I looked up the definition of dystopia. I figured if I am going to use a word, I should know what it means. Not everyone does that.

I got similar, but not identical results from dictionary.com and merriam-webster.com. The former defined the word as “a society characterized by human misery, as squalor, oppression, disease, and overcrowding,” and the latter’s definition was “an imagined world or society in which people lead wretched, dehumanized, fearful lives.”

The biggest difference between the two is the word “imagined.” By Merriam-Webster’s criteria, 1984 and Brave New World are dystopias while Nazi Germany and Khmer Rouge Cambodia are not. I like that definition better. This is not to diminish the gravity of either Hitler’s or Pol Pot’s actions. I’ll leave that to Mel Brooks and the Dead Kennedys.

Creating a dystopia certainly draws from dark chapters of human history. Where would Orwell be without Stalin? Probably knocking out more stuff like Burmese Days and Down and Out in Paris and London. Don’t get me wrong. They are both good books, but neither turned his last name into the adjective “Orwellian.”

If you look at dystopia as something that lives in the world of make-believe, it becomes a thing you can enjoy. This holds true even if it hits close to home, perhaps more so. You can watch safely from the other side of the abyss that separates real from unreal.

One appeal of a dystopian theme is that it does not need to be artfully done and can just be used as window dressing. Cheesy action movies set in the near future become more watchable when their milieu is a world gone to hell in a handbasket. Think of The Running Man, where Arnie takes on an evil gameshow host played by Richard Dawson. Without a dystopian element, the story is ludicrous. Add the police-state backdrop and it’s still ludicrous, but fun.

I like to use dystopian elements in what I write, but I do so with restraint because dystopia as the focus is such an attention whore. A friend from college wrote a dystopian novel, a good one. His worldview is a lot more conservative than mine, but it was not his politics that made it a story I would not enjoy telling. The authoritarian society got top billing, and the characters were supporting roles.

A lot of that could be seen in how the plot was laid out. Early chapters introduced us to different locations and people who are unacquainted with those in other chapters. Eventually, the story paths converge to a conclusion far bigger than any individual. I see this plotting method in a lot of novels. Stephen King’s The Stand immediately comes to mind as an example.

I am not going to criticize this approach. It is tried and true. Unfortunately, it does not work for me because I am not a big-picture kind of guy. Sure, my protagonist may live in the future where everything is fucked up, but the person is going to be driven more by self-interest than righting wrongs. To keep my interest, I need someone I can relate to. I don’t relate to heroes.

Sit down, dystopia. This isn’t about you.