I had one of those dread-saturated 3:00 AM awakenings last week.
The initial panic resulted from a sudden awareness that all the most dire warnings regarding the upcoming election are virtually certain to come true.
The Transition Integrity Project, a nonpartisan group of academics, journalists, and current and former government and party officials, has simulated the four most likely scenarios, and all but one results in widespread violence and a Constitutional crisis.
[Note: I didn’t realize until after I’d written this post that it would be going up on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks—but, even so, it remains eerily relevant even in that unexpected light.]
As often happens when one considers the world at the Witching Hour, the Hour of the Wolf—the time after midnight and before dawn when, legend tells us, the portal between this world and the beyond opens up—thoughts that, during the day, would be mere considerations became harsh, absolute reckonings.
Stop being naive, my mind told me. The life you’ve known is coming to an end. The absolute worst that could happen is going to happen and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.
Spoiler alert: I saw things differently after a while, especially come morning. And though that did allow me to function, I can’t say for certain the haunting, visceral sense of doom I felt is misguided. It’s one reason I’m volunteering for a number of get-out-the-vote organizations—to prevent what I fear will be an unavoidable crisis.
But as I was still in the grip of this initial panic, another sense of dread arose, one related to writing—which is why I’m bringing it up here.
I’ve just finished a dystopian novel and am researching and plotting the next, books that address what I fear will be our future, and soon, if we do not pull back from the abyss.
Lying there in the dark, I felt that terrible shock you get when it seems you’ve made a terrible mistake.
Who will want to read about an imaginary America on fire when the very real America all around them is literally in flames?
I wasn’t worried whether the book would find an agent or if it would sell. I was doubting my own judgment as a novelist—how had I been so self-absorbed not to see the bigger picture?
In wanting to write something I considered important, something that spoke to both my deepest passions and my greatest fears, I’d misunderstood one of the key premises of the genre I’d chosen.
It’s precisely a dystopian novel’s difference from current reality that allows the reader the imaginative space to sit back, reflect, and ask serious questions about the present day.
It was as this second wave of anxiety receded that I managed to settle down and think things through.
Dystopian stories—like sci-fi and fantasy and historical fiction—require a great deal of world-building. And in envisioning all the details, large and small, that will define how different your fictive world is from the one we know and now inhabit, it’s easy to get lost in the footnotes, especially in the early, planning-and-plotting stage of the novel, which is where I am now.
It’s the dystopian novel’s difference from current reality that allows the reader the imaginative space to sit back, reflect, and ask serious questions about the present day.
Those details are crucial, of course—they won’t just add authenticity to the story world, they likely will inspire ideas for scenes, plot turns, maybe even the overall arc of the story. Because the world has become like this, it is inevitable that…
That’s heady stuff. It’s demanding, too, requiring a lot of imaginative thought focused on all the predictably terrible things that might await us in the future—in my case, the not-so-distant future.
In a nutshell, my guiding principle has been the awareness that when anarchy descends, it’s men with money and men with guns who make the rules. And a great example of how that plays out, what happens when corruption, social disorder, climate change, and contagion all coalesce in one grand calamity, look no further than Mexico, Central America, or Colombia, where armed criminal groups have taken over many of the functions of their feckless governments.
My moral theme is this: With the increase in violence and breakdown of social order, everyone has to develop or enlist an armed group for protection. Hopes that your group is more civilized, noble, humane than the others is largely illusory. You make peace with your misgivings, swallow your guilt, find someone to care about, and dedicate yourself to their welfare. When violence takes over, however—and it will—you will need to look past the atrocities your side commits, stay focused on caring for the most vulnerable. Until it breaks your spirit. Then what?
(I don’t want to get more specific than that—I hate talking about a novel I’m still in the process of working out. Bad juju.)
Though the novel I’ve already finished echoes those same themes (the books are part of a series), there is a love story at the first book’s core that offers a sense of promise, even among the violence and chaos. And as I remembered that, I got a better handle on the new book.
By “love story” I don’t mean a romance. One of the principle goals I set myself for these books was to present a compelling story of platonic love in each one. I’ve written about this before here at Writer Unboxed, about the strange rarity of stories centered on devoted male-female friendship. I realized part of my anxiety about this new book resulted from my not having as yet fleshed out how that friendship forms and builds in the course of the story.
