How to Write the Next Hit Dystopian YA Trilogy

Last month, I shared tongue-in-cheek guidance for how to write the next hit YA novel. In that post, I said that I would write a follow-up post about fantasy and dystopia, two major genres that have received a surge of attention in recent years. My plans have changed, because I have too much to say and cannot combine the two genres into one post; another will follow in a few weeks to deal with fantasy and go into greater detail about how fictional romances should operate.

It will be hard to live up to the first post, which was so well-received, but my hope is to be similarly entertaining, and if nothing else, I will have demonstrated that sequels rarely live up to the originals: a grim reminder that if you want to make a lot of money, you had better get your readers hooked. Make sure they are so involved in the story and characters that even when your quality devolves, they keep plunking down their hard-earned money to find out what happens next.

To write a successful dystopian series, you need one totalitarian government, two love interests, three books, and a four-film movie deal – because even though the last book will be roughly the same length as the others, breaking it up into two movies will extend the hype and make more money. Here is how to write the next big bestseller.

Plot: A totalitarian government controls its citizens with an iron fist, and except for the privileged few collaborators, everyone lives in poverty and fear. Whenever any band of renegades tries to fight back, the citizens are punished so horribly that no one will think of instigating an uprising... until your main character and her compatriots come along. They are brave, courageous, a little bit stupid, and proud of it. They will fight back against the tyrannical government leader regardless of the cost to themselves, and if you want your book to be adequately gritty, your characters should suffer horrible wounds and end up so shell-shocked and psychologically scarred that they can't deal with life. Or they can die. Death is good too.

      If you would prefer a different focus, you can write a science fiction dystopian story where the world is facing natural disasters. Futuristic technology is not enough to save the world, and often, the planet might be in crisis because of that technology. What the world needs is a group of teens to come save it by fighting back against the inevitably corrupt government as they seek to save the planet from any natural disaster you choose.

No matter what the situation, one thing is for certain: your main characters are Special. Perhaps they have special powers that the government tries to exploit, or maybe the teens are ordinary until they find out a horrible secret and fight back against the corrupt system. The horrible secret could be about the characters themselves: they might be mutants, or aliens, or clones about to have their organs harvested. Or perhaps the secret is about the government, and the characters discover diabolical plans and some horrible truth about the past. To the average citizen, the government may appear as a Good and Helpful Regulator of Order, but your main character is Special and thus can See Them for Who They Really Are.

      Stick with these clearly defined tropes, but be careful not to write anything too recognizable; if you have the government put teenagers into a ring to fight to the death, you're plagiarizing Hunger Games. You need enough apparent originality to get published, so stick with the less specific: your characters have special powers, or they are put in such dire circumstances that their inherent Specialness reveals itself.

Setting:  The setting should be both decadent and falling apart, clean and filthy, technologically advanced and primal. The world should be both opulent and ostentatious, as well as utilitarian and sterile. The characters probably live in the ruins of what was once America, but only a portion of the land is inhabitable, and the over-crowded cities are full of concrete, asphalt, steel towers, and shack-like hovels. Everyone has clean, running water and never has to worry about garbage despite the degeneration of the city and complete apparent absence of public works.

      Outside of the cities, there are poverty-stricken villages where your characters and their families live starving. Beyond that, untamed wilderness spreads out into seeming infinity. When your characters need to flee, there should be lots of woods and wilderness for them to hide in, but don't worry about researching real hunting or survival techniques: none of your readers will notice if your characters are foraging for out-of-season berries, so you can make things up as you go along and not worry about consistency or realism.

In almost all dystopian worlds, there is no God. Nobody ever talks about him, not even to take his name in vain, and humanity is completely alone in the universe. Often, religion does not even get mentioned as a historical construct, and even though you may include characters with different skin colors, ethnic cultures and religions have disappeared. Faith in a higher being is absent from the world, and this may explain why society is so hopelessly depraved.

Characters: The leaders are 100% corrupt, and your characters swing wildly back and forth between good and evil as the mood strikes. Make sure your story stays gritty: no main character can be a pure hero, and the only inherently good character is the innocent little sibling your character is fighting for.

