Dead Dystopia

While looking through my blog roll, I read a post that said dystopian, as a genre, is dead. There was some other stuff, too, but that’s obviously the part that concerns me as a writer of post-apocalyptic with shades of dystopian.

I have to admit, there has been an overabundance of works taking place in bright and shining worlds that achieve piece by exerting total control over the people. And of course there’s a rebellion, and an evil president, and a girl who accepts everything until she meets a certain boy (or sometimes vice versa).

These are just generalities. The actual books are varied and layered. And truly, you can’t go to a bookstore without tripping over a stack of dystopians. I just never thought this was a bad thing : P. But it does mean it’s a lot harder to stand out these days.

Is it the end? Far from it. A few years ago, it was contemporary YA I head that was dead, and only the freshest, best written were published. Then before that, it was Urban Fantasy that was gone, saturated with TWILIGHT knockoffs and girls with magic powers (or dating boys with magic powers). Both of these genres are still alive and kicking, so I’m thinking dystopian isn’t so much dead as it is in a recession. It’s still going to be hard to get noticed, but if you work hard, edit hard, and never give up, you still have as much a chance of getting published as anyone.

I think. And desperately hope.

Thoughts? 

Genres

A conversation with Andrew brought something to light for me: dystopian and post-apocalyptic are separate genres. Previously I took post-apocalyptic as a sub-genre of dystopian since if you look it up in the dictionary, it’s defined as “a society characterized by human misery, as squalor, oppression, disease, and overcrowding”. Post-apocalyptic societies, at least the ones I’m familiar with, generally fit the bill.

But! The literary definition of dystopian is different from the definition of the word. A literary dystopia is a place where a governing body enforces a warped idea of perfection. YA Highway had a really good post about the difference between the two.

So while I thought it was this…

It’s really more like this…

With examples! All YA of course.

I think THE HUNGER GAMES really is both—after an apocalyptic event, a dystopian society rose up. Although they don’t enforce perfection as much as they do obedience, I think it fits.

Anyway, post-apocalyptic does not equal dystopian, although I think it would make sense if it did. That is all.

Back!

Although I was never really gone, my pretties. I am, however, officially twenty five years old. As I age, I solace myself by knowing that no matter how old I get…I’ll always be five and a half years younger than my sister.

It’s important to keep things in perspective.

Anyway, in writing news: I completed the first draft of my newest WIP, a YA/Dystopian with a sci-fi bent titled GLITCH. It took a lot longer than I planned, over four months. Not the book’s fault. Crappy life stuff got in the way and there were some days I sat down in front of the computer and couldn’t hammer out gibberish. It’s tough sometimes.

But draft one is done. Now it’s time to sit back, take a writing break, and plan how I’m going to edit this thing. During previous down time, I actually made a list of things to do:

Editing

---Perfunctory read through, grammar check.

---Outline, include continuity check.

---Read aloud.

---Highlight adverbs and –ing words.

---Color partition. Check for not enough action, too much information/backstory.

---Words: there, though, although, before, after, once, at least, then, while, almost, even, what, pretty, how, just, only, probably, that, since, as, like, so, some, when, seem, been, could, would, should, I, we, ’re, n’t, ’s, ’d, ’ve, be, is, are, am, I’m, was, were, we’re, keep, kept, got, get, had, has, felt, feel, think, thought, try, tried, tries, may, might, grew, grow, look, found, find, knew, know, become, became, smell, sense, hear, come, came, go, goes, went, taste, see, saw, watch, believe

---In depth grammar check.

---Beta reads.

If there’s one thing I enjoy, it’s making lists and organizing. There’s obviously going to be more rounds of editing after the beta reads, but that’s going to depend on what I hear. It’s probably going to be a while before to those anyway : ).

Now I’m going to throw it back to you guys: how do you edit? Am I missing anything important?

Dystopianites, Unite!...s.

It bothers me that Dystopian isn’t considered its own genre in most places. If you go on AgentQuery, a favorite of mine, you see they have genres of Horror, Adventure, Thrillers/Suspense and Science Fiction…but no Dystopian or post-Apocalyptic. Military/Espionage warrants its own listing, but not Dystopian. It’s the same on QueryTracker. They don’t even have a listing for Speculative Fiction!

I feel a bit neglected. Dystopian works are pretty serious contenders these days. Yet almost anywhere you go, it doesn’t merit its own genre listing.

I know, all of these books, as well as the ones I write, can also be considered YA. But to me, YA has always been more of a secondary genre, an audience I’m trying to connect with. I write Dystopian. It just seems to come out YA. Not that there aren’t important adult Dystopians out there. But these days, YA is where most of the fire is coming from.

Fellow YA Dystopian writers, what do you think? What would you want to come first, the YA or the Dystopian (or both equally?)? And what genre do you write?

Cliff hanging

Hi all! I wanted to get this up early to be in time for Brenda Drake’s Never-ending Scene Blogfest. Go check it out because there are prizes—critiques (I swear, writers must be the only people who like winning criticisms on their works). It ends at eight a.m. EST (eight hours from when I’m posting this), so GO NOW. Don’t forget to visit the sites of the other participants. Oh, and if you would be so kind to give me your opinion, I'd be so grateful.

Anyway, part of it is to post a cliffhanger. So here, for the first time anywhere, is an excerpt from my book, A SAFE PLACE IN HELL:

Eddie shut his eyes as more sweat dripped into them. Some inner force prodded him to open it, bear the wave of heat that came out and shut it tightly behind to keep his basement at a relatively cool temperature. He raked one hand through his hair to get it off his forehead and it stuck up in stiff fingers.

Up the stairs, he quickly stepped through the garage and the workshop , hoping that by keeping up his momentum he’d keep up his confidence (ha-ha, what confidence? his mind teased). He knew it wasn’t his fault, but he blamed his dad for not being around to save him from the bad guys…uh, deal with the problem.

At the back door. Behind it were people with guns, people who thought nothing of exterminating a little pest buzzing around their find. And here was Eddie Watson with his poorly built semi-automatic rifle. He knew it wouldn’t end well, he just hoped he wouldn’t end with it.

When he tossed the door open, he was hit by a light so bright it bit into his eyes but he could make out the bastards who came onto his land to steal the plants he spent months carefully coaxing into vegetables. Maybe they weren’t Marauders after all. These men were too coordinated, almost soldierly, in their movements. One yelled something Eddie couldn’t make out and tried to jump up only to slip on his comrade’s blood.

Eddie crouched on one knee, aimed at the man sitting on his ass like a crying child, and wondered if he should let it go. Yeah, that would make a great story to tell his friends the next time they got together for target practice. They’d laugh, tell story after story of their own (likely made up) acts of heroism, and stick Eddie with all the clean up afterwards.

He fired the gun.

A red circle appeared in the man’s arm but he gave no indication of pain other than a fall backwards. Eddie didn’t recognize the ploy and the return fire missed his head by a cool inch. He was just beginning to outgrow his teenage lankiness and achieve some grace, but he still tripped as he ducked around the corner. Sounds of an engine came to his ears and he risked another look to make sure they were going. The man he just shot turned and Eddie hid behind the wall again, listening for the expected gunfire or sounds of approach.

He didn’t hear anything except a clink and a light thud. Curious temporarily blocked caution and he looked in time to see the man’s back as he tipped over to the other side of the metal fence.

Wait, what was that black rock just outside of the porch? That smooth, uniformly black rock with notches at regular intervals?

            It took him less than a second to realize it was a grenade.