Just dreaming

[abraves247]

I have been playing with an idea for my WIP and need other people's opinions.

In the middle of the WIP I have the majority of a chapter as a dream from my MC's POV. The reader doesn't know it is a dream until the end of the chapter.

It has been established in my WIP that my MC foretells the future by his dreams.

Is this something that you would find exciting, or off putting?

 

[SciFrac]

I want to know what's actually happening. If I get through an entire chapter and realize nothing was really at stake, that's off putting. If you used it to reveal some new context for something we already knew about, that could work, but still I'd want to know I was seeing a vision and not living real life. My two cents.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I did a similar-ish scene today and despite that, I will say it's been done to death. What conflict have you built into the scene? A future dream isn't enough for me unless it makes me shiver at the implications. A really good shiver...

 

[abraves247]

Thanks SciFrac and Springs for your input.

To add a little more. My MC knows the antagonist is about to attack but he doesn't know how. In his dream the MC realizes, slowly at first, people are disappearing but he is the only one that notices. He notices because he is an alien, even though no one else knows this.

Not only are people disappearing, but when they are gone everyone else forgets they ever existed. This is how the MC finds out what the antagonist is up to but this is also what drives him to act.

Is that enough to make you shiver springs or should I go back to the drawing board?

 

[Fishbowl Helmet]

Dream sequences are notoriously easy to do very, very badly. Honestly I'd rewrite it as a real-world realization rather than it coming to him in a dream. Even typing that sentence makes me pull away.

 

[tinkerdan]

There are differences between dreams and visions. Although it might be since this is an alien they dream only visions.

For me a dream is easy to recall when I wake up but if I don't have a good key to save for it it dissipates and is gone within moments. On a rare occasion I will be able to recall it later and by then it may not be an exact memory of an unreal event.

So if your character has visions that's one thing and there might be some margin of error to those a to how they track out in reality. If it's a dream it will not likely come true or will show up as a deja vu event.

Surprising your reader with it might have some dramatic effect.(How important is the dramatic effect.)

On the other hand you might go with italics to warn the reader that something odd is happening.(Depending on the length of the vision.)

Knowing right away after the scene that it's a dream is helpful but unless there is some immediate response or inner character analysis right after it may become questionable. Also once you do this to the reader then there might be a knee jerk response to every dramatic scene. (Is this another dream?) And unless that's the goal then you might want to be careful about surprising the reader that way.

Once again the question hangs there; is it really vital to the story to surprise your reader with it being a dream?

 

[JoanDrake]

This reminds me a little bit of the general plot of The Lathe of Heaven, by Ursula K. LeGuin, though I don't remember if she uses that specific technique you're questioning. You might look at that novel to see how she handles it.


I have to agree with tinkerdan; is this really necessary?

 

[abraves247]

Thanks for all the great input. I guess one thing I could do would be to have it occur now instead of some time in the future. That way I won't be too repetitive and like tinkerdan said I won't make the reader always wondering if this is a dream or not.

I think this will work out better than the dream. Thanks.