creative writing school
Module 6: Worlds Beyond
structure
Introduction
Theory
Inspirations
Creative exercises
Toolbox
Stay grounded & motivated
Share your text with us
Theory
Inspirations
Creative exercises
Toolbox
Stay grounded & motivated
Share your text with us
introduction
Utopia is a mirage on the horizon, a longing for the unattainable, a blueprint for a world that does not yet exist. It is an idea that haunts political thought, literature, philosophy, and the arts: a double-edged concept that promises a radical elsewhere while often revealing the constraints of our present.
In this lesson, we will approach utopia as a practice rather than a destination, as movement rather than stasis. How do we write utopia not as an imagined perfection but as an unfolding journey? How do road movies, those wandering cinematic narratives, capture the utopian impulse through their constant displacement, their refusal of fixed endpoints?
We will explore the aesthetics of utopia through Wim Wenders’ Paris, Texas, dissect the way the road film structures desire, alienation, and escape, and develop a writing exercise that engages with movement as a way of writing towards utopia.
In this lesson, we will approach utopia as a practice rather than a destination, as movement rather than stasis. How do we write utopia not as an imagined perfection but as an unfolding journey? How do road movies, those wandering cinematic narratives, capture the utopian impulse through their constant displacement, their refusal of fixed endpoints?
We will explore the aesthetics of utopia through Wim Wenders’ Paris, Texas, dissect the way the road film structures desire, alienation, and escape, and develop a writing exercise that engages with movement as a way of writing towards utopia.
theory
Road movies and utopia share a fundamental logic: they both are always about the not yet. The road is never just about reaching a fixed goal, just as utopia is never a singular place to be inhabited; it is always in motion. Fredric Jameson, in Archaeologies of the future, argues that utopian thought is often most compelling not in its detailed blueprints but in its gestures, in the way it opens up new spaces of possibility rather than dictating a single vision of the good life. Road movies, as a genre, embody this logic: their protagonists move not towards resolution but into flux.
Jack Kerouac’s On the Road (1957), one of the most famous literary road narratives, is not about reaching a destination but about the intoxication of movement itself. The Beat generation’s rejection of fixed identity, stability, and the constraints of the post-war American dream was utopian precisely because it imagined an alternative, even if that alternative was never fully defined. Similarly, Thelma and Louise (1991) offers a radical refusal of patriarchal control, not by arriving at a new stable life but by driving off a cliff—suggesting that utopia, in some cases, is in the refusal of the present rather than the construction of the future.
Utopia, then, does not promise us comfort. It disrupts. It sets us in motion. And this movement, the endless drive towards an imagined beyond, is what we will explore in this lesson.
Jack Kerouac’s On the Road (1957), one of the most famous literary road narratives, is not about reaching a destination but about the intoxication of movement itself. The Beat generation’s rejection of fixed identity, stability, and the constraints of the post-war American dream was utopian precisely because it imagined an alternative, even if that alternative was never fully defined. Similarly, Thelma and Louise (1991) offers a radical refusal of patriarchal control, not by arriving at a new stable life but by driving off a cliff—suggesting that utopia, in some cases, is in the refusal of the present rather than the construction of the future.
Utopia, then, does not promise us comfort. It disrupts. It sets us in motion. And this movement, the endless drive towards an imagined beyond, is what we will explore in this lesson.
inspirations
Wim Wenders’ Paris, Texas (1984) is, on the surface, a melancholic road film about a man trying to reconnect with his lost past. But beneath this surface, it is a meditation on utopia: not as a place we reach, but as an aching possibility that is always slipping away.
Travis, the protagonist, is a drifter, a man who has disappeared from his own life, wandering the desert until he is found and brought back to society. His journey is not about return; it is about an impossible reconciliation with the past, an attempt to create a future that can never fully materialize. The landscapes of Paris, Texas (wide, empty highways, neon-lit motels, desolate borderlands...) are spaces of in-betweenness, visual metaphors for the utopian drive that is always out of reach.
Wenders himself has described his filmmaking as a way of capturing Sehnsucht, a German word that means a deep, untranslatable longing. This longing is at the heart of utopia. It is not about achieving a perfect society or a dream fulfilled, but about the desire itself: the longing for a world that is always just beyond our grasp.
Travis, the protagonist, is a drifter, a man who has disappeared from his own life, wandering the desert until he is found and brought back to society. His journey is not about return; it is about an impossible reconciliation with the past, an attempt to create a future that can never fully materialize. The landscapes of Paris, Texas (wide, empty highways, neon-lit motels, desolate borderlands...) are spaces of in-betweenness, visual metaphors for the utopian drive that is always out of reach.
Wenders himself has described his filmmaking as a way of capturing Sehnsucht, a German word that means a deep, untranslatable longing. This longing is at the heart of utopia. It is not about achieving a perfect society or a dream fulfilled, but about the desire itself: the longing for a world that is always just beyond our grasp.
creative exercise
Write a short piece (500-1000 words) that takes place entirely on the road. It can be a literal road trip, a train journey, a walk through a city, or a drifting movement through memory or dream. The key is to capture the feeling of movement towards something that can never quite be reached.
Write with a sense of openness. Let the journey lead you rather than controlling where it ends.
- Who is traveling? Alone or with someone?
- What is their imagined destination, and why is it important?
- What interrupts the journey? What new possibilities emerge because of this interruption?
- How does the setting (the landscape, the road, the spaces between places...) reflect their inner world?
Write with a sense of openness. Let the journey lead you rather than controlling where it ends.
toolbox
- Fragmentation: Break your text into short, disconnected sections. Utopia is rarely linear.
- Sensory detail: Ground the reader in the physicality of movement.
- Dialogue as displacement: Have conversations that circle around, that evade direct answers. Utopia is in the gaps, in what remains unsaid.
- Maps & misdirections: Play with geography. Let your character get lost.
- Write the horizon: Describe something your character sees but can never reach.
stay grounded and motivated!
"Utopia is a fragile thing. It is not a plan we execute but a tension we hold. It is easy to become disillusioned when writing about utopia, because it can feel impossible, naive, or painfully distant. But that is precisely why we need it.
Utopian writing is about stretching the imagination, allowing ourselves to think beyond what is immediately possible. Writing utopia is not about naivety; it is about resistance. It is about opening cracks in the present so that something new can emerge.
The road is long, uncertain, winding. But keep moving. Keep writing. Let the horizon guide you, not as a final destination, but as the place where the world keeps expanding."
—Anna Ádám
Founder of the School of Disobedience
Utopian writing is about stretching the imagination, allowing ourselves to think beyond what is immediately possible. Writing utopia is not about naivety; it is about resistance. It is about opening cracks in the present so that something new can emerge.
The road is long, uncertain, winding. But keep moving. Keep writing. Let the horizon guide you, not as a final destination, but as the place where the world keeps expanding."
—Anna Ádám
Founder of the School of Disobedience
Photo: Anna Ádám