 Fantasy: January 08, 2013 Issue [#5453] |
  Fantasy
This week: Dream Sequences Edited by: Satuawany  
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I’ve discovered something during my tenure on this site: it’s useful to me when someone tells me about some writing device that gets on their nerves. So long as they’re not ranting about it, I have something to think about the next time I employ such a device.
I'm hoping I can do that sort of favor for you, with dream sequences.
Richard Bach, Illusions
“I knew that I was dreaming, and I knew also that this was real.”
Robin McKinley, Sunshine
“I dreamed. I dreamed as if the dream was waiting for me, waiting for the moment I fell asleep.”
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Let’s talk about dream sequences. I do not like them. I’m not out to try to persuade all writers to drop them; I understand they really do add to a story now and then. I’ve read a few that I loved. I’ve even written a couple.
When they irk me, and that’s often, it’s usually because they seem a cheap and easy way of getting something across. Or they’re cheesy. Or they add nothing. Or---
Well, let’s break it down by the most common types of dream sequences I’ve seen:
 Opening hook: is it a dream or not?
When I start a chapter, section, or story, I’m looking for grounding. I’m looking for the story or its characters to give me a reason for being there right off the bat. Hooks are great, but when they become gimmicks, they lose their effectiveness.
If I start a story and things are really moving in interesting ways, you definitely have my attention. If, paragraphs later, I find out all that interesting stuff was just some character’s dream, you’ve lost me. You lied to me about the grounding. You lied to me about the story, what it was about. I thought I was investing this time in “getting the story,” but I wasn’t. The real story hasn’t even started until the dream sequence is over. That makes me feel like I’ve wasted my time, and I’m scared you’ll waste more of it, so it’s hard for me to pick myself back up again and read more.
Now, there are a lot of these “hook-type” dream sequences that make an effort to let the reader know it’s a dream sequence. These are almost as bad because now I know you’re keeping me from the “real story.” I’d much rather read about what’s really going on, not what someone’s dreaming about.
And if this hook-type opening dream sequence also fits one of the following categories as well, it displaces me even more because I have no background on it. You have me grasping (in an uncomfortable way) for what it might mean, for which following category it might fit under, and so I absorb nothing. That keeps me from having trust in you as a writer, and even if you plan to be (or employ) an unreliable narrator, there is still a certain kind of trust you must establish---faith, anyway. Faith in you as a writer is a critical thing for your readers to have.
The it’s-really-a-memory dream.
Research this if you want to do it. People who dream their memories don’t dream them verbatim. They are not reliable rehashes of the memories. Please keep that in mind.
The main problem I have with this one, though, is that it’s been done so much---to the point that it comes across as melodramatic these days. You could have a flashback with a smooth segue instead, or even some confusion as to whether the character is remembering a true memory or a dream. You could even do some interesting things with a character who’s mind is combining a childhood memory with a childhood dream.
The prophecy dream.
Some of us still like prophecies, but quite a number of readers are getting tired of them, so you might be wise to find a new angle for your prophecy if you have one. Putting the prophecy in a dream is not a new angle. It’s been done. A lot.
It’s been done so much it’s almost ignorable, though. When I recognize this kind of dream sequence, my brain goes, “Oh, Device #8(c) for getting the prophecy over to the reader. Well, all right, then. Moving on.”
The prophecy dream. (b)
Someone in the story has dreams that come true. We have to hear about it a lot. Or, more in holding with this newsletter article, we get to read about one that involves the main player(s) in our story. There’s probably some element of doom to it. Our main players(s) will probably need to overcome their personal demons or doubts in order to change the dark events of the dream. Or else they may attempt that and the big twist is that the future is set and the story ends with the doom the dream foretold.
Either way, done too often* to be effective as an emotional tug.
The random state-of-the-character’s mind dream.
I can’t decide if I hate this one or not. I want to, on principle, but seeing that someone’s having some traumatic dreams despite their cool outward acceptance of events could be a good character tell. Maybe it’s just that I don’t see why we should see the messed up details of said dreams. That is to say, the dream sequence, itself, is unnecessary and so it drags down the story.
Now, if you need to show the details so that we understand why a character runs screaming from a merry-go-round later on, fine. But if the events of the dream have no bearing on the events of the story, and are simply your way of showing you can write a messed up dream, don’t bog your story down with it.
Realization-of-powers dream(s).
If there’s real emotions in them and a real correlation between the events of the dream sequences and the progress of the characters powers, this kind can actually be enjoyable. As with all the categories, though, you have to be careful with it. As with all devices, if it adds nothing to the story, it’s useless. And if it’s useless, it makes the story drag.
 Quick note: just because a scene doesn’t move the plot along doesn’t mean it “adds nothing to the story.” We’ll have to go over that in more detail sometime.
I wrote a dream sequence in the second category back when I first started writing. It wasn’t the first time I did something I hated in order to try to get something across. It won’t be the last, especially not in rough drafts. With rough drafts, get it out however you can, and worry about clichés and overused devices later.
Let me reiterate that I’m not going to come policing your items and suggesting the death of all dream sequences. In fact, so long as they’re smooth, make sense, and add something to the story, you won’t hear anything from me at all. Unless it’s a particularly strong dream sequence. Then you’ll hear my lauds.
*For the purposes of this newsletter, just once can be “too often” for some devices. “Twice,” for many, such as in the instance here.
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Feedback for my previous newsletter, "Avoiding Series Burnout" :
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