Once I recognized that, I saw the story changing. It was no longer just a lot of doom-dark scenes of a future gone wrong. It was evolving into a story of deep personal connection—devotion among the ruins, as it were. And with that, I saw at last a flicker of that curious flame known as hope.
Faith that the future will be better than the present is rendered sterile if that future centers solely on oneself. This is why I remain unimpressed by the idea of individual salvation. What good is an afterlife that leaves my loved ones behind? (As my late wife said as she was facing the inevitability of her death, “I don’t know if there’s anything after this, but if it doesn’t include you and the pups and our home I don’t want it.”)
With this in mind, I began focusing less on the research-driven details and the scenes they suggest and more on how my characters’ fondness for each other renews their faith in a possibly better tomorrow—and how it inspires their will to overcome the brutal challenges their dystopian world inflicts.
I began imagining the scenes that bring them together, the moments that deepen their feelings for each other, and the crises that threaten to separate them. I began to wonder if perhaps their mutual affection doesn’t create false hope, and if so how does that manifest itself—do they recover? Is that even possible in this craven new world?
Yeah, I know—the guy who wrote two books on character finally realized it was all about the characters.
Ahem.
Anyhoo, little by little, the story became much more meaningful, more compelling—more emotionally moving and hopeful, even in its darkest moments.
And as I lay there in the darkness, I realized as well that as in fiction, so in life. It’s precisely my love for my wife and our life together that makes succumbing to fear not an option. Whether the issue is politics or writing, there can be no standing on the sideline. The sideline does not exist.
And who knows, maybe there’s even hope the worst won’t come to pass.
Are any of you writing stories that take place in a story world that mirrors problematic aspects of present-day reality? If so, what provides a sense of promise in that world? How does that sense of promise inspire your characters to act?
What measures are you taking not to scare off readers with the precision or clarity of your fictive mirror?
Given the detail-intensive task of building your story world, how have you managed not to get “lost in the footnotes”?
About David Corbett
David Corbett is the author of six novels: The Devil’s Redhead, Done for a Dime, Blood of Paradise, Do They Know I’m Running?, The Mercy of the Night, and The Long-Lost Love Letters of Doc Holliday. His short fiction and poetry have appeared in a broad array of magazines and anthologies, with pieces twice selected for Best American Mystery Stories, and his non-fiction has appeared in numerous venues, including the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Narrative, Zyzzyva, MovieMaker, The Writer, and Writer’s Digest (where he is a contributing editor). He has taught through the UCLA Extension’s Writers’ Program, Book Passage, LitReactor, 826 Valencia, The Grotto in San Francisco, and at numerous writing conferences across the US, Canada, and Mexico. In January 2013 Penguin published his textbook on the craft of characterization, The Art of Character, and Writer’s Digest will publish his follow-up, The Compass of Character, in October 2019.
Another terrific post, David. I felt my anxiety rising as I read the first half of this, knowing there is truth in the prospect of violence ahead, but breathed more deeply as you settled on the biggest, truest, most important aspect of humanity: hope. It’s the only way forward. Always.
I love this line: “Whether the issue is politics or writing, there can be no standing on the sideline. The sideline does not exist.” I believe this to the depths of my soul, and as I watch the world turn upside down, I’m donning my battle gear, comprised of fortitude, energy, and HOPE. There will be no sidelines.
As for dystopians, they’re one of my favorite “genres.” They might be about the world in a scary and pitiful state, a reflection of centuries of human folly, but just as you said, they’re also primarily character stories about resilience and love. Fighting for the underdog. Fighting for reason and an order that the universe has already laid out so plainly for us human beings, even if we’re too blind to see it. I’m looking forward to this work of yours!
To answer your questions, I just finished and sold a book set in 1902 New York City. It’s an immigrant story, and one difficult thing after another happens to a young woman who believes her best life is in this country. And yet, she is no victim. She’s a fighter, a hopeful one who carries on and tries again and again, despite the prejudice she faces because of her nationality and her poverty. She wins people over by her courage and her unwavering hard work. I can’t think of a topic that hits home more today, though I didn’t set out to do that initially. How I balance her dark reality is just as you have suggested: I’ve added an unexpected ally that develops into a strong friendship, and there is also a tertiary thread of romantic love that ultimately feeds that hope within the reader. Or at least, this is my goal!
