Melanie Tays

Author of young adult novels

Melanie Tays

How to say “I love you” in a Dystopia

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Dystopian Novel Inspired Valentine Cards

Most dystopian novels have an element of romance in them. So with Valentine’s Day fast approaching, I thought it would be fun to consider what declarations of love these worlds can inspire.

Here are eight ways to say “I love you” based on popular young adult dystopian novels. Whether you’re looking for the perfect way to touch your crush’s heart or just need a good laugh, here you go:

  • You make me believe love isn’t a disease – Delirium by Lauren Oliver
  • I’ll brave the Ash for you! – Wall of Fire by Melanie Tays
  • I would stay ugly for you – Uglies by Scott Westerfeld
  • I don’t really think you’re a mutt – Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
  • Do I have the Flare, or am I just crazy about you? – The Maze Runner by James Dashner
  • I’ll defy the sorting algorithms for you – Matched by Ally Condie
  • You make my cyborg circuits buzz – Cinder by Marissa Meyer
  • You rule my heart – The Selection by Kiera Cass

The Book That Started It All

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I consider myself an avid reader, but I don’t always have a book I’m reading. I guess I could best describe myself as a yo-yo reader (It’s like a yo-yo dieter, but just with books instead of food). I’ll read twelve books in two months, and then nothing for the next three. But even so, I read a lot and I enjoy it.

My favorite genre is young adult dystopian. That probably doesn’t surprise anyone who has read my books. The book that started it all for me was The Giver by Lois Lowery. If you’ve never read it, I highly recommend it.

I was eleven or twelve the first time I read it. It was my first introduction to the whole concept of dystopian societies, and it fascinated me. The entire idea of how humanity’s attempts to manufacture perfection brings about the exact opposite was both startling, chilling, and profound.

I feel like every dystopia I read makes me seriously think about what it means to be free, to be safe, to be good, and even to be human.

Maybe that’s why I couldn’t help writing my own YA dystopian series to examine what it really means to be human and how those characteristics are fostered, dismantlement, or regained.

What do you think the ideal society would look like? What problems would it have to overcome? What problems could it inadvertently create?

When you really start to dive into the subject, it’s like trying to unravel a knot of a thousand threads. Solving one problem just leads to new ones, and finding the “perfect” solution to all of society’s ills is a lot harrier problem than we initially imagine.

What would your dystopia look like, and how would it have come to be?

Would You Rather: Dystopian/Apocalypse Style

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Would You Rather...

Playing the classic questions game of Would You Rather takes on a whole new edge when you place it in a dystopian or apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic setting. Just for fun, here are some questions to get you thinking. Maybe it will help you determine which dystopian future you’re hoping for (or help us decide to make the choices now to avoid a dystopia at all costs).

Would You Rather…

  1. Live in a dystopian society with a tyrannical government or one with total anarchy?
  2. Be a tribute in the Hunger Games or a test subject in the Maze Runner?
  3. Have no teeth or have braces in a post-apocalyptic world with no dentists/orthodontists?
  4. Not be able to see color or not be able to feel love?
  5. Contract a deadly virus and die or contract a non-deadly virus and become a zombie?
  6. Live through an apocalypse or only ever know a post-apocalyptic world?
  7. Be the last person alive on Earth or be the only person who isn’t a zombie?
  8. Experience an apocalypse that is from natural disasters or one that is human caused?
  9. Be a slave to apes or to robots?
  10. Contract the Withers disease from Wall of Fire or the Flare from Maze Runner?
  11. Live in an alternate reality where chocolate was never discovered or where humans lost the sense of smell?
  12. Have your mind taken over by an alien or have your mind taken over by a computer program?
  13. Have your whole life videoed and broadcast to everyone without your knowledge or known that your whole life is being watched but only by government officials?
  14. Be beautiful and brainless or ugly and aware?
  15. Have only meat to eat or only beans and rice?
  16. Know that you live in a tyrannical dystopia or have your mind altered so that you were unaware?
  17. Be the poorest person in the Hunger Games Capitol or the Richest person in the districts?
  18. Be under the influence of the Mind Mist from Wall of Fire or the Pretties bubble head surgery?
  19. Have to survive based on your skill and cunning or based on pure brute strength?
  20. Live in a perfect world that is all a lie or a real world that has challenges?
  21. Be the last person on Earth or be trapped in a bunker with the most annoying person on Earth?

