Do you want to write a dystopian novel?
Great!
By following my expert advice you too can usher in a gritty dark future of unending human horror and suffering!
It's that easy! Let's get started!
So the first thing any dystopia needs is an evil oppressive government.
Real world dictatorships come about as a result of a lot of different socio-economic factors, but no one has time time for that pesky 'research' thing so just say that some vague past disaster made everything terrible!
Hate a particular ideology? Make a straw-man version of it and blow it way out of proportion! Genius! I bet no one has thought of that before!
Need inspiration? Why bother reading a history book about real fascist regimes when we can just model our dystopian society after high school.
Actually, why even waste time with that? Is building a believable and convincing setting really necessary? Of course not! That's time better spent on setting up a love triangle for the protagonist.
So now we have an evil government without any logical reason for existing and a setting completely lacking in detail, but we are not done yet. Now we need some villains.
Don't worry. Villains are easy so long as we don’t waste time characterizing them!
Short on time? Use a classic evil dystopian overlord. Remember to make him vague and mysterious to avoid actually having to flesh out his character.
Be sure to give him a highly trained, but strangely incompetent elite military police force that constantly fails to capture a bunch of plucky teenagers.
Speaking of villains, make sure all of the smart people are evil. We want to teach future generations the dangers of science, intellectualism, and free thought.
We don't want our dystopian novel to actually be about thinking for yourself after all. That would be double plus ungood.
Now that we have our villains we need our protagonist.
We could have our protagonist be an ordinary person whose chooses to rebel against an oppressive system they had previously been complacent in, proving that even average people can change a corrupt world, but that would be stupid!
No. We need our protagonist to be a teenage girl who is a 'special snowflake'.
Don't actually make her pretty though. Describe her as 'ordinary' in appearance while every attractive male character falls madly in love with her at first sight.
Never actually have her work for anything. Make sure she effortlessly succeeds at whatever she tries with only minimal training.
Are there any adults around? If they are then make sure they are completely useless or even actively working against the protagonist.
If the protagonist has parents, make sure they too are worthless or dead. We can't have reasonable people resolving our plot after all.
Speaking of plot, many would assume that dystopia fiction is a cautionary tale about failed societies and a grim commentary on the human condition, but that is completely wrong.
Dystopia is all about love triangles! Make sure the protagonist has to choose between not one, but two hunky guys. Oh the drama! How cruel is fate when one must choose between two awesome things! What a harsh world our protagonist must endure.
But hang in there. We are almost done!
Although the love triangle will take up most of the plot, some time must be spent sorting out that whole evil dystopian government thing.
Naturally, our protagonist will be the one who leads the charge.
Even though the dystopian government has legions of professional soldiers, absolute control over all of its citizens, and a willingness to do anything to achieve victory, they will prove completely ineffective at stopping a single teenager.
Once the dystopia is toppled and its citizens freed make sure to spend the remaining time detailing the conclusion protagonist's love life and not on the huge power vacuum and rebel infighting that would surely occur after the fall of a central political system.
After all, classic dystopia novels are known for their happy endings.
Now we have everything we need to make an awesome romance... I mean dystopian story.
Good luck, and may the words ever be in your favor while you create a brave new world.
Well... at least until the government decides to burn all the books. But that's okay. You will probably get a movie deal before that.