Apocalypse Now!
Writing Dystopian Fiction Amidst a Pandemic
Last week we decided to lighten the mood and discuss comedy fiction, to escape the drama of real life for a while and find some comic relief. But then we got to thinking… what if the drama of the pandemic could actually fuel some incredible dystopian fiction stories?
For me, the word ‘dystopia’ is synonymous with Margeret Atwood’s ‘Handmaid’s Tale’ and the terrible world of Gilead. Anthony Burgess’ ‘Clockwork Orange’ also springs to mind, with sociopathic ‘droogs’ roaming the streets. And for younger audiences, the ‘Hunger Games’ trilogy is an excellent example of this genre, set in a world where the class divide is taken to its evil extreme.
So what inspiration can we gain from these infamous and harrowing tales? And how can we turn it into our own post-apocalyptic fiction?
Let’s have a look at an excerpt from Atwood’s ‘Handmaid’s Tale’:
“We slept in what had once been the gymnasium. The floor was of varnished wood, with stripes and circles painted on it, for the games that were formerly played there; the hoops for the basketball nets were still in place, though the nets were gone...Dances would have been held there; the music lingered, a palimpsest of unheard sound, style upon style, an undercurrent of drums, a forlorn wail, garlands made of tissue-paper flowers, cardboard devils, a revolving ball of mirrors, powdering the dancers with a snow of light...
We yearned for the future. How did we learn it, that talent for insatiability? It was in the air; and it was still in the air, an afterthought, as we tried to sleep, in the army cots that had been set up in rows, with spaces between so we could not talk. We had flannelette sheets, like children's, and army-issue blankets, old ones that still said U.S. We folded our clothes neatly and laid them on the stools at the ends of the beds. The lights were turned down but not out. Aunt Sara and Aunt Elizabeth patrolled; they had electric cattle prods slung on thongs from their leather belts.
No guns though, even they could not be trusted with guns. Guns were for the guards, specially picked from the Angels. The guards weren't allowed inside the building except when called, and we weren't allowed out, except for our walks, twice daily, two by two around the football field, which was enclosed now by a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire. The Angels stood outside it with their backs to us. They were objects of fear to us, but of something else as well. If only they would look. If only we could talk to them. Something could be exchanged, we thought, some deal made, some tradeoff, we still had our bodies. That was our fantasy.
We learned to whisper almost without sound. In the semidarkness we could stretch out our arms, when the Aunts weren't looking, and touch each other's hands across space.”
Atwood takes the reader on a journey here, from the familiar to the unfamiliar. She anchors the new world in a location that almost all readers will have experienced and warps it into a mysterious and foreboding scene. The nostalgia that the protagonist is feeling is palpable, harking back to a more carefree time and therefore adding to the sense that ‘Toto - we are not in Kansas anymore!’.
Despite expressing the desperate and claustrophobic existence of these entrapped women, she also gives us a glimmer of hope. Their guards are also human and might be able to be reasoned with.
We see a similarly familiar opening in Olivia A. Cole’s ‘Panther in the Hive’:
“In the silent, shiny world of pre-packaged snacks and frozen entrees, the fruit is rotting.
Not all of it: the apples survive, the pears still defiant. But the avocados are caving in on themselves, the peaches developing sinking brown craters, like eyes. Above, a solitary fly cruises the wasteland of abandon, enjoying the heat only rotting things can emit. The other side of Jewel-Osco is clean and silent: the deserted isles are vast stretches of empty fluorescence, Chef Boyardee and Jemima beaming out at no one…”
Is there anything more creepy than an empty supermarket?! Cole’s opening shows how the gloss of the modern world as we know it has faded - the convenient life of the protagonist is rapidly decaying.
So lesson one from these incredible female authors is:
1. Take your reader on a journey from the familiar to the unfamiliar. In dystopian fiction, it pays to start by juxtaposing the new world with the old world. Show the reader how we ended up here so that the setting makes sense.
⭐ Do you have a dystopian world brewing in your mind? ⭐
Could you be the next Margeret Atwood and write a bestselling dystopian story? Could you use the pandemic happening around us as inspiration for a post-apocalyptic tale?
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...now back into the apocalypse!
How does the dystopian genre translate from novel to short story?
What I love about dystopian short stories in particular is their focus. Since they don’t have many words to play with, they often zoom in on the individual. So they’re less about the big picture dystopia and more about the personal toll - which can make for an incredibly engaging character-driven story.
Much like ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’, ‘Skinned’, winner of the Caine Prize last year, is a troubling tale of bodily autonomy and womanhood. Arima’s short story envisions a society in which young girls are ceremonially ‘uncovered’ and must marry in order to regain the right to be clothed.
Here’s the opening of the tale:
“The unclothed woman had a neatly trimmed bush, waxed to resemble a setting sun. The
clothed women sneered as she laid out makeup and lotion samples, touting their benefits.
“Soft, smooth skin, as you can see,” she said, winking—trying, and failing, to make a joke of
her nakedness. Chidinma smiled in encouragement, nodding and examining everything Ejem pulled out of the box. Having invited Ejem to present her wares, she would be getting
a free product out of this even if none of her guests made a purchase.
Ejem finished her sales pitch with a line about how a woman’s skin is her most important
feature and she has to take care of it like a treasured accessory. The covered women tittered and smoothed their tastefully patterned wife-cloth over their limbs. They wore them simply, draped and belted into long, graceful dresses, allowing the fabric to speak for itself. They eyed Ejem’s nakedness with gleeful pity.
“I just couldn’t be uncovered at your age. That’s a thing for the younger set, don’t you think?”
“I have a friend who’s looking for a wife; maybe I can introduce you. He’s not picky.”
Ejem rolled her eyes, less out of annoyance than to keep tears at bay.”
The cruelty and embarrassment expressed here is deeply upsetting for the reader, especially if they know the feeling of being bullied themselves. The idea of a woman attempting to further her business and succeed in her job only to be knocked down by society based on her appearance is an all too familiar story.
This brings us onto the second & third lessons in our exploration of the dystopian fiction genre:
2. Portray the protagonist as a victim that the reader can relate to. Showing a scene in which your character is oppressed from the offset can get the reader to root for them - because, as we’ve said before, everyone loves an underdog! Add in an air of familiarity by having the oppression or victimisation happen in a setting we all know and we’re absolutely hooked!
3. Make the rules of the dystopian world plausible - Arima chooses an oppressive and sexist control technique that you could easily see now in a horrific totalitarian regime. It therefore doesn’t take a huge leap of the imagination to envisage.
...And herein lies the major purpose of dystopian and post-apocalyptic fiction. Since these future worlds are all feasible conclusions of our current reality, these authors are teaching us that if we don’t make any changes or preparations, we could suffer the same fate!
Now it's time for you to pen your dystopian story, what will your message be?
Happy writing!
X
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