As for losing myself in the details, as a historical writer, I’m always doing this! But this immigration book was harder that way than most I’ve written because there are SO MANY fascinating things happening in NYC at that time. I kept getting sucked into new ideas. In fact, I ended up emphasizing a particular thread about anarchism for the climax that I realized wasn’t the goal of the book and I had to cut the last third and rewrite it entirely. (Anarchism is still present in the book, but in a much lesser way, through a secondary character’s arc.) At any rate, I’m a pro at falling down the rabbit hole. Luckily, after seven books, I’ve found ways to manage it better.
Great post. And hey, I walk laps around my neighborhood listening to an audiobook when I have insomnia. Helps me get the jitters out and to quell the doomsday voice in my head that inevitably comes in the dark.
Hi, Heather:
That is one of the kindest, most thoughtful comments I have ever received to anything I’ve posted. Thank you.
I can’t wait to read your book. I love immigrant stories, the incredible balancing act between hope and fear, the ever-present abyss of all you don’t know or understand. BROOKLYN reduced me to tears more than once.
And as you remarked, the connection with others is so vital to survival and, hopefully, happiness, even prosperity. Immigration is never just one person’s story.
You may already be aware of this, but there’s a wonderful book titled ALBION’S SEED about the four chief migrations from England in the 17th and 18th centuries–the Puritans in Massachusetts, the Quakers in Pennsylvania, the Cavaliers in Virginia, and the Scot-Irish in the back country. Each had its own unique idea of liberty–and we’re suffering the clash of those irreconcilable ideas now–and even more interestingly, these foundational groups laid down the cultural and political markers to which even immigrants from other countries adapted through assimilation.
But I digress.
Your problem with 1902 New York sounds daunting–and fascinating. And I’m not one of those who thinks you can take solace in the fact that the past is the past and therefore fixed. Our understanding of the past is never fixed, because we can always discover more about it. So writing historicals is not so different from writing about the future. You’re always wondering if you asked enough questions–or if you’ve asked the right ones.
I had to rewrite the first book extensively because I was juggling too many balls and lost track of two main story issues. I worked with Zoe Quinton, a developmental editor with whom I shared a post here a few months back, and it allowed me to see what I had missed.
Anarchism is an intriguing idea, and the movement is generally so poorly understood. It’s like libertarianism turned on its head–or, rather, libertarianism is anarchism for rich people. The flaw in the logic is that the absence of government power doesn’t create a utopian paradise–read Orwell’s account of his experiences in the Spanish Civil War for a glimpse of the beautiful hope of brotherhood and the crushing cynicism of raw power he discovered there. Another book that casts a light on it: Conrad’s THE SECRET AGENT. Hobbes is right, we create government so as not to get caught up in a war of all against all. But government creates a million problems all its own, so it’s beguiling to think that if we just got rid of it, all would be peachy.
I like the idea of walking around the neighborhood with an audio book to dispel the insomniac heebie-jeebies. I may take you up on that. And yet sometimes I get my best story ideas–and turns of phrase–when I’m lying there in the wakeful darkness.
Thanks for commenting, and doing so with such heart.
The Hour of the Wolf is a dark place to be, but what always keeps me from wigging out is the promise of sunrise. I always thought of it as a certainty, but hearing about the ash-dark mornings in the West these days has made wonder if sunrise is now a hope. My series takes place between the late seventies and early eighties. For me, herein lay the start of our current mess (not that seeds don’t lie dormant to for centuries, then sprout when conditions allow). But my takeaway from your thought-provoking post was that underneath all the world-building and time-frames lie relationships. Characters having them, trashing them, nurturing them or getting surprised by them. This, for me, is timeless. As to readers wanting stories that are different that what they’re living thru? Some, maybe, but not all. Ever since 2016, I’ve been devouring anything I can get my hands on about the period between the two World Wars. The non-fiction isn’t light reading, but much of the fiction is incandescent. Good luck with the new novel. I’ll read it.
Thanks for the encouraging words, Susan. You’re right, the prospect of dawn does tend to dull the razor’s edge of what one thinks and feels at that strange time of night. If I’m honest with myself, I realize that few of the terrible things I have “realized” waking at that hour have actually come to pass. And yet, it’s so easy, at that hour, to get caught up in the dread.
As for the smoke and ashes out here in the West–yeah, that’s added a whole new level of je ne sais quoi.
