a dystopian/apocolyptic world surrounding the ideas of self-interest and internationalism. You would have these different factions scheming and fighting to protect their own famililies, communities and/or citizens at the expense of others, as resources rapidly dwindle in an already resource scarce land. To be more specific, the story would take place 200 years into the future in Ireland, a former hotbed of ethnic strife, and one of the few places in Europe free from overt nuclear destruction. Still, 80% of Ireland's food and energy are imported, so already you have mass evacuation, rioting and famine when infrastructure breaks down. Then come refugees from Britain and the continent, overwhelming the native Irish population. Skirmishes in the North result in the overrun of the armed forces also and the subversion of Irish politics by what's left of the Royal Armed Forces, obstensibly a UN peace-keeping force. Only through frequent imports from the few remaining agricultural centres in the Southern-Hemisphere and outside Earth might anyone survive the winter. The lesson to be learned is that no one group ought to take precedent over another, even if that means *your* own discomfort, and that if maybe we learned to cooperate a little more instead of compete, the Irish and European peoples may have survived.

Extreme Capitalist ideology would be absolute Anarchism. Corporate Dystopianism is Syndicalist National Corporatism.

In the future realm of Dystopiopolis, onions are forbidden. Hmmm... I like this dystopia.

great

It'll be a miracle if I don't start molesting my chin and waving my hands in the air when I finish binge-watching JT.

What about anarchy

0:12 haha The Giver. I read the book seee

Trinston was here

12:01 I… eat… your… milktoast!

The number of times I thought "So he's just describing America/Australia" in this was unsurprising, but disturbing.

i came into this video ready to prep a potential novel, full of motivation and inspiration. then everything you said resonated because i live in israel. now i'm the this is fine dog meme as everything around me is on fire.