Too Cliche?

@esther-c I could care less what a country is based off if it’s fictional.

And I have wayyy too many love triangles and such myself. I don’t see a problem as long as it’s written well.

And YES!!! Dystopian stories need to be WAYYYY more hopeful!! The ones I’ve seen (haven’t read a lot but have seen synopses and stuff) have been somewhere between slightly depressing but nice, and hopelessly depressing.

@esther-c

Ok so idk if this will help, but here’s my two cents.

The wingfeather saga has a super cliche trope of “lost heirs of the throne.” I’m sure some older readers just groaned when they read the end of book one and realized where it was going. However, Podo’s arc was imo very unique. Artham’s arc is extremely well rounded yet different. Nia being allowed to have faults as a mother and former queen, while not being a terrible mother is a nice refresher.

So I think having one cliche aspect to a story isn’t a bad thing, it’s when the cliche elements are a focus of the story, and there are too many of them. I wouldn’t know whether those elements will work for your story unless I read it.

Also, replotting a story is really scary. I’m 46k into my first draft and just about scrapped everything for a better inciting incident. Nobody writes a good first draft (Imo), so expect to go through a few drafting processes before getting what you want. If this is the arc you really want, then you should go for it. With enough work, you might do it better than all those versions that everyone else read and was tired of.

Also my world is kinda based off of America too. I’ve tried to make it unique by making historical monuments that will be unfamiliar to the reader, meaning they happened in between now and the book, which helps it to feel like another war.

@esther-c

I think if it’s done well and needed then it’s fine having it there. Personally if someone was just going to have it there for no reason I would say get rid of it. Sometimes writers simply write something in for their own enjoyment. That’s not always good. However, if you need something for character development you should leave it in. Don’t worry about what others are saying. Your situation is different. 😉 Also, same with the other thing. Maybe you could have different rules and name it something else just to make sure it’s unique. Like you my world is very much America but it’s also very unique and different if that makes sense. Some might think it’s also a post-apocalyptic America but I tried to make it unique as much as possible.

@esther-c

As someone who is writing a dystopian novel, I would say that you should write what you feel is best.

Love triangles never get old you just have to make sure that you’re keeping the emotions and dialogue your own (If that makes sense) I honestly love, love triangles XD so I say stick with it

[quote quote=143055]And male leads? Didn’t most old dystopias have a male lead? IDK if female dystopia protagonists is a thing? The way you’re putting it, all of the problems with dystopias nowadays is they’re all trying to be Hunger Games knockoffs. And I know that had a girl lead.[/quote]

A lot of Dystopias in the ya section feel like Hunger Games knock offs is because hunger games was successful so then a bunch of publishers pushed through a bunch of similar books to try and capitalise off of the success of the hunger games. The same thing happened with Twilight and Vampire Romances a wile back.

@keilah-h

I never read twilight (not much of a romance person) but it did sell really well and the books were well received when they were released. It is true though that the success of the twilight book series led to an increase of publisher publishing vampire/supernatural romances because that after twilight released those types books sold really well as they were the trend (within the YA reader base) at the moment.