Young Writers Society

Pleeeease comment your opinions on this novel idea below. Would you read it? Any suggestions to improve/develop it? What do you expect from it? Any feedback/thoughts at all would be very helpful ~

utopia
/juːˈtəʊpɪə/
noun
an imagined place or state of things in which everything is perfect.

dystopia
/dɪsˈtəʊpɪə/
noun
an imagined place or state in which everything is unpleasant or bad, typically a totalitarian or environmentally degraded one.




Genre: Psychological | Sci-Fi | Experimental

Premis:
G1 is the first child to be created in Iyufae Garden — a utopian civilisation believed to encompous all of existence, eternal and unending. Here, all is happy, peaceful, good, beautiful, etc. Those that inhabit Iyufae Garden are created artificially, constructed of both biological and robotic parts. G1 (an innocent yet curious girl) adapts to her new society quickly. Her programming stores all the facts/information/knowledge of her civilisation, and there is no reason for her to need anything more... until she spots something she wasn't meant to. Something other. Something evil. Something that doesn't belong to Iyufae Garden.

G1 can no longer live contently knowing that something else exists outside of her society. She follows this mysterious, foreign thing/creature — despite knowing she shouldn't. It leads her to a passageway, and from there she is confronted with a shocking truth: Iyufae Garden is merely an enclosed civilisation within a much larger, gloomy dimension spanning upwards indefinitely. In this vertical reality of ascending levels, ugly and maliscious beings dominate. All along, a darker world towered over Iyufae Garden.

G1 finds a rusted, wind-up (sentient) robot her same size abandoned outside her utopia, who tells her of its goal: to reach the uppermost level of the gloomy world. The two soon become friends. G1 decides to join the wind-up robot's quest to discover the top of the world, leaving her utopian home behind.

As the duo journey upwards into the evolving intensity of evil, G1 discovers she is gifted with a mysterious power: the power to transform into Princess Utopia.


Philosophical ideas:

• Our perceptions of good and evil are moulded by the conditioning of our society.
• Human nature inevitably seeks to experience/know more of life, even if that curiosity leads to dangerous/sinister truths outside of what is comfortable: this is the fatal flaw of all human utopias.
• The concept of "utopia" is subjective.

This sounds really interesting! So what exactly does becoming Princess Utopia entail?

Thanks, @Saen! Well to answer that would enter spoiler territory, so I'll give you two answers...

Non-spoiler:
She transforms into an alter-ego (Princess Utopia) who has the power to change the gloomy world around her. Kind of a "power for good". It's the kind of power that makes you wonder if she's The Chosen One of this world lol

Spoiler:


What makes you think it could be interesting? c:

This sounds super neat! I would definitely be interested in reading it.

Aw thanks for your comment, @SnowMonkey!

@CoffeeCat Time to make some constructive criticism!

Disclaimer:
My style of criticism usually works on analysing the potentials of things. So, how great they are, how greater they could've been, too - but it also means that I'll be using a lot of references to point out how unique something is, or how, common it is. That doesn't mean it's bad or wrong, though. Just, y'know, that it's a thing that some may or may not be used to see.

Now! On to the actual commenting.


♦First of all, I like the premis. It's Typical Artificial Being Exploring The World Around Its Coccoon (Astro Boy espcially says hello), but what's always great about this trope is the amount of ways you can turn it around to personalize it, to give it your own... brand. In this case, the opposition is like... COMPLETE, since it's literally Utopia VS Dystopia.
Oh aso, Iyufae Garden is an interesting name. From its composition, I can tell that you essentially just wanted something that sounded well with Fae (the result is very Japanese, actually), but I do hope you'll go for a defined nomenclature later on m'dear. Or, if you're going with gut feeling, do try to make sure that the sounds you're going for are those you enjoy, instead of, y'know, having something random for each new place. Unless you need to adapt it to each new Dystopia encoutered, of course! But still.

♦And here comes the Robot Companion! This time, Reg from Made in Abyss says hello, for a recent example, but eh, trope's been around since the birth of Anime, really. Now, I find kind of... very very one-sided the idea that "oh, it's terrible, outside the paradise there is ONLY EVIL, and the higher you go THE MORE EVIL IT IS". To take Made in Abyss as an example again,
What I'm trying to say is: though I'm sure you thought about it to some degree, try to find a relatable reason for the Dystopian societies to be more and more messed up the more you go up. You don't have to search for "sense", especially if this is a dream-like story. Just make sure they're not bad just for the sake of being bad - unless it's the point, and you want to challenge it (Megamind).