      Main character: The lead is almost always a girl, and almost always has brown hair. She is suspicious, resentful, and bitter about all authority figures, lashes out at anyone who tells her what to do, and is somehow endearing because she is so prickly and fiercely independent. Some guy friend has been secretly in love with her for years, because he can see How Strong She Really Is.

      Supporting characters: Every person in your book should have a single defining characteristic. There is no room for complexity or detail, so just round up a dozen or so supporting characters and give each of them a single trait. Someone is the technologically gifted one, another is the sarcastic one, some girl is the sexy one (blond, tall, and skinny), and somebody else is the rude and brash one who is mean to everybody. Once the story gets going, your main character will meet a lot of people simultaneously, and if you give each supporting character a single defining attribute, the reader will be able to keep track of them all. It works well for you as the author, too: as long as you stay consistent with that one personality trait, your character can take any role to serve the plot without their behavior appearing as uncharacteristic. 

      To create emotionally manipulative climaxes, throw random underdeveloped characters into your story and kill them off in battle just chapters after your protagonist gets emotionally attached. Let your main character seethe against the government and corrupt order of things, because even though she did not know the person well, somehow their sudden death was more agonizing than her closer friends getting killed. She angsts over the waste of life and futility of it all, and should be bitter about these minor character's deaths for approximately two to three times as long as she knew them. In some cases, she may be so fixated on the death of this near-stranger that she holds them up as her motivation for fighting back against the wretched government.

      Evil despot: Whether male or female, the corrupt leader is extremely creepy, merciless, and completely evil. This character should have no redeeming factor or sense of realism.

      Parents: Very few characters are permitted to have an intact family; usually, at least one of the parents is dead and the other is incapacitated in some way. In every story like this, at least one character has a parent they think is dead, but who actually faked their death and is leading a revolution. This creates a lot of great angst opportunities, since when the child learns the truth, they feel rejected and abandoned.

      Siblings: Your characters are almost always the oldest in their family and feel a strong sense of responsibility for their younger siblings, little angels who are some of the few pure things in a depraved and twisted world. Your characters will go to the ends of the earth to save and protect their family, and if you want lots of drama, arbitrarily kill off a younger sibling in the third book.

      Love interests: Unless you are Veronica Roth, you are required to write a love triangle. There is no other option. The two love interests are generally opposites, and the female character is greatly distracted by her warring affections for these two very different individuals. (To make sure that your clueless readers are fully aware that these boys are opposites, give one blond hair and the other dark.) As you write about your character bouncing back and forth between the two boys and forever changing her mind, you are building romantic tension without having to work for it or do anything creative; your readers will be rabidly curious about the girl's romantic future, and as long as you can keep them wondering which boy she will end up with, you do not have to develop real chemistry or a meaningful relationship.

Themes: The main themes of dystopian trilogies include growing up, finding personal identity, being Different, falling in love despite the horrors of the world, facing depravity and hopelessness, wondering if morality even exists, and fighting back against a corrupt government. Depression, survivor's guilt, and psychological disorders should also play a major part of your character arc.

Stylistic choices: Write in first person. Use present tense. Write short, jerky sentences. Fragments. Throw in random unrelated thoughts. All dialogue should be short and snappy, unless someone is suddenly pontificating about morality or the meaning of the universe, in which case they are allowed to become uncharacteristically eloquent.

Remember, just because you're writing in first person does not mean you cannot include other perspectives. You can change viewpoint characters at the beginning of a chapter, as long as you include that character's name at the chapter heading. Don't underestimate the ability of a reader to keep track of multiple first person voices who all tell the story in the same way.

      Endings: Happy endings are banned. The third book must be sad. Even if there are tinges of hope and happiness, you cannot neatly resolve all conflicts or set your characters on the path to an enjoyable life. They must suffer. Ruthlessly kill off minor characters, choose a few major ones to ax, leave significant conflicts unresolved, and dangle out just a little bit of sappy hope. At the last page, your readers should feel torn between bittersweet crying and wanting to chuck the book across the room. The more explosive and controversial your ending is, the more people will hear about and pursue your series. Keep this in mind: the more hearts you break, the more money you make.