: Re: what techniques or approaches can I use to explore distasteful concepts while also making them necessary? In my story democracy crumbles in a nation, replaced by a powerful dictatorship. Our world

Q. How to portray the downfall of [SYSTEM]?

A. Show it.

There are basically two steps:

first some worldbuilding
second the writing

A note on worldbuilding.

I'll just say: before even showing it, and before thinking of what could possibly replace it, you need to clarify to yourself what is the logical believable series of events that would bring an end to an otherwise existing and self-supporting [SYSTEM]. We have a great worldbuilding.SE site, which has dealt with similar questions in the past.

Writing.

Treat it like you would treat a hero's journey. The hero is the entire system, and it is about to encounter a (wanted or unwanted) call to change, and resolve it for the better or worse. The interesting fact in this case is that the measure of change is not relative to the end-point, which is revealed in the last chapters, but it is relative to the low-point of the journey, which could be an inter-phase between the two perceived stable states. The difference between the starting point and the low point is what drives your story, and what will justify the choice of the final state both in your plot and to the reader.

What to show depends on your worldbuilding.

Some notes

Tropes are always at play. It may not be your case, but depicting a romantic view of a fascist world just for the sake of it, or because it sounds cool, may be one of the shallowest tropes of these last 100 years. It should suffice to correctly portray the horror of the denial of basic rights, the diffuse violence and the murders to make any sane reader wishing to depart from such a setting. And I am not even mentioning the amount of pointless bureaucracy that you would have come across in the daily life.

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: Re: what techniques or approaches can I use to explore distasteful concepts while also making them necessary? In my story democracy crumbles in a nation, replaced by a powerful dictatorship. Our world

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