#scenarios but have an underlying coherency (ie me either trying and failing to acquire something of value or me attempting | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

prolibytherium · 5 months ago

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I've got big opinions on dream sequences in writing. Which is mostly that they really shouldn't be there like 90% of the time because they grind the narrative to a halt, but I think they CAN have value. It's just that they tend to be executed in a way that's kind of pointless.

It's mostly that a lot of writers have the sequences be literal 1:1 depictions of the character's anxieties or feelings, or otherwise the absolute most on the nose symbolism possible. And it's not like dreams are NEVER like that, but why bother stopping the narrative to include a full sequence that essentially just repeats information the reader already knows?

If it's established that Character A is scared that Character B will get murdered by Jeff the Killer, and then A has an entire dream sequence of B getting Jeff the Killed and A wakes up sweating like 'Noooooooooo I do not want that to happen noooooo' it's jsut like. Yeah I knew that already?

#I think (at least with realistic fiction) a solid way to do a dream sequence is to fully take advantage of what a dream really is #(ie the brain processing memories and anxieties) to tell you things about a characters psyche that would not otherwise explicitly #come up in the text #Like my dreams could tell you a lot about things that are important to me/things that motivate me/things that scare me #They're often set in significant places from my lifetime and a lot of the time it sort of has 'themes' that play out in absurd dream-logic #scenarios but have an underlying coherency (ie me either trying and failing to acquire something of value or me attempting #to flee from some sort of existential threat beyond my control)#Using that sort of model to construct a dream sequence while also tailoring it to be relevant to their specific plotline (rather than #just like a general info dump) can provide information about the character without exposition. Tie in their character arc to wider plot #elements. Set up/emphasize motifs/patterns/themes. Etc #(AM IN THE PROCESS OF REVISING A DREAM SEQUENCE FOR THE 10 BILLIONTH TIME AND TRYING TO JUSTIFY TO MYSELF THAT IT HAS A POINT)

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