: Re: Can a scene be written to be disorienting and not be too confusing to readers? I've written a scene in a short story where the character and her party are suddenly attacked in the night.

This seems like a great idea, and possibly the best way to approach this would be to have the time of disorientation be relatively brief.

I've not written dream sequences ever, so I don't have any suggestions beyond making it obvious that it's a dream sequence. Possibly making what is occurring straightforward for the reader, but with signals that it isn't real. Then as the protagonist begins to wake up, the dream starts to morph into what is happening in reality, and both the character and the reader still believe they are asleep.

Follow this up with something that jolts the character awake, and they will be disoriented as they will realize this isn't part of the dream, and be unsure as to how much of what they had just experienced was real and how much wasn't.

However, the way to clarify what is going on would be the natural reaction of the protagonist anyway, which is trying to find out what is happening.

The character would not stay in a disoriented state. Particularly if battle-trained, they would first attempt to assess the situation, then try to find out as much information as possible to understand the danger they face, and how they can try to combat it.

The vividness and horror of the nightmare might keep popping back into their head and causing them to be confused (for example if the nightmare involved being chased by werewolves, they might think they are currently being attacked by werewolves in reality, even if they don't exist), which would add to continuing the confusion of earlier, whilst keeping the true "what the hell is going on?" thoughts of the reader to a minimum.

Then the protagonist and reader can be brought up to speed, either by Basil Exposition or their own assessment of the situation. This way no important information is lost, but you still get the feeling of skewed perception for a brief period.

Load Full (0)

: Formatting for written text, e.g. a sign I've seen some passages use italics, others just use single/double quotation, or they use quotation with italics. So I'm a bit confused as to what the

@Martha805

Load Full 1 Comments

: Does having too many humorous scenes make the readers unable to take the plot seriously? The story I'm writing has its epicness and drama, but I also want it to be funny, with jokes, puns,

@Martha805

Load Full 6 Comments

: The pain of starting to write I've planned out a good deal of the plot. I know what I want each character to be, their names, and what will become of them in the end. I've internally reasoned

@Martha805

Load Full 1 Comments

: The problem with not putting a name or face to an antagonist is that you're not allowing the reader to feel as if the protagonist is achieving anything. If the antagonist is defeated without

: Re: Can a scene be written to be disorienting and not be too confusing to readers? I've written a scene in a short story where the character and her party are suddenly attacked in the night.

More posts by @Martha805

: Formatting for written text, e.g. a sign I've seen some passages use italics, others just use single/double quotation, or they use quotation with italics. So I'm a bit confused as to what the

: Does having too many humorous scenes make the readers unable to take the plot seriously? The story I'm writing has its epicness and drama, but I also want it to be funny, with jokes, puns,

: The pain of starting to write I've planned out a good deal of the plot. I know what I want each character to be, their names, and what will become of them in the end. I've internally reasoned

: The problem with not putting a name or face to an antagonist is that you're not allowing the reader to feel as if the protagonist is achieving anything. If the antagonist is defeated without

Login to post a comment!

0 Comments

Back to top