To ore dystopia or to not pre dystopia that is the question.

[Brian Scott Allen]

So I have a story nugget. There are two ways I can take this story nugget. On the one hand I can make it a standard legal thriller. On the other, I can make it a legal thriller about the lead up to a totalitarian regime.
The story idea centers around the US government using genetic databases from private companies, like ancestry.com, and using it to wrongfully accuse people. FOr the standard legal thriller, it'd be a mere case of over zealous policing and mistaken identity. FOr the pre dystopia, it would have the mistaken identity but also a deliberate plot to remove the right to due process and set up a totalitarian regime.

so, what would you chose and why?

 

[pmmg]

You know, I had a similar thought. My brother recently did the ancestry.com thing and I thought, wow, how long till everyones DNA is on file and the government takes it over.

I like the first one. Legal thriller garnered more interest from me. Plus, totalitarian governments seem like low hanging fruit.

 

[Brian Scott Allen]

You know, I had a similar thought. My brother recently did the ancestry.com thing and I thought, wow, how long till everyones DNA is on file and the government takes it over.

I like the first one. Legal thriller garnered more interest from me. Plus, totalitarian governments seem like low hanging fruit.

The future is now.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wi...urns-innocent-people-into-crime-suspects/amp/

 

[pmmg]

Great

Though, I think he is the one that really ought to be worried

 

[Heliotrope]

Read "the bar code tattoo".... it might give you some ideas or some direction.

The Bar Code Tattoo: Amazon.ca: Suzanne Weyn: Books

 

[Penpilot]

The first seems like it'd be a simpler and more straightforward story to tell. The second, I think, would require more world building and set up.

Personally, to help me decide, I'd try doing an rough outline for each to see where it would go and if there's more to the story than what I had envisioned. Because I see potential in both, and for me, which I'd write would depend on my mood and what type of story I felt like writing.

Why not write both? Make them a duology and have the first story lead into the next.

 

[RedAngel]

My .02cp is that both would make interesting stories. You should consider writing both.

 

[evolution_rex]

It's so close to reality that it might as well be set in current world. Making it a complicated issue of corrupt police, mistakes, and political agendas would make it even closer to reality.

 

[Russ]

I like the movement towards dystopia approach. I like higher concept where more is at stake, and the current political environment is getting people thinking about these issues if you can get it written fast enough.

And from a venal perspective straight legal thrillers are moderately cold while dystopian fiction is quite hot.

 

[Butterfly]

You could even go a step further.

Take the example of a man who was stopped for a minor traffic offence, and his DNA was taken, it led to the police finding a murderer. His DNA was very similar to one that was harvested at the murder, and was never caught, and the DNA from the murder unmatched to a suspect. It meant the police could then investigate other members of his family. The DNA from the crime was the DNA of his father. The police only found him through his son's DNA.

Could also lead to ... Justice never forgets ... Perhaps in your dystopian thriller, the children of uncaptured or previously unknown criminals can now be prosecuted through their DNA link for crimes their parents had committed in the past.

 

[CupofJoe]

Back in the 70s or 80s I remember reading a story called Computer don't argue by Gordon R Dickson.
You never know where Big Data and accidents will take you...

 

[FifthView]

For me, one leads into the next; or, part and parcel.

Even if you wrote the legal thriller, you could easily imply it's an indicator that dystopia might be around the corner.

The difference is in plotting and how much you want to show the story from the "on the ground" perspective vs the more holistic perspective. Plus, if you are writing the strict legal thriller, you don't absolutely need to draw the world as proto-dystopian—although I think it'd be more powerful if you did.

Personally, I'm very tired of the dystopia trope. Seems far too easy. This is basically the MCU approach to plotting: whole world is at stake, omg! But the on-the-ground Marvel-Netflix approach is still interesting. As a metaphor.

Plus, there's something about the trope of dystopia—as it's often drawn—that always strikes me as being unrealistic, an exaggeration. For writing a polemic, parable or allegory, it can work. But I'm not often swayed by the heavy handed approach.

That said, having an indistinct, looming, potentially-dark world somewhere up ahead is a lot creepier, and delivering the parable with more subtlety can work wonders for me. So if it were me, I'd probably write the standard legal thriller while suggesting that a dark road might lie ahead.