Can you think of more dystopia/apocalypse “Would You Rather” questions that need to be considered? Add them to the comments below to keep the fun going. (I might add some of the best ones to the post to help everyone see them.)

Quiz: Which Dystopian Hero Are You?

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Imagine you live in a dystopian novel world (it might not feel so much like fiction these days). Do you have what it takes to save the day? Take this short quiz to find out which amazing dystopian hero/heroine you are?

Wall of Fire: Behind the Scenes

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The Wall of Fire Trilogy is a unique, futurist, post-pandemic world with a varied cast of characters. But where did it all come from? I’m going to let you in on some of the origins of the story, and how it progressed from idea to published books.

For many years, it’s been my dream to create my very own dystopian series like the ones I love to read. But I also wanted my stories to be a really unique world. I mulled it over for years, but it wasn’t until August of 2018 that the seed of the idea that would eventually become Wall of Fire was finally planted and started to grow.

My husband and I had some friends over for board games, and we were listening to music while we played. I don’t remember what game we were playing, but I do remember when the song Hey Soul Sister by Train came on. Suddenly the line, “a game show love connection you can’t deny,” struck me like a ton of bricks. Even though nothing about that song seems to have anything to do with a dystopian society, that one line sparked an idea that started to rattle around in my head and wouldn’t leave me alone:

What about a society where your whole life is determined by a game— your job, who you marry, maybe even whether you live or die.

The idea was intriguing. Though variations of this idea have certainly been done before, I could see unique aspects of it that could make a truly captivating dystopian society.

I let the idea simmer and wrote copious notes and ideas over the next months trying to work it out. I had to answer questions like:

  • Why would a society adopt this system?
  • What does the world outside the society look like?
  • What do contestants risk to join, and what can they gain?
  • Is everyone on equal footing?
  • Who’s really making the decisions, and why?

Over time, the game transformed into what is now the Burning in Wall of Fire and the Safe Dome with its stratified society (Flame, Smoke, and Ash) were born.

Next, I needed characters and a plot.

I knew that Emery wouldn’t actually want to join the Burning. She doesn’t really care about the enticements. So what would lead to her entry, and how would she survive it? What challenges would she face along the way? And what does the Burning actually entail?

These are the questions I wrestled with and mulled over for the next 2 years. I actually wrote several partial and full drafts of the entire book. I estimate that by the time the 60,000 word novel was complete, I had actually written over 250,000 words in the process of trying to work out the story. In this post, I shared some of the ideas I considered, but ultimately scrapped, if you’re interested to see.

In September of 2019, my youngest daughter had started Kindergarten, and I decided I finally had the time and focus to get serious about writing. So on October 1, 2019, I started with a blank page and wrote the entire manuscript of Wall of Fire in 29 days.

In November of 2019, I edited the book and wrote Sanctuary (a companion story to the series). Preparing to publish involved professional editing, cover design, getting the book in the hands of advance readers, and setting up social media, Amazon, and Goodreads accounts, among other things.

On February 4, 2020, Wall of Fire was released on Amazon, quickly becoming a #1 New Release and bringing in many raving five-star reviews.

The Series Continues

But I couldn’t just sit back and enjoy the success. During December and early January, I wrote Scattered Ash, which was published on March 4, 2020.

Then I went straight into working on Ruins of Ember, the final book of the trilogy. Writing Ruins of Ember may have been my biggest challenge of all. Even though it took me less than two months to write (from mid-January to mid-March), it was a mental and emotional challenge I’d never experienced before.