One of the things about the 1970s and early 1980s that I’ve always considered key to understanding the present is the breakdown of the FDR coalition. When the Democratic Party turned its back on the older New Deal party members and split into neo-liberal and progressive camps, they lost the white working class.
I’d be interested in knowing which writers from between the wars you’ve found particularly good. It’s a fascinating period with clear echoes in the present, and the non-fiction is pretty harrowing stuff. But until you mentioned it, I hadn’t realized how woefully under-read I am in the fiction from that era (except for the usual suspects, e.g., Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Hammett).
I’ve found the poetry of Langston Hughes and Robinson Jeffers offers an interesting and often unexpected view into that time. Jeffers opposed our entry into WW2, for example, but was no America First zealot. Quite the opposite. Like Joyce, he had a very jaundiced view of civilization in general.
Thanks so much for chiming in.
Herman Wouk is top of the list. Winds of War and War and Remembrance. But also Ishiguro (Remains of the Day) and Kate Atkinson (Transcription), both wiring not during but about…. And some of the pacifist writings of AA Milne. I also found a rich vein of material in Joan Acocella’s book of essays, Twenty Nine Artists and Two Saints.
Thanks for this. I loved Transcription. I’ll look up Milne, because I’m finding it interesting to read the pacifist writers of that time.
BTW: Martha Gelhorn is sadly too often thought of as merely Hemingway’s wife (brifely), but her reporting from Spain during the Civil War is breathtaking.
Hi David, and thanks for another post calling for serious thought.
How do I avoid getting lost in the footnotes? Of the novels I’ve written, only one required me to risk getting lost in research or world-building. It dealt with Vietnam vets, and since I never served in the military, I had to school myself through books. But I had also experienced the war as a civilian, and I had that direct experience going for me as well.
My other four novels all draw on direct experience. Their worlds are ones I occupied and shaped but in the here and now, or, better, in the then and there. As a reader, I am skeptical of books that exploit the quick fixes, and what are, for me, the easy outs available to those who don’t observe the known laws of physics—fantasy, science fiction, etc. I don’t read or write such stories, they just aren’t “me.” Correction: I definitely violated said laws in one of my novels, but that was a matter of character: one of the narrative points of view was that of a dog. The three other real-world stories called on me to do my best to imagine a woman narrative POV character.
In this way, I avoid a lot of backing and filling, and am free to give my attention to characters, and to heightening, or trying to heighten the quality of the sentences I am “building” to tell the story.
About dystopian fiction. It seems fair to raise questions about those who read it, and write it. Since all those who write extended narratives are automatically privileged people, what exactly leads them to build worlds that present the crumbled aftermath of the most desperate aspects of the present? What lies behind the reader’s fascination with such stories?
As for the very real three- four- or five-pronged crisis we’re in, “what happens next” will have mostly to do with character. The millions who support Trump don’t know or care to know the truth about him. What they like is hearing him express contempt for the “elites,” the intelligentsia, those who work with minds more than their hands (excepting of course typing hands). How this second half of the Civil War plays out will have principally to do with character.
Thanks again. I learn from all your posts.
Thanks for the attaboy, Barry. I wrote mostly crime fiction for my first five novels, so I know what you mean about working out the subtleties of the present.
Imagining what lies ahead can be overwhelming at times, especially when you start reading futurist predictions for everything from medicine to agriculture–and surveillance. You think keeping up with the present is tough? Try the future.
I’m not sure all those who read or write dystopian fiction can be considered privileged simply because they write. I know a lot of writers in several genres who are barely scraping by, but who make the time to write. It’s not a leisure activity, it’s a call to arms.
And selecting dystopian themes is simply a means of staging a cautionary tale–but for wiser choices, hither go we all.
But you’re absolutely right, one can’t portray wisdom or its lack without focusing on character.
Thanks a s always for answering the bell, Barry. I always appreciate your take on things.
David, I think that writers working in the atmosphere of today’s culture cannot help but find the angst and sorrow seeping into their work, no matter the time in which the work takes place. Like you, I want to hold on to memories of the life I have been given, allow them to flow into my work, whether it is only a passage about walking the streets of a city and finding beauty there, or the warmth of words that stop an angry scene–not unlike how I would like to change the tenor of current life in our culture so that we all SHARE THE LAND. I will always believe in human love and how writers can arouse tenderness, gratitude and a desire for change by putting words on the page. I think Marilynne Robinson does this so well, and I look forward to reading her latest novel JACK, which features a character who has always found it difficult to follow social mores, because they grate against his soul. We all need to find in our work and our living, those moments that help us keep going and believing in the greater good.
