Posted on by Chris Sarantopoulos · 3 Comments

Writing about dreams

I will continue last week’s theme about dreams. Like I wrote last week, the story I’m writing deals with dreams. In it, one of the main characters acts as a conduit between the dream world (which is a plane of existence separated from the four planes that define the material world) and the real world (though one may argue how real can a fantasy world be).

That particular character is supposed to be a tragic one; she has sought for this plane for all her life, eager to gain power and knowledge (that’s what motivates her) and when she finally finds it she fails to realise what this new world actually is and what its denizens plan to do. It’s a bit ambiguous if she found the dream world or if it’s the other way around. That’s up to the readers to tell, when they will judge the character.

Which brings me to the next problem I’m facing: how does one describe a story that is both easy for the reader to understand where things are happening (real world / dream world) and maintain limited omniscient (third person) POV?

One of the ways I chose  to deal with this problem was to change the tense of the narrative.  Another was to occasionally break the narration by interjecting small paragraphs (no longer than a sentence perhaps) that described what the physical body did while the mind was in the dream world (twitches, sweating). I have to admit I’m not sure about this last bit though. It feels odd and… wrong, I guess, to break the narrative.

I have been reading for quite some time a long series of fantasy books (cause that’s pretty much the only genre that really excites me) called Wheel of Time, by Robert Jordan. I started reading this story after I decided I wanted to try writing and without knowing that the story was about dreams. I can honestly say that I was happily surprised. The way Jordan describes his version of the dream world (he has given it a very strange name for me to type it here without messing it up) and the interactions of the characters with it is by maintaining the tense and adding things that could only happen in a dream. To me this makes more sense.

Another book I’m currently reading (or listening to, since I have it as an audiobook) is Bag of Bones, by Stephen King. In it, King chooses to change the tense and it works for him. The problem is that whenever the main character has a dream, music kicks in and the listener understands that something’s different. Would it have worked just as good if I was reading it instead of listening to it? I don’t know.

I’m at a loss to be honest and I don’t know which one is best. What do you think? What would you use? Leave a comment if you have an idea. Do you have someone you know who is either writing or has written something about dreams? If so, could you please hook us up here so we can exchange ideas?

Also, please take a minute to answer the poll I had posted last week about a new section that will deal with ideas. So far only one person (thank you by the way 🙂 ) has answered it.

Thank you all and take care!

Hello everyone

This week I’d like to give some information about what my book is about.

First of all, I should say that the genre is fantasy leaning towards sword and sorcery BUT not entirely. No more than A Song of Ice and Fire is, at least. I use multiple POVs in order to tell significant events that happen in the world. The world I’ve created bases its magic on the elements, which means there are four distinct types; earth, fire, water and wind. The way I have explained it is that the characters’ world resides at the centre of a balanced scale with four tips. Each tip represents an element and consequently another world dominated by that element. The characters’ world (the real world) resides on the fringes of these four elemental worlds, thus having access to all four types of elements. Pretty straight forward so far.

What happens if another plane enters the equation? That is one question a part of the story is about, though not the main plot line. The other thing is this: what if nightmares were real, living entities? Where did they come from? What if there was a way for them to enter the real world (the characters’ world)? What would happen then? My guess is madness would come to life and that is what I have made the story be all about. How would individuals deal with it? What would happen to a kingdom that is on the brink of civil war, if the key players were to be “possessed”, so to speak, by maddening nightmares? This last question gives rise to another one: who controls the nightmares?

These, along with the different characters that will tell the story (different POVs), are some of the main plot lines that will have to be answered by the time I finish all the books. Oh yes, I forgot to mention… It’s going to be more than one book. Which is nice when you think about it but nigh impossible to sell to the agents and publishers since I’m unknown in the literature circles. The risk is too high for them. The length of each book will be far greater than the standards agents ask from newcomers (if I ever become one). Again, think of George R. R. Martin’s books (around 1000 pages) as well as Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time book length (more than 1000 pages).

To tackle this, I have also started outlining (whenever time permits) another story, a stand alone one, based on one of my short stories. I will talk about that at another post. I should be able to keep it at normal length (around 100k words, which is about 250 pages I think). But first I want to finish with the draft of the first book of the series and see where it takes me from there. If anything, I’m honing my craft, so no waste of time there 🙂

Also, I’m still waiting if anyone wants to share ideas with the rest of the community. If so, please let me know, so I can set up a new page in my blog where we could share stories and ideas.

Take care!