For my second experiment, I will be composing one chapter of a fictional dystopian novel that I may build on down the road. Since my artifact of origin focuses on the dangers of our growing national debt, this chapter will be part of a hypothetical novel (I haven’t decided on a title, but perhaps called Collapse) that explores a futuristic United States where our federal government has defaulted on its debt.

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In my story, this debt default will cause the U.S. economy to collapse and wreak great havoc on American society. The country will become dangerous and impoverished as the government becomes unable to provide for its citizens and people are forced to fight for survival. As a result, ordinary Constitutional rights will be suspended and the government will be forced to impose martial law in an attempt to keep order. State governments (like that of Michigan) will be dissolved, and the nation will be divided up into emergency response regions. (This is dystopian fiction, and all of these events are hypothetical; my second experiment is designed simply to direct people’s attention to the national debt crisis so we can avoid a devastating debt default.)

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After debating it, consulting my peers, and considering everybody’s feedback from the workshop, I decided this chapter will be written as if it is located in the middle of my dystopian novel. If I ever sat down to write the entire novel, this book would open before the catastrophe, when everything is normal and people and going about their regular lives. Soon after, however, the novel would encounter a major shift and move into the central conflict of the story that emerges after the debt default has occurred. The specific chapter I have begun writing in my sample will focus on a particular incident my characters are faced with after the crisis has set in, when society has completely collapsed. I have not made a firm decision on the length of this first chapter, but I am aiming for it to be between 2,000 and 4,000 words.

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In this chapter, I plan to have 1-2 main characters (potentially with several other minor characters). I am currently considering where this story will take place, but I feel a location everybody in our class community can relate to is right here in Ann Arbor. My main characters will likely be college students at the University of Michigan, which will allow my audience to relate quite easily to the story.

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I plan for the chapter to open up around late September 2045, several weeks after the U.S. government has defaulted on its debt. In this particular chapter, my main character(s) will confront challenges that shed light on how dangerous and terrifying the country has become (as a result of unprecedented inflation, stock market crash, high unemployment rate, etc., which will lead to violence, food shortages, etc.). Finally, I plan for this chapter to end with a cliffhanger and transition into the hypothetical next chapter.