Thanks, Beth. I read a piece in the NYRB by Marilynne Robinson recently in which she lamented the lazy thinking of so many of her college-age students. Specifically, attaching the words “racist” and “fascist” to virtually everything in the American past. She has Congregational roots, as I recall, and I mention the book ALBION’S SEED above in my reply to Heather’s comment. That book paints a much more compelling and thorough portrait of Puritan culture than I knew previously, and I can see how someone with Robinson’s historical and moral gravitas would find today’s knee-jerk simplisms appalling–and self-congratulatory.
An informative period worth looking at is the Little Ice Age–the 17th century, basically. Temperatures dropped on an average of 2 degrees worldwide, and the cultural effects were devastating–from China to Ireland. We often forget that as immigrants from Europe were “discovering” America they were also fleeing a continent convulsed with disease, war, famine, religious hatred, and scapegoating. (Witches, anyone?)
I’m wildly digressive this morning, sorry. No coffee as yet, I’m a bit bleary.
But to your point–wondered if I was going to get there, weren’t you–that need to understand we are all in this together (share the land indeed), the need to realize that nurturing grievances is self-indulgent madness, the need to foster understanding instead of enmity, it’s the one path forward that may prove to live up to that beautiful concept, “saving grace.”
Take care, and thanks for reading and chiming in.
BTW: Is anyone else encountering difficulties with the “Like” and “Reply” links? I like a comment, then go to reply, and in doing so somehow undo the ‘like.” I eventually work it out, but it’s curious.
I figured it out–hit Reply first, then like the comment you’re replying to.
Hey David, I’ve been experiencing a similar mini-crisis about the story I’ve been working on for–what year is it again?–oh yeah, damn-near a decade. All through the rise of our impending dystopian present, I kept waving my arm like Arnold Horshack, thinking of how amazingly what was happening mirrored my story-world.
I see now that it’s too late. Who in their right mind would want to read a story about the descent and redemption of a leader–particularly one who callously allows his people to die in the pursuit of his own selfish goals, and to keep his inflated ego from crashing? At this point, I’m in no mood to even imagine a possible redemption for such behavior.
But something is happening to me, here in my 59th trip around the sun. I find I’m swiftly running out of fucks to give. I’m not even sure I can muster much of my old yearning to be read any longer, let alone to seek the validation of the traditional pub path.
In reading your timely post, I realize this morning that I’ve been paying far too much attention to the similarities between my story and the current American implosion. It’s not the first time I’ve thunk the thought, but maybe this was all just for me. I’m certainly a far cry as a human being from the naive 43 year old who thought it would be cool to write a story between carpentry jobs.
Thanks, as always, for the challenge to think deeply. Wishing you peaceful and restful nights to come. Stay safe!
HI, Vaughn:
I doubt you’ll be surprised to learn I thought of you as I wrote this post.
The imagination is not a bottomless well already stocked with inventive ideas. It’s a sense organ that perceives and interprets everything around us. Because of this, it is inevitable that our stories will reflect our experience.
We’re all feeling our way through the dark. Your decades-long quest to honor the writer who most inspired you, Tolkien, is noble. Never forget that. If you do, I’ll remind you. Writers are readers inpired to emulation. There is nothing misbegotten in that. Nothing.
You be safe as well. Strange days.
Arnold Horshack. Love it!!
Such a timely and thoughtful post. I’m right there with you, both in the 3am nightmarescape and the writing of something I have no idea if people will actually want to read.
I just know I have to write it.
It’s hopepunk–and I have this feverish idea that it must be written right now, exactly at this moment, when every day is a fight against the dread and the fear, for the present and a possibly worse future. I’ve been diving deep into what hopepunk means–what other people say and think about it, and what my own thoughts are–and the story is being born out of that wrestling to tell a different kind of story.
“HopePunk is weaponized optimism. Hopepunk isn’t nice. It’s communalism, radical compassion, cooperation as an organizing principle, and a recognition that the fight never ends.”–my operational definition to help guide me as I write.