I wasn’t going to write one of those series that opened a lot of questions and never delivered answers. All through the series, I tried to never introduce a question I didn’t have an answer to. But this was my last chance to share those answers in a way that made sense to the reader and revealed everything in a natural and logical way that was just as gripping and surprising as the first two novels. As I saw it, the third book would either make the entire series mean something, or make it all pointless. That put a lot of self-imposed pressure on me to make it good.

In early March, I was coming up on a deadline to get the book to my editor. I worked all day, every day for nearly two weeks to finish it and do my edits. With great relief, I handed the book off to my husband for beta reading and a week later to my editor.

Just as the book was going to my editor, the COVID-19 pandemic had spread to the U.S. and the lockdowns were put into place. I stood back and looked at the world in a little bit of shock. I never dreamed that as I released the final book of the Wall of Fire series—the book that explains how a pandemic completely transformed Emery’s world in terrifying ways—we would be in the midst of our own pandemic.

I’ve had readers ask me if I’ll be writing any more stories set in this world. At this point, I’m not sure. To me, Emery’s story is now complete. But I may, at some point, write the backstory of the Architect or more stories like Sanctuary, expounding on life in the varied Safe Domes. Right now, however, I make no promises.

I just hope readers will love Emery and Eason and the rest of their world as much as I do, or at least find some entertainment and enjoyment in these stories.

Wall of Fire – Scrapped Ideas and Cut Scenes

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In the two and a half years it took me to write Wall of Fire, I had a lot of ideas that never made it into the final book. Most of those, as you’ll see, were better left out. Some I still have a fondness for, but they just didn’t fit and ultimately weren’t right, so they had to go.

In this post, I’m going to let you in on some of the ideas I considered along the way (including a full deleted scene where—gasp!—Emery kissed Vander). All I ask is that you not judge me too harshly for the ideas that, in retrospect, may seem a bit silly or ridiculous at this point.

Disclaimer: I’ve tried not to put any spoilers in here, but in order to point out some of the changes I made, there are some references that may result in revealing details about the characters and plot. I recommend reading this only after you’ve read the book.

The Cover and Title

Designing a cover is one of the hardest parts of creating a book. Despite the adage urging people to not judge a book by its cover, the fact is that we all do it. Here are a few of the failed concepts we experimented with.

You might notice that one of those covers has the title Burned on it. That’s another thing I considered changing just weeks before the book was released. But in the end, I stuck with Wall of Fire, and I’m glad I did.

Other titles that I used were The Game and The Sorting, but I always knew those were just placeholder titles as I worked on the book early on.

The Burning

The idea of some sort of game that determined people’s actual life outcomes was the seed of the entire series that got me started on this journey. That quickly transformed from a game to what I called a “sorting” where people were evaluated and “sorted” into their proper places in society. Then eventually, it became the Burning as it is now.

In an earlier draft of the book, the Burning took place in a unique, hexagonal building. There was a large main hall in the center that had six rooms surrounding it. Each room led to a different “challenge”.

Contestants were assigned to six different color-coded teams (Emery and Eason were on the green team). The second floor of the building had six hallways, one for each team. The center of the second floor was opened to the main center room below on the ground floor.

On the first day, each team went through the challenge door that was located directly below their team’s hallway above. On subsequent days, they would move clockwise to the next door. As they moved around the room from door to door, it was somewhat like a clock, counting down their days in the Burning.

Their first challenge was still the maze (every door led to the maze), and several other challenges were similar to the Trials Emery faced, but there were six challenges originally, rather than the four that show up in Wall of Fire. In the challenges that did not make it to the final novel, Emery was chased through a tunnel by flames, nearly froze to death, and was “eaten” by a holographic tiger, among other things.

The City and the Wall of Fire

In earlier drafts of the book, The City was divided by a regular wall, rather than the Wall of Fire. On top of the massive wall, a train ran, carrying supplies through The City.

