: Re: Compelling story with the world as a villain My main character is up against the world, or, rather, the world and reality are up against her. A good story is in some ways defined by its

@Speyer920

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A villain has intention -- it's out to cause some outcome, foil the main character (if it's personal), and generally advance its own agenda. The world, on the other hand, just is, barring worlds with minds and will. It sounds like you're trying to write a person-versus-nature (or society) story rather than a person-versus-person story.

Person-versus-nature/society is a fine way to structure a story, but the challenges your main character faces will be different. Rather than a villain being out to thwart him, the world is harsh and doesn't care. Whether your MC is struggling to climb the challenging mountain or survive alone on an inhospitable planet or get by in a society that has taken greed and self-centeredness to its logical conclusion, your story is about your character overcoming an environment, not a person.

How do you build it out? Think about how the world got that way, what makes it challenging to live in, and what that means for anybody trying to live in it anyway. Some time spent on thought experiments and worldbuilding before you write too much will likely pay dividends in a rich environment that you can write real struggles against.

It feels like I'm writing platitudes here, so let me illustrate with one example I recently read. Scorch by A. D. Nauman (2001) follows a main character who lives in a dystopian future where corporations run the world, ads are everywhere (and I mean everywhere, like you pay extra when buying a car to not have them on your dash), you have to work two full-time jobs to be able to afford to live in poor conditions, you better carry a personal flame-thrower when walking outside (and if you kill someone that way, meh, he deserved it), and innovative thinking is likely to get you fired, scorned, and maybe even killed. There is no actual villain here other than this broken society itself, yet the ideas in the book are engaging. (I didn't care much for the main character, but that's not because of the lack of a clear villain.) 1984 was brought up in the comments and that, too, is in this mold, though the malevolent intent of those in government is clearer there.

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