Nathan Bransford - The Forums

Last night I had writing dreams! For those of you who don't know what that is let me explain:

A writing dream is when I have been writing all day. At night I have my characters in my dreams acting out what I have written or acting in new,exciting and strange ways I wasn't even aware I was thinking of.

The strangest part of these dreams is that I seem to be very conscious that it isn't really happening.
For instance:
Last night I was dreaming about an interaction between my MC and the love interest in her life. I went to bed with this idea about an incident where he isn't being such a nice guy. I had been planning to have an argument ensue, when I started writing in the morning.
So my Dream began with that very thing... My MC and her Love interest getting into the very argument I planned. In the middle of this strange argument I think loudly

STOP!!!!

Then the two characters freeze:

"I don't Like it like this way! Let's try something else!"

I watch as the scene that had just played out in the dream is reversed.... players move backwards, broken things suddenly mend themselves and a tent suddenly is standing where it had been broken down.

The scene plays out only differently than before!

This is what I mean by a writer's dream. I wonder sometimes if anyone else does this or if I am odd.
Either way, I believe I must have been so tired that the muse was unable to fully wake me up last night so instead she whispered into my dreams. LOL!

Wow, can't say I've ever done that one. It sounds really interesting, though!

I usually don't even know I'm dreaming until I wake up. My dreams are super-real, super-vivid, and after I wake up I have to spend a few minutes reorienting myself to reality. Sometimes I haven't even been sure which world was reality. Once I figure it out, though, I can start working the ideas into the plot.

But a writer's dream, where you're the director of your characters? That would be awesome. And very helpful!

Another intepretation of your writing dream, washtoningwriter1968, that your subconscious might be hinting at, as the subconscious is wont to do, your implied author is mediating the action through a degree of separation farther away than the narrator or, ideally, the central viewpoint character. Closing narrative distance is about reporting from as close a proximity to the action as posssible. An intervening director mediating the action might be an intervening layer or so more than necessary. Like dreams, there's layers of meaning and then there's layers of intervening experiential distance.

An analogy I like to use to illustrate, a writer writes a report of a televsion screenplay, which is a made for TV remake of a theater screenplay, whcih is based on a stageplay, which is based on a novel, which is based on an inspiration from the life experience of the novel's writer. For closest possible narrative distance and strongest potential reader engagement with the participation mystique, the ideal report imitates the central viewpoint character's immediate life experience from the setting where, when, how, and while it happens. It's sorta like "The House that Jack Built." In the end, The cheese stands alone.

I dream about my projects all the time - in fact, that's where most of my projects start. But I don't think I've ever stopped my characters mid-act while actually asleep. I do it sometimes in that stage of near-sleep when I'm still awake, but that's more conscious. I do find it a great way to try out different scenarios if I'm having trouble making a decision.