Dream sequence.

[anthorn]

I've written a dream sequence, first draft at the moment, and I am wondering how it is coming across to people. Sort of like my homage to Twin Peaks. There is backwards speak, but I've written it forward too. Don't know if I would remove the forward speak and let the reader figure it out.


The light flickers and the bell rings as the door swings open. Anthorn steps inside and wipes the sand from his sleeves, smiling apologetically. He warms his hands on the brazier for a moment using the opportunity to observe his surroundings. To his surprise he and the dark skinned girl sitting at the bar are the only ones here. He sits beside the girl and offers a slight smile to the child pouring him a drink.

The light flickers and the bell rings. The door swings open and a woman with coppery gold skin steps inside. She observes the gathering as one would those not worth acknowledging, removes white elbow length gloves finger by finger, then her hat and coat before taking a seat by the brazier.

The light flickers, the bell rings, and the door opens for a second time. Another woman steps inside, identical to the first, except her hair is black not silver, an elegant dress opposed to a simple tunic. Anthorn watches her as she approaches the woman sitting in the booth and sits opposite.

The blond haired child silently steps out from behind the bar with two glasses in one hand and a wine bottle in the other. It might have just been a trick of the light cast by the brazier but the women seem to shift and change in appearance, the dress becoming dark with soot and smoke, the tunic torn to shreds to reveal the welts beneath. Words are exchanged-the women know the child-but they are muffled and neither of them can understand what exactly is being said. The child returns to the bar, looks both Anthorn and the woman sitting next to him in eye and says. “She will rise.”

#

Anthorn stirs in his sleep, adjusts his position in the chair. The lights in his apartment flicker.

#

The lights in the tavern flicker on and off, on and off, the people in the tavern disappear then reappear, before the crack of thunder sounds and everything is still. Anthorn closes his eyes only to open them again and find himself in a different land entirely. A tower stands before him made of metal. It begins to shimmer and shake, stones rising up from the ground to swirl around it. There is a bright flash and then white hot pain.

Someone cries out: “Sarana!”

Another: “Nikita!”

Then another: “JAEN!”

#

The landscape has changed and there is nothing but wasteland for miles around. The same tower stands before him but now it is a twisted ruin with threads blossoming like ventricles from its tip, spreading out into a blood red sky.

“There was a time,” a voice begins, coming from everywhere and nowhere at the same time, “when we were united. Our children would play together and we’d not a care. They fled from the darkness to this new land. They pretended that they had no past only a future. They hated us even though we saved them. We are dead now. We live amongst the people, hidden and in plain sight all at the same time. Her name is Xara. My name is Kara…or maybe it’s the other way around? It’s the view from the window that matters. She will rise.”

#

ESIR LLIW EHS!

Anthorn opens his eyes, turns his head slightly to the right where across from him sits the dark skinned woman from before, Jaen Iroko, and the blond haired child from the tavern. The child is grinning, moving in her seat as though she’s not used to sitting still. The dark skinned woman and Jaen are staring at him intently. The dark skinned woman points once to her heart and then to his. The child grins.

“Der htiw og kcalb dna eulb,” she said, the words spoken backwards and normally at the same time. Blue and black go together with red. The child points to the dark skinned woman. “Reh wonk uoy dna uoy swonk ehs tub tem reven ve’uoy.” You’ve never met but she knows you and you know her.

Jaen giggles.

“Em fo esuaceb deid ehs.” The child nods to her, shakes her head sadly. She died because of me. “Sterces ynam, ynam. Sterces.” Secrets. Many, many secrets. “Uoy nraw ot ereh m’I.”

I’m here to warn you. “Esir Lliw Ehs.”

The dark skinned woman is still as a statue.

“Warn me how? Is this a dream?”

The child shrugs and stands up, moves closer. “Ega siht nrober ma syawla I eid I nehw. Tegrof neht dna eid I meht nepo I nehw. Desolc era owt tub seye ruof htiw dlrow eht ees I.” I see the world with four eyes but two are closed. When I open them I die and then forget. When I die I always am reborn this age. “Nrohtna daed reven si tsap eht.” The past is never dead Anthorn.

“Eraweb. Eraweb. Ytic eht ni si ehs.”

She is in the city. Beware. Beware.

 

[tinkerdan]

I use dream sequences, so I like them, but find that less is better. Get it done and out of the way. I liked some of the notions in the story but I found something putting me off in the writing.

The thing about dream sequences is that often when critiquing them people inject what they feel a dream sequence should be like; because it doesn't necessarily follow normal logic and people who feel this way usually don't expect a dream to mean anything.

If we were to take that tack, then it would be a nonsensical part in our story and unless the story calls for nonsense then we shouldn't use that. I for one don't necessarily feel that way. But with that in mind I think that sometimes the writing suffers because we want to make it dreamy-like. That seems to be the problem with this here.

I think you should write the scene as though it were real and then after that; if you feel you really need to you can try to give it a dream quality. Since you include it, it more than likely is important and so rather than try to make it look like a dream I'd concentrate on setting the whole scene to fit the story to move it forward. I could be all wet here and maybe you aren't trying to give this a dream quality; but there is a certain quality in the writing that puts me off.

Part of it might be the present tense that seems to be a floating out there POV, which doesn't make sense to me. In a dream I usually am there watching things and observing and sometimes things don't make sense but rarely, if ever, do I every get the feelings of the other players in the dream and that seems to be happening in this piece.

She observes the gathering as one would those not worth acknowledging,

Also what might be helpful is that since this is a dream and you've decided on present tense then perhaps first person will help to keep you into the POV of the dreamer. And unless someone in the dream uses their name you may have to slide through it without directly identifying who it is.

 

[willwallace]

Even though it's a dream sequence, the transitions seem too abrupt, somehow. For me, the backwards speech is just too confusing, I don't see what it brings to the story, to be honest. It feels like it throws off the timing and flow of the story, having it written backwards and then forwards immediately after. I think I would like it better without the backwards being used more than once.
By the way, I loved Twin Peaks

 

[jastius]

I am wondering if you could reverse each word but otherwise leave it to be read left to right and up to down.. Instead of right to left and back to front and down to up.. ??
I can read backwards things but the down to up was a bit difficult, I lost the train of thought several times.
Its interesting. The way the child is god and servant ..
Now I am wondering if the whole thing isn't backwards. And the dream starts with the child identifying himself..?

Very interesting. Needs punctuation work was the only fault I could see..

 

[Phyrebrat]

The problem I have is the reversed words. You really want to keep the reader immersed in the story and doing this kicks them out as they have to work out what the backwards writing is, and having it written the right way seems a little redundant. The obstacle you have to get over is that reverse-speaking is phonetic and reverse-writing is not. I'd take the opportunity to describe the strange sounds of words being spoken backwards rather than actually showing them back to front.

It works well in Twin Peaks because that is a different medium, and because the sound of reverse speech is so unmistakeable.

So, I'd rewrite with no backwards typing, but elements of description. You could use all sorts of strange analogies which would really make the dialogue pop (I'm thinking of record players here, playing slow etc).

pH