♦"G1 can no longer live contently knowing that something else exists outside of her society." ← Don't forget to properly show that. Clearly, G1 is going to be sucked in the world of dystopian societies to explore because she wants to see. It's super important that you make that clear.

♦"G1 discovers she is gifted with a mysterious power: the power to transform into Princess Utopia." ...Wait, you're going Magical Girl with this? That's interesting, surprising and cliché, which means that like all clichés, you can make it unique, and most importantly, you can make it yours. To inform you though: Magical Girl is an entire series of fictional creations that involve a princess/school girl-like character fighting off evil with transforming powers.


Now, for the philosophical ideas!

•I like this first one. As suspected, you're totally going to go with a "'evil' is way more than meets the eye' vibe, which should be wonderful to explore.

•"this is the fatal flaw of all human utopias." ← I especially disagree with that one, partly because of my personal history, and partly because of what history in general shows us. Traveling, being curious about what's out there isn't the problem - it's what you take from it that is, and I do hope that you'll address that. Weeeell, not that I doubt it, but just sayin'

•"The concept of "utopia" is subjective." Hah XD Yup, this answers that :3



There! These are my observations. Hope they'll be useful to you, m'dear!

Here I am at last!

I really love this idea! I love that your main character isn't quite human, and that she's going to leave her perfect world behind to go discover the true nature of the world. I think it really fits with the themes you list there.

As far as critique goes, the part that doesn't really hook me is her transforming into an alter ego Princess Utopia? It makes me think of superheroes and such, which is a really different tone from the rest of what you said - it feels like it would be a really different story. I think I just need more information on why this transformation exists and what it entails, in what way her surroundings change. Right now, it seems like it's more of a magical thing, which feels kind of odd with the way the rest of the setting is heavily sci-fi/dystopia. But depending on the tone of the story, you could make it work, particularly because it's a rather unique twist.

I'm also wondering how it fits into the themes you talked about. It seems to me that if she has this power to change the world around her to be more like a utopia, then that's on some level saying "this is what utopia looks like." Unless as her conception of utopia changes, the way her powers affect the world will also change? I think it's one of those things that if I were to start reading the story, it'd work for me, but at the moment it doesn't quite click.

Heya CoffeeCat!

This is definitely an interesting premises here. I'm not often one for utopia/dystopia related stories or themes, but I think I might be able to get into this idea? It is kinda general to me, and I can't get too much of a grasp on the plot right now, but I'm not going to lie- I like the path of discovering and utopia isn't really a utopia/is a part of something darker or more sinister.

You said that G1 is the first child created in Iyufae Garden, not born, so I'm left wondering what she is exactly. Is she a modified type of human? Is she another species? Is she a robot? That also leads me to wonder: who created her? For what purpose?

Also, is she still a child when this is taking place? You didn't mention an age progression so I'm a little curious about that.

I'm also guessing the robot had to have been programmed (unless there's some seriously high tech scifi going on here- which is totally fine and all! I'm not sure how you're planning on playing around with that, but I'd think that the creation of the robot would at least need a goal, even if it was sentient later), which begs the question who made the robot, and if "reaching the top level of the world" was its goal, was that the robot's conscious decision or was this a programming implement? Then it follows with like, why somebody would program a robot to do that. If it was the latter, of course.

Overall, it's a pretty interesting idea! I'd be curious to see where you went with it. Otherwise, good luck with your project!!

@Tortwag Thank you so much for commenting! What you suggested/observed is really helpful. Funnily enough, I haven't watched Made in Abyss yet (but I was planning to). I was slightly inspired by various psychological dystopian series (and I kinda liked the idea of contrasting dark themes with "cutesy princess magic"). I doubt I would write it in an oboviosly-Japanese-magical-girl style, so I'm not super worried about the cliché (as of now). I'll definitely keep all of your advice in mind! :3

@Mea Yay! Thanks for taking the time to critique this for me! I can't tell you how helpful you are. <3 Your perception is really good and makes a lot of sense. I'm hoping the spoiler information makes her power less tone-jolting and more story-relevant, but I'll definitely need to consider what you observed from it. I also thought that as G1's perception of utopia changes her abilities would change. Again, thank you! Let me know if you ever want feedback on anything of yours.

Aah thank you for commenting, @scribbleinks!! And thanks for the awesome questions! I'll get back to you on them when I have some more time. I love getting questions because they get me to consider everything less broadly.