I'm writing a sci-fi comic book. And I see dream sequences get a lot of hate in this community. And I can understand why. They could just be seen as useless plot devices or Deus Ex Machinas made for a character to remember something. But I want to use them to show how a character thinks or like how we dream in real life. I've had many dreams. But can it be done right? Or are dream sequences just a loss cause.
Yes, they can be done right. I think that often times it is stated to be a bad idea to begin or even insert a dream sequence into a story, because most of times authors (mostly beginners I assume) do this untactfully or downstraight incorrectly, meaning: meaninglessly, which tends to be cheesy as hell or even disorienting for the reader. You can't start a book with a dream sequence for example, illustrate a whole plot and setting and after page 5 reveal that... this is not the story the reader is going to read, since the MC woke up. This is treason! You can start with a dream, but at least make it somewhat apparent it is a dream and meaningful. Make it connect to something important in the plot that could not be so profoundly connected as a piece of information otherwise. You can write about anything you want to write, break any "rule" you want to break and make a masterpiece out of it, but only if you can back it up (according to aesthetics and structure) and have early on a sense of where you are going with it and why you are going with it. If you are writing a book where the plot is based on dreams, then of course you are going to insert them. Especially in comic books, they can be illustrated beautifully. Comic books differ greatly from novels in respects of writing, since through comics the story unravels mostly through pictures. Pictures are not time-consuming to "read" in contrast with just words, so I think that dream sequences are more excusable and easier and most preferable to execute in comics than in a novel. That's my take at least on dream sequences. So yeah, go ahead.
I love this. I've been here three weeks and I'm already tired of people talking about cardinal writing sins that we've all seen pulled off before by good writers. It's like hearing fashion people bitch about white after Labor Day. There's a difference between swimming in dangerous waters and being pre-chewed shark food. Something I admire in a well-crafted dream sequence is a believable dream really. In dreams we shift between scenes in ways that would jar the hell out of us in waking life, but somehow don't even notice. I'm in my childhood home, I turn my head and I'm at a keg party with my high school girlfriend, only the house I was in a moment ago barely resembled my childhood home, and the girl I'm with now looks nothing like my high school girlfriend. Later, I get out of my car and immediately remember that I left my car on the other side of town and I'm worried I won't get back to it. First the person I'm with is my brother, then a dead friend, then a famous actor and somehow all the same person. These are banal examples, but even epic adventures and bed-pissing nightmares follow these same principals of breakneck turns and dream logic going largely unnoticed. Glaring symbolism, ludicrous imagery, perfect reproductions of memories, these unrealistic mechanisms, in my opinion, make for worse dream scenes than anything we'd call a crutch or a trope. The best example of a dream sequence I've ever come across was the season four finale of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Joss Whedon managed to delve deep into characters' psychology and further their development, pack in the symbolism and drive the arc, while creating an actual, believable dreamscape. I don't know if you're a fan, but either way, it's worth forty-four minutes of research time, if you get the chance. I can't imagine trying to pull off the same effect in a novel. The fact that you're working in a visual medium should relieve some of that pressure though. Good luck.
Yes, you can start a novel with a dream sequence. But the trick is ...let the reader KNOW it's a dream. It's done well by Daphne Du Maurier in the classic Rebecca. The story begins: ...and etc. There is none of the 'what the hell is going on?' stuff that happens when an author simply opens with a dream, without letting the reader know it's a dream. So, in Rebecca, we can settle into the story, knowing this dream is significant, but also knowing it IS a dream. Simple trick of the trade. As for dream sequences within a story, I'd say keep them short, if possible. If you can zero in on what is significant about the dream, that's probably a good idea. And the emotion. What kind of emotion is the dreamer experiencing during the dream? Sadness? Joy? Fear? Frustration? See what you can milk from their emotional reaction to the dream, both during the dream and afterward. Just relating a bunch of stuff that doesn't make sense, simply because 'it happened in the dream,' can be a storykiller. If it's important to the story to deal with the content of a dream, then deal with WHY it's important.
I do a few dream sequences in me story. I just didn't realize that's what they were, til I came to WF.
I've got one dream sequence so far, I'll probably have no more than three by the end of the novel. In it, the MC knows he's dreaming very quickly, and the vocabulary he narrates with (it's in First Person) is very different from his normal 'speaking' voice. The tone is different from the rest of the story, but not in a bad-jarring way. Just notable. He's going through a forest looking for a voice he can hear but can't recognize, and proceeds to run into the ghost of an old friend. From there, it's deeply distressed fleeing and emotional remembering of all the mistakes he's made in his life...and several of the mistakes he's yet to make. The dream puts him off his feet for a week, and starts his descent into a series of more and more questionable decisions until he presses the Big Red Button. It's shortly after that he realizes his mistake, but it all begins with this one dream that he wakes from in a cold sweat. Personally, I like dream sequences, but as with all 'can I do this' questions, the answer is almost always, "Sure. But you better do it well, or you'll be raked over coals for it."
I'm not nearly confident or experienced enough to try and pull off a dream sequence, but if you're a seasoned and/or talented writer, I think it can be done well. It's just a matter of how you approach it.
