The Doctor of the Poor Zone
Imagine a world divided into zones based strictly on health status, where citizens are required to undergo monthly scans and are relocated if their health deteriorates. The protagonist, a doctor in a poor zone, discovers a grim government secret about the true purpose of these health zones. With the help of a band of misfit patients, they plot to expose the truth and dismantle the system.
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
- The Forbidden SurfaceWrite a story set in a world where after a catastrophic environmental collapse, humanity has been forced underground. The society is governed harshly…
- Resistance in the Fuel CrisisAfter global fuel reserves run critically low, a new authoritarian regime rises with a promise to distribute resources fairly. When your protagonist’s…
- Dreams Beyond the BroadcastImagine a dystopian world where the government controls dreams through a mandatory nightly broadcast, designed to keep the populace compliant. One…
- The Underground LibraryIn a bleak future, literacy is illegal, and books are banned. Your protagonist inherits a secret library from their late parent, filled with forbidden…
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