The story is set in 2050, in a world beset with wave after wave of plagues rising out of the melted permafrost and the mingling of animal and human climate refugees. So, you know, sunshine and rainbows. My MC is a power engineer trying to find a family but discovering a mystery instead. There’s gaslighting and green tech and a whole lot of AI, but it’s mostly about persistence and kindness–how we choose the world we want to live in. It’s infused with all the things I’m feeling right now, living in this moment, which is why I feel the compulsion to write it even if that’s a struggle too (and oh boy is it).
I self-publish, so we’ll see what readers think. It’s the first of a four-part series, as I envision it, assuming the first one doesn’t kill me, as it threatens to do on a regular basis. And yes, I’m down the rabbit hole with all the technology, into the footnotes about that, because I love it so much, so the struggle is two-pronged to get it written. But I hope to have it published before the election, with the others to follow soon after.
I *hope* it will be cathartic to readers. I hope they’ll find it compelling. That’s always rewarding. But if I only wanted readers, I’d be writing that light, sexy romance I write under a penname–but she’s on hold while I attend to this. Because it has to be done RIGHT NOW. It’s documentation of sorts, of what it’s like to be living through this, timestamped before we knew how it would end.
Anyway, thanks for your thoughtful post. I know so many of us are struggling in so many ways right now. And sharing that with full vulnerability, right in the middle of it? That’s hopepunk as hell. :)
Hi, Susan:
I cannot tell you how gratifying the term “hope-punk” is to me. And your definition is a wake-up slap upside the head. I love the earnestness of your commitment, the sense of urgency–and boy do I understand those ensnaring footnotes. Gotta do the research, though, because you have to earn your right to authority over the material. But what readers always remember are the characters. So go get ’em. Thanks for the call to the ramparts.
Thanks for your post, David.
I’m waiting to hear back from my agent on a near-future manuscript (currently in the 2nd round of revisions). I was worried that no one would be interested for the same reasons you have, but I’ve gained more confidence since. To answer Barry’s question, I read and write about futures that have gone wrong in the hope that they won’t. That thinking about the ramifications of our current actions can keep us away from a dystopia as a sort of guide. The scenario I came up with stems from an executive order signed in February 2019 that authorizes most U.S. Government agencies to start implementing Artificial Intelligence, but in my opinion has not done enough to ensure our civil liberties. There’s many implications but I focused on justice. The story question that I put forward is what would our justice system look like if we start using AI to verify video evidence in criminal trials. I feel that’s still an important question to ask even with the election, the demonstrations, and telling my kids to pack bags because we can’t see 1/8th of a mile in any direction because of the wildfire smoke here in Oregon.
Hi, James:
My wife just came in and remarked on the spreading fires and wide-scale evacuations up your way. We’ve been dealing with that for a couple weeks now, but your situation seems particularly dire. Stay safe.
AI is one of those things that can’t help but scare the bejeebers out of any thinking person. I just forwareded a piece about AI in foreign intelligence basically combatting opponents’ AI. My cyber-criume sidekick told me that the problem with such scenarios is that the initial input and end user are always human, making the robots-take-over-the-world scenario intriguing but unlikely.
That said, AI to “verify” evidence is chilling enough. You’ve heard of prescriptive policing, I’m sure. Gee, how could that go wrong?
Good luck with the book. And, again, best wishes for you and your family’s safety.
Thanks for the warm wishes, David.
One thing I think about when discussing AI as a direct threat to humanity is that Artificial Intelligence as a society will develop in an opposite way to ours. In real simple terms, human civilization moves from resources to stimuli. Our basic needs come first and after that is taken care of we look to bettering ourselves. An AI civilization will begin with stimuli (information), and once that basic need is satisfied there’ll be a push for more resources. That’s why I think the danger between the two groups is low. The critical point where conflict might arise may well be a microsecond since the driving force in both groups will be going in opposite directions. But that’s just my theory.
David, as a dystopian novelist, I’ll struggle to limit my comments among the many that surface.
Some say such writing is with cautionary intent. In my first novel (also vetted and cheered by the afore-mentioned Zoe Quinton) I adhered closely to science and media narratives to bring the near-future time frame into sync with our current day, meaning providing a through-line. I spent two years on that research alone, absorbing our culture. Set in the 2054, the story provides a little less space for the reader to sit back and reflect on the wild differences. I intended to have her chew on images closer to the ones we deal with now. And for ‘cautionary’ I would substitute the phrase, wake-up call.
