Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

An Underground World : Creative Writing In The Dystopian Genre, Mary Kathleen Brown

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Despite its importance for the creation of a compelling story, world-building is often overlooked in literary studies due to its complexity, with studies instead favoring analysis of plot, character, or situation. The dystopian genre dictates why world-building is a crucial element for fictional writing because it showcases a manipulated relationship between writer and reader. Using the overlap in possible worlds and actual worlds, this paper explores how world-building incites change in the actual world due to a reader correlating the possible world with their own. By way of example, my paper features the first three chapters of my dystopian novel, …