What dystopian readers expect
Readers expect a society organised around one idea taken too far (safety, efficiency, purity, happiness, survival) and the cost of that idea made personal. The best dystopias are recognisably about something in our world, without lecturing.
They also expect the system to be smart. A regime that would collapse the first time someone asked a question isn't frightening. Decide how it controls people (surveillance, scarcity, ritual, love), what ordinary citizens gain from going along, and what the protagonist has to lose by refusing.
Length and structure
Dystopian novels commonly fall somewhere around 70,000 to 90,000 words, and YA dystopias often sit at the shorter end. The Full-length preset is a sensible default.
The usual arc runs from compliance to rebellion: the protagonist inside the system, a crack that shows its cost, a choice to look closer, contact with people who resist, a midpoint that reveals the system is worse (or stranger) than they thought, and a climax that changes the protagonist even if it doesn't change the world. Bleak endings are allowed; pointless ones aren't.
How Inkora writes dystopian fiction
Describe the society in your brief: its founding idea, how it controls people, its rituals and its vocabulary. The planner writes that into the setting, builds a cast with wants and flaws and plans a synopsis through to the ending.
Dystopias invent a lot of rules and words. The continuity pass records them as the story establishes them (curfew at 21:00, Grade Three citizens can't marry, “quieting” means a state-run memory wipe) and every later scene is written not to contradict them.
What to put in your brief
The brief is the “Your book idea & instructions” box in the new-book wizard. The more specific it is, the less generic the book. Here is an example, with the settings that go with it:
Adult dystopian novel. In a near-future Britain, every citizen's social credit is visible as a coloured band on their wrist, and the Ministry of Courtesy rewards kindness and punishes rudeness. Hana Ellis, 29, is a Courtesy Assessor who scores conversations for a living and has never been below Gold. When her father's band goes grey, which means he'll be “retired”, she starts deliberately losing points to reach the grey district and find him. Ending: she finds him and the resistance, and realises the system's cruellest trick is that everyone believes they're being kind. Unsettling, quietly satirical; first person present.
Other wizard settings
- Genre
- Dystopian
- Audience
- Adult readers of literary dystopia
- Tone
- Dark & atmospheric
- Point of view
- First person
- Length
- Full-length (60,000 words)
Example outline: The Courtesy
A brief like the one above gives a plan along these lines. You can rename, reorder, add or delete chapters before any writing starts.
- 1
Gold
Hana scores a café argument and docks a woman for raising her voice.
- 2
Father's Band
A visit home where her father's wrist has faded to grey.
- 3
Retirement
The cheerful leaflet explaining where grey citizens go.
- 4
First Offence
Hana is rude on purpose for the first time and feels the floor tilt.
- 5
Silver, Bronze
Her life shrinks with each colour: the flat, the job, the friends.
- 6
The Rude Club
A basement where people swear and insult each other as resistance.
- 7
The Grey District
Midpoint: she arrives and finds it isn't a prison but a waiting room.
- 8
Her Father
He's content there and doesn't want to be rescued.
- 9
The Assessors' Ledger
Hana learns retirement quotas are set before anyone is scored.
- 10
A Kind Word
The resistance needs her old credentials to broadcast the quotas.
- 11
Broadcast
The truth goes out and most people choose to stay polite.
- 12
Grey
Hana's band fades and she starts teaching her father to argue again.
Condensed to 12 chapters; the Full-length preset plans 20.
Common mistakes
- A regime that is cruel for no reason and would have collapsed long ago.
- Lecturing the reader about the real-world issue instead of dramatising it.
- Worldbuilding exposition in place of a story with stakes.
- A protagonist who sees through the system from page one, with nowhere to grow.
- Rules that change when the plot needs an escape.