: Re: Can dream reveals make good climaxes for a POV’s internal struggle? Dream twists just spoil our senses of disbelief. I can see how that can be excetuted carelessly, but if done for the need
I do not think this is a good strategy at all; for the same reason Galastel has cited: It is anti-climactic. There are no consequences to the drama, and the reader feels deceived by the narrator. Those all contribute to a decision to stop reading.
One way you might use something like this is to use it several times so it is the dreams that have consequences. That could be an interesting story; the MC has dreams, as readers we know they are dreams but they are a bit cryptic, still somehow they manifest themselves in his real life, and he sometimes fails to recognize how the dream applies to let him avert a disaster (but realizes what the dream was saying after the fact) and sometimes succeeds in averting a disaster because of the dream.
So from the beginning this is part of the MC's normal world; he pays attention to his dreams and they influence his actions and decisions. Then, even though the reader is not tricked into thinking the dream is real, they are engaged because they know it has consequences and needs to be interpreted. The fact that the MC might fail to interpret it correctly adds tension, once the MC is back in his real life. This could (but doesn't have to) have a slightly supernatural element of prescience; but the situations he sees in the dream could also just be predictable things that might happen.
For example, take an easy one: He wakes up with his heart pounding in a panic, Isaac and Noelle are dead in his dream. Later that day, he realizes Isaac will come to his house next week, he shows up unannounced every May 17th, on the anniversary of their father's suicide. But he will be at work that day, so Isaac and Noelle could be alone for several hours. Discussing suicide.
He changes his plans to take the 17th off; and sure enough, Isaac shows up right after lunch.
More posts by @Mendez196
: It is a bad idea in general for a writer to ever use a living person as a reference point. For one, people aren't famous forever, secondly, you risk people not knowing who you are talking
: Speaking as a professor (with a PhD), I would introduce myself, to a friend of a friend, by my first name. As an aside, a saleswoman should not be introduced as "a colleague" in
Terms of Use Privacy policy Contact About Cancellation policy © selfpublishingguru.com2024 All Rights reserved.