The Pill Factory Rebel
In a dystopian future where emotions are regulated by the government through daily pills, the main character, a factory worker tasked with producing these pills, accidentally becomes immune to their effects. As their full range of emotions returns, they begin to see the stark contrasts of their gray world and plot a revolution to bring color back to everyone’s lives.
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 Wrong Genetic AssignmentImagine a society where everyone is assigned a role and job at birth based on their genes. Your protagonist, who has always believed in the system…
- The Librarian's Forbidden BooksEnvision 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…
- 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…
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