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Sharing our difficulties with full vulnerability, right here in the middle of it? That's HopePunk as hell.
I always enjoy connecting with other authors, especially geeking out about craft and storytelling, but this exchange with David had a deeper level to it—we were storytellers, grappling with how to tell stories in a time of turmoil. Not just what readers expect or respond to, but what we're compelled to write. He was coming from the darker side, wondering how to reframe his story to bring hope to his readers. I'd already tossed aside the idea of writing dark (sorry, Debt Collector), focusing instead on reframing the question: how do you write the future you want to see while staying real about the persistent challenges to getting there?
David's response ("I'm in") is exactly what I hope readers will say.
It was a meta-moment.
Most stories have a thread of hope through them. Story structure is almost defined by the triumph of characters over some form of darkness. So, what makes a dystopia different from HopePunk? Many things (and I'm not a genre purist by any means), but the key, I think, is the purpose of violence in the story.
Dystopias are set in a cautionary-tale world gone terribly wrong. Characters are making the best of terrible circumstances, often having to make morally-compromised choices and dealing with the emotional fall-out from that. It's compelling storytelling. It's also, often, predicated on a world where some kind of violence is the organizing principle. It's a given that tributes will be selected for the Hunger Games. Katniss kills because she has to, although at a certain point (spoilers), she refuses to play the game. Violence, even in rebelling against it, is still the fundamental principle by which the world is organized. It is normalized, even if individual characters chose to fight that system.
Some would say that's just "the real world"—as if the "natural" state of humanity is violence. And while it's obviously true that violence exists, I submit it's equally obvious that violence is the aberration. The "natural" state is love, families caring for each other, friends watching out for one another, communities cooperating to build roads and schools, states working to protect common lands and care for the displaced, and finally nations working toward a common purpose, a national pride rooted in common culture and history.
Violence is an aberration that has to be dealt with, but if it were the norm, humanity could not have possibly cured polio much less gone to the moon. Hell, we couldn't even cross the street without vast amounts of cooperation built into every step.
Violence as an organizational principal is a skew on the real world.
Of course, all kinds of violence exist in the world, perpetually. Sexual abuse, domestic abuse, racial terror—all of these are real and ongoing. Violence can also be institutional and well-organized. This is still an aberration, rather than fundamental. The darker side of humanity undoubtedly exists and in some places, times, and ways, flourishes.
HopePunk says OH HELL NO to that, chooses radical compassion as the answer, and understands that the battle against that darker side never ends. But it does not accept violence as the inevitable, natural order. Does that mean that HopePunk is utopian (the apparent "opposite" of dystopian)? No. The battle is ongoing and often very grim. But...
HopePunk emphatically states that cooperation is the "natural" state of the social animal that is humanity. And further, that we can choose radical compassion as a solution in the fight against our darker angels.
HopePunk questions the premise. It reframes the question.
When You Had Power (Nothing is Promised 1) (tentative title)
My story is set in 2050, in a world beset with wave after wave of plagues rising out of the melted permafrost and the mingling of animal and human climate refugees. Not exactly sunshine and rainbows. My main character is a power engineer trying to find a family but discovering a mystery instead. There’s gaslighting and green tech and a whole lot of AI, but it’s mostly about persistence and kindness—how we choose the world we want to live in. It’s infused with all the things I’m feeling right now, living in this moment, which is why I feel the compulsion to write it even if that’s a struggle. In fact, precisely because it's a struggle.
Writing HopePunk in the world right now is HopePunk as hell.
I'm making good progress on the book. More details to come! For now...
Peace and Love and Nightmare-Free Nights,
Sue
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