One of the books I'm working on right now is a Dystopia and I'm just wondering what are some of the biggest cliches and how to really fight against those to avoid the book/story just falling into the flood of other Dystopia novels and not really getting noticed.
Love triangles, "the chosen one", social class divides, soul mates, stuff like that. Tons of it all over the internet if you look up "Dystopian cliches". It might not be useful, but I think the best thing to combat cliches is to turn them upside down and do the opposite. Hope this helps!
I agree with most of that but I feel like having class divides, though used a lot, could be something that one could make in a new way. I do totally agree with the over use of the whole "chosen one" concept in all genre's
The Chosen one thing for sure, and going off of that, the idea that the Chosen One is singlehandedly rescuing the society from oppression. Sure the good guys can win, but credit the strength of the entire movement or party, not just, like, Katniss Everdeen.
Everybody in dystopia also always seems to be super athletic, muscular, or just generally conventionally attractive so they can fight wars and stuff. Why don't we let everyone fight the government?
Also, the rebellions in dystopia are pretty much always war-based. I'm guilty of this too, but what about a rebellion based in political infiltration and negotiation? In propaganda? In art? There's so many options.