The Librarian's Forbidden Books
Envision a society where everyone's career path is chosen for them at birth based on genetic testing and profiling. The protagonist, destined to be a librarian, stumbles upon forbidden, ancient texts that hint at a past world vastly different from their strict, utilitarian society. As they dig deeper, they uncover a hidden network of rebels fighting to bring back free will.
Suggested length: A short story: 1,500 to 5,000 words, or flash fiction under 1,000
Start the clock
Pick a sprint, press start and keep going until it stops. Momentum beats polish on a first draft.
Make it yours
Three ways to take this prompt somewhere nobody else will.
- Make the person helping your hero the one to worry about.
- End a scene on a phone call, a knock or a name.
- Let the reader know something the hero doesn't.
Writing dystopian fiction
A society gone wrong, and the one person who sees it.
Dystopian fiction imagines a future (or alternate present) where society has failed: surveillance states, ruined planets, systems that crush the people inside them. It's usually a warning. The hero's choice is whether to survive the system or fight it.
What readers expect
- A society with a dark logic
- Control, scarcity or surveillance
- A hero who starts to question it
- A warning about today
A tip before you start
Build your world from one fear of today, pushed too far. The more recognizable the root, the colder the chill.
More Dystopian prompts
- Breaking the Birth AlgorithmIn a society where every citizen's role is determined by a state-run algorithm at birth, your protagonist discovers they can manipulate the system.…
- The Drone's Secret FootageThe world is divided into zones based on socioeconomic status, heavily surveilled and controlled by drones. One day, your character, a drone…
- Twenty-Four Hours of FreedomIn a future dystopian city, all citizens wear devices that dictate the path of their lives, from careers to whom they marry, designed to maintain…
- The Missing MemoriesIn a future where memories can be digitally stored and stolen, your protagonist wakes up one day with a critical gap in their memory and a mysterious…
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