“But you can’t have a story where everyone is happy and everything is perfect! Stories need conflict!”
And then list a bunch of conflicts. David Mamet’s three rules are:
Who wants what from whom
What happens if they don’t get it
Why now
And all of your examples are fair places to answer these. I think we don’t actually disagree, but I’m not sure I understand the objection you’re responding to. Did someone actually say “there’s no tension without dystopia”? If they only said “dystopia is the lazy person’s generator of fictional tension”, then I kind of agree.
I’m confused. You start with
And then list a bunch of conflicts. David Mamet’s three rules are:
Who wants what from whom
What happens if they don’t get it
Why now
And all of your examples are fair places to answer these. I think we don’t actually disagree, but I’m not sure I understand the objection you’re responding to. Did someone actually say “there’s no tension without dystopia”? If they only said “dystopia is the lazy person’s generator of fictional tension”, then I kind of agree.