Writing My First Novel

A Little Bit About Deprivation

Deprivation is set in a futuristic city called Necroplis, which has recently run out of food due to various ecological and war-related disasters. So, the city introduces a new law allowing prisoners to be executed and turned into food for the rest of the starving population to eat. We follow one prisoner, Luke, as he desperately avoids his scheduled execution and we slowly learn secrets both about his past crimes which led to his incarceration and secrets about the city itself.

There are cyberpunk cities and apocalyptic wastelands beyond the border and readers will get to meet a very eclectic set of characters who I really grew to love while writing this book.

Where and When the Idea Originated

It was term one of grade seven of high school, on a Tuesday, if I recall correctly. There was rain. Thunder... The chatter of my peers, electrifying the cold. I was in Mr Maloni’s economics class. Sorry to name drop you, but you were a source of inspiration. He was a whimsical man... If memory serves, he always wore a red bowtie with a light-blue shirt, buttoned to the top. A full head of fluffy, cloud-like hair. 

Though memory is a fickle thing, so perhaps he was ordinary and my childish mind only imagined his theatrical, almost omniscient presence. We were learning about resource management on a global scale, and I remember Mr Maloni waving his arms either side of himself. He was distraught. Declaring that the earth was like a rocket ship and humans were the astronauts. All of us were hurtling through space with a finite amount of resources onboard, travelling into infinite nothingness. If there one day became too many astronauts, or if we weren’t careful, there might come a time when there was not enough food to go around. I started to wonder what would happen when the food ran out, what the astronauts would become. 

So Mr Maloni, wherever you are, thanks for instilling a lot of fear in my heart, because it inspired this book. I recall asking my friends if they too were worried but they’d say no, the future was their children’s problem. That made me feel much worse. I did not want to be culpable for an entire generation’s suffering. That’s a lot of pressure for a 12-year-old kid. 

Eventually, my personal anxieties manifested into this book, Deprivation, where prisoners in a futuristic city are legally executed and turned into food for the rest of the starving population to eat. A legal, cannibalist system. Despite the bleak topic, I like to think there are remnants of hope present amongst these main characters, even in the face of questionable palates and government corruption.