You say in apocalyptic times, rule making goes to the wealthy and well-armed…. if I may, that differs from our current times exactly how? [And as my daughter lives in Colombia, I have visited there many times. Your lumping that country into modern day dystopia is out of date. There is great work being done there. Perhaps some of our dystopian characters could learn by visiting.]
As for the moral dilemmas the protagonists face with violence, I made my main one a pacifist whose defense against violence is to threaten no one. He is a healer…on a dangerous mission. He forces his traveling band to live without guns. Twenty-five years into the collapse, he realizes they provide very little protection and ramp any scene into great risk where morality is abandoned and death is random. And since death is closer to everyones’ experience than ours today, he becomes willing to die unjustly rather than to kill (a spiritual view.) This is partly in result to all of the lead characters having killed to stay alive in the early days of the collapse. Which torments them all. So they see and work towards a future that has a fundamental break from violence. And that drives the hope aspect of the story.
Though the philosophical and cultural issues loom large, the characters mostly ignore them, (guns being the exception) because they are irrelevant to the daily struggles of my travelers. I intended this to put a little onus on the readers to ponder why the characters think and do what they do, and why they don’t, to seduce them into the characters’ mindset. This novel is set to be published this fall.
I could go on. If you have gotten this far, I award you another star to your stellar post.
Hi, Tom:
I love the idea of a roving band of pacifists in the hellscape. Can’t wait to read it.
Sorry if I offended you with the Colombia comment, and I certainly meant no disrespect to your daughter or anyone else doing hard work on behalf of the people of Colombia. I’m sure there is much good taking place there. But there are also things like this (from Foreign Policy):
Rights groups warn that armed groups including the ELN are using the pandemic to expand their control, threatening those who break the curfew with punishments and even death. In June, an urban criminal group that dubbed itself the Organization of Mexico released a flyer in Quibdó, Chocó department, offering to work with the local government to implement the curfew. The action was rejected by local authorities, but the group offered to contribute a fleet of 24 motorcycles to patrol the city to enforce the lockdown. “We won’t respect their lives, as they don’t respect those of our fellow countrymen with their actions,” the flyer said, suggesting those who violated the curfew would be killed.
Residents of the western department of Chocó are particularly vulnerable to displacement by armed groups. Deserted jungles and a network of rivers running to the Pacific Ocean make it a profitable region for illegal trades such as mining and drug trafficking, and a hotbed of conflict between armed groups including the ELN and the Gaitanista Self-Defence Forces of Colombia.
Darwin Lozano, a community leader in Quibdó, has documented violence in the city for the past four years. Between January and mid-July, violence by criminal bands caused 88 deaths in Quibdó, according to Lozano. People have normalized the violence by saying that “if you get plomo [lead bullets], it is because you deserve it,” he said. But many victims are simply caught in the middle of the conflict. In June, videos posted to social media attributed to the Organization of Mexico showed gang members beating residents with whips and sticks in Quibdó for breaking the curfew.
The statements by armed groups apparently siding with the government and threatening to enforce the curfew not only intimidate residents, but also compromise the credibility of the authorities. “They are trying to supplant the authorities,” said Col. Henry Galán of the Chocó police department. The police have asked for the cooperation of the community in informing the local authorities of the incidents, but residents fear reprisal, according to Lozano. “There is no confidence in the police,” he said.
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I also get the InSight Crime newsletter and it reports much the same problem throughout the region, and have contacts at SOUTHCOM. I’m sure there are places where hope exists and people are solidifying humanitarian gains–especially in Colombia, which has some beautiful cities, is reasonably prosperous, and a has a vibrant culture. But the pandemic has created opportunities for armed groups to increase their control in remote regions. That’s not an insult. It’s just what’s happening according to people also reporting from there.
Best of luck with the book.
David, no insult taken.