It was the idea for the wall made of fire that gave rise to the fire theme for the sections of The City. Originally, the Flame was the Inner Ward (which they nicknamed the “Winners Ward” because only people who won “the sorting” could live there), the Smoke was the Fringe, and the Ash was the Outliers. And the Sorting became the Burning.

The Safe Dome was an original feature of The City that carried through mostly unchanged throughout the writing process.

Emery’s Family

Originally, Emery had two siblings. Her brother, Whyle, and sister, Vie, were spunky, personality-filled kids. Whyle was more meek, Vie completely fearless. While the family was allowed to have three children, they financially suffered greatly because of this, and in the earliest drafts, this was the main concern that drove Emery to enter “The Sorting” against her family’s wishes.

In a later draft, Whyle became ill and needed surgery. In order to do the makeshift surgery in the ill-equipped Fringe (the name for the Smoke at that time), Emery joined the Sorting (i.e. Burning) in search of needed medical supplies and medications to perform the operation.

Secret Identity

In a later draft, a girl who bore an uncanny resemblance to Emery died as a result of the same illness that threatens Whyle in the final version of the novel. Suddenly, Emery saw an opportunity to join the Burning using the dead girl’s identity with a plan to return to the Smoke once she had secured the medicine she needed. When Enforcers came looking for the girl who officially entered, they would find she was already dead and Emery would be free to return to her life with her family in the Smoke. That is, if she could protect her true identity.

But it turned out that the dead girl had a criminal history that Emery was now being held accountable for. Her only way to save herself was to get Eason to talk—the one person who would be most likely to recognize her true identity.

Soon, I realized that Emery would want the chance to save the girl so I changed it so the girl was only near death and Emery could bring back medicine for her, too. It seemed like a good thing, at first, but then, you start to realize that if Emery could save her then she’s also quite selfish for stealing her identity. If she does manage to save the girl, she’s also created a lot of trouble for her with the Enforcers, most likely leading to her being sent to the Ash which is, by all accounts, a fate worse than death.

In addition, the plot element became cumbersome as it quickly took over almost every scene, overshadowing most of the other challenges Emery faced. Finally I scrapped the idea, and the novel progressed rapidly and turned out so much better for it.

The Intercuffs

The original idea for what became the intercuffs was something I named the Calyx described as follows: “The device clinging to my ear is comprised of many metallic tendrils snaking in intricate patterns from the helix at the top down to the lobe. In the bright lights, it shimmers like gold and looks like an ornament fitted to my ear.”

I thought it was a cool visual, but it was also too powerful. It connected right to the wearer’s brain and could input voice commands directly into their thoughts. It couldn’t actually read their mind, but it could detect if they were telling the truth or not. In fact, one of the cardinal rules of the society was: “If you lie, you die.” The Calyx was capable of detecting a lie and delivering punishment.

It could also hear everything, unless you happened to be near an extremely loud noise (such as on a rooftop as a train whizzes by atop a wall next to you).

While a good story always has lots of challenges for the characters, the Calyx was so powerful that it soon prevented almost anything interesting from occurring, and therefore, had to be changed. The intercuffs provided just the right balance of sinister surveillance and exploitable fallibility to do the job nicely.

Emery’s Love Interest

One of the very first ideas I had for this book, which I have to admit was hard for me to finally part ways with, was a bit of a love triangle that the “Sorting” forced Emery into. The “other guy” was Vander, but in this version he didn’t already have a girlfriend. Rather, Jessamine was in love with a guy who was cut from the story altogether, and who was constantly trying to sabotage Emery’s performance.

You can read a deleted scene from an earlier manuscript where Emery and Vander first kissed. Just remember, a lot of things about the novel changed since this was written, so don’t let that confuse you. Can you spot the differences?

Read the Emery-Vander Deleted Scene

Conclusion

In the end, I feel like the Wall of Fire Series turned out exactly how it was supposed to. It just took me a while to really get to know the world and convince the characters to let me in on their stories. But all the writing, rewriting, false-starts, and final breakthroughs were completely worth it, and I would happily do it all again to get to the finished story that Wall of Fire has become.