Thanks for your post. I’ve had some similar fears. I have a YA dystopian sci fi that comes out next month about a society where everyone has tracking chips in the heads and the government monitors everything everyone does and says. And you see where I’m going with this being just half a step ahead of covid tracer tracking on cell phones and where is the privacy line and when i saw all this coming to fruition I was sitting there thinking I wrote this book cause it was a world I never wanted to see and now… And I worries if people would want to read that story when they were practically living it, but I’ve seen something interesting in the reading community. Some people say I want an escape and wont read that kind of fiction, but still others it’s like I got a taste and I want MORE. So there audience is there, the stories are valid and they’re still commentaries on society and where things may or may not be headed. Honestly if my book makes 1 person think then I’ve done my job as an author. And it’s more about the stories we want to tell as a writer. And if we poor our heart and soul into the writing then it will resonate with readers. I think the world in general is making us question EVERY SINGLE aspect of life so why should our writing be excluded from that? But we have to take deep breaths and be kind to ourselves. These stories matter. They’re important. And that’s the bottom line.
Well said, Jamie, on all points. Yeah, patient tracking, it has such a benevolent purpose to it, who can say no? (Shivers…)
Best of luck with the book.
David, I’m so sorry about these dark dreams of yours. The writing is a solace (I’ll say no more because I like to save the energy for the book) but more than anything faith. I think on a personal and national level we must repent of our sins and return to our Lord with our whole hearts. Only God can save us, not men or their schemes.
I once lived in a town where it was illegal to dance in public. An old Quaker law from back in the day not erased from the Town Rules Book. Recently, I read this quote on on a whimsical tea tin.:”Don’t wait for the storm to pass, dance in the rain.” And I thought it would make a great story if the tea factory that printed that quote on their product was situated in the very same town where it’s against the law to dance. You’re right about sidelines. There aren’t any. And there never were. It’s the same for safety nets. Sidelines and safety nets are illusions. It’s just that the illusion isn’t as powerful as it once was for a lot of us. There IS no going back, all we have is this minute to feel our way forward and take our best aim. Maybe that’s what it’s all about, what it’s always been about, choosing our aim. Maybe that’s the only choice we’ve ever had.
Hi, Bernadette:
They say that nothing focuses the mind like one’s mortality, and I think the general awareness that things could get ugly is focusing a lot of minds right now. And that’s as it should be. Feeling one’s way forward in the dark can be terrifying–and yet, as you say, it’s unavoidable. So we pluck up our courage, take stock of what we value, and “choose our aim.” Well said.
Thanks for reading and commenting. Hope you and your loved ones are safe and healthy.
I’ve been contemplating dystopia for a long time as a science fiction and fantasy writer. Back in the 90s I wrote out scenarios based on the differing outcomes of the 1992 election which became the foundation of my Netwalk Sequence series. I published that series starting in 2010. It postulated a lot more political upheaval by 2070 (as in several different government entities in North America) than my current series, THE MARTINIERE LEGACY, which I’m wrapping up and releasing this fall.
I’m also old enough to have grown up reading post-nuclear war novels. All had a similar theme of the protagonist (usually male) finding redemption through survival, to the point where it’s kinda survivalist porn. As a result of that background, I’m not real inclined to dabble much into writing about the societal breakdown and collapse. I don’t like to read about the collapse any more (well, perhaps Octavia Butler, but she also writes about hope) but prefer to focus on the process of recovering stability in the face of adversity both in reading and writing.
Bad stuff happens before 2059 in THE MARTINIERE LEGACY. But part of the Legacy is about the process of survival and building a reasonable future.
Perhaps it’s because I’m older and have been living with a sense and awareness of impending trouble and doom since the 90s, but I’ve decided to go back to the notion that writing about rebuilding and going on without degenerating into absolute chaos is more productive than dwelling on the chaos. Quieting down the adrenaline and the amygdala, basically.
And despite the fact that I am watching the land of my childhood and youth go up in the Western Oregon wildfires, I have hope. Yeah, there’s the architects of chaos going on right now and trying to instigate trouble–QAnon is just the biggest. But on the flip side, I’m seeing more and more reactions which give me hope.
Thanks for the a lovely response, Joyce. Rebuilding–an excellent thing to focus on. My main character is immortal–he lives, dies, returns throughout the milennia–and so has both a sense of the immanent demise of a culture and its eventual transformation into something else. He’s neither overly hopeful nor devoutly cynical.
I’m so sorry about Oregon. The whole west appears to be a tinderbox right now–unless it’s already engulfed in flames. Maybe, there too, we should soon focus on the rebuilding–with a better eye to the climate to come.
Thanks so much for joining the conversation.